The story of Seewoosagur Ramgoolam spans across the twentieth century and illuminates the great moments of its modernisation process.

Have a little read: ... ORIGINAL WRITING The story of Seewoosagur Ramgoolam spans across the twentieth century and illuminates the great moments of its modernisation process. Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, known as Kewal, was born with the century on 18 September at Belle Rive at a time when the country was being ravaged by outbreaks of epidemics, mass poverty and exploitation for the benefit of a handful of sugar magnates. His father, Moheeht Ramgoolam, an Indian immigrant labourer, lived in the small village of Belle Rive, five miles away from Bel Air, in the Flacq district. Moheeth Ramgoolam married a young widow, Basmati Ramchurn, who had two sons, Nuckchadee Heeramun and Ramlall Ramchurn. Kewal grew up freely as a child of nature, amidst plants, wild grass, flowers, the Camizard mountain which sent forth innumerable streams down the Belle Rive river, known as "Fourgett ke nadi" from where Kewal accompanied his father to catch fish and prawns in the flowing river. As a village child, he had lived and shared in the daily suffering of the oppressed Immigrant labourers. As a sensitive child who grew up as a kind, compassionate soul, Kewal must have vowed to wipe out the tears off the face of his compatriots once he grew up to become the "governor" of this country. He had his early grounding in Hindi alphabets and Indian culture and philosophy in the local "baitka" and at home and which was to flower into a broad culture of compassion, mutual understanding, non-violence, tolerance and love of his fellow human beings. Later, this broad Ramgoolam culture would find expression in the democratic principle of this country, combining the eternal values of the East and the West into a perfect blending that went into the shaping of our harmonious multi-cultural society. The child Kewal joined the neighbouring R.C.A School under Madame Siris on his own without his mother's knowledge. Later he left for Bel Air Government School, travelling by train from Olivia station until he passed his sixth standard. In those hard days, life was shortened by all sorts of hazards, epidemics and threatening diseases, the plague, malaria, diptheria, typhoid, tuberlulosis and Kewal was lucky to have been well looked after by his mother and his twenty-one year old step-brother, Ramlall, a fairly prosperous small planter and "marqueur" at Belle Rive estate. At the age of seven, Kewal lost his father and at the age of twelve, Kewal met with a serious accident in the cowshed that cost