The memo has been out there since the mid-19th century and was echoed by Henry Kissinger in the late 60s: “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.” But perhaps members of the government didn’t get it.

The result is a naïve narrative that wants us to believe that some countries have fallen in love with us – or rather with our prime minister – and have become so infatuated that they are showering us with money without expecting anything in return. The lexicon the promoters of this narrative are digging into at times goes as far as suggesting that we don’t even have to pay back the loans given to us and that the ‘grants’ have no strings attached.

Before any narrow-minded doormat accuses me of some ‘bashing’ of some sort, I am not referring just to India. I have heard and read people using the same language about China and some Western countries. “China has been helping us,” they said. So we should be kind and grateful, don’t we?

The tendency to romanticise relationships between any two countries and suggest that they are out there to look after our interests – instead of those of the people who voted for them and whose vote they will be seeking sooner or later – is so embarrassingly naïve it’s not funny. It can also become terribly dangerous when a relationship with a particular country is instrumentalised to divide citizens under ethnic federalism. Which is what is happening right now before our own eyes.

Any right-thinking citizen of this country is worried about the debt we have accumulated over the years, particularly through loans that – in spite of the spin doctoring – have to be reimbursed in dollars. And, as everyone knows by now, the number of rupees needed to acquire this precious currency is increasing by the day! Those who were hoping they were wrong were given the confirmation that their pessimism was not unjustified when Moody’s downgraded our economy to a status just one notch above ‘junk’.

We were expecting the government to react by suggesting ways to reduce our soaring debt and consolidating our finances. Instead, the minister of finance, on record, congratulated himself and his government for this ‘achievement’! The next thing we knew was that, during the celebration of India’s independence, the Indian high commissioner to Mauritius, was announcing, with a beautiful and generous smile, another ‘gift’ for Mauritius: a $300 million loan and a $25 million grant! Neither the terms of the loan nor the conditions attached to the ‘grant’ were disclosed but the announcement was received with an incessant round of applause. And I am sure a lot of gratitude for the ‘help’. The whole thing sounded like a great favour.

While those chatwas were uncontrollably applauding the loan and drowning the latest sniffing and anonymous letter scandals, many Mauritians were astounded to see another Rs13.5 billion added to our national debt, which is already unsustainable. And when you know that this additional debt is meant to extend the tramway to the prime minister’s constituency all the way to Côte d’Or and that even the line to Port Louis is still making huge losses, you begin to understand the meaning of the ‘debt trap’. But shhhh! Don’t breathe a word about that. Otherwise you will be accused of the latest crime – bashing.

Let the government continue to amass debt literally and figuratively. It is only a matter of time before the chickens come home to roost. They always do.