Mauritius is not only an island- paradise, a land of extraordinary beaches, of double rainbows and of magical sunset, it is also a country rich for its human and cultural experience of inestimable value and significance. This site reveals the heart and soul of people who have come from Europe, Africa, India and China, who, in spite of formidable odds have succeeded in making of their island-home a haven of peace and harmony. The visitor to Mauritius, however, is likely to be baffled by so many cultures, languages and religions in so small a place. But a closer experience will reveal deep affinities and common aspirations that unify all of us together.

Mauritius is the meeting place of many peoples and many cultures, of many civilizations. It is the place where men came to enrich themselves at one another’s expense, but remained to enrich one another instead. “We in Mauritius” writes Malcolm de Chazal, the great Mauritian poet, “we are a cross-road; we are an alchemist’s retort in which Western and Eastern thoughts meet and combine; we are the crucible of a new civilization; maybe we are a laboratory, in which our people may be able to set mankind on a new road, to create a new humanism.’

Mauritians have excelled in the cultivation of sugar-cane as well as of all kinds of prejudices. Until very recently, individuals and groups, in the name of church and religion, had continued to build walls around themselves and to divide people into believers and non-believers, heathens and pagans, inferiors and superiors, black and white and all the intervening shades of whiteness and blackness. Europeans and Chinese, Africans and Malagasy, Hindus and Muslims lumped together under the same roof became the strangest of bedfellows.

Yes, the pearl of faith has been well preserved in the oyster-shaped island of Mauritius. Religious freedom is a democratic right guaranteed by the Constitution. Government in no way interferes with the organisation of religious festivals or ceremonies. All religions enjoy complete freedom to organise these according to their own beliefs and traditions. Government encourages the different religious authorities to make all Mauritians aware of the deep significance of the different religious festivals to enhance tolerance, mutual respect and understanding.