With MT over half its lifetime to date

Personal Recollections

By Dr R Neerunjun Gopee

This is my 35^th year of writing in the Mauritius Times, launched 70 years ago. I have thus been associated with the paper for half its lifetime, a journey that started in 1990 when I sent in my first article. After a few more articles which were all accepted and published without any amendment whatsoever, at his request I met the founder and editor-in-chief of the paper, Shri Beekrumsing Ramlallah at his residence in Wellington Street, Port Louis, during a lunch break at the Jeetoo Hospital where I was working.

I still remember his warm welcome. As I shared some details of my life and career, I felt an instantaneous rapport with him as a person and his general outlook on the country. He expressed appreciation of what he called my style of writing and the contents of my articles and wished that I continue to collaborate with the paper.

There has been no looking back since as, barring a few breaks due to unavoidable personal circumstances, I have been contributing weekly since then. My articles have spanned a wide range of topics, given that I have been an avid reader of books, magazines, serious newspapers since my student days at the RCC from 1957 to 1964. The broad education I received there from inspiring teachers and their influence stimulated my lifelong interest in both the humanities and the sciences. I have thus written on current affairs both local and global, culture, music, politics, languages and education, important personalities whom I have known personally or whose work interests me, social issues, science, and given my profession, on medicine and health.

MT has always given importance to fairness and equity, improvement and uplift of the conditions of workers of all categories, meritocracy, the integrity and credibility of institutions, and maintaining a balanced perspective in the coverage of events in the country and in the regional or international arena. As the situation and context demanded I have had the occasion to write on all these issues, drawing from my experience and encounters in my capacity as a citizen and as a health professional practising in both the public and the private sectors.

I was both an active participant and a witness to the difficulties, problems and challenges faced in the medical and health sector, and the developments that were taking place therein. Most of my career has been spent treating patients, what we call in our jargon the clinical aspect, but later I spent a few years as Director General Health Services. This, along with a previous stint as WHO Representative for Mauritius, gave me a ringside view of the major Public Health issues that were impacting us at the national, regional and international level. I was directly involved in the major policy decisions and decisive actions that were required.

For example, the Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) now well-known to everybody, the re-emerging and new communicable diseases epidemics (HIV-AIDS, chikungunya, AH1N1 among others). I covered these topics in detail in my articles in the MT, providing additional information over and above the national campaigns of prevention and health promotion. The most recent infectious disease has been Covid, which quickly took the proportions of a pandemic in the first quarter of 2020.

As restraints of movement and lockdowns followed, MT like the rest of the written press was faced with the challenge of printing and distribution of hard copies, which was the preferred mode of reading for a large number of readers. There was no option but to go digital, in a shorter and compact version. After initially coming out three times a week, we started feeling the stress, and had to settle for two issues per week, the usual Friday, and Tuesday. Many people kept asking me when was MT going to be in print again, but eventually they – and I too for that matter! – had to get used to the electronic version, which now appears every Friday as did the print version.

It goes without saying that during the Covid pandemic a majority of my articles were about it, covering the scientific, epidemiological, clinical aspects, as well as all the other social and personal issues that were surfacing. For example, the access to food items in particular vegetables and fruits that was causing major problems for households, the repatriation of Mauritian nationals stranded abroad and the difficulties they were facing, and so on.

It will be recalled that MT was founded at a time when the country was undergoing a political churn, with a movement for independence gaining ground, led by the Labour Party which then as now comprised members from all communities. However, given that it was led by Dr S Ramgoolam who had replaced Guy Rozemont, the now defunct newspaper Le Cernéen led a sustained campaign against India and Indian culture, spreading lies and misinformation but worse, raising the bogey of what was called ‘Hindu hegemony’. The implication was that the Labour Party with a Hindu leader at its head would, after independence was won, ‘dominate’ the other communities.

We all know that this Hindu hegemony never came to be, because the political struggle was essentially about establishing the welfare state, job creation through the development of the country, reducing the prevailing poverty, putting in place the institutional infrastructures needed to carry out this programme. MT had to counter the false narratives about India and Indian culture and dispel the fears that were being fuelled. However, this ghost is still around in some of the narratives that are peddled about India, especially after Modi became Prime Minister and in the space of 10 years has raised India’s position to fifth position in the global economy. Knowing India intimately as I do, for having studied there, I have done my best to counter the misinformation and disinformation about that country, which has given so much to usand to which hundreds of Mauritians go to seek the topmost range of medical treatment at affordable rates unavailable elsewhere.

This is but a glimpse of my engagement with MT, and most gratifying has been the positive responses to my articles both in person and though mail from readers belonging to all categories, locally as well as abroad. There’s still more years to go…

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 16 August 2024