Mauritian Prime Minister Anerood Jugnauth on Thursday sought to promote the language of Hindi as he greeted the soil of India, saying his nation had also fought for the right to protect its languages during its struggle for independence.
"Chota Bharat (Mauritius) ka Bharat Mata ko pranaam," Prime Minister Jugnauth said while speaking at the World Hindi Secretariat in Port Louis.
"We want to witness similar speeches as those delivered (by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi) at the Madison Square in every corner of the world," he added.
"In our fight for Independence, we also fought for the right to protect our languages," he added.
Indians have been coming to Mauritius and settling there since 1834. Most of them initially came as indentured labour from Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Eastern Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra.
There are around 11,000 Indian nationals in Mauritius, including work permit and professional occupation permit holders. There are nearly 1,000 OCI card holders and more than 3,500 PIO card holders.
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Active cultural exchanges with Mauritius take place both under officially sponsored programmes and through a wide non-official network of Indo-Mauritian socio-cultural organisations engaged in the task of keeping Indian culture and languages alive.
Regular exchange of artists and cultural troupes are undertaken both within and outside the Cultural Exchange Programme. Promotion of Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi and Urdu is actively followed up.