Contested Terrain: Identity and Women's Suffrage in Mauritius

This article examines political debates that led to women's suffrage in Mauritius in 1948, under British colonial rule. The Mauritian case study highlights the complexity of women's political citizenship in a plural, divided society and the challenges of multiple identities for women's political mobilisation for the right to vote. Female suffrage subject to educational and property qualifications was proposed by men from the ruling elite, made up of Franco-Mauritians and 'gens de couleur', as a means to widen the franchise. This proposal was opposed by Indo-Mauritian and Creole men who represented the working class and advocated male adult suffrage. The article examines why women were given the right to vote by an all-male political elite and why women did not mobilise for the franchise.