Indo-Fijian
Indo-Fijians are people born in
Fiji, but are ethnically
Indian. The
constitution of Fiji defines "Indian" as anybody who can trace, through either the male or the female line, their ancestry back to anywhere on the
Indian subcontinent. They are mostly descended from indentured labourers brought to the islands by Fiji's
British colonial rulers between
1879 and
1916 to work on Fiji's sugar plantations. These were complemented by the later arrival of
Gujarati and
Punjabi immigrants.
The colonial authorities promoted the
sugar cane industry, recognizing the need to establish a stable economic base for the colony, but were unwilling to exploit
indigenous labour and threaten the
Fijian way of life. The use of imported labour from the
Solomon Islands and what is now
Vanuatu generated protests in the
United Kingdom, and the
Governor Sir Arthur Hamilton-Gordon decided to implement the indentured labour scheme, which had existed in the
British Empire since
1837. A recruiting office was set up in
Calcutta, followed by another in South India in
1905.
The
Leonidas, a labour transport vessel, disembarked at
Levuka from
Calcutta on
14 May 1879. The 463
indentured servants who disembarked were the first of over 61,000 to arrive from the South Asia over the following 37 years. More than 70 % were from impoverished districts of eastern
Uttar Pradesh and
Bihar, such as
Basti,
Gonda, and
Faizabad. Another quarter came from the emigration prone districts of
Tamil nadu state of
South India such as
North Arcot,
Chingleput, and
Madras (see
Tamil diaspora).
There were smaller numbers from
Punjab,
Kashmir,
Haryana, and other parts of India. Their contracts, which they called
girmits, required them to work in Fiji for a period of five years. After a further five years of work as a
Khula, or free labourer, they would be given the choice of returning to India at the expense of the British government, or remaining in Fiji. The great majority opted to stay. After the expiry of their girmits, many leased small plots from Fijians and developed their own sugarcane fields or cattle farmlets. Others went into business in the towns that were beginning to spring up.
Living conditions on the sugar cane plantations, on which most of the
girmits worked, were often squalid. Hovels known as "coolie lines" dotted the landscape. The two-to-one ratio of males to females (the scheme brought in 31,458 males but only 13,696 females) created a social crisis as competition for wives and sexual partners led to occurrences of
rape,
murder, and
suicide. Female
girmits were exploited not only by male labourers, but also by colonial overseers. Public outrage in the United Kingdom at such abuses was a factor in the decision to halt the scheme in
1916.
The colonial rulers attempted to assuage Indian discontent by providing for one of their number to be nominated to the
Legislative Council from
1916 onwards.
Badri Maharaj, a strong supporter of the British Empire but with little support among his own people, was appointed by the Governor in
1916. His appointment did little to redress the grievances of the Indian community. Buttressed by the
Indian Imperial Association founded by
Manilal Maganlal, a lawyer who had arrived in Fiji in
1912, the Indians continued to campaign for better work and living conditions, and for an extension of the
municipal franchise; literacy tests disqualified most Indians from participation. A strike by Indian municipal workers and Public Works Department employees, which began on
15 January 1920, ended in a riot which was forcibly quelled on
12 February; Manilal, widely blamed for the unrest, was deported. Another strike, from January to July in
1921, led by
Sadhu (priest)
Vashist Muni, demanded higher rates of pay for workers of the
Colonial Sugar Refining Company (CSR), the unconditional return of Manilal, and the release of imprisoned
1920 strikers. The authorities responded by deporting Muni from Fiji.
Demands increased for direct representation in the legislature. In
1929, Indian immigrants and their descendants were authorised to elect three members to the Legislative Council on a
communal roll.
Vishnu Deo,
James Ramchandar and
Parmanand Singh were duly elected. Agitation continued for a
common roll, which the colonial administrators rejected, citing the fears of European settlers and Fijian
chiefs that a common electoral roll would lead to political domination by Indians, whose numbers were rapidly increasing.
Two major
Hindu movements attracted widespread support in the
1920s, and relationships between Hindus and Muslims also became increasingly strained.
The
Arya Samaj advocated purging Hinduism of what it saw as its superstitious elements and expensive rituals, opposed child marriage, and advocated the remarriage of widows, which orthodox Hinduism forbids. The Arya Samaj began by establishing schools and by founding a newspaper, the
Fiji Samachar, in
1923.
Preachers like
Shri Krishna Sharma toured the country, promoting the education of women and the learning of the English language. More controversially, it called in
1929 for the forced conversion of
Muslims to Hinduism. Legislators Deo and Singh were both Samaj activists. Deo was eventually arrested and forced to resign from the Legislative Council after making a public speech attacking traditional tenets of his own faith, ridiculing Hindu deities, and publishing extracts from the Hindu scriptures which the authorities considered to be obscene
(source).
The
Sanatan Dharma, was more orthodox than the Arya Samaj. It affirmed traditional Hindu rituals, supported child marriage, discouraged the remarriage of widows, and adopted conciliatory policies towards Muslims.
The
Fiji Muslim League was founded in
1926. It defended the Muslim community against Arya Samaj attacks, and appealed to the British colonial authorities for help.
Divisions also arose between Indian immigrants and Fiji-born Indians, who later became known as
Fiji Indians or
Indo-Fijians. A.D. Patel, who later founded one of Fiji's first political parties, the
National Federation Party, arrived in Fiji in
1928 and advocated unrestricted immigration. He was opposed by the Fiji-born legislator
Parmanand Singh, who argued that immigrants came with skills that gave them an economic advantage over the locally-born Indo-Fijian community. Moreover,
Gujarati and
Punjabi immigrants often failed to assimilate with the Indo-Fijians, and persisted with
caste distinctions that had been largely forgotten by the native-born community.
The onset of
World War II in
1939 heightened divisions, not only between indigenous Fijians and Indians, but also between the native-born and the immigrants. The Arya Samaj-inspired
Kisan Sangh cane growers association wished to defer any strike action until the end of the war, but Patel and some supporters founded the more militant
Maha Sangh in
1941. A strike organized by the Maha Sangh in
1943, while World War II was at its height, embittered relationships between the Indian community and the colonial government, and also the indigenous Fijian community. Forty-four years later, this strike was cited by supporters of the
military coup which overthrew a largely Indo-Fijian dominated government, as grounds for mistrusting the Indian community. Some claimed that the strike was politically motivated, with Patel seeing it as a means to strike at colonial rule.
A post-war effort by European members of the Legislative Council to repatriate Indo-Fijians to India, starting with sixteen-year-old males and fourteen-year-old females, was not successful, but reflected the tensions between Fiji's ethnic communities.
Differences between ethnic Fijians and Indo-Fijians complicated preparations for Fijian independence, which the
United Kingdom granted in
1970, and have continued to define
Fijian politics since. Prior to independence, Indo-Fijians sought a common electoral roll, based on the principle of "one man, one vote." Ethnic Fijian leaders opposed this, believing that it would favour urban voters who were mostly Indo-Fijian; they sought a communal franchise instead, with different ethnic groups voting on separate electoral rolls. At a specially convened conference in
London in April
1970, a compromise was worked out, under which parliamentary seats would be allocated by ethnicity, with ethnic Fijians and Indo-Fijians represented equally. In the
House of Representatives, each ethnic group was allocated 22 seats, with 12 representing
Communal constituencies (elected by voters registered as members of their particular ethnic group) and a further 10 representing
National constituencies (distributed by ethnicity but elected by
universal suffrage. A further 8 seats were reserved for
ethnic minorities, 3 from "communal" and 5 from "national" constituencies.
Indo-Fijians outnumbered
indigenous Fijians from
1956 through the late
1980s, but by
2000 their share of the population had declined to 43.7 %, because of a higher
ethnic-Fijian birthrate and particularly because of the greater tendency of Indo-Fijians to emigrate. Emigration accelerated following the
coups of 1987 (which removed an Indo-Fijian-supported government from power and, for a time, ushered in a constitution that discriminated against them in numerous ways) and
of 2000 (which removed an Indo-Fijian
Prime Minister from office).
Political differences between the two communities, rather than ideological differences, have characterized Fijian politics since independence, with the two communities generally voting for different political parties. The
National Federation Party founded by
A.D. Patel, was the party favoured overwhelmingly by the Indo-Fijian community throughout most of the nation's history, but its support collapsed in the
parliamentary election of
1999, when it lost all of its seats in the
House of Representatives; its support fell further still in the
2001 election, when it received only 22 % of the Indo-Fijian vote. The party currently favoured by Indo-Fijians is the
Fiji Labour Party, led by
Mahendra Chaudhry, which received about 75 % of the Indo-Fijian vote in
2001, and won all 19 seats reserved for Indo-Fijians. Originally founded as a multi-racial party in the
1980s, it is now supported mostly by Indo-Fijians.
Indo-Fijians are concentrated in the so-called Sugar Belt and in cities and towns on the northern and western coasts of
Viti Levu and
Vanua Levu; their numbers are much scarcer in the south and inland areas. The majority of Indo-Fijians are
Hindi speakers, with large minorities speaking
Bhojpuri,
Urdu,
Tamil,
Bihari,
Gujarati, and
Punjabi, among others. Almost all Indo-Fijians are also fluent in
English, and in the younger generation, English appears to be gradually replacing Indian languages.
According to the
1996 census (the latest available), 76.7 % of Indo-Fijians are
Hindus and a further 15.9 % are
Muslims.
Christians comprise 6.1 % of the Indo-Fijian population, while about 0.9 % are members of the
Sikh faith. The remaining 0.4 % are mostly nonreligious.
Hindus in Fiji belong mostly to the
Sanatan sect (74.3 % of all Hindus); a minority (3.7 %) follow
Arya Samaj. There are smaller sects, as well as numerous unspecified Hindus, comprising 22 % of the Hindu population. Muslims are mostly
Sunni (59.7 %) or unspecified (36.7 %); there is an
Ahmadiya minority (3.6 %). Indo-Fijian Christians are a diverse body, with
Methodists forming the largest group (26.2 %), followed by the
Assemblies of God (22.3 %),
Roman Catholics (17 %), and
Anglicans (5.8 %). The remaining 28.7 % belong to a medley of denominations.
*
Desi*
Hindustani*
Non-resident Indians (NRI) and Persons of Indian Origin (PIO)*
Article from Fromers* [https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/fj.html The CIA World Fact Book - Fiji]
*
Tamils in Fiji
