In a classic case of triumph of human spirit in the face of all odds, about half a million Indian 
men and women set first foot on Mauritius 180 years to work as indentured labour after abolition of slavery in 1834.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will travel to Mauritius next week to participate in a three-day international conference in Port Luis from November 2 to commemorate the arrival of these enterprising Indians.
Coming mainly from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, but also from Southern provinces of colonial India, these people passed through the gate of Aapravasi Ghat, either to stay on in Mauritius to work as indentured labour in the sugar plantations or elsewhere, or to sail on to further destinations, such as Guyana, Suriname and Reunion island.
Indentured labour has been defined as a formal agreement binding an apprentice to a master, or a contract by which a person agrees to work for a set period for a colonial land-owner.
Aapravasi Ghat was the first site chosen by the British Government in 1834 for the ‘great experiment’ in the use of indentured, rather than slave labour.
The conference “will trace the journey of the indentured labour from India to Mauritius after the abolition of slavery in 1834, a journey which poignantly highlights the history of modern Mauritius itself which is entwined with our own history,” says former diplomat Ambassador Bhagwati Mukherjee, who has been India’s permanent representative to UNESCO.
“Aapravasi Ghat represents, in the most sublime way, the triumph of the human spirit in the face of all odds.
It stands as a monument to the memory of these valiant men and women.
Their immense courage, will and perseverance have shaped the Mauritius of today,” she said in a posting on the website of the Ministry of External Affairs.
The conference will pay homage to these memories, of the pain and suffering endured by more than 462,000 men, women and children, mainly from India but also from many other countries in different parts of the Indian Ocean world.
Mauritius is the only country in the world that has two UNESCO sites, one dedicated to resistance to slavery, Le Morne, and the other to indentured labour, the Aapravasi Ghat.