The ''All Mauritius Hindu Congress'' (AMHC) was a

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...

Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label=Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It incl ...

which existed from 1964 to 1967.

History

The ''All Mauritius Hindu Congress'' (AMHC) was founded by Hurreelall Padaruth,

Anerood Jugnauth Sir Anerood Jugnauth, GCSK, PV, (29 March 1930 – 3 June 2021) was a Mauritian politician and barrister who served both as President and Prime Minister of Mauritius. He was Member of Parliament for Piton & Riviere Du Rempart. A central fi ...

Lall Jugnauth Lall Jugnauth (15 November 1920 – 01 August 1970) was actively involved in pre-colonial and post-colonial Mauritian politics. Early life Lall Jugnauth was the cousin of Aneerood Jugnauth who subsequently became Prime Minister and President of ...

, Rabindrah Ghurburrun, Beergoonath Ghurburrun, Premchand Dabee, and Devendra Varma in 1964 prior to the August 1967 elections in preparation for Independence from the United Kingdom. Its electoral symbol was a wheel, inspired by the

Ashoka Chakra Ashoka (, ; also ''Asoka''; 304 – 232 BCE), popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was the third emperor of the Maurya Empire of Indian subcontinent during to 232 BCE. His empire covered a large part of the Indian subcontinent, ...

. As a prominent member of IFB and of the new AMHC

took part in the London Constitutional Conference on Mauritius, also commonly known as the 1965 Lancaster Conference. Earlier in

1963 Events January * January 1 – Bogle–Chandler case: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation scientist Dr. Gilbert Bogle and Mrs. Margaret Chandler are found dead (presumed poisoned), in bushland near the Lane Cov ...

had been elected for the first time to the Legislative Council as an IFB candidate.

Newspaper

The All Mauritius Hindu Congress published a Hindi newspaper called Congress starting from 19 November 1964 to promote not only its political message but also published literary articles. Premchand Dabee was its editor for the English section whilst Pandit Soondar-Parsad Sharma was the editor for the Hindi section. Publication stopped after the 1967 elections.

1967 Elections

Although it was pro-Independence the AMHC suffered a significant defeat at the August 1967 elections as none of its candidates was elected. AMHC obtained only 0.8% of votes, whilst its rival

Independence Party (Mauritius) The Independence Party was the name of a coalition of 3 major political parties on the island of Mauritius in the 1960s and 1970s. It was also commonly known as Parti de L'indépendance. It was formed in 1966 to unite the Labour Party (Mauritius), ...

won the majority (54%) of votes and the PMSD was second best with 43% of votes. Prior to the elections the AMHC was excluded from the coalition of ''Parti de l'Indépendance'' (IFB-CAM-Labour) due to its extreme radicalism. Soon afterwards the party was dissolved. A few months before the 1967 elections

had already taken up a position in the civil service as a magistrate and thus he did not participate in these elections.

References

Political parties in Mauritius Socialist parties in Mauritius {{Africa-party-stub