Would you risk your life for Rs900 000? If your answer to this question is no, then it seems safe to assume that you’re part of an overwhelming majority.

After all, what’s the point of jeopardizing your existence for money that you might not even get the chance of actually spending? Yet on the face of it that’s exactly what ex-Riche Terre planters seem to be doing. Or is it? There’s a lot more at stake here than a few million rupees.

The Prime Minister has a point when he says that there will always be those who oppose progress. Yet it’s not progress per se that’s at the heart of this debate. Rather, his government’s vision of progress and the way it has gone about implementing it is the issue here. To compare the shady Jinfei Economic Trade and Cooperation Zone to Singapore’s nonpareil road infrastructure as he did on Tuesday is a bit of a stretch, at best. Many Mauritians are preoccupied by the project and government hasn’t shown the slightest inclination to address their concerns. That’s not very nice.

It’s equally worth evoking the way the authorities went about informing the planters, some of whom had occupied the land since the 1940s, that their presence was no longer desirable. In February 2007, the lessees received a letter from the ministry of Agro-industry notifying them that government had “decided to resume possession of the State land” and requesting that they “quit and vacate the plot by 30th June, 2007”. Without wanting to stand on ceremony, it’s easily understandable that the eviction notice didn’t go down too smoothly in the community.

Navin Ramgoolam has also accused the hunger strike of having been orchestrated by some less than reputable individuals who are using the protest to further their own base interests. Imputing motives is always a surefi re method of discrediting one’s adversaries. Yet this time-tested tactic has the unfortunate tendency of cutting both ways.

In “From indentured labourers to liberated nation”, his excellent book about public policy and small planters in Mauritius, the University of Mumbai’s P.S. Vivek damningly describes the eviction of the land’s historical tenants in 2007 as “shocking”.

“This anti-planters act by the current government in the name of development was deplorable. The proposed direct foreign investment of $500 million was in fact a pretext to promote the personal agenda of some individuals in positions of power. Who could believe that the stated objective for the displacement of 250 small planters and their families (over 1 200 people) was to generate employment for 5 000 people over a period of fi ve years starting from June 2007”, he wonders.

Agriculture has been at the heart of the country’s development for longer than we care to remember. And small planters are the unsung heroes to whom we owe this success. Navin Ramgoolam would do well to remember this. Jilting them to accommodate a monolithic industrial entity was bad enough. Refusing to negotiate with them is insulting, dangerous even.

Nicholas RAINER