BITTERSWEET ‘… Stories of Fears and Fractured Hopes, of Leaving Home, an Epitaph to a Threatened Culture.'
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BITTERSWEET ‘… stories of fears and fractured hopes, of leaving home, an epitaph to a threatened culture.' EDITED BY BRIJ V. LAL Pandanus Online Publications, found at the Pandanus Books web site, presents additional material relating to this book. www.pandanusbooks.com.au BITTERSWEET BITTERSWEET the Indo-Fijian experience EDITED BY BRIJ V. LAL Photographs by Peter Hendrie PANDANUS BOOKS Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY Cover: An Indo-Fijian girl, Nadi market, 1999. Photograph by Peter Hendrie. © Brij V. Lal 2004 This book is copyright in all countries subscribing to the Berne convention. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Typeset in Goudy 11pt on 14pt and printed by Pirion, Canberra National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Bittersweet : the Indo-Fijian experience. ISBN 1 74076 117 0. 1. East Indians — Fiji — History. 2. Fiji — History. I. Lal, Brij V. 996.11 Editorial inquiries please contact Pandanus Books on 02 6125 3269 www.pandanusbooks.com.au Published by Pandanus Books, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200 Australia Pandanus Books are distributed by UNIREPS, University of New South Wales, Sydney NSW 2052 Telephone 02 9664 0999 Fax 02 9664 5420 Production: Ian Templeman, Justine Molony and Emily Brissenden For Indo-Fijians At home and abroad This is my mother country. The same place you live in, the same place I live in. You must think about that. My mother and father came to this country. They work hard here. Where can we go? Tell me. We must stay here and die here. No other place. That’s the important part. We must remember that. ‘Babuji’ Bechu Prasad, Indo-Fijian, Sabeto, 102 years old GREETINGS NAMASKAR Every inheritance is alike beneficial and baneful;every historically conscious society has had to reassess that balance for itself. David Lowenthal ANNIVERSARIES mark milestones and measure the passage of time. Whether they celebrate some event of personal or collective significance — a birthday, wedding, national independence, the end of a conflict; or remember a loss — the death of a friend, family member or public figure (or the ravages of a natural disaster) — they provide an opportunity for reflection and introspection. We often remember the way things were nostalgically: how we dressed then, how slim we looked, the friends we had, the pranks we played, the things that gave us joy and hope or created fear and anxiety. We recall false prophets, false steps and false dawns. We talk wistfully about what might have been, why and how things turned out the way they did, the role we might have played in shaping our destiny. And, from the myriad images and impressions that cloud our minds and compete for our attention, we construct meanings and models to confront the future. For intensely personal moments, memory is often all we have with which to contemplate the meaning and purpose of our time on Earth. This collection marks the 125th anniversary of the arrival of the Indian people in Fiji. The experience and the predicaments of the Indo-Fijian community have been well chronicled. Even so, much work remains to be done, especially on its inner social, cultural and spiritual experience, its symbols, rituals and ceremonies, which impart coherence and continuity; the way its people see themselves and their place on the national stage. We attempt to capture not the totality of the Indo-Fijian experience — an impossible task — but diverse and scattered fragments which illuminate its broad patterns through essays, memoirs and recollections. They are about personal journeys and transformations, chance encounters, individual discoveries, private moments, unexpected revelations as well as overarching themes and concerns that touch some aspect of the community’s life but which, as a general rule, do not find a place in conventional historical narratives. Each contribution has its own unique character, its own distinctive voice, but collectively they throw a sharper beam of light on to a troubled people caught in a world at once complex and conflicted, with its fair share of benevolence and violence, greed and generosity, curiosity and nonchalance, ambition and despair, purpose and powerlessness, emptiness and anticipation. It remains for me to thank the contributors – some of them writing for publication for the first time — for responding so readily to my request to write. Without them, of course, this book would not exist. I am delighted in niggling middle-age to include in the collection representatives of a younger generation who were school-age children, not much more, when the centenary celebrations took place in 1979. Among them are Indo-Fijians living in Fiji and in the diaspora as well as ‘outsiders’ who have become honoured ‘insiders’ through their enduring cross-cultural relationships, deep cultural affinity and imaginative sympathy. I hope that their creative spirit will not be sapped by the exigencies of earning a living in a brutally competitive world. More power to their pen — or word processor. Donald Denoon and Hank Nelson, my colleagues in Pacific and Asian History at The Australian National University for more than a decade now, have earned my warm gratitude for their inspiring (but also utterly daunting) example of eloquent creativity and their sharp editorial pen, wielded invariably with collegial care and understanding. Mr Aubrey Parke, my District Commissioner in Labasa in the 1960s, went through the text with painstaking care and saved me from many embarrassing errors. Ian Templeman, my publisher, works miracles when it comes to coaxing creative things from people who never thought they had any. His staff at Pandanus Books, especially Emily Brissenden and my editor Justine Molony, have been exemplary in their professionalism and have earned my deep gratitude, as has Oanh Collins of my own department in the care with which she prepared the manuscript for publication. Jan Borrie’s critical eye has improved the book’s readability immeasurably. My friend, Peter Hendrie, whose photographs grace the book, is a rare gem — gracious and giving — and so good: his pictures do not need my words. And to you, the reader: I hope that you will find something of interest and value in what we have to offer on a people about whom much has been assumed, often cruelly unflattering, but whose deeper fears and fractured hopes are less well understood. The Indo-Fijian experience is full of strange peculiarities and tragic ironies. It is the story of a people brought to work under conditions of extreme servitude to spare the indigenous people the fate of dispossession and violence at the hands of European settlers, but who somehow ended up as their bête noire. It is about the odyssey of a people who have made something of themselves, all on their own, often against great odds, without a helping hand, but who still feel uprooted and unwanted. And it is an experience that raises troubling questions. For how many generations does one have to live in a place to be allowed to call it home? As more and more of them migrate to settle elsewhere, will future generations see Indo-Fijian presence in Fiji — once half the population — as a nightmarish aberration in the history of that Pacific Island nation? Will they see Fiji as a temporary stopover for a people condemned by fate to wander the world? Dekhi ye duniya ki y–ari, bichde sabhi b–ari b–ari. I have seen the ways of this world: they all depart, one by one. Immigration to emigration: will that be the epitaph for Fiji’s Indo-Fijian community? If this volume enlarges your awareness of their predicaments, we will have achieved our objective. Dhanyabad. Brij V. Lal Pandanus Books gratefully acknowledges the support of the Reddy Group, Corporate Office, 35 Ravouvou Street, Lautoku, Fiji, in the publication of this book. CONTENTS 1. Girmit, History, Memory 1 Brij V. Lal 2. Voices From the Past 31 Praveen Chandra and Saras Chandra 3. Jaikumari 47 John Kelly 4. Remembering 71 Ahmed Ali 5. Parlay Poems for the Indentured 89 Mohit Prasad 6. Dada: Bhaga to Dillon 95 Kanti Jinna 7. Dilkusha 113 Vijay Mishra 8. Upah–ar Gaon 135 Susanna Trnka 9. Sa I Levuka Ga 153 Annie Sutton 10. Soccer 169 Mohit Prasad 11. The Qawa ‘Epidemic’ 191 Jacqueline Leckie 12. Marriage 209 Brij V. Lal 13. All Saints’ Primary, Labasa 225 Christine Weir 14. Primary Texts 239 Brij V. Lal 15. Masterji 251 Brij V. Lal 16. Shanta 267 Malcolm Tester 17. Aisha 287 Padma Lal 18. A Passage to Sydney 303 John Connell and Sushma Raj 19. Goodbye to Paradise 323 Vijendra Kumar 20. Immeasurable Distances 339 Shrishti Sharma 21. Final Day 357 Asish Janardhan 22. Colour My Country 369 Mosmi Bhim 23. Searching 373 Vijay Naidu 24. Maarit 389 Brij V. Lal List of Contributors 404 Market vendor, Nadi. True son of the soil, a descendant of the girmitiyas. CHAPTER ONE Girmit, History, Memory Brij V. Lal The past is in its grave Though its ghost haunts us Browning TWENTY-FIVE YEARS can be a long time in a community or a nation’s life. It has certainly been a long and troubled time in the life of the Indo-Fijians. Twenty-five years ago — 1979 — marked the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the Indian people in Fiji. The event was celebrated nationally. High Chief and Deputy Prime Minister, Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau, headed a distinguished multiracial national committee to plan and supervise the two-day celebrations.1 That kind of gesture, so generous and inclusive and accommodating, would be unthinkable now.