Page 20 - IB APR 2017

History

Indentured labourers at Rarawai, Ba. Some descendants of girmitiyas continue to farm sugar cane. Photos: File

n From PAGE 18 out the many disabilities the Indian set- never be enough for all the children: and
The Viceroy, Lord Hardinge, wrote to tlers faced, among them the scarcity of families in those days were big. That reali-
London: “No matter how great might be land and the absence of political rights. sation pushed us out to seek alternatives.
economic advantages, the political aspects The whole colonisation project was aban- We did. The first generation of Indo-Fijian
of the question is such that no one who doned, never to be raised again professionals came from this background:
has at heart the interests of the British Under indenture, the interests of the teachers, lawyers, doctors.
Empire can afford to neglect it.” Indians were represented in government People settled wherever they could find
Indenture, the Government of India by the Agent General of Immigration, who land to lease, and this gave rise not to
said, was the burning issue of the day in was a senior civil servant. nucleated villages of the type common in
Indian politics. In 1917, the government appointed India but to scattered settlements in the
“Few Indian politicians, moderate and Rakiraki landowner Badri Maharaj a cane belts of Fiji. There, pragmatism and
extremists alike, do not consider that the nominated member of the Legislative expediency borne of social and economic
existence of this system which they do Council but it was a token gesture. The necessity, forged relations, not caste or
not hesitate to call by the name slavery, representative the Indian community religion or any other such marker.
brands their whole race in the eyes of the wanted Maganlal Manilal Doctor, the In- Communities built from a remembered
British Colonial Empire with the stigma dian lawyer who had been sent to Fiji in past emerged gradually along with a sem-
of harlotry.” 1912 by Mahatma Gandhi himself. blance of normalcy in human relationship.
But the Fijian Government did not take But after the end of indenture, Indian Schools and temples came along with
no for an answer. It sent a delegation to leaders began their own demand for direct roads and regular transport. ‘Indian’ im-
India to impress upon the authorities there political representation in the Legislative migrants were slowly becoming the ‘Fiji
the opportunities Fiji offered to Indian mi- Council based on non-racial, or com- Indians’ with a distinct language, Fiji-
grants under a reformed system of labour mon roll, franchise. This would form the baat, and an egalitarian and essentially
recruitment and migration. India could de- signature political platform of the Indian utilitarian mind-set.
pute an official to monitor compliance with community for much of the 20th century. That environment, which formed and
new regulations. And if emigration could That demand, as we know, was steadfastly deformed my father’s generation and
resume, the government would guarantee refused by European and Fijian leaders, mine, has fragmented beyond recognition
that Indian settlers resident in Fiji would to Fiji’s great misfortune as subsequent as agricultural leases began to expire and
enjoy rights and privileges equal to the events show. were not renewed and as people began
position of other British subjects resident The topography of the sugar industry to move to mushrooming squatter settle-
in Fiji. This was, in effect, honouring the changed after the end of indenture. ments around urban centres in south-
spirit of Lord Salisbury’s Despatch of 1875 Until the early 1900s, The CSR had eastern Viti Levu.
which had offered a similar condition for been the major employer of Indian in- The world that the girmitiyas of SS
continued emigration. dentured labour. Then, as the supply of Sutlej and the other 86 Indian immigrant
In 1923, the Government of India sent indentured labour came under a cloud, ships fashioned is a pale shadow of its
a delegation headed by Venkatpartiraju the Company broke up it estates and sold former self. The communities they created
Garu (its other members being GL Corbett them to individual planters, most of them are dispirited and drifting, may living in
and Govind Sahay Sharma) to report on its former employees. But after the 1920s, squatter settlements because their leases
the causes of discontent in the Indian CSR started what came to be known as have not been renewed.
community following the strike of 1920 the small holder tenant farming system, Sugar is no longer King and bright lights
and to ascertain whether Fiji was indeed dividing sugar cane farms into ten acre beyond Fiji’s shores in the land of the
suitable for colonisation by Indians as the plots for individual growers. This became sahibs are beckoning. People are on the
Fijian delegation had asserted. the hallmark of cane growing in Fiji. The move. From Immigration to Emigration
Lt Hissamudin Khan was added to the small acreage was significant. It was big might one day become the overarching
delegation to see if Fiji might be an ap- enough to be economical but not so big theme in the lives of the descendants of
propriate place for settlement by retired as to make farmers too big for their boots. the girmitiyas.
officers and soldiers of the Indian army. Many of us grew up on these farms, re- They would be sorry to see the vicissi-
The Raju Commission was critical of the alising that while the income from it might tudes they sought to escape still afflicting
prospects for Indians in Fiji, and pointed be sufficient for a small family, it would the lives of their progenies.

20 Islands Business, April 2017