Today the descendants of immigrants from India in Fiji outnumber the original Fijians. They are an integral and vital part of Fiji's multi-racial population. In this book, a sequel to the author's , Dr Gillion deals with the very important period when there were strikes, boycotts and communal disputes as the Indian community sought dignity, identity and acceptance in its new home.

Australian National University Press Canberra ISBN O 708112919 This book was published by ANU Press between 1965–1991. This republication is part of the digitisation project being carried out by Scholarly Information Services/Library and ANU Press. This project aims to make past scholarly works published by The Australian National University available to a global audience under its open-access policy. 1HE FIJI INDIANS

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AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY PRESS CANBERRA 1977 First published in Australia 1977. Printed in Australia for the Australian National University Press, Canberra. © K. L. Gillion, 1977. This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism, or review, as permitted under the Copy­ right Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be made to the publisher. National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Gillion, Kenneth Lowell Oliver. The Fiji Indians. Index. Bibliography. ISBN 0 7081 1291 9. 1. East Indians in Fiji. I. Title. 301.4519141109611 Southeast Asia: Angus & Robertson (S.E. Asia) Pty Ltd, Singapore. Japan: United Publishers Services Ltd, Tokyo. For Rachel Preface

This is a sequel to Fiji’s Indian Migrants: a history to the end of indenture in 1920, which was published in 1962. There I wrote of the immigration of 60,000 Indians to Fiji under the indentured labour system, their recruitment in India, their lives on the plantations, their settlement on the land or repatriation to India, the administration of the system in India and Fiji, and its final abolition. This book does not cover the same ground, but examines different problems. The period 1920-1946 was an important one in the history of Fiji, of the Fiji Indians, and of Indians overseas in general. In 1920 the place of India in the Empire and the Indians in Fiji was undefined. The indenture system had been abolished, but it was not known whether further assisted Indian immigration would be possible and whether the Indians already in Fiji would stay or return to India. If they stayed, would they supplant the indigenous Fijians as the preponderant popula­ tion of the islands, and would the local European settlers be able to hold their own against them, or would Fiji be transformed into an area of Indian cultural, economic, and possibly even political dominance? In the period the question of whether the Indian challenge could be con­ tained aroused intense anxiety and discord. The ‘Indian problem’ as it was popularly known — though it could as well have been called the European problem or the Fijian problem—was, in short, the principal question of Fiji history at that time. By 1947 a situation that had seemed open in 1920 was closed. The majority of the Indian migrants had made Fiji their permanent home, but further immigration had been restricted, first by India, then by Fiji. India now counted for little in the colony’s affairs. The Fiji Indians had been transformed from a collection of poor plantation labourers into a diversified, though still primarily agricultural, community which was racked by disunity and conflict. They had made a bid for equality with the Europeans that was as unsuccessful in Fiji as it was in the other parts of the Empire, except the sub-continent itself. The Fijians, though now outnumbered by the Fiji Indians, had recovered from the popula­ tion decline that had for many years threatened their survival and had seen the priority of their interests re-affirmed. Although the mainten­ ance of European power, prestige and privilege was still a primary issue, the Fijians were becoming much more important in their own right as

vii Preface actors on the modern stage, and not just as supports for European dominance. By the end of the period the social and economic separation of the communities at the local level had been reinforced by differential educational and political arrangements, and Fiji was firmly established as one of the world’s clearest examples of the colonial plural society. In 1946 the debate in the Legislative Council on ‘safeguarding the Fijian race’ capped the new multi-racial order in Fiji. The reader familiar with Fiji and its history will recognise many of the issues treated in this book: the supremacy of sugar in the economy of the colony and the corresponding power of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company of Australia (CSR); the existence of a dominant class of Europeans who looked upon Fiji as their home and had a significant influence on colonial policy; the special position of the indigenous Fijians as landowners living in a tribal society that was largely outside the modern economy and was governed by a separate administration; and the Indian challenge to the established order. The reader looking for an anachronistic account of Fijian-Indian conflict will be disappointed; the decisive conflict in the period under discussion was between the Europeans and the Indians. Neither, of course, was a homogeneous block. The government had not only a natural affinity with the dominant white settlers and a prudent appreciation of the importance of sugar in the economy of Fiji, but also a commitment to the welfare of the Fijians, dating from the foundation of the colony, that was reinforced by decisions taken elsewhere in the colonial empire in the 1920s and 1930s. Another thread running through every chapter in this book is disunity and conflict among the Fiji Indians themselves. Events in Fiji were profoundly affected by world causes, as they still are. Fiji’s economy and revenue, which determined important decisions on the settlement of the Indians and their standard of living, were dependent on the fickle market prices for its primary exports, notably sugar. Changing economic conditions, the two world wars, and a developing concern for the rights of labour and of colonial peoples, are all relevant to the story. The availability of Indian labour, and then its abrupt discontinuance, followed India’s evolving position in the British Empire. The problems of the Fiji Indians were once matters of intense public concern in India. Without the rise of the Indian nationalist movement and its opposition to the export of cheap labour, Fiji would have taken as many Indian immigrants as the economy demanded. In the period covered by this book the Fiji Indians were seen in London, in India, and in Fiji, as part of the much wider problem of ‘Indians viii Preface

Overseas’, which was itself an aspect of the attempt to work out the terms of a lasting relationship between Britain and India. The Indian protest of the period was a response to an imperial ideal that contra­ dicted other ideals and promises. Even if he wanted to, the historian could not relate everything in the life of the community. Geographers and social anthropologists have made admirable studies of the economy and social structure of the Fiji Indian rural settlements, and the reader who wishes to know more of these matters is referred to their publications, cited in this book. Much research remains to be done on the cultural history of the Fiji Indians, and much of it will surely be done by students from Fiji itself, as they explore and reconcile their Fijian and Indian heritage. In a general history there must be many gaps and matters that deserve longer treatment and books on their own. One of the purposes of this work will have been achieved if it provokes further research. Colonial Office records in London were open to 1946, but docu­ ments in Suva and New Delhi were not available to quite that date and certain confidential papers were shown to me only on condition that source references were omitted. But for the freer access to government archives under the new 30 year rule, I would not have attempted a sequel at this time. This book has been published with the assistance of the Republic of Nauru Fund of the Australian National University. I am grateful to the University of Adelaide and the Australian National University, my employers during the preparation of this book; to the Australian Research Grants Committee and the Leverhulme Trust which paid for research visits to Fiji and India respectively; to the National Archives of Fiji in Suva, the National Archives of India in New Delhi, the British Museum, the India Office and the Public Record Office in London, CSR Limited in Sydney, the Australian Archives and the National Library of Australia in Canberra, the Library of New South Wales and the State Library of Victoria, for access to documents; and to the Indian School of International Studies and the Institute of Commonwealth Studies for hospitable affiliation during visits to New Delhi and London. My research since 1949 on the Indians in Fiji owes much to discussion, interviews, and friendship, particularly with people in Fiji. If this story rings true, the credit is theirs. Suva, October 1975.

ix Abbreviations

A.I.C.C. All-India Congress Committee CO. Colonial Office C.P. Paper of the Legislative Council of Fiji C.S. Colonial Secretary, Fiji C.S.O. Colonial Secretary’s Office, Fiji C.S.R. Colonial Sugar Refining Company CSR/G.M. CSR Company General Manager conf. confidential DC. District Commissioner encl. enclosure Fiji Debates Debates of the Legislative Council of Fiji FTH Fiji Times and Herald Govt India Government of India 1 . 0 . India Office 1.0. /E. & O., or /I. & O. or India Office proceedings /J. & P., or /P. & J. India E.P. or O.P. Emigration or Overseas proceedings of the Government of India Leg. Co. Fiji Legislative Council mf. microfilm no. number Raju report Report of the Deputation of the Govern­ ment of India to Fiji, 1922 S.I.A. Secretary for Indian Affairs, Fiji S. of S. Secretary of State (for the Colonies or for India) tel. telegram

x Contents

P reface vii

Abbreviations X

I The Setting 1

II The 1920 Strike 18

III The Sadhu and the CSR 47

IV Second Thoughts 66

V Negotiations 78

VI Dharma, Disputes and Education 102

VII Common Roll 130

VIII Kisans Unite 157

IX War, Land, Fijians 173

Appendix The Population of Fiji, 1921, 1936, 1946 199

N o te s 2 0 0

Bibliography 2 1 7

In d ex 2 2 5 I The Setting

On 10 October 1874, the leading Fijian chiefs ceded Fiji to Queen Victoria. Only five years later, following negotiations between the governments of Fiji and India, the first Indian immigrants arrived under the indentured labour system. Of all the achievements — or failures — of the British colonial administration in Fiji, the bringing to the country under government auspices of 60,000 Indians between 1879 and 1916 must be counted among the most important. When Fiji became independent on 10 October 1970, the Fiji Indians, mostly the descendants of those 60,000 immigrants, outnumbered the indigenous Fijians, were an absolute majority of the total population, and, like the other sections of that plural society, preserved a distinct and separate identity. The origins of this situation lay in the first years of British rule in Fiji.1 Indian immigration was not something extraneous to government policy towards the Fijian people, but a necessary condition of it. The first governor of Fiji, Sir Arthur Gordon, was, for his time, more than usually sensitive to the plight of native peoples abruptly exposed to the challenge of western civilisation. He regarded Indian immigration as a vital adjunct to a policy of shielding the Fijians from this challenge by allowing them to retain many of their communal customs and evolve slowly under a separate native administration, without either the oppor­ tunity or the necessity to work on the plantations of the white settlers. Gordon established a system of native administration which embodied Fijian tradition, but in a simplified, unified, codified, and less flexible form; he insisted that the Fijians be left in their villages living in com­ munities under strict government control; he severely restricted the engagement of Fijian labour by outsiders; and he stopped further sales of Fijian land. But to sustain a modern administration, Fiji needed some economic development, and that demanded land, capital, mar­ kets, and labour. Land was readily available, because Fiji was under­ populated and a declining Fijian population, reduced by measles and other introduced diseases, had land to spare to sell — or, after sales were prohibited — lease to European planters. Many of those planters had been drawn to Fiji by the temporary cotton boom of the 1860s. Then they tried various other crops, including sugar, coffee, bananas and copra, but were crippled by lack of capital, expertise, and labour, by debt, and by the high cost of freight, for Fiji was far from Europe

1 The Fiji Indians and North America, and had to depend largely on the sparsely popu­ lated Australasian colonies. The planters clamoured for Fijian and Pacific Island labour; they were denied Fijians by the paternalistic colonial government, while the supply of the Pacific Islanders was restricted because of government regulation of the traffic and the com­ petition of other recruiters offering better terms. Eventually a copra industry employing Fijian and Island labour became viable and was to remain an important, but not the predominant, sector of Fiji’s economy. Sugar, Indian immigrant labour, and the expertise and capital of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company of Sydney (CSR), which in 1880 was persuaded to extend its operations to Fiji, were the answers to Fiji’s need for revenue. To Gordon, these had the great advantage that development could proceed without drawing on Fijian labour and dislocating Fijian society. In contrast to the demands of the impover­ ished planters, the CSR posed no immediate threat to his native policy, because it was able to develop to the extent warranted by the size of its markets without Fijian labour or excessive pressure on Fijian land- holdings. The subsequent history of Fiji was largely determined by those decisions. Gordon intended his policy to be progressive, not static, but in later years it became a new orthodoxy. The neo-traditional Fijian way of life embodied in a separate Fijian administration and regula­ tions, and the restrictions on the engagement of Fijian labour and the alienation of Fijian-owned land, removed any incentive for the Fijians to move towards economic individualism and adaptation to the com­ petitive modern world. This course was questioned repeatedly over the years of colonial rule: by European settlers, whose case was marred by self-interest; by the occasional Fijian, whom authority could silence and discredit; by visiting scholars and sometimes by missionaries; and by various colonial service officers, including several governors. For a time during the administration of Sir Everard im Thurn (1904-1910) the system appeared to be in serious danger, and land sales were per­ mitted for a few years. In the end Gordon’s policy survived. There was no great demand for Fijian labour as long as Indians were available; the planters and the sugar companies already had enough land to sus­ tain the low level of development dictated by the shortage of capital, transport problems, and Fiji’s isolation from large markets. If these circumstances had been different, it can hardly be doubted that the pressure for change in government policy towards the Fijians would have been much stronger and very probably decisive. But the governors

2 The Setting could provide a modern administration and balance their budgets with the revenue from sugar, which provided two-thirds of the colony’s export income and directly or indirectly accounted for perhaps half the colony’s revenue. The sugar industry was largely the preserve of one company, the CSR, and it was worked by Indian labour.2 The indentured labour system was already well established in the British Empire by the time the first Indian immigrants arrived in Fiji in 1879. The demand for tropical commodities, such as sugar, tea, coffee and rubber, in the centres of European civilisation had been met by a colonial plantation economy requiring a steady supply of cheap labour that was beyond the capacity or inclination of the local tribal peoples to supply. The colonial planters and governments had turned for labour, first to Africa, then to Asia. Coercion was necessary to keep the labourers on the plantations because plantation work was unattractive and in most colonies there were abundant opportunities to earn a living elsewhere on the land. As the moral consciousness of mankind progressed, slavery gave way to the temporary servitude of indenture. The indentured labour system which Gordon had seen in Trinidad and Mauritius and extended to Fiji was a state-regulated scheme to meet the needs of the colonial planters for labour, while affording safeguards against abuses in recruiting and ill-treatment on the ships and plantations, and giving the migrants the opportunity either to settle abroad or to return to India. Indentured labour emigra­ tion was operated for the immediate profit of the colonial planters, encouraged by the metropolitan and colonial governments for the development of the colonies and the balancing of their budgets, and sanctioned by the prevailing belief in the ‘free’ movement of capital and labour, which was assumed to be for the ultimate greater good of the majority of individuals. But laissez-faire was tempered by pater­ nalistic care: the emigration of unskilled labour from India to distant colonies was supervised by the Government of India, and contracts laid down rights and obligations which were to be enforced by the colonial governments. Under the agreements signed in India, the emigrants bound them­ selves to serve for five years under an assigned employer, with penal sanctions for breaches of labour discipline. They were then free to return to India at their own expense or to stay in Fiji, and after another five years they were entitled to an optional free return passage to India. The Government of India thought the opportunity for perma­ nent colonisation was one of the few advantages indentured labour

3 The Fiji Indians

emigration offered to the people of India, and it would not have accepted any scheme of emigration that provided for the compulsory repatriation of those labourers whose indentures had expired. Gordon did not pay much attention to the implications of permanent Indian settlement in Fiji, but he did expect three-quarters of the Indians to remain and so benefit themselves and the colony as small farmers, tradesmen, etc., as they had done in the West Indies. About 40 per cent of the immigrants did in fact return to India, though many of these after many years residence in Fiji. The question of whether the Indians were to be just a labour force and temporary sojourners, or a perma­ nent part of Fiji’s population with the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, lay behind much of the controversy and struggle that will be related in this book.

•Penang

V IT I LEV U

Fiji, showing main places mentioned in the book

The majority of the Indians who went to Fiji under the indentured labour system embarked from Calcutta, and had been recruited in the United Provinces, especially in the densely populated and very poor north-eastern districts, but about 25 per cent were taken from the Madras Presidency, the first of these in 1903 following the opening of a second emigration depot in Madras. Most of the emigrants were young men or women and they were physically fit enough to pass

4 The Setting medical examinations, because the colonies wanted workers, not emaciated unfortunates. They were typical of the castes found in Indian villages, the majority being of the middling to low agricultural castes with a fair number of high-caste village people as well. The colonial emigration agents in Calcutta and Madras paid their up- country sub-agents by commission. The local recruiters watched for isolated, lost, and gullible villagers, and these were more likely to be found in towns than in their home villages; indeed the recruiters avoided the villages lest they be beaten-up. Most of the recruits were just looking for work or a way out of difficulties. They did not think of themselves as emigrants bound for a land of better opportunity, and they had little understanding of the forces that had driven them from their villages and were to mould their future lives. Not remarkably, the system never worked as it was intended. The government safeguards in India and the colonies gave way to social reality. The anticipated emigration of enterprising people anxious to improve their prospects by going to the colonies became in practice the collection by any means of stray, isolated, and credulous villagers who had not the slightest idea of what their contracts would really mean: the great distance from India, the relentless, clockwork pace of planta­ tion work under harsh discipline, the inability to change their employer, the beatings, and the penal sanctions used to enforce their compliance and even to prolong their indentures. In the early days the ‘mortality was ghastly’; over the whole period many thousands were weakened and broken by diseases such as hookworm; in the later years the pay was insufficient to provide more than bare subsistence living. The re­ cruitment of a minimum proportion of 40 women to every 100 men, insisted on by the Government of India in the hope that there could be some normal family life in the colonies, became in the Indian social context, where family groups do not normally emigrate, the collection, often by bullying, or worse, of whatever miscellaneous, desperate, unattached women could be found on the fringe of Indian society, and their degradation in the filthy plantation lines where the labourers were penned like animals. The immigrants who were lucky in their plantation and overseer, and those who were unscrupulous, survived, and some prospered, but many -others were brutalised. In India the recruiters were able easily to evade the safeguards laid down by the government and supposedly enforced by the overworked or indifferent officers. In Fiji the provisions for government protection of the labourers were often nullified by the inherent conditions of the planta-

5 The Fiji Indians tion system and economy and the European dominative order. Planta­ tion discipline had to be maintained, many of the immigrants were lazy and some were vicious, the rough young Australian overseers were ignorant of Indian customs, ruled through their sirdars and used the Indian women, the inspectors were mostly ex-overseers and were them­ selves part of the system of European dominance, the law courts unconsciously favoured the articulate employer against the bewildered or ignorant labourer. Conditions were particularly bad in the late 1880s and 1890s, when sugar prices were low; in the twentieth century they improved with prosperity, experience, and reforms made in response to criticism. Overall the system was a degrading one and it left behind it an unhappy legacy in Fiji, not only the physical presence of the Indian population and the various problems that brought in its train, but the survival of the attitudes associated with indenture. The Europeans and Fijians had learnt to despise the ‘coolies’, almost the only Indians they saw; the Indians remembered the deceit, the slave-driving drudgery, and the degradation and vice; the CSR, the planters, and Europeans generally saw the Indians as a coloured labour-force to be kept under; while in India Fiji had a worse reputation than any other colony. One of the firm beliefs of Europeans in Fiji has always been that the Indians were better off in Fiji than in India itself. In indenture days they sought to justify bad conditions on the plantations by reference to disease and starvation in India. It was, and indeed still is widely believed that those who came to Fiji were of the lowest castes, used to poverty and ill-treatment, and that they arrived in a diseased and emaciated condition. That they were used to poverty is true, and there were more deviants, people who had been in trouble with the police, restless spirits, and fallen women, than a random sample of the Indian village population would have included. But otherwise they were a fair cross-section of village castes, including high-caste people. Some of those were tricked into signing contracts by being promised non- agricultural work, but it must be remembered, too, that in the areas in which the North Indian migrants were recruited, agriculture was the normal occupation of most people, including the high-castes. As for the health of the migrants, the emigration agencies wanted physically fit people, and the others were normally rejected by their medical inspectors and by those of the Bengal and Madras governments. It is likely that some disease was introduced into Fiji by the Indians, especially hookworm, but some was brought in by Europeans also.

6 The Setting

Any continuing public health problems in Fiji should have been ascribed to social and working conditions in the colony. The persistence of derogatory myths about the background of the Fiji Indians is not surprising: it was part of the ideological under­ pinning of European dominance. The question of relative poverty is more complicated. In the purely material sense, the immigrants, and certainly their children, were probably better off at most times during their history in Fiji than they would have been in India, and, except for the terrible early days on the Rewa plantations, even their worst times were not as bad as the widespread misery and death brought by famine in India. But it must be remembered that those who died in famines were mainly the lowest castes of agricultural labourers, who had no resources whatever to fall back on if they lost their employment. Life for most ordinary villagers in India provided the normal satisfac­ tions and dissatisfactions of the human condition, including a recog­ nised place in family and society. It was these that were lacking for many in Fiji. Family life was unstable, wives were hard to find and keep, the old social order had ceased to exist for the immigrants on the day they were recruited. They had lost the respect, honour, hierarchy, and warmth of belonging they had known in village India, and their poverty was less bearable. India, not Britain or Fiji, stopped Indians going to Fiji under the indenture system. Humanitarian opinion in Britain, after a long interval since the early days when Indians first replaced slaves on the planta­ tions in the West Indies and elsewhere, began to criticise the system in the years before the first world war, but it was agitation in India that brought about its abolition. Emigration had never been popular with a large section of Indian opinion. In North India, it was disliked for religious reasons: for centuries there had been a ban on crossing the kala pani (black waters), which entailed risk of loss of caste. The North Indian peoples looked inward, and there was no interest in foreign lands where dharma (religious duty) was hard to observe. Admittedly the depressed rural population of over-crowded Tamilnad, who went in their millions for short periods to the plantations of Burma, Ceylon, and the Straits Settlements, did not share these North Indian attitudes, nor did the trading communities of South India, the commercially-minded people of Gujarat, and the enterprising Punjabi Sikhs and Muslims with their relative freedom from caste restrictions and their experience of overseas military and police service. But in the land-locked United Provinces, where the majority of the indentured labourers for Fiji

7 The Fiji Indians were recruited, emigration was disfavoured by society. The emigration agents complained of obstruction of their work by individual Indian government officers, by the police, and by the public. The Government of India and some of the provincial governments thought this attitude to emigration should be changed and that more Indians should seek economic advancement abroad as the people of other countries were doing, but because they were watchful of the political dangers they did not actively encourage emigration but merely tolerated and regulated it. In the decade before the first world war the criticism came to be publicly voiced in India that the indentured labour system was not far removed from slavery, inhumane to the individuals concerned, and degrading to the people of India. Gandhi’s heroic struggles on behalf of the Indians in South Africa were echoed in India by G. K. Gokhale and, on his death, by M. M. Malaviya, two of the most prominent Indian political leaders of the day. The Government of India came under pressure from almost all sections of articulate Indian opinion, expressed in the legislatures, the press, and the public associations. The ‘moderates’ were even more concerned about the treatment of overseas Indians than the ‘extremists’, because they had faith in Britain’s good intentions and believed that India would one day be associated on equal terms with the self-governing white dominions. They wanted to improve India’s status in the Empire, including the right of Indians to travel freely within it, and they saw the continuance of indentured labour emigration as an obstacle to the acceptance of India as a full and worthy partner. Confronted with India’s national awaken­ ing, the British government in India was more in need of local allies than ever before. In 1915, during the Vice-royalty of Lord Hardinge, who was especially sympathetic to this aspiration for national respect, the Government of India recommended to London that the indentured labour system be replaced by a less servile system of aided emigration. In 1917 it suspended indentured labour emigration because of the danger of popular disturbances and even mass civil disobedience, organised by Gandhi, directed against further recruiting. It was grateful for the excuse that labour was needed for the war effort in France and Mesopotamia. The last ship for Fiji had already left in 1916. Criticism of conditions in Fiji played a major part in the campaign against the indenture system. The government and European settlers of the colony thought that this was unjust, and indeed it was somewhat fortuitous that Fiji had to bear the brunt of the attack. The book The

8 The Setting

Fiji of To-day, by the Australian Methodist missionary, J. W. Burton, had been published in 1910 and was later noticed in the press in India, which also published letters from his colleagues, Miss Hannah Dudley and the Reverend Richard Piper. Burton’s book attracted the attention of Charles Freer Andrews, who had responded to Gokhale’s call for the abolition of the indentured labour system as a cause to be taken up by the people of India. Andrews paid the first of his three visits to Fiji in 1915, on that occasion in the company of the Reverend W. W. Pearson. Their moderate but critical report, which was published in the Indian press, drew attention to the moral evils in the labour lines. The charge that the indenture system exposed Indian womanhood to degradation was a particularly effective one in the Indian social context. The Hindi journalist, Benarsidas Chaturvedi, began a lifelong interest in Fiji after a repatriate from Fiji, Totaram Sanadhya, who was from the same town, told him his story. Totaram’s account of his twenty-one years in Fiji, which was ghost-written by Benarsidas, was published in 1914 and translated into several Indian languages. Again, it was Fiji, rather than the West Indian colonies, that was in the spotlight. Andrews made another visit to Fiji in 1917 and his second report was more critical than the first. E. W. Knox, the aged general manager of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, had refused to see him on his second visit to Sydney and this was later seen by other CSR executives, the Council of Planters, and officials of the Fiji Government, to have been particularly unfortunate for their case.3 Moreover, the company refused to appoint matrons to its plantation hospitals. This experience evidently embittered Andrews against the CSR, which he saw to be the real power in Fiji. He did concede that Fiji was in principle an excellent country for colonisation by Indian settlers, but Fiji still took the full force of the attack against the indenture system and any scheme of aided colonisation that might have replaced it. As Andrews wrote: Now as things are, there is no hope for Fiji. It is throttled and strangled by the C.S.R. Co. which has no morals. 1 went to the ut­ most possible limit of forbearance and patience and reasonableness but when it came to spending money they found it easier and cheaper for the time being to ignore my warnings.4 It is difficult to assess the justice of this singling out of Fiji for especial opprobrium in India. No contemporary observer visited all the colonies of Indian settlement apart from McNeill and Chimmanlal in 1913, whose report had not been particularly unfavourable to Fiji except for the high murder and suicide rates. In addition to the dispro-

9 The Fiji Indians portionate publicity Fiji had received, and Andrews’s personal ex­ perience of Knox, a further explanation of Fiji’s notoriety may be suggested. The fact that an Australian company was the principal employer of Indian labour in Fiji was not lost on educated Indian opinion. Indian opinion was resentful of the exclusion of Indians from the self-governing countries of the Empire and Australia was prominent among these. But it was not so much a question of retaliation against Australia through Fiji, as the Europeans in Fiji believed, but of India’s national dignity and acceptance. Indian public opinion believed that even educated and cultured Indians would never be accorded respect while their countrymen were being sent overseas as coolie labour. These aspirations were fully understood by the Government of India, but not by Knox or the Europeans in Fiji, who execrated Andrews per­ sonally and did not realise how far their own views were behind those of responsible Indian public men, the Government of India, and even European businessmen in India. Knox was an old man of autocratic temper whose ideas had been formed in the Australian colonies in the days of unquestioned British authority in India. Fiji was even more remote than Australia from the centres of great events and currents of thought. The Australian press was essentially a provincial press, and opinion in Fiji was even further behind. This lag made for tactlessness and ill-judged and badly-timed actions and statements that contributed to Fiji’s bad image in India. In 1919 Fiji faced an economic crisis. For almost forty of the forty- five years of British rule, the colony’s economy and modern adminis­ tration had rested on sugar and Indian labour. The last Indian labourers had arrived in Fiji in 1916 and on 1 January 1920 the remaining indentures were to be cancelled. Labour was essential to the survival of the European planters, and the European community and the government believed too that the colony would stagnate unless it could increase its population. They were eager to secure the resump­ tion of large-scale immigration from India. The indigenous Fijians were still regarded, at best, as irrelevant to the progress of Fiji, or, more sadly, as a dying race. They had been declining in number and were still largely outside the plantation economy and many Europeans believed that the Indians were destined to become the future coloured race of Fiji. But it was not until after 1916, when the supply of immi­ grants was immediately threatened, that there was talk of the advan­ tages to be gained by an increased permanent Indian population and not merely a continued supply of immigrant labour for work on the

10 The Setting plantations. In 1919 J. M. Hedstrom, a leading colonist, declared in the Legislative Council: ‘The colony is going to remain empty unless it is going to be populated with East Indians’.5 Sir Cecil Rodwell, the colony’s new governor, telegraphed London: ‘Fact is that these islands are under-populated. They would carry population of 500,000 Indians. If only half of this number could be introduced future of Colony would be assured.’6 At the census of 1921, the total population of Fiji was recorded as 157,266. Europeans numbered 3878, part-Europeans 2781, Chinese 910, Fijians 84,475, and Indians 60,634, and the remainder were from various islands in the Pacific.7 The Europeans included government officers, planters and overseers, missionaries, lawyers, doctors, store­ keepers, clerks, shop assistants, and artisans. Their standard of living was far higher than that of the other races, and they occupied the commanding positions in the colony’s social structure. The majority of them had been born elsewhere, particularly in Australia and New Zealand, but a good number thought of Fiji as their permanent home. In this respect Fiji was intermediate in type between colonies like those of West Africa, where Europeans were few and transient, and Kenya and Rhodesia where there was a substantial settled white popu­ lation. The European community was large enough to demand and receive a voice in the government of the colony, even though there was an official majority in the Legislative Council. But some had more voice than others. The preponderant influence was exercised by a few businessmen and lawyers in Suva (principally among them John Mayn­ ard Hedstrom, Henry Milne Scott, Henry Marks, all later knighted, and Robert Crompton) and by the expatriate Colonial Sugar Refining Company. For several decades ‘a main factor in the government of Fiji was the influence wielded by a small oligarchy of local commercial interests’.8 In 1937 a recently appointed governor, Sir Arthur Richards, wrote to the Colonial Office: As I begin to settle down here things take on a more solid shape. It is a peculiar Colony— sui generis indeed. The presence of a resident European population, their long isolation from the world and the limitation even of recent contacts to Australia and New Zealand has bred a particular insularity of its own. A few big men have obtained a stranglehold on the place — they have won their way to the top and mean to stay there. The under-dog is under-paid and powerless. A few men control everything behind the scenes and even Government has been run with a strong bias.9

11 The Fiji Indians

The part-Europeans, who included planters and skilled workers, had on the average a lower standard of living than the Europeans and had less influence on the affairs on the colony, though they were on the electoral roll for the Legislative Council. The Chinese included arti­ sans, market gardeners, laundrymen, and shopkeepers; numbers of them were resident in Fijian villages, and, unlike the Indians, some had married Fijians. Most of the Fijians lived in recognised villages outside the modern economy, though some took employment from time to time as labourers on the plantations or wharves. They were disciplined under the village system, quiescent, and still had more than enough land. But for the influenza epidemic of 1918 they might have registered a slight increase in numbers, after a previous steady decline. The Indians were no longer an undifferentiated group of plantation labourers, but a diversified community with varied aspirations and interests. They were not only the bulk of the labour force, but were now smallholders, planters, hawkers, small shopkeepers, clerks, and artisans as well. Apart from the disproportion of the sexes, the salient demographic fact about the Indian population was its youthfulness which, together with the healthy climate and the widespread settlement on the land away from the plantations, promised a very rapid increase in numbers, provided they did not return to India, as most of them were entitled to do at government expense. The majority, whether they then knew it or not, were to spend the rest of their lives in Fiji. The problems of the Indians included their poverty, illiteracy, rootlessness and loss of standards, unstable family life, lack of leadership, difficulty in acquiring land, the growth of divisions within the community, and an undefined identity and sense of belonging and acceptance in Fiji. Most of the Fiji Indians settled on the land and reconstituted a form of Indian society, building on the cultural traditions and memories which emigration and plantation life had weakened but not obliterated; but the result was very different from the villages of North and South India from which the immigrants had come. In Fiji there was a loose pattern of settlement, as individuals took up plots wherever they could obtain them, and built their homesteads. There were no recognised villages like those in India but just localities. There was minimal contact with the government, with Europeans other than the CSR Company’s officers, and with the indigenous Fijians. Indian society in Fiji, with its flexibility, openness, and looseness of hierarchy, was very different from that of India itself. Differences were maintained between

12 The Setting major cultural categories like the North and South Indians and the Muslims, but caste was now, except in preferred marriages, little more than a cultural memory invoked by individuals to reinforce other arguments about status. Physical characteristics and personality types were different too. The Fiji-born Indian was taller, he was less con­ stricted by caste and custom, and he seemed more care-free. Fiji may not have been a South Seas paradise for the Indian but the struggle for existence was less than in the overcrowded and constricted villages of the Gangetic Plain and South India. As Pearson, the first Secretary for Indian Affairs, observed: The Fiji born Indian and the old settler has in a strange way absorbed something of the Fiji mentality. His temperament is more equable than that of the home Indian of the same class. He is less easily excited and takes a more tolerant and humorous view of things. New arrivals from India fail to understand this. One of them recently launched forth on a violent attack on the degrading cus­ toms of the Fiji Indians which has been received with some resent­ ment not unmixed with amusement. 10

At the same time, the Fiji-born Indian was more alone in the world and had more need to struggle and more opportunity to advance him­ self than his Fijian neighbour had. New kinship ties were formed in Fiji, and new patterns of association based on the requirements of co-operation for cane-harvesting and school and temple building. The social structure and economy of the Fiji Indian rural settlements have been studied by social anthropologists and geographers, and the reader who wishes to know more is referred to their published work. 11

A singular feature of the society of the British Crown Colony of Fiji was the limited interaction between the Fijians and the Indians. Those unfamiliar with Fiji may feel that writers who do not concen­ trate on Fijian-Indian relations are guilty of errors of omission and judgment. But the documentary and oral evidence is clear for the period covered by this book. Social contact between the Fijians and the Indians was superficial and intermarriage exceptionally rare. The Fijians were governed by a separate administration and legal system, they lived in their own regulated villages, and were encouraged to maintain a distinct Fijian way of life. By and large, the Fijians and the Indians followed different religions, had different occupations, and attended separate schools. This differentiation at the local level was

13 The Fiji Indians later reinforced by separate institutions at the colony-wide level, including separate political representation and separate associations. In 1930 a Fiji official summed it up: Although it has not been the calculated policy of the Fijian Govern­ ment to keep the 3 races apart on the principle of divide et impera, I believe that the Government has deliberately refrained, chiefly in the interests of the Fijian race, whose interests in Fiji I assume should be, like the interests of the Africans in Kenya, paramount, from hastening in any degree the process of forming close ties between the Fijian and the Indian.12 Separation did not imply conflict, however. Mindful of the experi­ ence of other countries, the outsider may again be inclined to question the writer’s judgment. The historical record is clear. There were some serious riots in the 1880s when Fijians, Pacific Islanders, and Indians were employed on the same plantations and even lived in the same labour lines,13 but there was no trouble where they lived apart, which was to become the normal pattern. In 1926 the Acting Agent-General of Immigration briefed the newly appointed Secretary for Indian Affairs: The relations which exist between the Indian and the Fijian will interest the Secretary for Indian Affairs. They are remarkably friendly. There is a mutual feeling of superiority — it is almost amusing. The S.I.A. will have very few disputes, Indian v. Fijian, placed before him. Difficulties in regard to land matters sometimes arise, but, on the whole, seldom.14 It was stated in the annual report on the administration of Fiji for the same year: ‘Fijians and Indians live side by side in perfect amity. They do not intermarry and have practically no social relations with one another, and disputes between members of the two races are rare.’15 The government files do show a few incidents of friction, such as Indian protests about Fijians stealing cattle and killing animals. There were reports of Fijians threatening Indians at times of intense political discussion, and during the Indian strikes in 1920 and 1921 Fijians were enrolled as auxiliary police. But these were the exceptions which proved the rule. This is not to say there was mutual respect or liking. The two races were markedly different in their customs, motivations, and temperaments. The Indian stereotype of the Fijian was of an irresponsible, childish, uncivilised fellow, or jungli, while the Fijian

14 The Setting

learned to avoid the heathen and undersized Indian coolie, brought to Fiji to work as a plantation slave. The self-esteem of each group was bolstered by the presence of the other. There was little general cordiality, but neither, in the absence of competition, was there overt hostility or occasion for conflict. This statement should, however, be qualified. The plural society concept, though particularly apt for Fiji, should not be pushed too far. British culture, as the dominant culture upheld by the government in its laws and institutions, and as the culture of the rich and powerful, had a pervasive influence on all communities in Fiji. There were some ties between individuals across racial lines and they became more common with increasing westernisation. There was, too, some exchange between the Fijian and Indian cultures, though its precise nature is difficult to assess and has yet to be studied by social anthropologists. Indian bus and taxi drivers, boatmen, and storekeepers saw a good deal of the Fijians, and relations between the Fijian landlords and their Indian tenants brought cultural borrowing as well as friction. The Indians, particularly the Fiji-born, imbibed some of the Fijians’ relaxed attitude, and the Fijians could not fail to be influenced by the example of individual enterprise and industry set by the Indian farmers. The Fijians learnt many techniques from their Indian neighbours, particu­ larly in the cane-growing areas. The Fijians took to eating curry and the Indians to drinking yaqona (kava). Indian popular religion in Fiji incorporated some of the pre-Christian deities of the Fijians. Gradually the Fijian stereotype of the kai Idia as a person who did not count, became tinged with grudging respect for his agricultural and commercial prowess and with fear of being dispossessed from the land. The most important contacts occurred through land relations. Swami Avinashananda, thinking no doubt of the landlords of his own South India, remarked that the Fijians were the ‘Brahmins of Fiji’.16 In 1932 the retired first Secretary for Indian Affairs gave a sober assessment of the relations between the Fijians and the Indians:

There is practically no intermarriage though over large tracts the population lives in close proximity to the Fijian villages. Relations are on the whole amicable. Most Indians can speak Fijian and quite a number of Fijians know some Hindustani. The two communities differ so widely in attributes that they seem in a way to supplement each other. The Fijian landlord thrives on the rents of the Indian tenantry and can on occasion get accommodation from his thrifty

15 The Fiji Indians

neighbour, who in turn at times gets some of his own back. As landlords the Fijians are apt to be exacting and inconsiderate but as they take more extensively to field cultivation they may be expected to gain better understanding of where the shoe pinches for the peasant farmer. Personality enters a good deal into relations. I have met Fijian headmen who took a paternal interest in affairs of his tenant neighbours and Indians who are widely respected by the Fijians of their district. It has been said that Fijians despise the Indians. There may have been some of this feeling in the past but I do not think it is pronounced nowadays. On the whole I think it can be said that relations are in most respects surprisingly good, considering the widely different origins and qualities of the two races. They only require moderate attention and guidance to remain so.17

It was not with Fijian-lndian but with European-Indian relations that the main difficulties arose. The Ctown Colony of Fiji was a European dominated order — politically, economically, and socially. In contrast to most of the other places where Indians had been taken as indentured labourers, such as Mauritius and the West Indies, there was in Fiji a vigorous indigenous culture supported by entrenched landrights and a separate native administration, and the Fijians were encouraged to preserve a distinct Fijian identity. In time this would determine the political position of the Indians in Fiji. But in 1920 the fact of European dominance was more important and the problems of European-Indian relations more pressing than those of Fijian-lndian relations. European dominance was expressed in many ways: political, through the exclusion of Indians from any voice in central or local government; economic, through the power of Australian companies, notably the CSR, the exclusion of Indians from many non-manual posts, and differential wage-rates; educational, through separate schools and inadequate provision for Indian education; social, through racial discrimination in social life, in associations, and in public places; and ideological, through the uphold­ ing of British culture as the model and the downgrading of Indian culture. Correspondingly, the challenge to European dominance was to take many forms: political organisation, agitation, and boycott, economic striving and occupational diversification, educational initia tives, and the search for an Indian identity. Before 1920 the relations between the Europeans and the Indians

16 The Setting were, with rare exceptions, understood on both sides to be those of sahib and coolie, master and servant. Most of the Europeans regarded the Indians as a labour force only and took no other interest in them. In turn, the majority of the Indians in Fiji had come as boys or young men from an India where the white man had been rare, remote and respected, or they had been born in a Fiji where almost all Indians were poor and uneducated. Although a surprising number of educated, high-caste people had been drawn into the recruiter’s net, many of them had returned to India. A few Indians had become well-off through the planting of cane and money-lending to other Indians, but these people explicitly upheld the existing order, as did the Christian converts. Before 1920 racial relations between the Europeans and Indians in Fiji were superficially amicable. In 1919 C. F. Andrews wrote: ‘The social and racial treatment of Indians by Europeans in Fiji is far in advance of that which I have witnessed in Natal and better than the common experience in India itself.’18 During the influenza epidemic of 1918 much help was given by Europeans to Indian sufferers. But, as the Government of India’s Deputation noted in 1922: ‘It is well to remem­ ber that the old spirit of tolerance was based on the admission of white superiority. It was the tolerance of master and servant.’19 Nor was this relationship accepted unquestioningly by all Indians. Some, particularly the few with a little education, especially in the Suva-Rewa area, resented the assumption of their inferiority, especially as white sahibs were all too-present and too-human. More abrasive relations soon came with the abolition of the indenture system and the growth of political consciousness among the Indians. On 1 January 1920 all remaining indentures were cancelled, and Fiji faced a potentially disastrous labour shortage. The prospects for a renewal of Indian immigration looked bleak in the light of India’s awakening of national pride and Fiji’s poor reputation there. On 30 December 1919 an unofficial mission from Fiji arrived in India. It came with Fiji Government blessing to try to secure the reopening of emigration to Fiji. The planters were hoping for 5000 immigrants a year. But while the mission was extolling the advantages Fiji offered to Indian settlers and explaining that the mistakes of the past had been greatly exaggerated by critics like Andrews, and in any case would not be repeated, the fed-up Indians in Fiji erupted in strike and riot.

17 n The 1920 Strike

The strike and riots of 1920 were of great importance in the history of Fiji: they threw the reality of the colonial system into sharp focus, and they had an important influence on later European, Fijian and Indian attitudes in Fiji, and on opinion in India.1 The origins of the strike lay inside and outside Fiji. For the Indian labourers the cost of living had greatly increased since before the war, while their wages had not kept pace and were in fact close to the borderline of bare subsistence. Almost all the rice and sharps consumed in Fiji were brought from Australia, which itself imported rice from India. In 1919 there were prolonged shipping strikes in Australia, there was a wide­ spread failure of the rice crop in India followed by a prohibition on the export of rice, and the Government of New South Wales banned the export of sharps. The price of other imported goods had also risen. It was widely believed by the Indians that the European merchants in Fiji were profiting from the shortages. The Europeans thought that the Indians were able, in some remarkable eastern way, to live com­ fortably on a pittance and even to become wealthy, as evidenced by the gold and silver jewellery worn by their women. Indeed, they were typically frugal, especially those who had been brought up in India, many grew much of their own food, and in those days they had few felt needs for consumer goods. But there was real economic distress among the labourers in the Suva-Rewa area in 1919 and 1920. The strike must be put in a wider social and political context also: the end of indenture, the contemporary upsurge of nationalism and important political events in India, and the beginning of political organisation among the Indians in Fiji. It is a truism that revolt is more likely to occur when the oppressed are looking up and see hope of improvement than when they are hope­ lessly downtrodden. The cancellation of indentures provided that hope for the Fiji Indians; it also lifted the lid from whatever resentment was held against European dominance and its attendant irritations and discourtesies. Using the analogy of the emancipated slave, the governor wrote to London: Though I do not consider that the Indians in Fiji have behaved in a worse fashion than, under the same circumstances, members of other races would have behaved — indeed in certain ways they have

18 The 1920 Strike

shown a notable restraint — yet no good purpose could result from concealing the fact that a certain swollen-headedness which is the natural fruit of the new economic independence, makes the Indian community, for employers and for Government alike, perilously difficult to handle at the present time.2 It should be remembered, too, that most of the adult Indians in Fiji had been born in India. They were not yet Fiji Indians, but Indians who thought of themselves as sojourners. Few had made a conscious decision to settle permanently in Fiji; many had simply put off return­ ing because of inertia, or because they thought they had not yet saved sufficient money to take back, while others were not yet eligible for a full passage, or had had their return delayed because of the wartime shortage of shipping. The Indians emotionally identified with India, not with Fiji which had treated them almost wholly as a labour force and had made no other demands on them. They were even more ‘colon­ ial’ than the many Englishmen, Australians, and New Zealanders who helped to make up the local European population. They followed events and trends in India, just as the Europeans looked to their own metropolitan centres. They were uneducated and illiterate, though not uncultured in the wider sense, and were susceptible to rumour and vulnerable to the demagogue. The scattered pattern of Indian settle­ ment, poor communications, and lack of official local government institutions, indeed of any government interest in the Indians except as indentured labourers or defendants in court, increased their isolation from any cultural or political influences other than those provided by their own memories of India and by rumour-mongers, malcontents, and those with some education who took an interest in affairs and claimed to have more knowledge of events in India than they did have in fact. In the minds of the poor Indian labourers and farmers in Fiji, super­ stitious omens and far-fetched speculation were mixed with garbled accounts of real happenings. By 1920 tales of great events in India had reached Fiji. Some news was published in the Fiji Times and Herald, some came in letters and newspapers from India, and some through the few Indians who were paying their own way to Fiji via Australia or New Zealand, including previous residents returning to the colony. There was the news of the promise of eventual home rule, the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms, the riots and the Amritsar massacre of April 1919, the dissatisfaction of Indian Muslims over the treatment of Turkey, the Khilafat agitation

19 The Fiji Indians

and hijrat (exodus), and of Gandhi and his satyagraha (militant non­ violent protest). The Europeans saw the disturbances in Fiji in 1920 and 1921 as part of the malicious political campaign they were sure was being waged against them by Andrews, Gandhi, and the agents they had sent to the colony. Here they were exaggerating. There was no conspiracy directed from India, and Gandhi sent no agents to Fiji; but there was certainly a harmony of ideals between the Indians in Fiji, those who came from India and assumed leadership of them, and the Indian national movement. The Europeans and the government were right when they said that Indian protest in Fiji had a political as well as an economic dimension. There had been no large-scale organised protest among the inden­ tured labourers, except in the mid 1880s when there were less strict labour laws and a sympathetic official reception of grievances by the Agent-General of Immigration, Henry Anson. Subsequently, there were few recorded incidents of disorder, as compliance was generally assured by severe plantation discipline, penal sanctions, and illegal violence by the overseers and sirdars. Individual and small-scale pro­ test took the form of desertions, high suicide rates and murder of over­ seers. Among the Indians whose indentures had expired, combination was hampered by geographical dispersion, lack of leadership and education, and the return of many to India. By 1920 the political organisation of the Indians in Fiji was as yet rudimentary, but there were a number of leaders and two organisations, one on the north­ western side of Viti Levu and the other on the south-eastern side. Since the disturbances of 1920 were confined to the Suva-Rewa area, the south-eastern leadership and organisation will be considered in this chapter, and the north-western in the next chapter. The Suva-Rewa area was the longest-established area of Indian settlement in Fiji. Suva was the capital of the colony and its principal town and port. The sugar mill centre of Nausori, the principal town on the Rewa, was twelve miles away by road, and Navua, another mill centre, about thirty miles away by sea. There was a tendency for educated Indians to be concentrated in Suva and Nausori, which offered opportunities in teaching, law and government. Those who sought to make a living at other than manual work, drifters, and those awaiting repatriation to India, congregated in Suva. The governor observed, too: ‘There has always been a tendency for malcontents and bad characters to gravitate towards the south coast centres.’3 In the south-east there was a higher proportion of North Indians than of

20 The 1920 Strike

Southerners, who had been brought to Fiji only from 1903 onwards, following the opening of the new sugar mill at Lautoka on the north­ western coast; political discontent with the British Raj was at that time stronger in North than in South India. In 1911 the British Indian Association of Fiji was formed by a group that included J. P. Maharaj (a Suva storekeeper), Totaram Sanadhya (a pandit on the Rewa), Babu Ram Singh (a Suva printer) and Ram Rup. Following a severe hurricane that had brought much distress to the Indians in the Suva-Rewa area, they discussed grievances such as their lack of educated leadership and their dependence on European lawyers. They wrote to Mahatma Gandhi, who was leading the struggle for Indian rights in South Africa, to ask him to send a lawyer to help the Indians in Fiji. Gandhi replied that he would send an English- educated patriot when he found a suitable one and asked to be kept in touch with conditions in Fiji. This correspondence was published in Indian Opinion and noticed by a Gujarati lawyer in Mauritius, Manilal Maganlal Doctor. Manilal was anxious to leave Mauritius, where he could not earn a living, and decided, against Gandhi’s advice, to go to Fiji. In Mauritius, Manilal published a paper and agitated on behalf of the Indian community. He angered the European community, and the Mauritius Government passed a banishment order on him, though this was disallowed. When he was in India in 1910 he spoke against the indenture system, but he was discountenanced by Gokhale on account of his personal failings.4 As Manilal was the only significant leader the Indians in Fiji had before 1920, it was unfortunate that he was not a man who commanded the general respect of government officers and other Europeans who dealt with him, though it must be said in his favour that anyone who questioned the established racial order in Fiji would not have found relations with them easy, whatever his character. Manilal emerges from the record as touchy, resentful, underhand, and careless with the truth. His private life was irregular; he brought a creole mistress with him to Fiji, and later an Indian wife arrived. His wife, Jayakunvar, was the daughter of Dr Pranjivan Mehta of Ran­ goon. While engaged to Manilal, she lived in Gandhi’s ashram in South Africa (Tolstoy Farm) and participated in civil disobedience move­ ments. Manilal also lived there for a short time but declined to take part in the manual work which was part of the policy of the settlement.5 Neither Manilal nor his wife was an ‘agent’ of Gandhi's, as the govern­ ment suspected, but they certainly shared the aspirations of the new

21 The Fiji Indians

India. Manilal was an opponent of the indenture system, a champion of Indian rights, including those of the poorer class, and an Indian nationalist who prided himself on being a citizen of Baroda State, not of British India. Manilal arrived in 1912 and was enthusiastically welcomed by the Indians in Suva. He set up a law practice and for several years made no particular mark on the life of the colony. He defended Indians in court, often for very low fees, and wrote letters and petitions for them. The government was suspicious of him but occasionally consulted him on Indian affairs. He sent reports to the press in India, suggesting that traders, craftsmen, and professional men come to the colony. For a time he was the editor of the English section of the first Indian paper published in Fiji, the brief-lived monthly Indian Settler, in 1917. He was one of several people to write against the indenture system and he played only a minor role in the ending of it. He was himself an employer of two indentured labourers and the government later treated this as evidence that he was a hypocrite.6 Manilal did advance the political organisation of the Indians in Fiji. At meetings in Suva, Rewa and Navua in 1916 and 1917 it was decided to form an association ‘to further the well-being, political in particular, of the Indian settlers in Fiji’. The Indian Imperial Association of Fiji was inaugurated on 2 June 1918 at Mahant Pingal’s cottage near Flag­ staff, Suva. It is said that Manilal objected to the name ‘British Indian Association’ because he was not a citizen of British India. The object of the association was stated to be ‘to watch the interests of and to assist in the general improvement of the Indian community in Fiji’. In 1920 the secretary, Babu Ram Singh, claimed a membership of eighty-seven, with a committee of twelve.7 Individuals from country areas applied for membership, but there were no country branches. The Indians at Ba expressed an interest, and Manilal was visiting them when the strike broke out in Suva in January 1920. The Indian Imperial Association of Fiji was not affiliated with any society in India. It claimed to correspond with the Imperial Indian Citizenship Association of Bombay, the Indian National Congress, and C. F. Andrews, but it is likely that this correspondence was largely one-way — complaints about conditions in Fiji and requests for assistance. In 1919 Manilal fell out with the government. He had applied for the lease of some Fijian land at Nausori on which he intended to build an office, but had been refused because the land was in the Fijian village and on the river-bank near a ferry approach which might need

22 The 1920 Strike to be diverted. He then made an irregular agreement with the Fijian owners and started to erect the office. When he did not comply with an order to depart, he was fined £10, in default one month’s imprison­ ment, and the fine was paid. Manilal was bitter about the incident and involved his Indian Imperial Association. On 24 September 1919 a meeting of the association resolved that it viewed the prosecution and conviction of Manilal with ‘alarm, deep sorrow and profound indigna­ tion’, and noted that many European settlers had themselves acquired land from the Fijians for presents of guns, match boxes, and illicit liquor, and that the ‘local European clique’ did not want Manilal to have an independent practice. But a subsequent letter to the Fiji Times and Herald, signed ‘non-member’, complained that the Indian Imperial Association was a ‘quasi-secret society’ consisting of Manilal, George Suchit, Ram Singh, and about a dozen of their personal friends.8 Manilal and his Indian Imperial Association were never popular with the government or the European community, and they positively infuriated them when they sent this telegram to Andrews who had it published in the Indian press: The Government of Fiji is sending an official and the Bishop to contradict Mr Andrews in India and to induce the renewal of labour emigration to Fiji. In influenza epidemic the Indian mortality was highest owing to lack of medical care. Indians were miserable. Many who were left destitute occupied native Fijian land and were prose­ cuted. Mr Manilal, Barrister, was singled out and sentenced to one month’s imprisonment, in spite of flaws in the procedure and evi­ dence, for building office on a native chief’s land with the consent under the law professedly passed to protect Indians. No suitable land is available. Sydney strike has ruined banana growers. Flour not to be had. Local rice is treble in price. People are unable to pay hut taxes and rents. Outlook serious. Please represent the matter to the Indian Government.9 The second paragraph of the telegram was true enough, but the Fiji Government was annoyed by the appeal over its head to the Indian Government, especially when it was hoping that the mission to India would be able to bring about a resumption of Indian immigration. Indeed, Ram Singh later told the government: ‘The object of our cable­ gram was to show that Fiji is unsuitable as it is to any further emigra­ tion from India, which we are prepared to prove by arguments from

23 The Fiji Indians concrete examples ad libitum/ 10 The first paragraph of the telegram was a distortion of the facts. The telegram confirmed the Fiji Govern­ ment in its opinion that Manilal and the Indian Imperial Association were not worthy of official recognition. On 26 December 1919 the association organised a conference of Indians in the Suva town hall. Manilal was chairman, did most of the talking, and moved several resolutions, including one in favour of self-government for India, another in sympathy with those who suffered in the Punjab riots, and others calling for the cancellation of the remaining indentures by the end of the year, the abolition of the Masters and Servants Ordinance, a minimum wage to be fixed by law, equal educational facilities, and permitting of repatriates to take sover­ eigns out of the country (the export of gold coin had been prohibited in 1916, and this was a popular grievance, on account of the loss on the exchange). The atmosphere at the meeting was emotional. There were cries of ‘Hindu-Mussalman ki jai’, ‘Mahatma Gandhiji ki jai’, and ‘Mahatma Tilak ki jai’. No such gathering of Indians had taken place in Fiji before. Indenture was over, freedom at hand. Now the Indians would insist on their rights.11 On 29 December the Indian Imperial Association of Fiji sent a list of requests to the government. They included: immediate cancellation of indentures; repeal of the Masters and Servants Ordinance; improved educational facilities; training of Indian medical officers as the Fijians were being trained; permission for repatriates to take sovereigns with them; establishment of a sugar-cane board; abolition of the hut tax and hawkers’ licences; agricultural training and financial help for co-opera­ tive credit societies or agricultural banks; better pay for Indian skilled workers such as locomotive drivers and those handling dangerous machinery; worker’s compensation; better roads to Indian settlements; easier acquisition of land, without distinction of race; better railway and local steamship facilities, in place of the unsatisfactory deck pas­ sage arrangements for Indians; amendment of the Municipal Institu­ tions Ordinance to make it possible for most Indian ratepayers to vote at municipal elections; and ‘that the political franchise should be open to Indians and all Fiji Ordinances should be so amended as to enable Indians to do most of the things permitted to be done by Europeans only’.12 Rodwell ignored them. ‘Take no notice, for the present at any rate’, he ordered.13 Instead, Manilal was asked if the account of the meeting published in the Fiji Times and Herald was correct, and Ram Singh for

24 The 1920 Strike details of the Indian Imperial Association. The account was not strictly accurate.14 Manilal claimed that his statements were ‘not only incor­ rectly reported but even mutilated, perverted and embroidered upon by a handful of designing persons, who are pursuing a campaign of mis­ representation against me for their own ends, without even opening a chance to reply’.15 He was referring to certain Indian Christians, especially the Grant family, but it is possible that bad interpretation and translation from Hindi to English were to blame. The Europeans were angered by the newspaper report for its evidence of Indian assertive­ ness and the implication that the Indians were ungrateful for everything that had been done for them during the epidemic. Manilal did refer to government neglect of Indian interests, in contrast to European and Fijian interests, as a cause of mortality during the influenza epidemic, though he may merely have been referring to the policy to have the Fijians living in villages with appropriate services, rather than dispersed like the Indians. On receipt of Ram Singh’s letter, giving the requested information, the Colonial Secretary noted: ‘We can afford to ignore them.’16 He was mindful that the Fiji mission had already arrived in India and was negotiating with the Indian authorities. But for Fiji, the worst was yet to come. On 15 January 1920 the Indian labourers employed by the Public Works Department in Suva struck work after being told that in future they would have.to work 48 hours per week, not 45. When they were informed the next day they could return to work on the old terms, they refused, saying: ‘We do not get enough to satisfy our bellies.’ In the opinion of the Commissioner of Works: ‘The strike is nothing more or less than a strike against the high prices of all Indian foodstuffs . . . All deputations which I have seen have complained of the cost of living, nothing else.’17 During the next week the strike became general among the Indian labourers in Suva and on the Rewa. There were also strikes at Navua and, briefly, at Levuka. No definite demands were put forward but there was talk of a general demand for a daily wage of 5s. The speakers at the strike meetings generally counselled respect for law and order, there was no public talk against the government, but much re­ sentment was expressed against the merchants (largely Europeans) who were blamed for the high prices and had undoubtedly been profiteer­ ing.18 Instances of intimidation of other Indians to strike were reported, and the government enrolled twenty-four European special constables as a precaution. The first confrontation between the government forces and the

25 The Fiji Indians strikers came at Nausori on 27 January, when a crowd of about 1000 sought the release of three Indians who were accused of intimidating others. The leaders, Fazil Khan, Fateh Khan and Sarju restrained the crowd, but at times violence looked possible.19 Police reinforcements and a machine-gun section of the Defence Force were sent from Suva. On 29 January at Toorak (an Indian location in Suva) a mob, confront­ ing a hotel manager who was said to have flogged an Indian servant and used insulting language to passing Indians, was dispersed by a police baton charge. Another crowd at Tamavua (a village on the outskirts of Suva) was persuaded to disperse. On 30 January the governor received a deputation headed by Mrs Manilal and was given a statement of grievances that referred especially to the high cost of living and the low wages and asked the government to pay its labourers 5s. per day and appoint a commission to consider the question of controlling prices. The governor had already decided not to grant any increase until work was resumed but he announced that he would appoint a commission to consider wages and the cost of living. The government was well aware of the shortage of foodstuffs and high prices, and on the same day it issued a proclamation that all stocks of necessary commodities were to be declared.20 The commission was formed the next day and it included one member nominated by the Indians. But the strikers still did not return to work. By now the strike had begun to look more serious. On 28 January the European elected members of the Legislative Council called on the governor to tell him that the ‘public’ were becoming alarmed, that the attitude of the Indians was believed to be ‘largely racial’, and that there were reports of a large and hostile Indian demonstration being planned for Monday, 2 February. On Sunday morning Rodwell met the leading citizens of Suva in the defence force club and counselled restraint and non-interference with peaceable demonstrations. All available forces stood by at daybreak the next morning, but there was no demonstration. On the next day there were reports from the Rewa of concentrations of Indians, talk of looting stores, and interference with the telephone lines. In the governor’s words: ‘Trouble of a more or less serious nature seemed inevitable and preparations were hurried forward.’21 The de­ fence force was mobilised, and orders given that the crossing of the Rewa river by Indians in considerable numbers was to be prevented, though the troops were ordered to exercise the greatest patience and restraint.22 Two of the strike leaders, Bhagwati Prasad Sharma and Fazil Khan, wrote to the police to protest against the sending of troops

26 The 1920 Strike to Nausori: 'One more reason why the Bishop of Polynesia and Mr Rankine should God grant it, fail in their attempt to get out more Indians from India to share our fate here.’23 That remark could hardly have reassured the government that the strike was not ‘political’. Racial feeling now became more evident. Indians working for Europeans were called out on strike, but not those working for Indians. Bands of hooligans intimidated those who would not give up their work. An important part was played by Indian women, headed by Mrs Manilal. She addressed meetings exhorting the strikers not to return to work until a wage of 5s. per day was granted, and to prevent others from doing so. She told them of her experience in South Africa, re­ minded them of Gandhi’s struggle there, and urged them to economise by giving up smoking, cinemas and other luxuries. Groups of women shamed men into supporting the strike.24 Wild rumours circulated among the Indians: for example, that help would soon arrive from the north-western districts or even from India. On 5 February the Commission on Wages and the Cost of Living held its first sitting and the governor issued a proclamation calling for a return to work. He ignored a verbal request to go out to Nausori, unofficially, accompanied only by the Agent-General of Immigration and the Inspector-General of Constabulary, and attend a meeting of the strikers at which no other European should be allowed to be present. The governor wrote in his report: The request was illustrative of the dictatorial attitude now being assumed by the strike leaders . . . The proposal that the Governor should make a journey of 14 miles, in order to parley in a clandestine fashion with strikers, was one which I need hardly say I should not have been prepared to entertain for a moment, and I regret that the leaders did not put forward their request in writing and so afford me an opportunity of telling them what I thought of the suggestion. Later on I was shown the draft of an address which had been prepared to be presented to me at the proposed meeting. It had very little to do with the stated grievances, namely the cost of living and the rate of wages, and consisted of a long resume of political complaints and aspirations. It was in fact a clear proof that the economic grievances, on which the leaders had induced the labourers to strike, had been relegated to the background, and that the movement had been con­ verted into a political agitation. 1 may mention here that, at one of the previous meetings at Suva above referred to, a resolution was solemnly passed ordaining that, while all other Indian domestic ser- 27 The Fiji Indians

vants were to be called out under threats of beating, those in the employ of the Governor, the Chief Justice and the Colonial Secretary might be specially exempted.25 This statement exemplified the character of the political and social order in Fiji, and revealed the gap between the assumptions of the dominant Europeans and those of the Indians. In 1922 the Government of India’s deputation mentioned this incident in its report: We cannot but feel that this invitation was grievously misunder­ stood. The right of the humblest subject to approach the hakim [ruler] has from time immemorial been the foundation of all govern­ ment in India. We do not think that there was any intention to be dictatorial. It was scarcely possible for the people of the Rewa Dis­ trict to go to Suva; they would not have been permitted to go. Nor is it surprising that they wished to see the Governor alone. They feared that powerful influences were working against them; but if only they could meet the Governor face to face, they still hoped for redress. Their anxiety to place their grievances personally before the Governor should, in our opinion, have been regarded as a mark of confidence, not of disrespect.26 On 7 February, following an Indian meeting at Suva, a group of Indians wrote to the government, asking for an immediate end to the Masters and Servants Ordinance and, if an increase of wages to 5s. could not be granted, for land grants and advances. A footnote to the letter was in Manilal’s handwriting. The governor ruled: ‘This imper­ tinent letter appears to come within the same category as the one which was addressed to me by Rewa Indians in the expectation that I would attend a meeting of them there. This letter, like the other, may remain unanswered.’27 The tone of Rodwell’s minutes and report on the strike reflected his character: haughty, authoritarian, very conscious of his dignity. The whole of his previous colonial service since 1900 had been in South Africa. By 11 February almost all the Europeans of military age were under arms. Fijians in Rewa, Navua, and elsewhere were enrolled as special constables; 200 from the Lau group were recruited by G. M. Hennings and formed an auxiliary force that helped patrol the roads and protect the bridges. The first serious collision occurred at Suva on 11 February. A crowd of Indians with sticks tried to march into Suva to rescue Mrs Manilal, whom they had heard, wrongly, had been arrested. They were

28 The 1920 Strike persuaded to disperse and two other crowds were also turned back. But in Toorak, after a special constable tried to arrest an Indian woman, the police were chased away by a mob. More police and the military were called, the area surrounded, and 165 arrests made. On the same day the telephone wires between Suva and Nausori were broken and there was a confrontation at the Rewa bridge between an Indian crowd and Fijian and European special constables with fixed bayonets. At an early stage Rodwell decided to call for military forces from Australia and New Zealand. He wrote in his report on the strike: Even if a sufficient force could have been organised locally it was clear that the Indians would never believe in its sufficiency; and the inevitable result of a collision between several thousands of Indians, and a force which they believed they could over-power, although in the end the armed force would probably have prevailed, would have been a resort to rifle and machine-gun fire involving serious blood­ shed and damage to property.28 The Admiralty in London said that there was no ship available to send to Fiji; and that in any case it was not the function of the navy to maintain order in a colony unless troops were unavailable.29 The Australian government agreed to send a warship. The sloop Marguerite arrived on 14 February and was sent to the north-western coast of Viti Levu ‘to overawe coloured population and reassure public’. Rod- well expected a general strike of Indians throughout Fiji involving a grave risk to European lives and property in the outlying coastal dis­ tricts.30 The New Zealand Government agreed to send troops but they were late in leaving for Fiji: Some delay occurred in getting coal for the vessel which took them down, as the waterside workers here objected to coal a ship which was being sent on what they regarded as a strike-breaking expedi­ tion, but they gave way when it was made clear that the men would only be employed to protect Europeans — including women and children — against excesses by rioting Indians.31 The New Zealand force of sixty troops with Lewis gun sections arrived on 12 February and reinforced the police at Suva and Nausori. Up to now the police had been exercising patience and restraint which was, it seems likely, being interpreted by the European public as undue

29 The Fiji Indians latitude towards the Indians, and by some of the Indians as weakness. Rodwell was now in a position to take strong action. He telegraphed London on 12 February that the Indian unrest was assuming the character of a racial outbreak rather than a strike, that bloodshed was inevitable, and that Indian agitators were trying to disaffect the Fijians. The incident at the Samabula bridge occurred the next day. The police and military held up a crowd of Indians who wanted to come into Suva to obtain food and see those in custody. The police then crossed the bridge and hustled the crowd. When a number of the Indians resisted with sticks and stones, the police fired revolver shots in self- defence, killed one Indian and wounded several. The strike came to an end soon after this incident. On 15 February, T. E. Fell, the Col­ onial Secretary, went to Nausori, addressed some of the Indians, and gave permits to a few Indian storekeepers to come into Suva to make special purchases; and Badri Mahraj, the nominated Indian member of the Legislative Council, warned a meeting at Nausori of the danger into which they were being led by agitators. On the following day the Indians were reported to be returning to work. The strike was crushed. In the governor’s view:

As to the strike and accompanying disorders, the former was unjusti­ fiable and the latter were criminal and injurious to every interest. The strikers have gained nothing which they could not have obtained by representing their grievances to the Government in a constitu­ tional manner.32

Certainly the Cost of Living Commission found that the cost of living had increased for Indians by 86 per cent since before the war. This satisfied the government that some relief was necessary for Indian wage-earners, but it was reluctant to increase wages because that would put pressure on other employers to do the same, and it was not con­ vinced that the rise in prices would be permanent. Instead it reduced the cost of living by subsidising the sale of imported rice and a scheme for the planting of rice and other Indian foodstuffs. Indian labourers employed by the government were given a temporary ration allowance, unless they had advantages such as rent-free houses or land for cultiva­ tion.33 Subsequently the hut-tax and customs duties on essential food­ stuffs were abolished. It is possible, but not likely, that these measures would have been taken even if the Indians had not gone on strike, though the government had certainly been aware for some time of the

30 The 1920 Strike shortage of foodstuffs and the rise in cost of living, and had done nothing. It is conceivable that if the Indians had presented a limited, courteous request for an investigation solely into wages and the cost of living that something would have been done, but it is doubtful whether the CSR and other private employers would have agreed to follow any lead by the government. In fact, however, Manilal and his friends, flushed with what they saw as their victory over the indenture system and aware of Fiji’s importuning of India for more labour, made all their demands at once. The government gave concessions on the cost of living, but did not let down its guard. On 12 February the Legislative Council had passed a special ordinance for the public safety, and regulations issued under it restricted the movement of Indians and their holding of meetings.34 These regulations continued in force in Suva, Rewa, and Navua for three months after the strike ended and were also applied in a limited form in Nadi for a while. They led to harassment by the security forces and complaints to the political officer who had been appointed as act as a liaison between the government and the Indians. Madame Cabrie, Manilal’s mistress, complained to the Secretary of State in London about the breaking down of the door of her house on suspicion that a meeting of more than seven Indians was being held there.35 The orders applied to Indians only and created resentment and a feeling of humil­ iation among those who had been in no way associated with the strike. Some leading Indian citizens on the north-western coast petitioned the government against them: On account of the high cost of living, and in order that their stom­ achs might be filled, certain refractory individuals of the three districts [Suva, Navua, Rewa] committed acts of folly; and because of this handful of malcontents thousands of innocent people have been made to suffer . . . Good and bad are found in all classes and in all countries.36 In prosecuting those who had committed offences during the strike, the government enlisted the aid of H. M. Scott and R. Crompton, the leading European lawyers in Suva. At first they found it difficult to persuade any Indians, including policemen, to give evidence against other Indians, but they were helped by several people styled by the government as ‘loyal’ Indians (without quotation marks), especially Christians. On 10 February a group of ‘loyal Indian British Subjects’ sent a letter to the government asking for protection against interfer-

31 The Fiji Indians ence by political agitators; the letter was signed by Anthony, Peter and John F. Grant, Ilahi Ramjan, Deoki, P. Raihman, and twenty-three others. Later, a group of ‘loyal Indians’ (including the Grants, Ilahi Ramjan and Badri Mahraj) asked the government to punish the agitators responsible for the recent troubles, and pledged their help in bringing them to justice. Evidence against the strike leaders was col­ lected by Dost Mohammed of Rewa, Anthony Grant of Suva, and others.37 The government was appreciative of the assistance it received from such people. After a group of thirty Punjabis handed in a memorial expressing their loyalty to the Emperor and to the British Government and their disapproval of the recent disturbances, the governor wrote to the Secretary of State: In the midst of the campaign of grievances and misrepresentation which Manilal and other Indian agitators have been conducting against this Government, it was a gratifying experience to converse with a body of apparently well-to-do Indians who had no complaints to make and whose sole desire apparently was to see the Governor personally and assure him of their loyalty. Indians of this class may be in a minority in Fiji, but I am confident that it is a very strong minority and that much may be done by the maintenance of personal contact between them and the Government.38 A prominent supporter of the government was Badri Mahraj, who had in previous years defended the indenture system and criticised Andrews. He sent a telegram to the Government of India, asserting that the majority of the Indians in Fiji utterly disapproved of the strike, and asking it to disregard the reports being sent by Manilal and the Indian Imperial Association. He pressed the Fiji Government to take action against Manilal,39 but it had been contemplating his deportation for some months and did not need prompting. On 27 March an Order was made under the Peace and Good Order Ordinance, 1875, prohibiting Manilal, Mrs Manilal, Harapal Mahraj (a Hindu priest) and Fazil Khan (a wrestler) from residing for two years on Viti Levu or Ovalau, or within Macuata province on Vanua Levu.40 Legally, this was not a sentence of deportation, but it amounted to the same thing as the areas named were the main areas of Indian settlement and the only places where Indians could earn a living in Fiji. The government did not have sufficient evidence to ensure the conviction of Manilal on a charge of sedition; indeed an official in the

32 The 1920 Strike

Colonial Office noted ‘the evidence against Manilal is worthless’.41 The government regarded him as a seditious and dangerous agitator who had stirred up the trouble that had led to the strike and riots, and it was particularly incensed by the sending of dishonestly worded tele­ grams to Australia, India and London. The accusations which were reported in the Indian press included such base charges as that Indian women had been stripped naked and women and children outraged. Certainly Manilal had stirred Indian discontent, and he was undoubt­ edly anti-British and against European dominance, but whether these justified his exile from Fiji must remain a matter of opinion. He was not in Suva when the strike began and he did not play any active part in it. Mrs Manilal, Harapal Mahraj, and Fazil Khan, on the other hand, were banished because they were the most important leaders during the strike. Statutory declarations were obtained from various Indians to the effect that Fazil Khan had said the Sultan of Turkey had been degraded — a link with the Khilafat agitation in India. Fazil Khan and Harapal Mahraj were also alleged to have urged the des­ truction of property. Manilal was stated to have prided himself on being a citizen of Baroda State and not a brute subject, to have spoken contemptuously of the Europeans and the government, to have encour­ aged the Indians to strike, and to have told them that if they would follow him they would be governed from India (‘we are going to run this place’). Manilal was sent to Nukulau Island to await the next ship to New Zealand. He then sent in a unseemly flood of accusations and com­ plaints. A petition to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, signed by Manilal and others, denied the governor’s version of events and criti­ cised the European vested interests, the Fiji Times and Herald, and the Grant family. Manilal complained of his accommodation and food and rough treatment. ‘God save the Fiji Government from the retribu­ tion due to their underlings or their exploiters the capitalists’ he wrote from ‘Imperialism University, Coolie Examination Hall, Nukulau’. In another letter he observed: I happened to read Red Europe by Frank Anstey, M.P., Melbourne, during this my exile and I am profoundly affected and arrive at one conclusion that the true place of every Indian must be in India and that there is no hope of gaining anything from European civilization. In India, we must fight tooth and nail this European civilization by the revival of our old spiritual life; otherwise Indians will be swal-

33 The Fiji Indians

lowed up like the rest of the world in the abysmal chaos of capital­ ism or Imperialism, and God only knows, where that my [sic] lead.42 Manilal and the others left Fiji on 15 April 1920. Wide support for Manilal was now shown, as the secretariat in Suva received petitions in various languages, signed by thousands of Indians from all over Fiji. Several of them were identically worded and were undoubtedly inspired by Manilal’s friends in the Indian Imperial Asso­ ciation, but they did reflect the widespread sympathy for him and the Indians’ general feeling that he was their only leader. A typical petition, from 1500 Indians, read, in part: We do not want to live in this country without a proper leader to guide us and one who safeguards our interests. If it is contended that he has committed any offence or broken any law of the country, we do not see any reason why the Government prefer expelling him from here rather than proceeding against him in a Court of Justice. In the absence of a prosecution against him we are inclined to think that it is because he might be an undesirable person in the estima­ tion of the European community and the Government of this country in advocating our cause. In that case we do not see how any self- respecting Indian can continue to live here any longer. In his reply to that petition Rodwell stated, among other things, that ‘Manilal has been the worst enemy of Indian progress in Fiji. If the petitioners knew all that the Government knows about him they would rejoice at his departure’. If they wished to be repatriated, that could be arranged, ‘malcontents are not wanted here’.43 The events of the 1920 strike signalled the beginning of the post­ indenture ‘Indian problem’ in Fiji: that is, the claim of the Indians to complete equality of citizenship, a claim made first against the Euro­ pean dominated order, and later to be extended to the Fijians. The strike was precipitated by economic grievances, but its implications were more profound. Because the employers were Europeans and the workers Indians, any major industrial dispute had racial overtones and was likely to turn into a general challenge to the existing social and economic order, and involve the government in the defence of that order. The Europeans and the government were right in seeing the strike as more than a non-political industrial disturbance but as a challenge to unquestioned European dominance. But these implications were seen and understood by only a few Indians, among them Manilal, and his opponents (such as the Indian Christians) whose interests were

34 The 1920 Strike closely bound up with the maintenance of European dominance. The majority were as yet confused and inarticulate. Those in the Suva- Rewa area had been elated by the cancellation of indentures and the conference in the town hall. They were left bewildered and insecure by the collapse of the strike, the deportation of the only Indian public figure they respected, and by the coldness, even hostility, that had been displayed by the Europeans and government during the strike. They had no one to turn to, no leaders of their own whom they could trust, and not even a government which would act as ‘protector of the poor’. There was a rush to leave Fiji as soon as possible. Because of the shortage of shipping during the war and immediately after it, the first repatriation steamer since 1916 did not leave Fiji until 1920. There would, therefore, have been a considerable number of potential repatriates even if there had not been a strike, but it is not possible to say how many.44 In the years before the war about 800 had returned each year. The government estimated that it would have been reasonable to expect 3200, or even 5000, in view of the general upheaval caused by the war. It was customary for many people to register their names but not turn up in Suva. Of those who were granted passages by the first four ships after the war, 23 per cent did not go. Then, too, many of those who elected to be repatriated did so with the intention of returning to Fiji after visiting India. The fact remains that by August 1920 11,369 had registered for repatriation, about 16 per cent of the Indian population. This number was obviously far greater than normal. The Rewa correspondent of the Fiji Times and Herald reported: ‘The “Rot” among the Indian population of the dis­ trict can safely be said to have set in properly, and there is a veritable scramble to get away to India at any price.’45 Many of the Indians sold their property and livestock at a fraction of its true value, often to Europeans. Some, on failing to sell their cattle, drove them into the bush.46 In part this desperation was an effect of the war, the interruption of shipping, and the news of events in India. ‘The Indian has felt himself shut off from his home country during the four years of the war and thus fell an easy pray [sic] to certain agitators who thought to alarm the planters and Government by the prospect of a labour shortage’, wrote the district commissioner, Ba. Others disagreed. G. R. Jordan, the immigration inspector at Ba, gave his opinion:

In some circles, the propaganda spread by unloyal and influential

35 The Fiji Indians

Indians is given as the cause for the seemingly unwarranted rush for return passages. This propaganda, which it is needless for me to here reiterate, has no doubt been the means of scaring a few of the weaker type into leaving for India earlier than they intended so doing, but that it is the cause of the general exodus and unrest, is in my opinion not correct. The root cause, he thought, was economic: ‘The rate of wages paid by the Colonial Sugar Refining Company Ltd. and others, is inadequate to allow the Indian labourer to enjoy a fair and reasonable standard of living.’47 Most of those applying for repatriation were labourers with little stake in Fiji, but others were farmers.48 The Indian farmer was faced with high store prices, heavy debts, and low returns from the cultivation of cane and other crops like bananas. A doubling of various licence fees in 1920 and a new requirement that commercial books had to be kept in either English or Fijian were unfortunately timed. After the collapse of the strike and the banishment of Manilal, many, par­ ticularly in the Suva, Rewa and Navua areas, felt abandoned in a hostile country, with no one to protect them. Most of the Indians, on the Rewa at least, had completely lost confidence in the government.49 They had even less in the CSR Company. Rumours spread like wildfire. There were stories that taxes were to be increased. Some wanted to leave at once because they thought the government intended to deprive them of their right to a full return passage; this sounded plausible because the limitation of the repatria­ tion right of migrants who arrived after 31 May 1906 was now taking effect. Or the opposite was believed: that the government proposed to drive them all out of the colony. There were garbled accounts of the constitutional changes in India; it was said that home rule was immin­ ent and that this would bring immense benefits. One rumour was that there would be a general rising in India and that the killing of Euro­ peans there would lead to reprisals against the Indians in Fiji. There was an even more alarming tale that when the Indians’ numbers had been sufficiently reduced by repatriation the Fijians would have an old-style feast of those who were left.50 One of the more irresponsible acts of Manilal and his friends was to mislead people into believing they could migrate to British Guiana. Before the strike, a notice posted throughout the Ba district, in Hindi, Tamil and Telegu read: Those who wish to go to Demerara will be paid at the rate of 5/-

36 The 1920 Strike

per day and provided with free lodging and a piece of land will be given for their own cultivation and we will be very happy—Euro­ peans and Indians will be treated as equal. If anyone desire to go to their native place they can go. There are Indians too in Demerara. Post Box 19 22nd November 1919 Suva.51 The post box number given was that of the Indian Imperial Associa­ tion. The Indians who went to Suva to take up the offer were told that the ships had not yet arrived. The association sent an absurd telegram to the Governor of British Guiana: ‘Indians abandoning Fiji thousands eager transmigrate Demerara state terms arrange ships.’52 On 23 February Manilal wrote to the police asking for permission to hold meetings of Indians ‘and just explain to them the British Guiana Colonization scheme and advise them to leave Fiji for better wages, more congenial rule from Governments and better conditions altogether’. He was refused. On 5 March he wrote to the governor to say that he was not afraid of being deported, because he wanted to go to a better colony anyway.53 Manilal was one Indian the government was glad to be rid of, but it wanted to keep most of the others. The shortage of labour had already reduced the output of the major sugar companies, and forced many Europeans to give up their plantations. The government made no special effort to overcome the shortage of shipping, arguing that the colony could not afford to charter more ships and that one every three months was the fastest rate at which repatriation could be handled having regard to the staff and depot accommodation and the distances from which families had to be brought — an explanation that did not convince the Colonial Office.54 More positively, the Fiji Government sought to counter the rumours which were circulating and being spread by disaffected Indians. That was not easy. The psychological gap between the aloof British administration and the credulous and sus­ picious Indians was epitomised by the report of one district commis­ sioner that some had read an official proclamation that warned people against the British Guiana emigration scheme as a recommendation that they should go there.55 As Rodwell noted on 24 June 1920: At the moment there seems to be a gulf between the Government and Local Indian opinion. On the one hand, the Government

37 The Fiji Indians

scarcely appear to secure as early and as reliable information about the fluctuations of Indian opinion as is desirable. On the other hand, Indians appear disposed to credit the Government with ridiculous and impossible intentions.56 In 1920 the government’s ignorance of Fiji’s Indian population was profound indeed. Apart from the police, the law courts, the collection of taxes and licence fees, and the consideration of applications to lease land, its main contact with them was through the Immigration Depart­ ment, which had been set up to deal with indentured labour. After the abolition of the system the department was allowed to run down. There was no local government specifically for the Indians, as there was for the Fijians. The district commissioners and the police officers were trained on the Fijian side of affairs, rather than the Indian, and depended on their Indian clerks and interpreters, some of whom the government suspected of disloyalty and of misrepresenting its inten­ tions. There were no senior European or Indian officers with experience in India. Similarly, the Indians did not understand how the government thought and functioned, and were distrustful of anything it did. There was one Indian member in the Legislative Council, Badri Mahraj, but as a government nominee, rich planter and erstwhile defender of the indenture system, he lacked credibility among most of the Indians, especially after the banishment of Manilal, for which he, together with the Grant family, was held responsible. The strike drew the attention of thoughtful Europeans to the need to try to understand the Indians and make greater contact with them. There was an acceleration of the development of government institu­ tions designed to deal specifically with Indian affairs. The governor proposed to London that a new post of Adviser on Indian Affairs be created to keep the government in touch with Indian opinion and advise it on political questions, though it was not until 1926 that the first Secretary for Indian Affairs was appointed. As a first step it was decided in July 1920 to station an officer in the Suva, Rewa and Navua districts, to travel about amongst the Indians, learn their doubts, and answer their questions; and advisory committees, comprising govern­ ment officers and missionaries, were set up. The hut tax was repealed, notices were printed in Indian languages, the searching of repatriates by Fijians, rather than by Europeans or Indians, was stopped, the licence fees were reduced, Indians who had served their term of inden­ ture were exempted from the requirement that commercial books had

38 The 1920 Strike to be kept in English or Fijian, the repatriation right of second-series migrants was extended for another ten years, and discrimination in admittance to the Suva Race Club was stopped.57 The government’s new restraint was shown during the strike of 1921. There was indeed a communication gap, but the Indians’ criticism and resentment, though naive and foolish in particulars, was correct in its premise that the government was upholding an established order in which their interests were assigned a low priority. The strike of 1920 impelled the Europeans to make more explicit their conception of European dominance, and it altered their perception of the Indians. They now understood that the Indians would not be content to remain a docile labour force. Doubts began to be expressed about whether a renewal of Indian immigration would be wise, and whether the price demanded by India might not be too high. The possibility of an Indian insurrection was considered, and Rodwell told the Legislative Council: ‘The Government has recognised the immediate necessity of placing the Police and Defence Forces upon a basis which will enable them to deal promptly and effectively with any similar trouble in the future, should it unfortunately arise.’58 The police were strengthened, Euro­ peans enrolled in rifle clubs, and a permanent machine-gun section of the Defence Force established. Reorganisation of the force had already been in train, but the Indian strike gave impetus to it. Rodwell told Dixon, the CSR’s inspector, that he feared there would be a worse Indian outbreak in which fire power would have to be used.59 The events of 1920 had repercussions outside Fiji also. The news of the strike and the request for military assistance drew the attention of people in Australia and New Zealand to ‘the Indian problem’ in Fiji. The press in both countries occasionally published reports on the colony’s affairs, and these were usually critical of the Indians. In turn the Fiji Times and Herald, and Europeans from Fiji who regularly visited Australia and New Zealand, reinforced apprehension about Asian penetration of the South Pacific. In Australia and New Zealand, the years following the war saw a renewed emphasis on security and on ensuring that the islands of the South Pacific were reserved for European, not Asian, expansion. In London, however, the news of the strike had little impact. The Colonial Office approved of Rodwell’s handling of the situation, but there was little information in the press. Fiji was far away and there were serious international problems closer to home. Almost a year later The Times commented: ‘We are entitled to resent the veil of official secrecy with which the troubles in Fiji

39 The Fiji Indians

have been almost completely hidden from the people of this country.’60 It deplored the use of troops from a dominion and urged the British Government to think of the consequences on relations with India. Indeed it was in India that the strike had its most important overseas repercussions. Even in those years of turbulent events in India, remote Fiji had a secure place in Indian political debate. The events of 1920 confirmed the extremists in their hostility to all emigration from India, and the moderates were persuaded that, whatever might be the position in other colonies, Fiji was certainly unsuitable as a place for Indian settlers. Andrews remarked: ‘There is very little public feeling about the West Indian colonies, but Fiji is like a red rag to a bull.’61 Public opinion was largely guided by his pronouncements. He drew on tele­ grams and letters from people in Fiji and he consulted Totaram San- adhya and Benarsidas Chaturvedi, who also wrote to the press. The Hindi language papers in the United Provinces, especially Partap, Aj, and Bharat Mitra, took a particular interest, because the majority of the Fiji Indians had come from there. Public associations, the Indian National Congress, the Imperial Indian Citizenship Association of Bombay, and the Marwari Association of Calcutta made representa­ tions to the Government of India, and it was also questioned in the legislature. In 1920 the Raj was faced with the task of containing extremist agitation, ranging from revolutionary terrorism to Gandhian militant non-violent protest, non-co-operation and civil disobedience, while at the same time it sought the co-operation of other sections of Indian political life in the working of the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms which were intended to be a stage on the path of India’s advance towards self-government within the British Empire. On the subject of emigra­ tion, the Government of India had decided to be guided by Indian opinion as expressed in the legislature, which would therefore be the body to decide whether enrgration should be re-opened to Fiji. But the treatment of Indians already living overseas was one which cer­ tainly concerned the executive branch of the Government of India, and one on which it did not want to seem inactive, though it was con­ tinually reproached with that charge. Most of the Indians in Fiji and other distant colonies had been taken there under a system of inden­ tured labour emigration that the Government of India had approved and supervised. The majority were still entitled to return passages to India. The public expected the Government of India to stand up for

40 The 1920 Strike their rights. Their treatment in the British colonies and the self-govern­ ing dominions was regarded as a test-case for the sincerity and prac­ ticability of Britain’s announced intention to make India a full and equal partner in the British Empire. Within the Government of India in 1920, questions relating to emigration and the problems of Indians overseas were dealt with by the Department of Commerce (or Revenue and Agriculture, or, later, Education, Health and Lands). Its British and Indian officers corres­ ponded with the India Office in London, which communicated with the Colonial Office, which in turn directed the Governor of Fiji. Occasion­ ally, the Government of Fiji wrote direct to the Government of India, and on a number of occasions Knox of the CSR Company personally addressed the Viceroy. The department in Delhi also considered repre­ sentations from the Indian public and prepared answers to questions raised in the Imperial Legislature. It consulted Andrews and regarded him, not only as the leading authority on Fiji, but as a key influence on Indian opinion, including that of Gandhi. To the extent that the Raj had an emigration policy after 1919, as distinct from just wanting to placate Indian opinion, it was to encourage emigration to places where Indians enjoyed the same rights as other classes of His Majesty’s subjects, so as: (a) to find an outlet for our surplus population, and open up a more prosperous career for our depressed classes; (b) to extend our commercial and economic influence; (c) to give Indians a wider outlook on the world generally.62 It tried to improve the status of the overseas Indians by making repre­ sentations to the colonial governments but was reluctant to invite rebuffs. Since it did not have a representative in Fiji, it was dependent upon what it was told by the Colonial Office, press reports, and inform­ ation supplied by Andrews from his correspondents. The unofficial mission which arrived from Fiji in December 1919 consisted of R. S. D. Rankine, the Receiver-General of the Colony, and the Right Reverend T. C. Twitchell, Bishop in Polynesia, who represented the Planters’ Association of Fiji. They presented a scheme for assisted immigration that sought to overcome the principal argu­ ments against the old indenture system: the break-down in family life and the compulsion to work for specific employers. The CSR sent its own representative, Thomas Hughes, with a separate scheme. The Colonial Office had already warned Rodwell that the mission’s task The Fiji Indians was hopeless because of the state of opinion in India.63 The mission soon learnt of the difficulties. A parallel deputation from British Guiana asked to negotiate first, lest Fiji’s reputation prejudice opinion against British Guiana also. The Fiji mission met the Viceroy and high govern­ ment officials, Gandhi, and a committee set up by the Imperial Legis­ lature. The government told the mission that Indian feeling was very bitter and that it did not intend to move towards a resumption of emigration to Fiji unless it were assured of substantial support from the unofficial members.64 Rankine wrote of the meeting with Gandhi: Our interview with him was quite friendly but it soon appeared that he is strongly opposed to emigration generally and that we could not rely on any assistance from him in obtaining consent to the resumption of emigration to Fiji. He considered that from the worst point of view the emigrant was sure to suffer by emigrating and it is doubtful whether the material aspect of this question really inter­ ests him in any way. Mr. Gandhi apparently fully believed in the picture painted by Mr. C. F. Andrews of the moral condition of Indians in Fiji.65 On 21 February 1920 the British Guiana and Fiji Emigration Com­ mittee recommended: I (a) that the Government of Fiji be asked to give guarantees similar to those which the British Guiana deputation declared that their Government was prepared to give; (b) that if the Government of Fiji do give these guarantees the Government of India should send a deputation similarly constituted to test the scheme generally and specifically as to the question of the adequacy of wages and; II Subject to the above guarantees being given and to a satisfactory report being made by the deputation this Committee would recommend a favourable consideration being given to the Colon­ isation Scheme by the Government of India.66 Rankine then gave the following guarantees on behalf of the Fiji Government: Indians in Fiji are at present entitled to engage in professions, and trade and commerce, and to acquire property on the same condi­ tions as other residents including Europeans. The Government of

42 The 1920 Strike

Fiji undertakes that these rights will not be altered in any way to the detriment of Indians as compared with other residents. The Government of Fiji further undertakes that the existing Muni­ cipal rights enjoyed by Indians will not be altered, except in so far as Municipal rights of other residents may be altered in the same direction. That the political rights now being extended to elect two Indian representatives to the Legislative Council of Fiji will not be with­ drawn.67 The mission also promised that, as soon as it was known that further immigration was assured, the Land Settlement Ordinance of 1915 would be put into force, enabling the Fiji Government to acquire, com­ pulsorily if necessary, land for Indian settlement, with an initial sum of at least £100,000 envisaged for that purpose, and explained: ‘Land settlement is one of the most important features of the Fiji scheme, as the Government of Fiji is anxious not merely to introduce labourers who will remain for a comparatively short period, but to secure further permanent population, which is one of the greatest needs of the Col­ ony.’68 The Government of India, following the advice of the com­ mittee, expressed approval, but asked that, in addition, a general guar­ antee be given by ordinance that the position of the immigrants in their new homes would in all respects be equal to that of any other class of His Majesty’s subjects resident in Fiji; it would then appoint a deputa­ tion to visit Fiji to test the suitability of the proposed scheme of immigration and, if their report were favourable, it would agree to the resumption of emigration to Fiji.69 The mission’s work was quickly undone by the events in Fiji. As news of the suppression of the strike reached India, the Government of India came under pressure to institute an inquiry. Gandhi declared: ‘It is clearly a matter of terrorizing the present Indian population into slavish submission to the white exploiters.’ He said that two of the returned Indians had told him of the happenings under martial law, and that if what they said was true, it was ‘a second edition of Amrit­ sar’, and he would advise the Indians in Fiji to return to India.70 He urged the Government of India to have them repatriated and an inquiry made into the banishment of the leaders. ‘Moderate’ opinion was just as inflamed: Sir Dinsha Wacha, a Liberal leader, asked, ‘Is it possible that the Bishop of Polynesia and his colleague were absolutely ignor­ ant of the facts? . . . Scratch the British Colonist and you find him a

43 The Fiji Indians replica of the original slaveowner of Jamaica.’71 In London, H. S. L. Polak, Secretary of the Indians Overseas Association, told the Colonial and India Offices that the official statement from Fiji was at variance with the facts he had received and asked for an inquiry.72 A public meeting in Bombay, held under the auspices of various associations, urged the Government of India to have the proposed deputation to Fiji inquire into the riots, or, alternatively, to press for a commission of inquiry like the Hunter Committee that had investigated the dis­ orders in India in 1919. The Government of India refused on the grounds that the accuracy of the Fiji governor’s report on the riots could not be questioned and that it had no jurisdiction over Fiji.73 It then decided to delay the sending of the proposed deputation because public opinion would not have been satisfied with anything less than an inquiry into the suppression of the riots. Gandhi had said that no self-respecting Indian should serve on a commission to inquire into the prospects of further emigration.74 To send a deputation just to inquire into Fiji’s immigration scheme would have assured the rejection of that scheme. The reasons for the delay in sending the promised deputation to Fiji were not appreciated in Suva or London. On 3 July 1920 Rodwell told the Colonial Office that, after full discussion with the elected members of the Legislative Council and representatives of the General Council of Planters, the Fiji Government was willing to give the guar­ antee of Indian rights in Fiji, and that a provision for two Indian elected members, which had been delayed because of the strike, would proceed shortly.75 The Colonial Office was about to approve the enact­ ment of the proposed guarantee when the India Office recommended a delay in sending deputations to Fiji and British Guiana, because of developments in Kenya. The India Office thought that Indian public opinion would be so incensed when it heard of Lord Milner’s proposals for that colony that there would be little hope of having the other emigration schemes accepted, but the Colonial Office was not con­ vinced that Kenya was relevant. Rodwell telegraphed to London:

It will be a bitter disappointment to me if, after two years of unre­ mitting effort to secure reconsideration immigration question, and having with your support carried the matter so far, I have to admit defeat at this stage . . . As to verdict of Committee, if it comes, I am not optimistic, but continued uncertainty is paralysing, and the

44 The 1920 Strike

sooner final decision, even though unfavourable, is reached, the better.76 It was believed in London and Suva that India was using the possible re-opening of emigration to Fiji to secure concessions elsewhere in the Empire. At a meeting with the India Office in December, the Colonial Office complained of the delay and pressed for an immediate settlement of the Fiji question.77 For its part, the Government of India was becoming increasingly critical of Fiji. In July the Viceroy pointedly asked the governor how many people wanted to return to India and what arrangements had been made to supply them with passages. When told in reply that only half of the 10,164 then registered for repatriation were likely to go and that ‘malicious persons’ had induced people to put their names down, lest they lose their repatriation right altogether, the Government of India told the Fiji Government that public opinion in India was greatly exercised over events in Fiji, reminded it that only two more repatria­ tion ships were due to leave in 1920, and offered to inquire of shipping companies in India.78 In December it asked why so many Indians were registering their names for repatriation and selling their property at a loss, as reported in the press, and was told in reply that propagandists had promoted the exodus: Although no documentary proof is available it is believed that these propagandists are acting on instructions from Gandhi and that move­ ment is part of campaign which is being conducted by him and his associates with object of retaliating against Fiji for denial to Indians of rights claimed elsewhere. It is suggested that further object may be to accumulate at Calcutta and other centres large numbers of repatriates from different places, who, becoming short of funds and being refused permission to return, will form an element of discon­ tent and of embarrassment to Government of India.79 The Fiji Government added that the present phase of unsettlement appeared to be temporary and closely connected with the non-co-op­ eration movement in India, and it regretted that the repatriates who wished to return to Fiji had not been allowed to do so (the emigration of unskilled labour from India was still prohibited under the order of 1917), as their return would probably have had a reassuring effect. This attempt to link Fiji with the Raj in a common struggle against Gandhi and his ‘agents’ was wide of the mark. The Government of

45 The Fiji Indians

India had more respect for Gandhi and for India’s aspiration for national self-respect than more old-fashioned colonials realised, and it had no interest in helping the Fiji planters at the cost of losing allies in India.

46 Ill The Sadhu and the CSR

There were a number of reasons why the strike of 1920 did not spread from the Suva-Rewa area to the more important sugar districts of north-western Viti Levu. Poor communications hindered the develop­ ment of a common political consciousness and organisation. There was no town as large as Suva with its concentration of dissatisfied people. For climatic reasons sugar cultivation was more profitable in the north­ west than in the Rewa and Navua districts. The cane-farmers and labourers there had grievances too, but the CSR announced on 4 Feb­ ruary that it would give a bonus on cane prices and an additional special grant on all land under proper cultivation. In his report on the 1920 strike Rodwell wrote: It is to be regretted that the concession was not made earlier. If it had been, it is possible that the strike at Nausori, which has been the chief cause of anxiety and expense to the Government, might have been averted.1 Although the CSR was not as important in the social and economic structure of the Suva-Rewa area as in that of north-western Viti Levu, and was not given special attention by the strike leaders, the governor’s comment expressed the truth that it was the company, more than the government or other employers, that determined the Indian standard of living in Fiji. In 1920 Rodwell assessed the CSR’s role in Fiji: Over half Fiji hangs the shadow of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company. Your Lordship knows this Company and the extent of its operations in this Colony and will remember that for twenty years in the short history of Fiji there was almost no development of the Colony’s resources other than made by this Company; that its enter­ prise and organising power enabled the sugar industry of Fiji stead­ ily to progress through the long years of low prices when the sugar industries of the West Indian Islands as steadily failed; that through­ out a half — and that the richer half — of the main island of Fiji there is scarcely an acre of cultivated land which this Company could not claim to have brought into cultivation; that this Company is by no means the conscienceless monopoly that its opponents allege; that at the present time, when the world price of sugar has

47 The Fiji Indians

soared to an unexampled height, this Company has shown (at the expense of Fiji) an almost unbusinesslike contempt of gain in fixing the price of sugar in New Zealand, and has acquiesced (though only under strong pressure from myself) in the retention of a very low charge for raw sugar consumed locally; that this Company has for many years and in many respects realised in no niggardly spirit its public and charitable obligations as the first industrial concern of Fiji. But your Lordship also knows that, among the parties in India who are hostile to the emigration of Indians to Fiji, the name of this Company is anathema; that this Company, during the last five critical years, has, in reliance on private sources of information in India, acted in ways which have considerably embarrassed the Gov­ ernment; that this Company has on every occasion gambled on the hope that the Government of India would not ultimately pay serious regard to the popular hatred of the system of indentured immigration as against the demands of the sugar producing Colonies, and has as uniformly lost; that in its relations with Indians already settled in the Colony the Company has mistimed resistance and concession alike.2 The CSR had been the economic mainstay of Fiji. By using modern scientific methods it had been able to survive in Fiji and sell its sugar in competitive markets. Its management was competent and experi­ enced. Several of its officers had travelled widely and were informed about sugar industries elsewhere and about the conditions in India that affected emigration. Those in Fiji had more contact with the local Indians than the government officials. In the sugar-growing areas of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu the company was a powerful force in the lives of the Europeans and Indians. It had a reputation for dictatorial methods. ‘Company ka raj’ said the Indians, and many Europeans, too, believed the CSR was the real ruler of Fiji. It would be more exact to say that it had a predominant position in the power structure of the colony but it shared power with other interests: the well organised, modern colonial administration, which had a special interest in the government of the Fijians; the European planters, especially the copra planters; the European mercantile houses; and the missions, especially the Methodist Mission. Not all matters interested the CSR, but the government gave it a respectful hearing on those that did, because it provided, directly or indirectly, most of the colony’s revenue.

48 The Sadhu and the CSR

By 1920 the CSR had invested some three million pounds in Fiji. It had much larger interests in Australia, and a refinery in New Zea­ land also, and because it operated in three countries and more than one Australian state, and had been the target of political attack in Australia, it had an interest in obfuscation, and had acquired a repu­ tation for financial secrecy to match its justly acquired reputation for sound management. The profits the company derived from Fiji were slight until the end of the nineteenth century; indeed had the fall in sugar prices in the 1880s been foreseen it might not have invested in Fiji in the first place. Thereafter they were only moderate, until the bumper profits during the war and the immediate post-war years. Those bumper profits would have been even higher if the company, without consulting the Fiji Government, had not agreed to sell sugar to New Zealand at a lower price than it would have fetched elsewhere, in the hope of retaining the New Zealand market after world sugar prices fell to pre-war levels, as the company was certain they would. In 1920, 73-3 per cent of Fiji's output of raw sugar went to New Zealand.3 In 1920 the CSR operated mills at Nausori (since 1882), Rarkwai (1886), Labasa (1894) and Lautoka (1903). There were two other sugar companies in business in Fiji: the Vancouver-Fiji Sugar Company at Navua, and the Melbourne Trust Company at Penang. The industry was still primarily organised on the plantation system. The sugar com­ panies had once grown most of the cane on their own plantations, but from 1909 onwards the CSR had leased 450 to 1000 acre estates to private European planters, usually former overseers. It was thought that this decentralisation would be more efficient, give more scope for individual initiative, and allay criticism of the company’s power. Some of the planters were very successful, others were failures, a large num­ ber were moderately successful. The company also bought cane from European and Indian planters and small Indian growers who cultivated land held freehold or leased from the European, Fijian or Indian owners. The European planters were driven out by the shortage of labour after the cessation of Indian immigration and their estates were resumed by the CSR. On north-western Viti Levu the CSR dominated the lives of the European planters and Indians alike. There were more Indian cane- growers than on the Rewa but the majority of them were heavily in debt. There was a high turnover in land holdings. Many had paid inflated prices for their land in 1915, 1916 and 1917, but had then been hit by poor harvests in 1918 and 1919. Some of the growers were

49 The Fiji Indians prosperous and employed Indian labour themselves. The CSR had encouraged the growth of a class whose interests were not identical with those of the labourers. Those of more character, energy, enter­ prise, intelligence, or unscrupulousness, were rising to the top. W. P. Dixon, the company’s inspector, described the position: Now most of the leading men — those who have been successful — owe their success mainly to the adoption of their methods of squeez­ ing the actual growers either as zemindars, storekeepers or money lenders, or frequently all three combined. Many of them have also been working on money borrowed from the European lawyers or storekeepers at extravagant rates of interest, and are themselves in a tight place as a result of two successive bad years. It is they who have enlisted all the growers in the I.C.P.A. and placed themselves at the head of it, and are now making the demand for a higher price for cane. They, and the European money lenders have an absolute strangle-hold on their fellows and it is to them mainly that any benefit derivable from a higher price would go. These men are also the leaders of the local Indian society — the Aryan Sumaj . . . To summarise. European growers are rapidly falling away. Indian growers are hopelessly bankrupt and in hands of the philistines.4 In late 1919 there was talk of strike. One was narrowly averted when the CSR tried to change the system of payment for cane and then prudently withdrew the proposal. On 28 September 1919 the Indian Cane Growers Association was formed by a group of the richer Indian planters, including Ramgarib Singh and Randhir Singh, with a Euro­ pean, Theodore Riaz, as their leader and spokesman. Riaz was a former overseer and lessee of land which he used to sub-lease to Indians before the CSR resumed it. He was very anti-company, self-educated, a theorist, and inclined to be rather self-important, flattering himself unduly on his influence over the Indians, but they were using him as much as he was using them. He prepared an ambitious scheme for co-operative stores and an agricultural bank which he hoped the CSR would finance as well as grant an increased price for cane; the com­ pany declined to finance the scheme and this undid his influence. The Indian growers refused to plant more cane until they were given a higher price. The company’s announcement of concessions saved the situation in February, though it refused to guarantee the same terms for future years because the New Zealand contract was for one year

50 The Sadhu and the CSR only. On 15 October 1920 there was a sharp fall in the world price of sugar, as the company had long predicted, and three days later it announced that the bonus paid for land under cane in 1920 would not be continued in 1921.5 This greatly increased the discontent among the Indian growers, especially the smaller ones, who were now more likely to seek common cause with the labourers. In 1920 the labourers on the north-western side were restive. They were organised by N. B. Mitter, the Bengali headmaster of the Andrews School at Nadi, who formed the Indian Association of Fiji, which had sections at Ba, Lautoka, Nadi, and Nadroga. In contrast to Manilal, Mitter was conciliatory, dignified, and moderate, but he was just as active in the cause of Indian rights and came under suspicion of the government officers and police, the CSR, and Badri Mahraj, who sent reports to the authorities. They believed that he was playing a double game: in public saying nothing that could lead to action against him, in private poisoning the mind of the Indian public in Fiji and in India against the existing order in Fiji. In retrospect his essential moderation does not appear in doubt. He made representations to the government on Indian questions, but also embarrassed it by sending reports to India. He organised meetings at Nadi during the period of the strike in Suva, but did not co-operate with Manilal and the strike leaders. In fact he claimed, with exaggeration, that his association prevented the spread of the strike to the north-western side.6 Mitter was particularly concerned about the Indian wage-earners, and on 17 October 1920 he formed the Fiji Indian Labour Federation at a meeting at Lautoka that was attended by a thousand people from various parts of Fiji. He chaired the meeting and was elected president and general secretary. A number of resolutions were passed. The CSR was rebuked for being ‘hostile towards our interests and aspirations’, insults by its local managers were deplored, and a final petition was to be sent to the general manager in Sydney asking for a rise in wages to 5s. per day for ordinary labour and 10s. per day for skilled labour. The Federation resolved that the Masters and Servants Ordinance was ‘the last stain of the indenture system, meaning semi-slavery, and it is degrading to any man on earth. It is selling one’s natural freedom that has been given to him by his Creator’. It was also resolved that the Federation would maintain friendly feelings and co-operation with the Indian planters and that the Indian labourers should first of all seek employment under them; after meeting their demand the surplus labour would accept work under sympathetic and kind European

51 The Fiji Indians masters. The Federation decided to oppose lawfully any kind of emi­ gration from India to Fiji until all the grievances and disabilities of the Indians had been fully remedied. Mitter had already written to the head office of the CSR in Sydney to complain about the arrogant behaviour of its local officers and threatened a general strike unless wages were increased.7 The CSR refused to discuss labour problems with Mitter and other ‘agitators’ who were not its employees, or to increase wages, on the grounds, stated to the government, that they were lower in Java, a main competitor in the sugar market, the world price of sugar was still falling, the demand for higher wages was politically inspired, and the company was trying to extend cane cultivation by Indian growers, who already numbered more than 3000 (as against 6000 labourers) and it did not want to increase their labour costs. The government disagreed with the decision, because it was afraid that the refusal of the employers to grant better conditions would lead to another costly outbreak, or drive many Indians back to India. Rodwell thought the last possibility ‘would go far to ruin Fiji for many years to come’, and wrote: ‘Politic­ ally the Colonial Sugar Refining Company has made mistake after mis­ take. Its Directorate appears to be entirely lacking in political sense.’8 He was still reluctant to interfere publicly in industrial matters, but he urged the company to meet the labour representatives in open inquiry and try to remedy any legitimate grievances. He advised it not only to increase wages, but also to sell food and clothing to the labourers at low prices, which Knox refused to do because it would mean com­ peting with the local storekeepers. Fell, the Colonial Secretary, sug­ gested to the company’s attorney in Fiji that ‘more of the human touch' was needed and that ‘we must all recognise that a new era has come’.9 Within the CSR, too, Knox was regarded as old-fashioned by some of the senior officers. W. P. Dixon urged him to be more conciliatory in such matters as encouraging co-operative farming, supplying cheap provisions, and having a cane contract with a sliding price dependent upon the market.10 He wrote: ‘With the knowledge amongst the Gov­ ernment officials and the general public that the Company will this year make enormous profits, it is surely desirable to avoid antagonising the officials in whose hands our future so largely lies’.11 Knox agreed not to increase the local price of sugar for consumption in Fiji, as he had intended, but on the rest he was adamant. He was convinced that the survival of the sugar industry in Fiji was in jeopardy, that the international price would fall to pre-war levels, that the Indians in Fiji

52 The Sadhu and the CSR already enjoyed better conditions than Indians anywhere in the world, and that any trouble was politically inspired from India. He telegraphed Rodwell: ‘Fiji labour conditions so greatly superior to Indian we can­ not think any discontent can possibly arise therefrom. Latest letters from our Managers all assert positively discontent shown wholly politi­ cal or racial not economic.’12 He would make no concessions that would cost money—which was in the shareholders’ immediate interests, certainly — and he rejected pleas that he adopt a more conciliatory tone towards the Indians. The long-awaited great Indian strike began at Ba on 11 February 1921. It was not ordered by Mitter, who, having been ignored by the CSR, had already lost his influence among the Indian labourers, but was the almost spontaneous action of a large number of men who had despaired of attaining redress. However, it may be called the Sadhu’s strike, because the leadership was soon assumed by this remarkable person. Sadhu Bashishth Muni was the strangest public figure in the modern history of Fiji. Mystery surrounded him during his short stay in the colony; tales of miraculous deeds circulated then and still do today; the Government of Fiji knew next to nothing about him but deported him in the belief that he was an agent of Gandhi’s; the Government of India could find out little about him from its sources of intelligence; and other people in India interested in Indians overseas, such as Benar- sidas Chaturvedi, were equally at a loss to explain his presence in Fiji, though they were certain he had not been sent by Gandhi. His pass­ port, issued in Calcutta on 23 May 1919, described him as the son of Jaganath, born in Banaras in 1888.13 It is not certain from what region or community he came, but he was probably a Hindustani and a Sana- tani (orthodox Hindu). He spoke English and Hindustani fluently. He arrived in Fiji about May 1920 via Australia, and was said to have spent several months there and to have had contact with the Australian labour movement. It is probable that his mission was an individual and idealistic one, to help the Indians in the far-off Fiji Islands, whose plight he had read about in the newspapers; but possibly he was just an adventurer. The Sadhu first came to the attention of the Fiji Government in November 1920, when it received reports of his educational work in the Rewa, Navua and Lautoka Indian settlements. At Lautoka he doubled the attendance at the Natabua Indian School by walking through the settlement one evening to talk to the Indian parents. At

53 The Fiji Indians

Navua a big school bare (Fijian building) was put up while he was there and 100 boys enrolled to study Hindi. He wanted the children to be proud of their Indian heritage, and was indignant that Indians should have to send their children to Christian schools. He donated Hindi books to the schools. He said that his was a religious, not a political, mission, and refused to expound any political views. He told a government officer that he strongly disapproved of the condition and treatment of Indians in Fiji, but that he had urged them to work through constitutional methods. The government sent several messages to him to come to Suva to talk about educational problems but he did not respond.14 Unlike most of the other sadhus, he refused to accept alms. In the first week of January 1921 the Sadhu convened a meeting at Wailailai, Ba, to pay respect to the memory of B. G. Tilak, the great Indian national leader, who died in August 1920. It was attended by 3000 Indians from the north-western districts. He asked all Brah­ mins present to shave their heads and beards as a sign of mourning, and this was done on the spot. He dissociated himself from the move­ ment to induce people to return to India, which he said had been caused by troublemakers who used his name without authority, and collected money for works that would never be carried out. He advised people not to sell their property at low prices in order to return to India. That was a surprise to some of the Europeans in Ba who had been prophesying that the long-awaited strike would begin after the Sadhu revealed his true identity at the meeting.15 The government still did not know what to make of the Sadhu. The governor and several of his officials suspected that he might be an agent of Gandhi’s, but on the other hand he seemed to have a good influence. On 11 February S. S. Lord, the resident inspector of immi­ grants at Lautoka, reported: ‘Politically, the atmosphere is too quiet to be healthy’, but he went on to say about Bashishth Muni: So far as I am able to ascertain the influence of the ‘Mystery Man’ generally spoken of as ‘The Sadhu’ which is very considerable, is for the good. So far as can be gathered his advice to the people is sound and healthy. He appears to be a Brahmin of exceptionally high caste. He has been responsible for the undoing of Mitter and his followers.16 On the same day the great Indian strike began. The strike of 1921 lacked the drama of its predecessor in 1920.

54 The Sadhu and the CSR

There were no riots or ostentatious military preparations. The main events may be briefly related. The strike spread to all the sugar dis­ tricts of Viti Levu, except Rewa and Navua, and to Labasa. The gov­ ernment took measures to protect life and property, including the enrolment of Fijian special constables; it privately urged the CSR to make concessions, which the company belatedly did; it arranged for a commission, which the company objected to and the Indians boycotted; it passed an order against intimidation, and it deported Bashishth Muni. The strike lasted six months and was remarkably peaceful. It soon became obvious that this was no ordinary industrial dispute. Under the Sadhu’s leadership the strike, which had begun for higher wages, was transformed into a sustained boycott, not only of the CSR, but of other European employers. He called out domestic servants and the workers at Penang, even though they had no stated grievances against the Melbourne Trust Company. The European cane-planters saw the strike as a struggle for racial and political supremacy, and extravagant rumours circulated among them, just as they did among the Indians. The chairman of the Ba-based Cane Growers Association of Fiji wrote to the government: The main feature of their policy is undoubtedly ‘EQUALITY WITH EUROPEANS’, to say nothing of the Non-co-operation propaganda which is being worked to the uttermost by the agents of Gandhi. Though a few may return to work, there is apparently no reason to doubt that the Indian labourer in Fiji has become a thing of the past.17 The Sadhu's far-ranging objectives were shown when the CSR, having agreed to receive a deputation from the strikers, was presented on 18 March with a list of sixteen demands. The first read: The employer should provide the employee with a good house and a separate bath room. The house should be furnished with bedding (that is pretty), with mosquito netting and mattress, one table, two chairs and should also contain a dining room.18 The employer was also to provide free medicine, schools, and five acres free of rent on which the labourer could plant foodstuffs. There was to be a five day working week, with six hours work per day, and a wage of at least 12s. a day. The Sadhu had indeed been influenced by the Australian labour movement. Three of the demands were more political: those calling for the return of Manilal, the release of ‘those

55 The Fiji Indians innocent strikers who are rotting in Suva gaol’, and the punishment of the larrikins ‘who played foul with the Suva strikers and made them slaves’. The government believed that the demands had been deliber­ ately framed in extravagant terms to prevent a settlement. A less machiavellian explanation for the curiously worded and, in the context of European dominance in Fiji, fantastic, demands may be suggested: Bashishth Muni was utterly lacking in political and economic under­ standing and realism. It was said by various people that he was an educated man, but it is more likely that he was not at home in a modern setting. He was, moreover, arrogant, and intolerant of those who disagreed with him.19 Rodwell believed that the strike was directly associated with the non- co-operation movement in India. He was convinced now that Bash­ ishth Muni was an emissary of Gandhi’s, thought his anti-British pro­ paganda was more pernicious than Manilal’s, and feared that even the Fijians could be affected by it. It is reasonably certain that the Sadhu had not in fact been sent by Gandhi, and it is unlikely that any other organisation had sent him. But it is clear from his political style that he had been influenced by the Mahatma’s example and expression of a truly Indian identity for the new India, even if he lacked his prac­ ticality, political shrewdness, and conciliatory arts. The Government of India’s deputation stated in its report in 1922: It seems almost certain that Bashishth Muni was an Indian of the School which regards Mr. Gandhi as the embodiment of the national ideal. Wherever we have gone we have been welcomed with cries of ‘Mahatma Gandhi ki jai’, a piquant experience for a deputation from the Government of India. He was also, like Mr. Gandhi, an advocate of non-violence. If we may attempt to analyse the objects of his mission, we should say that it was to rebuild the national spirit in the degenerate Indians in Fiji; to teach them to be proud that they were Indians, just as the English in Fiji are proud that they are English, just as the Australians are proud that they are Aus­ tralians. It is perhaps inevitable that any such teaching should have crude and aggressive manifestations; and with the Sadhu it appears to have taken the form that it was an indignity for an Indian to work for a European. This may seem to be a fantastic and dangerous doctrine, but the converse, we believe, would be understood and approved by many Europeans in Fiji. We may, however, be over­ stating the Sadhu’s position. It would perhaps be more correct to

56 The Sadhu and the CSR

say that he regarded it as an indignity for an Indian to receive less than the European rate of wages for the same work. We have been told that Bashishth Muni spent some time in Australia on his way to Fiji, and was in touch with labour movements there. If this is correct, it is not difficult to realise his point of view. In Australia, and also in New Zealand, it is insisted that an Indian should receive the European rate of wages, in order that there may be no unfair competition with the European worker. But a demand for ‘equal pay for equal work’ is not non-co-operation.20 Gandhian influence was shown in various ways. Bashishth Muni stressed non-violence, self-sufficiency, and Indian self-respect. Al­ though the strike lasted for six months, no breach of the peace was reported, there were only a few cases of intimidation and those were without violence. The Indians were said to be almost too courteous to the Europeans. Bashishth Muni advised them to dissociate themselves from the Europeans and their economy, and live on the land with their fellow Indians, and gather food from the forests. He established food- depots and his followers doled out a meagre ration on request. He said that supplies would be adequate for six months. His abundant funds interested the government but they did not manage to discover any sinister overseas source for them; credit from Indian storekeepers, including V. M. Pillay, was probably the chief source. At his meetings the Sadhu reminded the Indians of their heritage, solemn oaths were sworn, and potential back-sliders were kept in line by ridicule or by threats that their names would be sent to India for publication in the press as traitors to the Indian cause. Some freely confessed their guilt. One sirdar expiated his by standing on one leg with an arm in the air. Although many of the strikers were sceptical of the Sadhu’s demands, many others regarded him almost as a supernatural being. It was widely believed that he could be in several places at once, a legend fostered by his wide travel in Fiji. In any case, it was thought that he had great power over events, human and supernatural, and that it would be best to obey him. The government appointed a commission to inquire into the strike, despite protests from the CSR that there should not be any inquiry until the strikers returned to work. The company’s manager at Ba complained about this ‘weakness’ to the governor’s representative in the strike areas: This action will be at the expense of future relations between Indian

57 The Fiji Indians

employees and their employers, and the discipline which is sine qua non between master and man in all classes and races, and the respect which an ignorant Asiatic race should have for the Government will possibly go by the board.21 He earned Rodwell’s swift rebuke. The CSR attorney in Fiji was told: The references to ‘ignorant Asiatics’ and to ‘discipline between master and man’ would alone suffice to lay the Company open to the charge that the atmosphere of the indenture system still prevails in the minds of the Directorate and of the local Management . . . Failing a radical change in the policy of the Directorate, as well as in the methods and the outlook of the local Management, towards the Company’s Indian dependants, His Excellency despairs of suc­ cess in the strenuous efforts which he has been making, with the support of the Colonial Office, to secure the renewal of immigration from India.22 The Indians, however, declined to give evidence before the commis­ sion. Bashishth Muni was arrested on 23 March while he was on his way to the Rewa, presumably to spread the strike to the south-eastern districts. He was deported under an ordinance of 1917 which gave power to deport any person who had been resident for less than two years and who, in the opinion of the Governor-in-Council, was danger­ ous to peace and good order or was causing unrest in the colony. The Sadhu expressed no surprise at his arrest and accepted it with good grace, or so it was said. The Indians knew better. Two days before his arrest, Government House in Suva was struck by lightning and burnt to the ground, an event which soon passed into popular mythol­ ogy. The Sadhu’s arrest did not end the strike, which continued until the middle of August. It was said that he had exacted an oath from the strikers to stay out for six months. But many were tired of the pro­ longed strike: their resources were at an end, they were disturbed by the news of the suffering of recent repatriates to India, and were heart­ ened by the announcement that C. F. Andrews and a commission were coming from India. In the last months verbal intimidation of waverers became more frequent and three of the strike leaders were gaoled for it. The CSR was anxious to harvest the cane now that the crushing season was at hand and was worried that it might lose the New Zea­ land market. In June it announced concessions, including the supply-

58 The Sadhu and the CSR ing of cheap provisions. With their cane ready to harvest, the smaller growers gave up the strike, and from July onwards, many Indian labourers were returning to work. During the strike the widening social divisions among the Indians in Fiji became more apparent, as in the strike the previous year. The events of 1921 helped to create ill-feeling along the connected lines of class and sect. Some had become rich through farming, buying and selling of land, or money-lending, and were employers themselves. Religious differences were becoming more important as the unsophis­ ticated folk religions and easy tolerance of indenture days were replaced by a more self-conscious search for group identity and status. Apart from the Christians, who were important only in Suva, and the Mus­ lims, who as yet lacked any developed organisation or militancy, the main division in 1921 was between the Sanatanis who formed the bulk of the Hindu population but were loosely organised, and the more militant Arya Samajists. The Arya Samaj was monotheistic and rejected the multiplicity of gods and elaborate ceremonial of orthodox Hindu­ ism, it favoured social reform, including widow remarriage and the education of girls, and it opposed child marriage and the complex caste system. Calling oneself an Arya Samajist gave legitimacy to the facts of life in Fiji, where knowledge of ritual was minimal, caste restric­ tions barely existed, and inter-caste marriage was frequent. The dom­ inant European culture was pervasively influential and it was advan­ tageous to come closer to European social norms through ‘social reform’. The Arya Samaj tended to appeal to the more prosperous and upwardly mobile. While Bashishth Muni was a Sanatani, many of his opponents among the cane-planters, including Badri Mahraj, were Arya Samajists, and many Indians held them responsible for his deportation and the failure of the strike. In one important respect the strike of 1921 was a seminal event in the history of Fiji. Even more than its predecessor it hastened the emerging accord between the Europeans and the Fijians. Both in 1920 and 1921 the government and the European community generally were worried that Indian agitators might succeed in turning the Fijians against the established order and so convert the trouble into a general anti-European conflict. In retrospect, this does not appear to have been likely, though at first many Fijians in the sugar areas were inclined to sympathise with the Indians’ demand for higher wages, and some took the opportunity to ask for them for themselves. Some of the Indians from the plantations were accommodated in Fijian villages, but later

59 The Fiji Indians they were sent away.23 The CSR had previously ignored the Fijians but now began to pay a little attention to them. During the strike it tried to recruit Fijian labourers at higher wages than it paid the Indians even though they were less efficient, except for work on the wharves and sugar mill floor. It was helped by a government order that relaxed restrictions on their engagement, and by some Methodist missionaries, who believed, with many other Europeans, that the Fijians’ survival required the stimulus of active participation in economic life as indi­ viduals. The Fijians were not enthusiastic in this role. They did not like the Kabani ni Suka. One government officer at Ba wrote: There is a general feeling amongst the natives that they are being exploited by the Government for the C.S.R. Co., and a dormant resentfulness seems to exist. I experienced the greatest difficulty in getting native special constables for the C.S.R. Co’s estates and it was not until I asserted my influence as Roko that they consented to do so. The natives are decidedly anti C.S.R. Co., and they do not conceal the fact.24 The Provincial Commissioner, Ba, reported: T have appealed to their loyalty to the British Government who have always done everything they can for the Fijians, notwithstanding much adverse criticism from many white people who advocate taking their lands away from them’.25 It was for political reasons mainly, rather than any need of their services, that the government deployed Fijian police in the area affected by the strike. Forty Fijian policemen were sent to Ba, and 250 Fijians from Bau were enrolled as special constables and posted to the strike area to protect Indians who wanted to return to work. The Government of India’s deputation wrote in its report in 1922: Fijians and Indians have always held aloof from one another. The Fijians, being landowners, looked down upon the Indians as lab­ ourers; and it is a coincidence that the word ‘coolie’ in the Fijian language means dog. The Indians, on their part, regarded the Fijians as ‘junglies’. The use made of Fijians as special constables during the past two years has tended to increase their contempt for the Indians whom they were called upon to repress. At the same time, the Indians have been irritated against the Fijians.26 Among the European settlers, some of whom were genuinely concerned for the Fijians, and others who merely recognised that it was the Indians who posed the greater threat to themselves, the argument began

60 The Sadhu and the CSR to be heard that European dominance was necessary to protect the Fijians against the Indians. The Deed of Cession was interpreted as a request for protection, not just by Britain, but by the European settlers in Fiji. In the 1921 census report it was noted that the decline of the Fijian population had probably been arrested.27 The same year saw the beginning of an explicit accord between the Europeans and the Fijians before the advancing Indians. Towards the end of 1920 the Government of India came to the belief that conditions in Fiji were not as the Fiji Government made out. It was concerned by the exodus, the reports of dissatisfaction and fear, and the low living standards disclosed in the report of the Commission on Wages and the Cost of Living. Indian public opinion was asking for an inquiry, the Indians in Fiji for help, and the Fiji Government for fulfilment of the promise to send a deputation to inquire into the Fiji mission’s colonisation scheme. In January 1921 the Government of India decided, with Andrews’s approval, to send a deputation to inquire into the conditions of the Indians already settled in Fiji and if possible compose the differences between them and the Fiji Government. The examination of Fiji’s colonisation scheme was to be a secondary con­ sideration.28 So far, the Government of India had been able to take a strong line with Fiji, conscious that it was dealing with a minor colony. One official noted in April 1921: The Fiji Government and Mr Knox evidently think that the repatriate question has given them a tactical advantage. But when they find that it is the Government of India they have to deal with and not the Home Government I have no doubt they will climb down.’ They thought the Fiji Government and employers were living in the past, with quaint ideas on political economy. One wrote of the Fiji Government’s decision to try to lower prices instead of raising wages: ‘Living out of the world, they seem to think that they are unaffected by world causes.’ Another wrote of the deportation of Bashishth Muni: ‘They seem to have elementary ideas as to the rights of labour.’ Taking their lead from Andrews, they believed that the Government of Fiji was the prisoner of the CSR Company. They thought that Fiji’s request for more immigrants gave them a trump card in negotiating improvements in the status of Indians already there. An official minuted in April 1921: ‘We have, of course, got the Gov­ ernment of Fiji in the hollow of our hand.’29 The Government of India was, however, embarrassed by press reports in late 1920 that recent repatriates were destitute and dying in

61 The Fiji Indians

Calcutta and asking to be returned to Fiji and the other colonies. Hundreds from Fiji and British Guiana were living in misery in the Matiabruj area in Calcutta. They were crowded in huts, malaria ridden, without regular work or food or medical relief, and preyed on by unscrupulous people. They lived in hope of returning to the colonies. Recent repatriates sent letters to Fiji, begging for help to return30 — a tragic comment on a system that had been established and tolerated for years without regard to the facts of Indian society. In indenture days, no one in authority gave thought to those who returned from the colonies. The Fiji Government had fulfilled its part of the contract and its agent had no further responsibility for them once they left the depot in Calcutta on the day their ship arrived. The Indian officials assumed they would return to their home villages and settle down to their old life, the meagre capital they brought would do a little to alleviate rural poverty, and others might be stimulated to follow their example and ‘seek their fortune abroad’. For many the reality was different. Some never left Calcutta, they were cheated and robbed; others were shunned in the villages they had left more than ten years before, their relatives were dead or unfriendly, especially to those who returned without money, or their land had passed to others, they could not find marriage partners for their children, or they fell victim to unaccustomed heat and disease. They drifted back to Calcutta, where there were special difficulties in 1920 and 1921. It is likely that the misery that came to light from 1920 onwards was not the genera! experience of the repatriates in earlier years. It is true that the problem was not noticed till 1920, because it had not been a subject of official interest before and came to the attention of the Indian public and charitable organisations only after interest in Indians overseas had been aroused by the campaign against the indenture system. But in Calcutta in 1921 there was a commercial depression, high food prices following a famine, and a shortage of casual employment. Previously those who were medically fit could enlist for a further term of indentured service, an outlet that was now denied them. The new public interest taken in their fate had aroused their expectations. Also, it would appear, though no firm evidence is available, that in selecting repatriates in 1920 and 1921 the Immigration Department in Suva gave preference to those who said they wanted to return to Fiji. The Fiji Government and planters had only one interest in the problem of the unhappy repatriates who had voluntarily chosen to

62 The Sadhu and the CSR leave Fiji at government expense. Fiji needed labour and many of the repatriates were able-bodied. The Government of India and the Indian public were quick to see the point and were suspicious of proposals to help the repatriates return to Fiji. The Fiji Government and planters hoped that the accounts of the suffering of the repatriates, published in the Fiji press and widely circulated in the colony, would induce others who intended to return to have second thoughts, and silence those who were denigrating Fiji in comparison to India. The Fiji Government repeatedly reminded the Government of India that Fiji could not be as bad as it had been painted if recent repatriates wanted to return there after a brief experience back in India. In August 1920 the Fiji Government offered to pay return passages to Fiji and arranged to send 200 by a ship sailing in October, but the Government of India refused to let them go unless at their own expense. Rodwell ordered publicity given to this refusal, and he enlisted the aid of the Colonial Office to put pressure on the Government of India through the India Office, which then asked the Government of India for a report on the condition of the repatriates, observed that their return to Fiji would check the exodus from the colony, and remarked that its attitude in preventing their return was ‘incomprehensible’.31 In March 1921, in response to this pressure and the embarrassing evidence of suffering among the repatriates, the Government of India relaxed its policy so as to permit Fiji to pay for the return of those who had been born in Fiji, special cases such as those with families or property still in Fiji, and near relatives of people in those categories. One official explained the reason for the restriction to those categories: It was thought desirable to bring pressure on Fiji in order to induce them to improve the wages of Indians and their political status, and to make them realise the strength of public feeling in India. The conditions under which Indians were required to live in Fiji were regarded as insanitary and cruel. Their savings were insignificant. Labour emigrating with the assistance of the Colonial Government would not be really free nor could it safeguard its own interests. It was undesirable to pre-judge the recommendations of the deputa­ tion.32 On 2 April 1921, 245 repatriates left for Fiji. Meanwhile, C. F. Andrews and Benarsidas Chaturvedi made inde­ pendent inquiries into the plight of the repatriates in Calcutta, and in April 1921 the Indian Emigrants’ Friendly Service Committee was

63 The Fiji Indians formed, with official and non-official members, to help by housing them in an old emigration depot, finding employment, and providing medical care. A public appeal raised a small amount, and the St John Ambul­ ance, Y.M.C.A., Vhatia Volunteer Corps, and GuzeratVolunteerCorps gave help. From April to October 1921, about 6500 repatriates were met on arrival, and 2000-2500 passed through the depot.33 The Gov­ ernment of India assigned the committee the additional task of decid­ ing applications for return to the colonies, and the committee was not very strict about whom it allowed to return. By 5 May there were 342 more awaiting passage and the number was growing daily. The Gov­ ernment of India asked Fiji about transport arrangements for them and offered its assistance in chartering a ship. At this time, Fiji took the opportunity to try to limit the number of future repatriates from Fiji to 800 per annum and to insist on their being guaranteed sub­ sistence in India before they were allowed to leave Fiji, but the Colon­ ial Office was cool towards this attempt of the colony to evade its obligation, and, in any case, the Government of India refused to agree, on the ground that it might be challenged as a breach of the agreements under which the emigrants went to Fiji. But it did agree to a further relaxation of policy on the return of repatriates: the Emigrants’ Friendly Service Committee was directed to allow all those who had been in Fiji before to return at Fiji Government expense, if they offered them­ selves at the depot in Calcutta, but those orders were not to be made public nor was there to be any active recruiting. The Fiji Government arranged to charter a second ship.34 Bashishth Muni’s last recorded appearance was in Calcutta. He tried to talk to the repatriates in the depot at Matiabruj to persuade them not to return to Fiji, but was refused admittance. He sat for some time on the road opposite the depot, but had no influence on the repatriates, who reproached him for having misled them in Fiji about conditions in India. He then sat dharna (hunger-strike) on the open space in central Calcutta, called the work of the Emigrants’ Friendly Service Commit­ tee coolie-recruiting, and publicly cursed Andrews.35 In June Andrews had one of those frequent changes of front that were so distracting to the government. Like Gandhi he readily changed his mind as the circumstances and the information available to him changed. He had already consented to the departure of one shipload of repatriates for Fiji, because, as he later explained to Gandhi: T could not see them dying here before my eyes.’36 Then he was stung by Bashishth Muni’s public accusation that he was a coolie-recruiter. He

64 The Sadhu and the CSR learnt that the local agent of the CSR Company, which was, he believed, ‘the virtual ruler of Fiji’, was chartering a second ship and had offered a donation to the Emigrants’ Friendly Service Committee. He con­ tinued to receive reports of the strike, which was still in progress in Fiji, and feared that the repatriates would be used as strike-breakers.37 In June he decided that no further ship should go to Fiji, and the committee refused the CSR money. The Government of India bowed to the potential public pressure that Andrews could invoke and agreed that another ship should not be sent for three months. After the Gov­ ernment of Fiji protested to London, the Secretary of State for India sent a personal telegram to the Viceroy, who replied that the decision had been taken so as not to prejudice the future reopening of emigra­ tion to Fiji, which, together with the CSR, bore a very bad name in India. But the repatriates continued to clamour to be allowed to return to the colonies and rejected offers from various individuals and organ­ isations to provide land and work for them in India. By October the number in the depot had increased to nearly 1000. Finally, the Gov­ ernment of India permitted 887 to embark for Fiji on a second ship on 15 October 1921 and closed the depot.38 The Fiji Government had made its point. As the news from Calcutta reached the colony towards the end of 1920, doubts arose in the minds of intending repatriates. Many did not believe the stories and dismissed them as propaganda. Certainly the Europeans, the press, and the government were quick to make capital out of the reports, and warn people of what lay ahead of them if they were so foolish as to return to India. The reports seemed to confirm what they had always said: that the Indians were better off in Fiji than in their own country. This was undoubtedly true of many of the repatriates, for whom it had indeed been folly to return to India. In 1921 the arrival of the first ship to bring re-immigrants at Fiji’s expense brought convincing evi­ dence. Some Indians spoke contemptuously to them, but others heard them out and put off their proposed return to India. The panic to leave was checked. The Government of Fiji was now in a stronger position to talk to India, and the European community was fortified in the belief that the local Indians were very well treated — for Indians — and were lucky to be in Fiji at all.

65 IV Second Thoughts

Between 1920, when the mission from Fiji had importuned India to allow more Indians to come to Fiji, and 1922 when the long awaited Indian deputation finally arrived, there was a major shift in European attitudes towards Indian settlement in Fiji. The strikes had shaken the confidence of the government and European community that large- scale Indian immigration would be in the best interests of the colony. They now realised that India’s price for a resumption of immigration would be high. There had also been a change in the economic climate. The hope of a rapid post-war advance was dispelled by the fall in the prices of tropical produce to pre-war levels and by the labour shortage that followed the cessation of Indian immigration. Many of the Euro­ pean planters were forced to give up, particularly the sugar-planters whose land was reverting to the CSR and going out of production. It is always risky, but not always without benefit in historical under­ standing, to speculate on what might have happened. If there had been no strike in 1920 it is possible that an Indian deputation would have been sent to Fiji without undue delay, that the Indian Legislature would have agreed to a resumption of emigration to Fiji, and that the colony would have made greater concessions to secure it. In May 1921 Fell wrote:

The Government of Fiji has been prepared to accept, in the main, the terms of the Government of India and to continue negotiations for renewed free immigration on these lines. It is possible that the Government of Fiji would have eventually accepted the terms of the Government of India in toto, and would have introduced legis­ lation guaranteeing the status of the Indian in Fiji.1

In 1920, a former governor, im Thurn, living in retirement, gave his opinion of the likely future of Fiji, as the free immigration of Indians replaced the indenture system: ‘As in other colonies, they will in time, and probably in no long time, take over the colony and acquire con­ siderable wealth. Fiji will become an East Indian settlement.’ As for the Europeans: ‘They should in most cases be able, though not without difficulty, gradually to assume their places as representing European influence in an East Indian community.’2 However, it should be remembered that in 1920 the Europeans still did not know India’s

66 Second Thoughts price. They still thought of India just as a source of cheap labour, believed that Whitehall could order the Government of India to ‘turn on the tap’, and did not realise that any scheme of emigration accept­ able to India would have been prohibitively expensive to the industries of Fiji. It is inconceivable that they would have voluntarily relinquished their position of dominance. Any concessions to India would more likely have been made at the expense of the Fijians, not the Europeans. They could have included greater access to Fijian land and an advancement of some of the Indians to a position of junior partners with the Europeans in the government and economy. Im Thurn’s governorship had already seen inroads into Gordon’s policy of protection of the Fijians. In May 1921 the Council of Planters asked that colonisation should take precedence over other aspects of immigration, and that any liability to provide return passages should be avoided in future schemes. ‘Land settlement and bona fide colonisation of the vast unoccupied and unproductive lands of the Colony should be consummated with the utmost dispatch’. They argued that, since the Fijians would benefit from the rise in land values, ‘it would not be at all out of place for the Fijian, as the chief landowner of the Colony, to contribute substantially and directly towards this scheme of colonisation’.3 In London, a Colonial Office official minuted after a visit by the Bishop in Polynesia: On this question of political rights he said quite frankly that, in his opinion, Fiji would become, in time, a purely Indian Colony. The Fijian was going to the wall — he liked the Fijian who, until he was spoilt, was one of Nature’s gentlemen, but he would not work and there was no turning back the hands of the clock — it was very sad and deplorable, but there it was and there was no way of getting over it. (The Bishop evidently has little sympathy for the Fijians’ disinclination to work and he rather good humouredly took the Colonial Office to task for having assisted to make the natives idle by our land policy.)4 For some time the smaller planters had favoured the introduction of labour from some other country as an alternative to Indian labour. They would have clutched at any straw: Chinese, Japanese, Javanese, and even Negroes from the West Indies were mentioned as possibilities. In November 1920 the Legislative Council passed a motion urging the introduction of Chinese labour, but Rodwell was unable to accept it; he knew that the home government would not approve, because of

67 The Fiji Indians

Australian and New Zealand opposition and because it might have been harmful to the welfare of the Fijians. He nevertheless wrote to London that the ‘fundamental question is now regarded by planters as being one of population and not of labour . . . Whether, in our anxiety to preserve his morals, we are justified in denying the Fijian an opportunity of racial admixture which alone could arrest his physical decay, is a matter for serious reflection’.5 In August 1921, when he was on leave in England, he told the Colonial Office that Fiji could easily carry half a million people: The ultimate aim is to secure a greatly increased coloured popula­ tion for the Colony, preferably by introducing East Indian settlers, of whom the majority will become small cultivators but a surplus will be available for agricultural employment on the estates of the sugar companies and of European and Indian planters.6 Rodwell suggested that Chinese could also be brought, and Australian objections disregarded: Generally it cannot be said that Australia, by her treatment of Fiji has established any great claim to be considered in the matter. So far from deriving from Australia the benefits which a comparatively small and struggling Colony might expect from so powerful a neigh­ bour, Fiji has been subjected, in practically every matter of common interest, to a policy of pin-pricks. The attitude of Australia has been in marked contrast to that of New Zealand, in whom Fiji has found in recent years an unfailing friend.7 But the Colonial Office still refused to consider Chinese labour for Fiji. The Fiji Government did its best to secure a resumption of Indian immigration, both because the sugar companies and planters were clamouring for it and because it thought Fiji needed more labour and an increased population which would probably have to be Asian, but it was more realistic in its assessment of the difficulties in the way than were the sugar companies and planters. Rankine wrote from India cautioning Fiji against making concessions to India: If emigration is renewed and continued will there be demands for political rights of such a nature that the Indian vote would eventu­ ally control the Government of Fiji as it will control presently that of India and as it is expected to control that of British Guiana? If so, can these demands be acceded to without sacrificing the interests

68 Second Thoughts

of the Fijians, by whom the Colony was ceded to Great Britain, or the rights of others, to whose work and enterprise or investment of capital the present position of Fiji is in no small measure due?8 By the end of 1920 Rodwell was dubious whether any more conces­ sions should be made to India, and even about extending the franchise to the Indians in Fiji. There was an element of wishful thinking, even insincerity, about the Fiji Government’s attitude. It was willing to express readiness to meet the demands from India, but it had no real intention of making fundamental changes — as if words alone were likely to satisfy the Government of India and Indian public opinion. This can be clearly seen in the proposed ordinance to guarantee the equal status of Indians in Fiji. The British Guiana and Fiji Colonisation Committee of the Imperial Legislative Council had reported that no scheme of emigration of Indians to either of those colonies should be approved unless it were certain that the position of the immigrants in their new homes would in all respects be equal to that of any other class of His Majesty’s sub­ jects resident there.9 The Fiji Government agreed to give such a guar­ antee. The form of words chosen by the committee echoed a statement made in 1875 by Lord Salisbury, then Secretary of State for India, who, following an approach by the West Indian planters, had proposed to the Government of India that there should be a change in policy: instead of merely tolerating and regulating emigration to the colonies, the authorities in India should actively encourage it, in the interests of the Empire as a whole, including India with its myriad poor. The Government of India rejected the proposal, for the reasons that emigra­ tion could have only an infinitesimal effect on India’s population prob­ lems and, more important, official encouragement of it would be impolitic, given the widespread popular suspicion of the motives of the foreign rulers. Salisbury’s despatch contained the following passage: Above all things we must confidently expect, as an indispensable condition of the proposed arrangements, that the Colonial laws and their administration will be such that Indian settlers who have com­ pleted the terms of service to which they agreed, as the return for the expense of bringing them to the Colonies, will be in all respects free men, with privileges no whit inferior to those of any other class of Her Majesty’s subjects resident in the Colonies.10 These words were to be repeated many times in the history of Indians

69 The Fiji Indians abroad. They came to see them as a charter. Just as the Fijians had their Deed of Cession, so the Indians in Fiji stood by ‘Lord Salisbury’s promise’. The Fiji Government did draw up a draft ordinance to guarantee the equal status of Indians but never enacted it. In any case, it would have been meaningless as a guarantee of Indian rights in Fiji. Informed observers noted that it was intended just to soothe opinion in India. Dixon wrote to the head office of the CSR that he had been told by the Fiji Attorney-General that the ordinance simply guaranteed exist­ ing rights, that Indians ‘shall be equal’ merely meant ‘are equal’, and that there was nothing in the ordinance to place the Indians in the future on the same plane as the Europeans. He concluded: ‘To a lay­ man it seems mainly legal casuistry.’11 And an official of the Colonial Office recorded what the Bishop in Polynesia, then visiting London, told him: ‘He said that he thought it was largely eye-wash put in at the last moment to satisfy the scruples of Mr. Sarma.’ The official added: T am not altogether happy on the point and am not at all sure that the general guarantee may not give our successors trouble in the future; but if the local Government are prepared to give it, it is hardly for us to object.’ Another official gave as his opinion: ‘it is merely a piece of shop window dressing’.12 The Government of India found the draft ordinance not altogether satisfactory and asked that it be held over pending the visit of its deputation to Fiji.13 The removal of minor instances of legislative discrimination between Europeans and Indians was not really what the Government of India and Indian opinion meant by an equal position for Indians with all other classes of His Majesty’s subjects. What India wanted for her people abroad was social accept­ ance by the Europeans, economic equality with them, and a substan­ tial share in political power. As Fiji was not willing to concede these, the draft ordinance was indeed window-dressing. The most important areas of Indian rights in Fiji in 1920 were (and still are) those relating to the holding of land and to political representa­ tion and power. When the Government of India suggested that the words ‘to acquire and’ be added before the words ‘to hold lands’ in clause 1, the Colonial Office told the Fiji Government: ‘It would be desirable that the terms of clause 1 should be carefully considered from the point of view of its effect on the special position of the natives of Fiji in regard to the land.’14 For over a century — even before ces­ sion — the land problem has been Fiji’s most sensitive political issue. In Fiji land is the ultimate prize. Since the time of Sir Arthur Gordon

70 Second Thoughts

— apart from a brief interlude during the governorship of Sir Everard im Thurn (1904-1910)—the Fijians have enjoyed a generous construc­ tion of the terms of the Deed of Cession, especially with respect to the land. That was fortunate for them, because without the land they would have had nothing. Apart from those areas acquired by European settlers before cession and confirmed by the Land Claims Commission, and apart from a small area of Crown land and a small area alienated between 1905 and 1908 when sales were permitted, the land of Fiji remained the property of the Fijian people. Indians, like Europeans, have had to lease it from them, and the restricted availability, admin­ istrative inconveniences, and insecurity of leases have troubled several generations of Indian farmers. The proposed guarantee of equal rights to the Indians was certainly not intended to affect the position of the Fijian landowners; at the most it assured the Indians the same limited right of access to the land as Europeans enjoyed (though the Indian was more restricted in the area he could hold than the European). Where land was concerned, equality of status did not imply equality with the Fijians. The Colonial Office and the Fiji Government were similarly cautious when it came to political power. The guarantee of equal rights had never been intended to mean that the Indians could, by weight of numbers, control the Legislative Council of Fiji. Although there were seven European members, it was intended to have only two Indian members at first, on a separate roll, though the possibility of a later increase to three was envisaged. In January 1921 a Fiji Government commission made recommendations on the details of the proposed Indian franchise.15 The Government of India asked that this be held over until its deputation had reported, because it was now inclined to the opinion that a common roll would be preferable in Fiji, as it would be in Kenya, even though, with the same qualifications for Europeans as for Indians, few Indians would be eligible for the franchise or for election. Throughout the Kenya negotiations the Government of India had pressed for a common roll. One official explained why: Undoubtedly this is the right principle to fight for, for it is only in this way that we can secure the end in view, namely, the welding together of Indians and Europeans in a Colony into one single community. As long as separate arrangements are made for the election of Indian and European Members of Council and as long as there are separate electoral rolls, we differentiate between the two

71 The Fiii Indians

and keep up racial feeling.16 The Colonial Office thought the franchise was no business of the India Office, still less that of the proposed deputation. However, the Com­ monwealth Prime Ministers passed a resolution at their Conference in 1921 which the Colonial Office acknowledged had some bearing on the position of Indians in Fiji and other colonies: The Conference, while reaffirming the Resolution of the Imperial War Conference in 1918, that each Community of the British Com­ monwealth should enjoy complete control of the composition of its own population by means of restrictions on immigration from any of the other Communities, recognizes that there is an incongruity between the position of India as an equal member of the British Empire and the existence of disabilities upon British Indians lawfully domiciled in some other parts of the Empire. The Conference accordingly is of the opinion that in the interests of the solidarity of the British Commonwealth, it is desirable that the rights of such Indians to citizenship should be recognized. In transmitting this resolution to the Fiji Government, the Colonial Office noted that the Government of India would undoubtedly try to use it to claim an equal franchise for Indians and Europeans in Fiji, as it was already claiming for Kenya, and advised: A similar proposal will probably be put forward for Fiji; and you should therefore consider carefully what measures can safely be taken to give effect to it should circumstances render it necessary to accede to it. You will, of course, realise that the Resolution, although it contemplates placing the Indians on a complete equality as regards the franchise, is not intended to make any substantial alteration in the distribution of political power, and does not entail swamping the electorate with Indian voters. It will in fact be neces­ sary to draw any legislation which may have to be passed in such a manner, (e.g. by the disqualification of all electors who are unable to write English or by any other methods which can be applied to the whole of the electorate), as to ensure that that wholly unintended result shall not occur.17 The government and the European settlers grew more and more cautious about making concessions to India. They were wearied by the long delay in sending the promised deputation, and they believed that

72 Second Thoughts the Government of India had postponed it unreasonably, at the instiga­ tion of Andrews, and that Fiji had been unfairly singled out, not because of its own sins, but because India was using Fiji’s request for more Indian immigrants as a lever to secure concessions elsewhere in the Empire. In 1921 an anti-Indian agitation developed in Fiji, similar to the more advanced movement among the white settlers in Kenya. Just as the Indians in Fiji drew comfort from the knowledge that their struggle for racial equality was being fought in other parts of the Empire too, so the white settlers of Fiji looked to other colonies, especially Kenya. It seemed to the proponents of ‘White Fiji’ that they were in danger of being offered up by the British Government as a sacrifice to Indian nationalism, that Whitehall might grant the Indians in Fiji substantial concessions at their expense, as had been proposed in Kenya. In 1921 the European settlers demanded variously that, at the very least, there should be no further concessions to the Indians, or even that those already in Fiji be deported, that immigration should be encouraged from China, Japan or Java instead, that the restrictions on the engagement of Fijian labour be relaxed, and that settlers from Britain be brought out and settled as farmers. Riaz was prominent in this anti-Indian agitation, and put up a scheme for a European co-oper­ ative sugar society. More restrained objection to making any further concessions to India or the Indians already in Fiji was expressed by others, including the European elected members of the Legislative Council. Some European opinion, including the missionary, Richard Piper, the newspaper Pacific Age, and some government officers, thought that the troubles with the Indians were almost entirely due to justified economic grievances, especially the CSR’s hard financial policy and its old-fashioned, tactless way of treating cane-growers and workers, and they were critical of many of the private European planters, especially the ‘hot-heads’ at Ba. The senior government officers, including Rodwell and Fell (colonial secretary, and acting governor when Rodwell was on leave), held similar opinions of the company and European planters, but they, especially Rodwell, were less than enthusiastic about the Indians. Their sympathies naturally lay more with the Europeans than the Indians, and they also felt a par­ ticular responsibility for the Fijians. The Europeans, whatever their deficiencies, were the local representatives of the dominant race and culture, they provided the social leadership, and they had the capital and managerial skills that sustained the modern economy and the col-

73 The Fiji Indians

ony’s revenues. On important matters, including Indian immigration, the governors consulted and were largely guided by the leading Euro­ peans: the elected members of the Legislative Council, the Mayor of Suva, Robert Crompton (a leading solicitor), the missions, the Council of Planters, and the sugar companies, especially the CSR. In January 1922, shortly before the arrival of the Indian deputation, the acting governor reported to London on the attitude of the Euro­ peans and Fijians. lie said that if India demanded equality of franchise, then it was probable that European and Fijian opinion would prefer instead to have no further Indian immigration or a reversion to nom­ ination for all the members of the Legislative Council. Of the Fijian chiefs he wrote: They are showing concern and would be likely to regard any con­ cession to Indians in the direction of equality of franchise with Euro­ peans as a danger to the future status of the Fijian race and as a breach of faith on Deed of Cession. The Fijians are not ripe for franchise themselves and I do not consider that elected representa­ tion would benefit their race. European feeling will support Fijians that risk of future political ascendancy of Indians would be a breach of faith and will probably unanimously oppose any concession in the direction of equality of franchise. The situation may become awkward.18 Many of the European settlers were afraid that Whitehall would sell them out to India, and they told the Fijians of their fears. Govern­ ment officers tried to scotch rumours that Britain would let the Indians become the rulers of Fiji and take the Fijians’ land away, but the doubts remained. Some European agitators deliberately tried to stir up the Fijians against the Indians. One wrote to a chief suggesting that he ‘endeavour to permeate the whole of the Fijian race with the fixed idea that the granting of the franchise and equal status to the Indians in Fiji, would mean the ultimate loss of all their lands and rights, and later their final extinction from the face of the earth’.19 Such words were falling on increasingly receptive ears. Although there had been negligible overt hostility between the Fijians and the Indians, the limited contact between them meant that there were no bridges in times of crisis. For some years the Fijians had been restive, not so much with the Indians as with the Europeans. The major protest movement, led by Apolosi Nawai, against the whole colonial, chiefly, missionary, and European commercial order, in the period 1914-17, showed that

74 Second Thoughts

Fijian passivity could not be taken for granted. Even the chiefs felt that the government was not paying as much attention to Fijian inter­ ests as before, as instanced by the recent abolition of the post of Secretary for Native Affairs, the increasing decentralisation of the administration under European district commissioners, not senior Fijian officials, the periodic attempts to induce the Fijians to part with control of their unused land, and the poor living conditions of Fijian labourers on the plantations where, since the end of Indian immigra­ tion, they were being employed in larger numbers than before. The Fijians looked on the visit of the deputation from India with concern.20 A voice that would count with the British Government was that of the CSR, and that meant its chairman, E. W. Knox. In 1921, though he was 74 years old, he still ruled the company, carried the board with him, and disregarded the advice of his senior officers in Fiji who, in turn, criticised him to the Fiji Government. Today his name is a leg­ end in the O’Connell Street office in Sydney. The explanation of his power in the company lay not only in his long experience and his inheritance of authority as the son of Sir Edward Knox, its founder, but also in his single-minded devotion to the pursuit of profit for the shareholders. Fiji and its people, white or brown, did not interest him in the least: he wanted cheap labour. In concentrating on India, he was more realistic than the private European planters, because he was aware of the political objections, especially in Australia and New Zea­ land, to the recruiting of Chinese or other non-British labour. But he did not understand the political situation in India, and could not see that Whitehall was not in a position to order the Government of India to supply him with a few thousand coolies at pre-war rates. He thought the difficulty in reopening emigration was wilful obstruction and a clear breach of the Viceroy’s stated intention in 1916 to replace the inden­ ture system with another system of state-aided emigration.21 ‘Lord Hardinge’s promise’ became as much an idee fixe with him as ‘Lord Salisbury’s promise’ was for the colonial Indians. Knox blamed Whitehall even more than he did the Government of India. He seriously believed that the British Government intended to destroy his Australian company’s operations in Fiji. He asked why the British-owned plantations in Ceylon and Malaya were able to obtain all the coolies they needed, while Fiji could not, though it offered Indians (so he thought) the best living conditions they enjoyed anywhere in the world, better than in those colonies and certainly better than in their own country. He saw it as great injustice. As he expressed it: ‘We must

75 The Fiji Indians maintain that the action of the British Government has been unfriendly, though prepared to alter that opinion when evidence is forthcoming that Australian capital sunk in Fiji is to be regarded as entitled to British protection equally with the English investments in the Colonies above named.’22 He did not understand that the movement of people from South India to Ceylon and Malaya was more like temporary labour migration than that to distant Fiji could be. Although Knox wanted more Indian immigrants to work on the CSR’s plantations for low wages, he was not interested in the other aspects of the Indian question. The Sadhu’s strike had been settled in time for the crushing season of 1921, but further trouble lay ahead. Knox was determined to have a show-down with the government and the Indians. He was vindicated, in his own mind, by the fall in the international price of sugar and the need to compete with the low-wage areas of Java and Mauritius. He decided to reduce the wages of the company’s labour once the 1922 cutting season was over, even if it precipitated another strike and regardless of the effect on the deputation from India. He asked the Fiji Government to remove the export tax on sugar that had been imposed during the war, which it refused to do, not only because the colony needed the revenue, but because everyone knew that the CSR had recently earned vast profits from Fiji and thought it should pay a fair share of taxation. Knox threatened that unless there was a satis­ factory solution of the Indian labour problem, that is, unless Whitehall ordered India to provide him with more cheap labour, the CSR would withdraw from Fiji and so bankrupt the colony. Rodwell and Fell were aghast, fearing further industrial trouble and the end to any possibility of a renewal of Indian immigration once the deputation made an unfavourable report. They remonstrated with Knox, to no avail. Per­ haps, as some thought, he was really trying to teach the government a lesson for having criticised him, and the Indians one for having dared to demand rights for labour and even to strike. The CSR told those European planters who were leasing land from the company: It will be, to us, a matter for great regret if the tenants, after con­ sideration of the facts stated above, come to the conclusion that they should give up their plantations; but we cannot feel surprise if such be their decision, for the unfriendly attitude of the British Government during the past five years does not justify the hope that

76 Second Thoughts

the welfare of the Colony or of those who have made investments there will receive consideration at their hands.23 Fell, then the acting governor, took grave exception to this ‘offensive’ statement and told the manager at Nausori that if such a statement had been made by an Indian, his company would probably have regarded it as a seditious and disloyal utterance. He asked the Colonial Office for permission to demand an apology, and if one were not received, for permission not to correspond with Knox or recognise his position in any way, but London thought this would be unwise.24 In a secret despatch in October 1921 Fell reported on Knox’s threat to shut down in Fiji. He estimated that, directly or indirectly, the colony could lose perhaps half its revenue, and the sugar industry could not be replaced in the short run by any other. Although at that stage he thought the company was bluffing, he suggested that the government counter any further industrial crisis or threat to close down by a threat to nationalise it in the interests of the Empire.25 Rodwell, then on leave in England, was also in favour of expropriating the CSR, but the Colonial Office thought this was beyond the financial capacity of the Fiji Government and impracticable because of the labour diffi­ culties and the depressed sugar market.26 But the Office did take Knox’s threats seriously. J. M. Green, its principal expert on Fiji, described Knox as ‘an irascible autocrat of 75, notorious for his methods of dealing with strikers and business opponents. He might welcome the chance given by the collapse of the sugar market for teaching the Government of Fiji a lesson.’ He expressed the opinion that Fiji had been more successful than any other part of the world in creating a prosperous Indian peasantry, but noted that the CSR, though efficient, had been ‘less happy in dealing with human than with mechanical and chemical elements’ and that it had made super-profits and had enormous reserves.27 Clearly, the company was in a powerful position. The year 1922 opened very unpropitiously. As Fell wrote to Lon­ don: ‘The immediate prospect of this Colony as regards the sugar industry could not be more gloomy.’ The Vancouver-Fiji Sugar Com­ pany announced that it had decided to withdraw from Fiji altogether. And, more important, Knox laid it on the line: unless the British Government permitted more Indians to go to Fiji ‘the ruin of the sugar industry in your Colony is imminent’.28

77 V Negotiations

It was not until 1922 that India sent the deputation to Fiji that had been promised early in 1920. First it was delayed by the Government of India because of the effect on Indian opinion of the suppression of the strike of 1920 and the proposals on Indian rights in Kenya. The Fiji Government asked for it to be further delayed because of the strike of 1921, and because when in January 1921 the Government of India did offer to send a deputation, it was to be with the primary object of inquiring into the condition of the Indians already in Fiji and compos­ ing the differences between them and the Fiji Government, and only secondarily to examine Fiji’s colonisation scheme. The Fiji Govern­ ment was alarmed by the Government of India’s insistence that the deputation should be composed of persons whose report would com­ mand confidence among the Indian public, but was reassured when told that no one connected with the non-co-operation movement would be included. Finally it was agreed that the terms of reference of the deputation would be: (1) to enquire into the condition of Indians now resident in Fiji and to ascertain the causes of discontent: (2) to advise whether or not, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, Fiji offers a suitable field for Indian colonization. It will be understood that it is not the intention of Government of India that the Committee should interfere in the domestic affairs of the Colony. Its function will be to collect first hand information regarding the conditions of Indian life in Fiji. It will report to the Government of India, and its report will furnish material for decision by the Indian legislature whether Indian colonization in Fiji should be permitted under the new Emigration Bill.

The terms were later extended: so as to enable them to ascertain whether Fiji is suitable for settle­ ment by Indian officers and soldiers, whether the requisite land is available, and if so, on what terms land-grants can be arranged.1 In June 1921 it was announced that a deputation would be coming to Fiji. But the Government of India was finding it difficult to select suitable personnel. In January 1921 it had been provisionally agreed in

78 Negotiations a discussion with Andrews that the deputation would comprise Andrews, Benarsidas Chaturvedi, and G. L. Corbett, I.C.S. Then Andrews wrote that he would prefer to go to Fiji in an unofficial capacity, and that Benarsidas, being shy and not a public man, would rather go as a helper than as a full member. Andrews sent a telegram to Mitter, advising the Fiji Indians to await his arrival; this was intended to hearten them and check the exodus. The Government of India was keen to have Andrews go at the same time as the deputation, because of his prestige among the Fiji Indians and the weight of his authority with opinion in India, including that of Gandhi, on all matters affecting Indians overseas, particularly those in Fiji. The Fiji Government was also happy to have Andrews again, though Knox was furious at the idea. Andrews was busy at Santiniketan, where Rabind­ ranath Tagore wanted help in setting up university classes, and he was reluctant to be away from India at a time of such tension in Indo- British relations, because he believed that he could act as a bridge between Gandhi and Britain. The Government of India further delayed the departure of the deputation to suit his wishes, but then Andrews received an invitation to visit East Africa which everyone recognised was a more important test-case for the treatment of Indians in the Empire. It was then intended that the Fiji deputation consist of Srini­ vasa Sastri, India’s distinguished and persuasive statesman, Pandit Hirday Nath Kunzru, his colleague in the Servants of India Society, and G. L. Corbett, of the I.C.S., with G. S. Bajpai as secretary. But Sastri was chosen to represent India at international conferences, and Kunzru withdrew because Sastri’s long absence meant that his own services would be needed by his society. In the end the deputation comprised B. Venkatapatiraju Garu (a member of the Indian Legislative Assembly, chosen, among other reasons, because he was a South Indian of non-Brahmin caste) as president, Pandit Govind Sahai Sharma (a member of the U.P. Legislative Council), G. L. (later Sir Geoffrey) Corbett, and Lieutenant Hissamuddin Khan, who was added because of a policy recommendation that deputations going to the colonies be accompanied by an officer of the Indian Army to investigate the possibility of acquiring land there for the settlement of Indian returned soldiers.2 The substituted members did not carry the personal authority of Andrews or Sastri, and the Government of India soon decided that it had made unwise choices in Raju and Sharma. Corbett did most of the effective negotiating and drafting of correspondence and wrote the final

79 The Fiji Indians report. Although he was very sympathetic to the Indian point of view, he was discreet in public. Sharma did most of the talking. Hissamuddin said little but made a good impression on all he met, on account of his courtesy and military bearing and his announcement that he had no interest in politics. On their way to Fiji Raju and Sharma gave inter­ views to the Australian press and were misreported. Sharma was quoted as saying that the Indians in Fiji were ‘practically slaves there’; he had, in fact, been speaking of the indenture period. But the newspaper reports seemed to confirm the worst suspicions of the CSR and the Europeans in Fiji that this was not to be an objective inquiry like that of McNeill and Chimmanlal, but another onslaught in the style of Andrews. The Governor of Victoria sent the press clippings to the Government of India, which then reminded Raju of the need for greater tact if the deputation’s mission was to be successful.3 Sharma was the first of the deputation to reach Fiji, on 21 January 1922. He was booked into the Grand Pacific Hotel in Suva and made himself accessible to all. Hundreds of Indians came to the hotel, singly and in small groups, and he heard their grievances privately. After the others arrived, the deputation visited all the cane-growing areas on Viti Levu and Vanua Levu, the islands of Rabi and Taveuni where the chief product was copra, Levuka, and isolated Indian settlements on Vanua Levu. Their tour was comprehensive and they did not leave Fiji until 3 April. They talked with Fell and Rodwell, with Dixon (the CSR's Fiji inspector), and with many other Europeans, including employers and missionaries. And they listened to the Indians of Fiji: ‘Finally, from the date of our arrival, when we were welcomed by deputations from all parts of Fiji until the day of our departure, we met, almost hourly, Indians of every class and occupation.’4 There were two particularly dramatic incidents during the deputa­ tion’s visit. One was when they rescued some labourers who they heard were being held against their will on Lever Brothers’ plantation on Rabi Island. Those particular unfortunates had signed contracts under the Masters and Servants Ordinance, and each time a boat failed to arrive on the exact day on which their terms expired, they were com­ pelled to sign another contract. Fiji Indian legend has it that after the deputation arrived at the island, Hissamuddin drew himself up to his full military height and abruptly put the manager sahib in his place. The other incident was at Nadi where Sharma spoke to 6000 assembled Indians. It was reported in the press that he told them to burn the CSR in effigy. What actually happened, apparently, was that, confronted

80 Negotiations by such a large group of despondent Indians, and intending to empha­ sise that the deputation had nothing to do with the company and that the Indians need not work for it if they did not want to, he had advised them to put unpleasant things behind them by burning them in the Holi fire, as it was then the time of the Phagua (Holi) festival. But the Government of India thought Sharma’s and Raju’s conduct ‘most injudicious and unbecoming’; they were thought to have allowed their ‘zeal to outrun discretion’.5 Corbett later defended them in a letter to R. B. Ewbank, who had succeeded him as the deputy secretary hand­ ling emigration matters in Delhi: Raju and Sharma made two or three indiscreet utterances in Fiji under, it must be admitted, severe provocation. These indiscretions might have passed almost unnoticed, had they not been magnified and advertised by the Colonial Sugar Refining Company and others, in what they believed to be their own interests. On the other hand, I myself on scores of occasions heard Raju and Sharma give Indians in Fiji good sound advice. Let’s look at the results. When I reached Fiji at the end of January 1922, I found the Government almost panic stricken. They were expecting that the cut in wages threatened by the Colonial Sugar Refining Company would lead to widespread disorders, and that there would be a renewed demand for wholesale repatriation. Neither happened. Don’t let this fact be obscured by anti-deputation propaganda.6 While the deputation was in Fiji the campaign for ‘a white Fiji’ continued, with almost daily attacks on Indians in the pages of the Fiji Times and Herald, including a series of articles by Riaz. A letter under the heading ‘A White Fiji’, signed ‘Southern Division’, deserves to be quoted here because it was the occasion for government action and was taken with such seriousness by the deputation that they appended it to their report. After insulting the Indian Army, the letter concluded: I would venture to say that 99 per cent of the Europeans in Fiji and the Fijians are loyalists and the handing over of Fiji to evil­ smelling, treacherous, non-educated, garlic-eating Indians would be one of the greatest crimes in the history of the British Empire, and an event which would possibly meet with some opposition.7 Fell, the acting governor, apologised to Raju, to the Viceroy of India, and to Lieutenant Hissamuddin for the slight on the Indian Army.

81 The Fiji Indians

He told the editor that the publication of such material was discour­ teous and ill-timed. He thought of legislating to prevent newspapers promoting ill-feeling and racial discord, but was advised that there was no precedent within the British Empire. The Executive Council res­ olved that restrictive or suppressive legislation was undesirable, but steps should be taken to influence the press to adopt a moderate tone regarding racial questions. The editor of the Fiji Times and Herald, T. W. A. (later Sir Alport) Barker, apologised and dissociated himself from that particular letter, but the attacks on Indians continued in his newspaper.8 On 18 February, while the deputation was visiting Vanua Levu, the CSR announced that, on account of a fall in the international price of sugar and conditions less favourable than before the war, it would lower the price paid for cane to pre-war levels, and reduce wages from 2s.6d. per day (including bonus) to ls.6d., though it would provide sugar and sharps to its employees at lower prices. The deputation immediately told the governor and CSR that this action would probably result in a strike and a widespread demand for repatriation. They asked that it be postponed, at least until Corbett could talk to Knox in Sydney. The company replied that the decision was irrevocable. The deputation were shocked. They considered that Is. 6d. per day was below a living wage, while it would probably cost at least 14s. to grow the ton of cane for which the company would pay 10s. They stated in their report: Labour regarded the action of the Company as equivalent to a lock-out and refused to work on the reduced wage. This had been anticipated by the Company, and we recognise the shrewdness with which the moment for the cut was chosen. It was expected that the presence of our deputation in Fiji, if it did not secure acquiescence, would at any rate prevent disorders. The crushing season had just ended, and the Company could continue to carry on shorthanded for the next few months. The resources of the Indian labourers had been exhausted by two prolonged strikes in the last two years, and by the rush for repatriation, when thousands sold their property at far less than its real value, so as to be ready for the ship which never came.9 The company was also relying, Corbett believed, on the absence of sufficient alternative work in Fiji, on the Indians’ knowledge of the difficulties repatriates faced in India, and on Andrews’ advice to

82 Negotiations

Indians in the colonies to stay where they were. Corbett thought the company had miscalculated, however: during 1921 the Indians had learnt the possibility of living on the land and there was now a rush for new leases, and, secondly, there was a widespread demand for repatriation even though the Indians in Fiji had heard of the problems faced by the repatriates in India. The deputation’s report went on: The position in which we were now placed, was extremely difficult. It was not perhaps understood with what hopes our deputation had been awaited by the Indian community . . . It was imperative that we should at once dissociate ourselves from the Company’s action. If we had failed to do so, all confidence in our mission would have been destroyed, and despair might have provoked the most serious consequences. Our immediate duty was to encourage and advise the thousands of Indians who crowded round us. We felt bound also to approach the Fiji Government with suggestions for meeting the situation . . . Briefly, we impressed upon the Fiji Government that the Indians in Fiji should either be given opportunity to earn a decent livelihood there, or be provided at once with the free pas­ sages to India to which the great majority are legally entitled.10 The deputation broke off negotiations with the company and Corbett cancelled his trip to Sydney. He said he did this because Dixon had told him that the only scheme the company could usefully discuss would be some assured scheme of supplying fresh labour on a basic wage of Is. 6d. per day. Knox, however, denied that the company had ever remotely suggested any guarantee of a supply of labour, and protested to the Viceroy of India about the deputation’s ‘bias’.11 Before leaving Fiji the deputation telegraphed the Government of India asking it to press for the repatriation to India of those Indians who were entitled to return passages and wished to go; for the pro­ vision of land for those willing and able to settle as independent farmers, and of work for unemployed Indians, either on the projected trunk road or on some other public works; and for the setting of a minimum living wage by the Fiji Government. The Government of India trusted Corbett’s judgment and asked the India Office to press for the implementation of these preliminary recommendations.12 The deputation also suggested that the Government of India advance money to defray the cost of repatriation, leaving the question of liability until later. At the Colonial Office, Green noted:

83 The Fiji Indians

This strikes me as a most dangerous proposal. If India is to take over the duty of financing Fiji, the next step is obviously to take over the control of administration. The appearance of a vote for Fiji in the Indian budget gives exactly the opportunity for discussing Fijian domestic affairs. We are aware that the Indians in Fiji con­ template ultimate transfer to India.13 Fell proposed that India should be asked to pay for all repatriation in excess of the normal number, for which provision had already been made in the colonial estimates. Green noted: ‘We must put a stop to this at once. The Colony has undertaken a perfectly definite liability.’14 He observed that the illiterate Indians who went to Fiji knew nothing about the statute of limitations, average numbers returning per year, and such matters. Fell was told that Fiji would have to discharge its liability to repatriate the Indians, if necessary by borrowing, but he was to make clear to the deputation that the inability to deal promptly with the unexpected flood of applications could not be regarded as a breach of faith or contract.15 The Government of India had supported Corbett so far, but it was unenthusiastic about the recommendation for wholesale repatriation. The distressed repatriates in Calcutta had been a problem in 1921, and there were still people, including 150 from Fiji, clamouring to be sent back to the colonies. There was a wider consideration also: if the Indians in Fiji were repatriated, the Government of India’s policy of encouraging Indian colonisation of the Empire’s open spaces would have failed. One officer in Delhi wrote: We know from other sources that the policy of a White Pacific (without Asiatics) is being pushed forward in Australia and New Zealand. We should not play into the hands of this party by being parties to the removal of the Indians from Fiji.16 Accordingly the deputation were urged to be cautious about encourag­ ing repatriation.17 The Fiji Government had long looked forward to the arrival of the deputation, whose visit promised to settle the question of Indian immigration, one way or another, once and for all. Fiji was faced with a financial crisis, depressed prices for its exports, the threat of the closure of the sugar industry, and the possibility that the colony would be called upon to meet its liability for the repatriation of tens of thou­ sands of Indians. But the Fiji Government was inclined to be much

84 Negotiations more cautious in its dealing with India than it had been two years before. It was annoyed by the vacillation of the Government of India over the sending of the deputation, the return of the repatriates in Cal­ cutta, and Indian political representation, and disturbed by its deferring to Andrews and to Indian nationalist opinion about emigration. It had noted the less sympathetic line now being taken in London over the extension of rights to Indians in Kenya, had been reminded by the Colonial Office about the special position of the Fijians in regard to the land, and had been told that the Imperial Conference resolution was not intended to alter the distribution of political power, in short that it did not mean much. Local European agitation against making concessions to India had reached the Fijians also. While the Indian deputation was in Fiji, the chairman of the Methodist Mission wrote to Fell to express his concern at the Fijians’ lack of confidence in the government and their apparent feeling that it cared more for the Indians than for them. 18 The senior government officers and the lead­ ing European settlers had reached agreement that regardless of the economic consequences, Fiji would pay no large price for more Indian immigrants, certainly not anything that could lead to the ending of European dominance. Very soon after the deputation reached Fiji, Fell decided that the prospects for further supplies of labour from India were hopeless. He treated the deputation with courtesy but with reserve, though he did put forward proposals to London to try to meet some of their suggestions. He asked for an imperial loan, for relief work to be provided on the projected road around Viti Levu, and for permis­ sion to offer the Indians the right to commute their return passages for grants of cash or land. 19 Fell also remonstrated with Dixon and Farquhar, the company’s local executives, about the cut in wages and Knox’s attacks on the British Government. Reporting on these discussions to London, he wrote:

The Company demands freedom from existing export and future direct taxation, and it charges this Government with failure to pro­ vide a labour supply. The difficulties in the latter connexion have been largely due to the Company’s own methods in the past, to their dealings with indentured labourers, and to their lack of sympathy to labour generally. With regard to taxation, it is probably true that there is no country in the world where an industry so prosperous as the Colonial Sugar Company has been so lightly taxed.

85 The Fiji Indians

He suggested that Knox, taking the fall in sugar prices as an oppor­ tunity, had decided on a lock-out of Indian labour in order to bring the Indians to heel and teach the government a lesson, and concluded: It has been more and more impressed upon my mind that it is not in the best interests of any Colony that its prospects and revenue should be largely dependent upon one dominant industrial concern and, however difficult the interval, I feel that reconstruction on sounder lines, even if it should involve the termination of operations by the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, may have its advantages for Fiji in the distant future.20 The Colonial Office had never had any hope that India would con­ sent to reopen emigration to Fiji and it had no inclination to make concessions to her, but it was more concerned by the threat to the financial stability of one of the colonies as represented by Knox’s threat to withdraw from Fiji and the alarming reports from Fell. It decided to take direct action. Winston Churchill, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, sent Knox a conciliatory telegram, urging him to suspend action affecting the future of the sugar industry in Fiji and to discuss the matter personally with Rodwell, then on his way back to Fiji, or with Churchill himself in London. Knox then met Rodwell in Sydney in March 1922 and told him that the ruin of the Fiji sugar industry was close at hand. In turn, Rodwell told Knox it was absurd to blame the British Government for India’s attitude and pressed him to accept Churchill’s invitation, which he agreed to do.21 Knox arrived in London in May 1922, accompanied by Dixon. Churchill was busy with the problems of Ireland but Wood, the Parlia­ mentary Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, asked him to see Knox personally: ‘He is an obstinate old man but he has come all the way from Australia to discuss Fiji problems, and unless we can get something settled, Fiji will be in a very poor way.’22 After three weeks they did get to see Churchill: ‘Dixon and I went this afternoon to keep our appointment with Mr Churchill at 4.15. After waiting 20 minutes we were admitted and he met us at the door with a cigar in his mouth.’23 They were told to come back the next day for a half-hour appointment. The autocrat of O’Connell Street had met his match. Rather absurdly, he had taken legal advice and been assured that the Crown had the power to disallow the Indian Emigration Act of 1922, which regulated the emigration of unskilled labour from India. He asked the Colonial Office to have the Government of India overruled in accordance with

86 Negotiations

Lord Hardinge’s ‘pledge’ of 1916 and to meet its obligation to protect colonial industries. Churchill and Wood told him flatly that it was not politically practicable for the home government to coerce India in such an important matter; it would be almost as unreasonable for an Indian to expect it to coerce Australia on a matter of immigration. Instead the Colonial and India Offices urged Knox to offer higher wages to the labour already in Fiji and if necessary carry on without profit while the sugar industry was reorganised to replace the planta­ tions by small farms. Knox and Dixon were in London for three months and for much of that time they felt they had come in vain. But the Colonial Office knew that the collapse of the sugar industry would have serious consequences for Fiji and would be represented in Australia and New Zealand as a breach of faith on the part of the British Government. For forty years the sugar economy based on Indian labour had supported a modern administration and a level of services for the people of Fiji which, if not impressive by the standards of, say, Hawaii, was nevertheless more than many tropical countries could afford. The company’s announce­ ment of a reduction in wages and cane prices in 1922 had been fol­ lowed by the immediate disappearance of a very large part of the already scanty labour force, the cessation of planting of cane by the Indian growers, and the reversion of much of the cane land to bush. Alarming telegrams continued to arrive from Fiji. A deputation of substantial Indian cane-growers told Rodwell that, failing better cane prices and assurances as to the future, they proposed to abandon sugar­ cane cultivation and they asked for government assistance to establish them in another industry, preferably cotton.24 The officials in London were impressed by Knox’s stubbornness if not his political sense (‘an obstinate and impracticable old man’ wrote Wood to Winterton at the India Office).25 They finally came to the rescue. They were aided by Knox’s discovery that the assurance given by Churchill in the House of Commons in February, that the imperial preference for West Indian sugar would be continued for ten years, applied to Fiji too. Then a settlement was reached after the Colonial Office offered to remove the Fiji export duties on sugar for one year, without prejudice to the future.26 On 1 August 1922, the Colonial Office, after the discussions with Knox, put before the India Office definite proposals for concessions by Fiji, conditional upon the resumption of Indian emigration to Fiji. The letter described the seriousness of the situation:

87 The Fiji Indians

But the unfortunate delays, for which Fiji is in no way responsible, have brought about a state of affairs in the Colony which can only be described as disastrous. Nearly half the sugar land has already gone out of cultivation, and, in spite of severe retrenchment, the Colony has a heavy and increasing deficit. A point has in fact been reached where, unless sufficient labour can be obtained to tide over a period of transition from the plantation system to production by settlers on their own holdings, the industry and administration of the islands must without procrastination be reorganised on new lines, a change which will, it is feared, ruin a large number of the Indian farmers and necessitate the repatriation to India of a con­ siderable proportion of the Indian population.27 Knox agreed to increase cane prices and pay the Indian labourers the equivalent (including bonuses and rations) of a wage of 2s. 9d. per day. The Fiji Government would acquire more land for Indian settlement, make provision for two Indian representatives on the Legislative Coun­ cil as promised before, with a likely increase to three, and appoint a committee to report on the removal of any minor disabilities on the Indians in Fiji. These proposals met with a cool reception in Delhi. The Viceroy replied that it would be hopeless to recommend them to the Indian Legislature, and insisted that the Fiji Government should first remove the existing major disabilities on the Indians resident in Fiji, or at least accept their removal in principle and unconditionally. The Gov­ ernment of India went on to ask for a guaranteed minimum wage, embodied in law, with an impartial tribunal. It suggested that there should be equal communal representation on the Legislative Council, on an elected basis, of Europeans, Indians, and Fijians, and in muni­ cipalities a ward system based on a common electoral roll without educational qualifications; while these suggestions were being con­ sidered three seats on the Legislative Council should be granted immediately. Fiji’s proposals for land settlement were acceptable, sub­ ject to certain conditions laid down by the deputation.28 Rodwell was swift to take exception to the counter-proposals: Present atmosphere is very unfavourable to any counter-suggestions such as those contained in your telegram. It is felt that continued prohibition apart from economic effect places undeserved stigma on Colony which has offered one concession after another and has received no acknowledgement beyond request for more. Majority of

88 Negotiations

Colonists would rather see sugar industry closed down and whole Indian population repatriated than accept proposals exceeding in principle those referred to in paragraph 1. Any attempt to override public opinion might lead to serious rupture between Government and European community who would have support of Fijian natives. Anti-Indian agitation here once started would probably be strongly backed by certain sections in Australia and New Zealand and would in my opinion be beginning of end of Indian settlement in Pacific. I regard Deputation’s suggestion respecting Fijian franchise as being outside terms of reference and breach of undertaking not to interfere in domestic concerns. Publication of any such proposal might have most mischievous results.29 He did, however, offer one more concession: if the Government of India would agree to lift the prohibition on emigration to Fiji, the number of new immigrants should be limited in the first instance to 10,000 plus dependants, and when that number had been reached the whole question of ‘status representation etcetera’ should be further considered after an inquiry and report by a Royal Commission. In a further telegram to London Rodwell gave as his personal opinion that if the Government of India would accept the proposals, the atmosphere of mistrust of India, generated in Fiji by the delays and by the pro­ posals of the deputation, would be dispelled within four or five years, extensive development would then take place, and the colony could reasonably be expected to make further concessions to the Indians.30 The Government of India was still not impressed. It did not agree that Fiji had made any substantial concessions beyond promises. In a des­ patch to London it expressed agreement with the deputation that the welfare of the Indians already in Fiji should be unconditionally assured before further emigration could be considered.31 Meanwhile, the CSR kept up independent efforts to revive immigra­ tion from India, through its roving ambassador, Thomas Hughes, and its commercial agents in India. It concentrated on Madras because of its long-standing preference for South Indian labour and because the political difficulties were less there. The Madras Government favoured emigration as a way of relieving the congested labour market in South India. In 1922 Hughes met the Governor of Madras, and the com­ pany’s agent, D. G. McConechy, approached Indian political leaders, and reported to Sydney that he had enlisted the co-operation of a South Indian member of the Emigration Committee in Delhi. He again sug-

89 The Fiji Indians gested that the Indian politicians be financially bribed to agree to a renewal of emigration to Fiji, a proposal already rejected by Dixon. In March 1923 he reported to Sydney that he had been to Delhi but that the officials there did not favour emigration, as did those in Madras, and were appeasing the Indian members of the legislature. He was told there that the Government of India would not bargain on the question of wages; they would have to be increased before any resumption of emigration to Fiji could be considered. He advised the company to make the increase.32 In 1922 the company’s offer of higher wages had been conditional upon the Government of India agreeing to a resumption of emigration to Fiji. But as the Indian growers were still not planting the new sea­ son’s cane, Knox telegraphed Rodwell in March 1923 that, even though no reply had yet been received from India, the company would pay more for cane, on condition that the government abolished the export duties on sugar and molasses. Rodwell, citing a recent big rise in the international price of sugar, appealed to him to go further by making a larger increase in the cane price and raising wages as well. He warned Knox: On the other hand consequences of attempting to drive too hard a bargain may be disastrous. It should be borne in mind that apart from any pecuniary sacrifice which you may demand Colony will be called upon as part of any agreement with India to make political concessions which cost your Company nothing but mean a great deal to European public here. Up to the present I have had public opinion behind me in my endeavours to arrive at settlement which will ensure rehabilitation of sugar industry. There is however grow­ ing feeling that Colony may be paying too high a price both pecun­ iarily and politically for sake of continuance of your Company’s enterprise. I do not exaggerate in stating that unless situation is carefully handled this feeling may develop into one of bitter hostility towards Company culminating in open denunciation at public meet­ ings and in Legislative Council. My hand would then be forced and I should be reluctantly compelled to inform Secretary of State that relations between this Government and Company had broken down and that further negotiation with India was useless. Knox then agreed to guarantee the increased cane prices for the 1924 and 1925 crops also, and to implement the London proposals on wages.33 At the same time the Fiji Government agreed to abolish the

90 Negotiations export duties, and the company agreed not to claim any refund in respect of the 1922 crop.34 The remission of the export duties on the 1922 crop was a delicate issue. The Colonial Office had promised Knox that duties would not be charged on the 1922 crop but they had in fact been charged; the Fiji Legislative Council would have been asked to vote a refund if the company had not agreed to forgo it. The elected members angrily pro­ tested against the action of the Secretary of State in promising taxation relief to the CSR without consulting the Legislative Council of Fiji.35 This is not the place to go into the details of the row; sufficient to note that it brought out the resentment the European community had of Whitehall and the CSR, of the huge profits made by the company in the period 1916-21, of the light taxation it had paid, and of its short-sighted attitude towards the treatment of Indian labourers. They even contrasted the remission of taxation to the company with the proposal to impose a new tax on the poor Indians. In July 1923 the Fiji Government introduced legislation to provide for an ungraduated poll-tax, called the residential tax, of £1 to be paid annually by all non-Fijian adult males between 18 and 60. In justification, it pointed out that whereas most Europeans paid income tax, and the Fijians a direct government tax and a provincial rate, the Indians were not contributing their fair share of taxes, despite the fact that a very high proportion of government business, in the last few years more than half, was devoted to Indian affairs. The tax was to be accompanied by improved medical facilities for the Indians. The measure was explained to the Indians in advance in Rajdut, the gov­ ernment’s Hindi language newspaper, but it aroused general opposition among them. Mass meetings of protest were held, and telegrams were sent to the Colonial Office and to the Government of India, which tried to have the tax dropped. Badri Mahraj, the nominated Indian member of the Legislative Council, resigned his seat in protest (he was renominated in 1926); he did not oppose the tax in principle but argued that it should apply to voters only, not to the labourers, who could not afford it. To the Indians the tax was further evidence of discrimination: certainly many of them were very poor; they already paid customs duties and various licence fees; and there was an historic aversion in India to paying direct taxes. The building (‘hut’) tax which had been in force from 1911 to 1920 had been resented far more than the unseen indirect taxes. Even the CSR opposed the introduction of the residential tax, on the ground that it could cause an upheaval

91 The Fiji Indians among the Indians and criticism in India which would prevent immi­ gration being resumed.36 But the Fiji Government was now quite reconciled to the probability that there would be no early renewal of immigration from India. Rod- well believed that the time for making bargains and offers had passed, and the elected members of the Legislative Council agreed with him. The Colonial Office passed on a request from the Government of India that the new tax be deferred but it was brought into force after Rodwell expressed the fear that if the Indians escaped direct taxation, the Fijians might refuse to pay their taxes and in that case would receive Indian support, and he cited a letter from Ratu Epeli Ganilau, the Roko Tui Ra, protesting the unfairness of the existing situation.37 In August 1923 Rodwell went on to the offensive against India. He noted: It is my considered opinion that the time has come for a complete reversal of policy on the part of the Fiji Government. I have long held the view that the surest way of securing a change of the Indian attitude towards Fiji would be for Fiji itself to embark upon an anti-immigration policy — not perhaps a policy of complete pro­ hibition but at any rate one of regulation and restriction. I have felt, however, that such a policy should only be adopted as a last resort, when further negotiation with India proved to be hopeless, as I am now reluctantly driven to believe it to be.38 He instanced the recent resumption of Indian immigration to Mauritius on terms that were so favourable to the immigrants that Fiji could not possibly accept them (and in fact the Mauritius experiment in 1923-4 of introducing free immigrants proved to be a failure and was not repeated), and the recent decision to restrict Indian rights in Kenya, which he thought would be certain to provoke retaliation against Fiji. He argued that Fiji needed labourers, not storekeepers, clerks and artisans who would, moreover, compete with the developing Fijians. He proposed to London that Fiji be given the power by legislation to impose restrictions on the immigration of skilled workers. In a draft ordinance the words of the Indian Emigration Act of 1922 were copied, to bring home to the Government of India that the game of prohibition was one which two could play. The Colonial Office saw that the meas­ ure was primarily intended as retaliation against India and asked for it to be deferred.39 Rodwell also proposed to defer the chartering of the 1923 repatria-

92 Negotiations tion ship but this, too, was rejected. He argued that the Government of India was morally in the wrong in insisting on repatriation at the expense of Fiji when originally this had been part of a scheme of con­ tinuous immigration that had been stopped by India. He proposed to counter the agitation against the residential tax that was accompanied by demands for ships and threats of mass repatriation, which he regarded as bluff, by stating that ships would be made available on the understanding that any applicant who then failed to go should either be compulsorily repatriated or lose his right to further repatria­ tion, or alternatively by restricting the right to one change of mind only. The Colonial Office was critical of these attempts to limit the statutory return right, and insisted that, in any case, no change should be made before the discussions with the Colonies Committee of the Government of India, which were to be held as suggested by Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru at the Imperial Conference of 1923,40 The Colonies Committee was in London from April to July 1924. The committee of five (two Europeans and three Indians) was chaired by Mr Hope Simpson. On Fiji, it had been instructed by Delhi to press for greater political representation of Indians than that proposed, pre­ ferably on a common roll; a revision of municipal representation; the withdrawal or graduation of the residential tax; the immediate appoint­ ment of an agent of the Government of India in Fiji; and the publica­ tion of the report of the 1922 deputation, without which it would be idle to consider the reopening of emigration to Fiji. If the Colonial Office were receptive to those proposals, the Committee was to pro­ ceed to the question of a minimum wage, the opening up of more land for Indian settlers, better facilities for repatriation, and various other suggestions made by the deputation to Fiji. The Colonies Committee was soon put straight. J. H. Thomas, the new Secretary of State for the Colonies, declared himself a whole-hearted believer in the para- mountcy of native (not European or Indian) interests in Kenya and the other colonies. The Colonial Office emphatically rejected the pro­ posal for a common roll, complained about the deputation’s report, extolled Fiji’s achievement in promoting Indian prosperity as being better than that of any other colonial government, and said that Fiji no longer expected or desired the reopening of emigration from India.41 The decision that Fiji could do without further Indian immigrants (which deprived the Government of India of most of its bargaining power) was made in both London and Suva. The Colonial Office had long believed that India should be held at arm’s length, but it had not

93 The Fiji Indians pressed this view on Fiji, British Guiana, and Mauritius, because it knew the white settlers would only blame Whitehall for their difficul­ ties. They were left to discover for themselves that India would no longer provide them with cheap labour, as British Guiana and Maur­ itius soon learnt. By March 1924 even the CSR had given up hope that India would, at least in the short run, agree to renew emigration to Fiji on acceptable terms; it thought the terms offered by British Guiana and Mauritius were ‘fantastic’ and ‘preposterous’.42 The governor had already consulted the Executive Council, the elected members of the Legislative Council, the Mayor of Suva, the CSR, and Robert Cromp­ ton, and he knew that the Fijian chiefs were also against making con­ cessions to the Indians.43 It was not difficult for the Colonial Office and the Fiji Government to agree on proposals that India would have to accept because it no longer had the hold over Fiji which that colony’s hope of renewed immigration had once provided. The most important issues were those of political representation and the demand for the appointment of an agent of the Government of India in Fiji. The Government of India had pressed for a common electoral roll, or alternatively for the same number of seats for the Indians as for the Europeans. Both proposals were rejected: the Indian community in Fiji was to be represented by three elected members. It was agreed (though not without dissent among them) that the num­ ber of European elected members was to be reduced from seven to six, with three Fijian members, so making the European representation equal to the non-European. A committee was set up to consider Indian representation on the Suva Municipality. The appointment of an agent was refused by the Colonial Office and the Fiji Government, not only because such a person might have proved embarrassing to the colonial government and a possible source of friction, but also because they believed that the Indians in Fiji should be encouraged to think of themselves as citizens of Fiji and look to the Fiji Government and their own leaders rather than to India, and because they objected to the intrusion of the Government of India into colonial affairs. How­ ever, a new Fiji Government post of Secretary for Indian Affairs was to be created and there could be occasional visits of representatives of the Government of India to examine and report upon specific ques­ tions. There was to be an economic inquiry committee to look into the condition of the Indians in Fiji. In March 1926 the India Office told the Government of India that the Colonial Office’s proposals on Fiji should be accepted, that it would not feel justified in supporting

94 Negotiations a demand for further concessions, that India had been consulted as a matter of courtesy only, and that responsibility for the proposals rested with the Colonial Office and Fiji; Delhi’s responsibility was limited to concurring in them; the decisions were quite independent of any pro­ posal for renewed immigration and therefore the Indian Legislature need not be consulted.44 The report of the Indian deputation of 1922 was never published. Even while the deputation was still in Fiji, Knox took strong exception to publication of the future report, on the grounds that Raju and Sharma were prejudiced before their arrival in Fiji and that the inquiries were not conducted in a proper manner and were one-sided. He urged these views on the Government of India by letter and telegram, and on the Colonial Office and India Office during his visit to London.45 His opinion was shared in London. The report was typed at the India Office, which at once took the view that it should be edited before publication, because it contained passages and expressions which reflected on the Fiji governor, particularly on his handling of the strikes and disturbances and the accuracy of some of his published statements, and because, by exacerbating ill-feeling, it would destroy any hope of a favourable settlement with Fiji. In a telegram to the Gov­ ernment of India, the Secretary of State for India went on to say: T cannot recall any instance in which a Deputation sent by a British Government has criticised the administrative actions of another British Government to which it was officially accredited.’46 A suggested list of deletions of objectionable passages was prepared in London and sent to India. The Government of India agreed that the report needed editing before publication, but pointed out that the deletion of passages would produce difficulties with the Indian Legislature, which would insist on seeing the full report; it would be better to have the deputa­ tion revise it themselves. There were lengthy negotiations between the officials in Delhi and Raju, Sharma and Corbett, who had since been appointed to a post in the Central Provinces. Corbett defended the report as within the deputation’s terms of reference and as a presentation of the full facts of recent events in Fiji. He told Ewbank he knew it might be embarrassing, but a separate report from his colleagues would have been even more embarrassing, could not have been suppressed or censored, and would have put an end to all possibility of future Indian colonisation of the Pacific. He explained: ‘Indian colonisation in the South Pacific, in my opinion, opens up possibilities of far-reaching importance not only for India,

95 The Fiji Indians but also in the settlement of the great problem of the future relations of the white and coloured races.’47 Raju proved difficult, but to ensure publication, he agreed to some alterations in the report, and eventually an agreed list was prepared. The Government of India was under pressure from public opinion, expressed by questions in the legislature, to publish the report as it had indicated in the Council of State that it would, and it was afraid that it would be leaked by Raju or Sharma.48 In July 1923, after hearing of the introduction of the residential tax, the Government of India telegraphed the India Office for approval to publish the final amended version 49 The Colonial Office received a copy of the report in May 1923 and vehemently opposed publication. In minutes and letters Green and Masterton-Smith, the Permanent Under-Secretary, condemned it as an unfair, prejudiced, disguised attack on British administration in Fiji by a deputation that had exceeded its terms of reference. Green wrote: The only result of publication would be ill-feeling and racial bitter­ ness. For more than six years the bait of immigration has been dangled before Fiji, which has granted concession after concession and got less than nothing in return. No doubt the Indian Government will be willing to continue the sport; but the Government and Euro­ pean community of Fiji seem to have learned their lesson and to be ready gladly to agree that no more Indians should go to Fiji. And we certainly do not wish to repeat our blunder anywhere else in the Pacific.50 Masterton-Smith wrote to the India Office objecting to the ‘malevolent character of the report’ and to ‘a partisan document in which every possible ingenuity is exercised in misrepresenting and blackening a British Government and Legislature’; publication would arouse a storm of protest in Fiji and it would be necessary to publish a defence.51 In October these views were pressed at a meeting with the India Office, and as a result the Secretary of State for India (Lord Peel) sent a private and personal telegram to the Viceroy (Lord Reading) urging him to give up the idea of publication, citing the arguments of the Colonial Office that publication would exacerbate European feeling in Kenya and would make it impossible in the future for any colonial administration to receive a deputation of inquiry from the Government of India. In November, a face-saving formula was arrived at: the report would not be published yet, but instead would be submitted to the Colonies Committee of the Government of India.52

96 Negotiations

In November 1923 the Government of India sent a copy of the report to Rodwell for his personal and confidential information. He kept it under lock and key in Government House. The report con­ firmed his opinion of the deputation. He wrote to Green: Of the Deputation as finally constituted I should say that at least three out of the four members if not directly connected with the Non Co-operation movement, were at least in sympathy with Gandhi . . . Corbett, garlanded with flowers and listening with emotion to the enthusiastic cries of ‘Mahatma Gandhi ki jai’ presents to my mind a contemptible rather than a ‘piquant’ picture.53

In March 1926, following the negotiations with the Colonial Office, the India Office told the Government of India that a definite decision should be taken and announced not to publish the report, and to this Delhi agreed, on the understanding that the proposed economic enquiry committee would be so constituted as to command confidence in India as well as in Fiji (in fact the committee was never appointed).54 A version of the correspondence between the Colonial and India Offices was published in Fiji and India in 1927, with certain passages omitted with no indication that cuts had been made. All references to the report of the 1922 deputation were deleted for fear that they could lead to a revival of the demand for publication; also, incidental refer­ ences to the position of Indians in Kenya in case they led to a demand for the publication of further correspondence about Kenya; and com­ plaints by the Government of India about the residential tax and the level of Indian wages in Fiji because they could lead to a renewed agitation for the removal of that tax and for legislation to prescribe a minimum wage.55 Following the publication of these papers, Raju made a statement to the press in which he described the decisions about Fiji as unsatisfactory and disclosed other grievances mentioned in the deputation’s report which had not been dealt with in the published correspondence. On 1 February 1927 the Government of India announced that, in the best interests of the Indian community in Fiji, the deputation’s report would not be published, and on the next day it disallowed a motion by Pandit H. N. Kunzru in the Imperial Legis­ lative Assembly for the adjournment of the House to discuss the inadequacy of the representation proposed for Indians on the Fiji Legislative Council as a matter of grave public importance. In antici­ pation of further criticism, the Government of India asked London

97 The Fiji Indians what action the Fiji Government proposed to take on the rest of the deputation’s recommendations.56 The Colonial Office thought these further questions intolerable and told the India Office that practically all of them were internal matters which should properly be raised by the Indian member of the Legis­ lative Council of Fiji and considered by the new Secretary for Indian Affairs, J. R. Pearson.57 They were whittled down to one issue: the draft declaratory ordinance about equal rights for Indians in Fiji which had been drawn up seven years before as a condition of the Govern­ ment of India agreeing to send a deputation to Fiji. The views of the new governor, Sir Eyre Hutson, were invited. He gave his opinion that questions of discrimination should be dealt with piecemeal, not by a declaratory ordinance; moreover, it would be extremely impolitic to recognise the Indian claim to equality with the Europeans, because it would disturb the feeling of security which existed in the minds of the Fijians. He went on: To quote and to apply the statement issued by His Majesty’s Gov­ ernment in 1922, when dealing with the specific question of Indians in Kenya, I submit, that, primarily, this Colony is a Fijian territory, and that the interests of the Fijian race must be regarded as para­ mount and that, if and when those interests and the interests of the immigrant races, whether European or Indian, should conflict, the former should prevail.58 He urged that there should be no special legislation to change the status of the Indians until the time came to repeal the Native Regulations to accord the Fijians equal status with the Europeans, and that would not be for many years to come. His view was accepted in London. By 1927 India had lost the battle for a major say in the affairs of Indians overseas, including those in Fiji. Indian public opinion, if not as volatile and vociferous as in the years immediately before and after the abolition of the indenture system, was still interested in their prob­ lems, and at sessions of the Imperial Legislative Assembly and the Council of State in inter-war years questions were asked about the condition of overseas Indians, many of them with specific reference to Fiji. From 1927 onwards the leading officials concerned with the question were themselves Indians. G. S. Bajpai (later knighted), who had succeeded Ewbank as the principal official concerned with Indians overseas, had been to Fiji as secretary to Sastri on his brief stopover in 1922. His tone was far more cautious than Corbett’s and reflected

98 Negotiations more scepticism about the grievances of the overseas Indians and whether the Government of India could do much for them. Ideas of Indians colonising the empty spaces of the Empire or of being equal partners with the Europeans in its development, which had been cur­ rent during and immediately after the Great War, were now seen for the illusions they were. The Empire did not want more Indian immi­ grants, except as cheap labour, and the most the Government of India could expect was to negotiate slight improvements in the condition of those already overseas. Bajpai wrote the epitaph on the negotiations with the Colonial Office: ‘Let us hope that Mr. Pearson and the Indian representatives in the Fiji Legislative Council will be able to secure more tangible benefits for the community than we have. If we have not succeeded better, it has not been for want of trying.’59 It had been decided in London and Suva not to make any substan­ tial concessions to India or to the local Indians, but Fiji was still short of labour and the immigration fund was still in existence. There were still press reports of repatriates clamouring to return to Fiji. In May 1926 Alport Barker moved in the Legislative Council that the Fiji Government should bring them back, and this was accepted as the unanimous expression of the opinion of the elected members. The government was loth to approach India after the rebuffs it had received, and the CSR was doubtful of the economic value of old repatriates.60 But the Government of India was still embarrassed by the repatriates in Matiabruj, who again numbered about 600 to 800, mostly from Fiji. In 1926 their desperation to return to the colonies was reported on by S. A. Waiz of the Imperial Indian Citizenship Association. The Indian officials were more critical. In their view, the repatriates were discontented mainly because they had known better days in the colonies; economically they were no worse off than the lowest class of unskilled labour in all large towns in India, but they were often ostracised and cut off from the benefits of the caste system. Bajpai thought the Imperial Indian Citizenship Association’s view ‘somewhat hysterical’.61 But the stranded repatriates remained an embarrassment. The Viceroy himself visited the locality and directed that they be helped to return to the colonies, if necessary at Govern­ ment of India expense, and that inquiries be made in other areas to ascertain the numbers of those living in a distressed condition. The officials persuaded him that that would be imprudent, because it would arouse false hopes and lead to a flood of applications and an indefinite public liability. C. F. Andrews agreed with Bajpai that it would

99 The Fiji Indians be politically unwise to finance re-emigration. Instead, the Government of India approached the Governor of Fiji.62 Sir Eyre Hutson was unenthusiastic, but the Legislative Council voted £10,000 from the immigration fund to bring back people from India. In 1928 an officer of the Fiji Government went to India to select the re-emigrants. The Government of India, sensitive to the political implications, was adamant that there was to be no up-country recruiting. Only six people were taken from the Madras Presidency and eighteen from the United Provinces. Lists of names were sent by friends in Fiji, but the time allowed for tracing them was short and in many cases addresses were incorrect. The balance of the 350 re­ emigrants was collected from the distressed repatriates in Calcutta, as the Government of India intended.63 Hutson then urged Fiji to forget about further assisted Indian immi­ gration, because no permanent or economic scheme could be devised that would satisfy both India and Fiji. He recommended that the immigration fund should be used to preserve the Fijian race as the future labour supply of the colony, and specifically for improved sani­ tation and a medical campaign among the Indians and, especially, the Fijians. But his proposal was rejected by a select committee of the Legislative Council. The CSR, which had been the largest contributor, objected to the use of the fund for purposes other than immigration while it still had hope that some way would be found to bring labour from India to tide over the next ten or twelve years before the labour shortage was taken care of by the natural increase in the population. It offered to make a financial contribution to Fijian infant welfare instead, and this was accepted, the balance being provided from general revenue. The Legislative Council decided to try to bring back more repatriates.64 In January 1929 the Fiji Government asked if the district authorities in India would assist in tracing the repatriates from Fiji. The Govern­ ment of India agreed, after being assured by the Madras and U.P. Governments that there was no political danger. Lists of names were sent, including those nominated by Indians in Fiji in 1927 and recent repatriates considered suitable for return. Most were not traceable; the Government of Madras reported that nine persons, some with families, were willing to return, and the U.P. Government could find only one.65 Then the Fiji Government dropped the idea, because of the worsening economic situation, doubts about whether the British preference for Fiji sugar would be continued, and its concern about

100 Negotiations the recent influx of free migrants from Gujarat and the Punjab, almost all males. At the same time there was a marked slackening of the demand for repatriation from Fiji. The late 1920s had seen a great improvement in the economic and social conditions and general con­ tentment of the Indians in Fiji, following the restoration of stability in the sugar industry around the CSR tenant-farmer system. From 1920 to 1922 it had seemed possible that a very large pro­ portion of the Indian people in Fiji would return to India. Thousands were waiting for repatriation, the Government of India was pressing for ships to be provided for them, the talk at the highest levels in Fiji was of the collapse of the sugar industry and the wholesale repatria­ tion of those Indians — the majority — who were entitled to return passages. Yet by 1929 there were not enough applicants to fill even one annual repatriation ship. Increasingly, those claiming repatriation tended to be old people who wanted to see their birth places again and die on Indian soil, and would not be dissuaded by relatives or the Immigration Department, or others who were merely taking advantage of the free passage in order to visit the land of their fathers. Those who returned found the India of the isolated a strange and often dis­ agreeable place — hot, unhealthy, dirty, greedy, and very hard. They had become accustomed to the different conditions of life in Fiji, and the Fiji-born children had never known any other. Those who could afford to return to Fiji counted themselves lucky to be back, and many who could not still suffered in Matiabruj. In 1929 the Fiji Government was begged to arrange passages on behalf of 650 stranded repatriates ‘with starvation and death staring us full in the face’; it replied that nothing could be done. In Delhi Bajpai minuted, callously it may be thought: ‘These people seem dead to all sense of national honour, otherwise they would never have approached the Government of Fiji in the way they have.’66 They were left to their fate, the last victims of the indenture system.

101 VI

Dharma, Disputes and Education

In the 1920s the Fiji Indians were rapidly becoming a more diversified and complex community. Differences within the community, some of them dating from indenture days and others the result of more recent history, became more obvious and productive of open tension and conflict. The differences appeared along many planes: education, occupation, income, area of residence in Fiji, India-born/Fiji-born, Gujarati and Punjabi recent immigrant/Fiji Indian, North Indian/ South Indian, Tamil/Telegu, Christian/Hindu/Muslim, orthodox Mus- lim/Ahmadiyya, orthodox Sanatan Dharm Hindu/Arya Samajist. A variety of local and overseas influences and expectations impinged upon the emerging community, and the search for respect, or roots, or identity, took many forms. A far from united Indian community con­ fronted the local European settlers, the CSR, and the Fijians in com­ petition for political, economic, social and cultural power and privilege. In Fiji the Indians were exposed to a confusing array of cultural pressures. In the colonial plural society there was no expectation that they conform to a common culture as was the case with immigrants to other new lands. They had no incentive or opportunity to become Fijian villagers. Generally the Europeans wanted to keep them in their assigned place as labourers and menials, and did little for their educa­ tional advancement and knowledge of European culture beyond the requirements of law and order. It should, however, be remembered that British culture was the dominant culture in Fiji. Even those, such as the Arya Samajists, who railed against it were receptive to its appeal, worked within its institutions, and sought to gain admittance to the European educational system and society. To a large extent, they were not initiating, but responding, positively or negatively, to the domin­ ant Europeans. In the long run the culture of the Fiji Indians, though recognisably Indian, was to become just as western or modern as Indian. India was far away, in indenture days the immigrants were without traditional leaders and teachers, few educated people had come to Fiji and some of those had returned to India, and only a handful of people arrived from India in later years to serve as leaders and keep the Fiji Indians in touch with life in the motherland and these too often brought dissension, not cultural unity. Yet, although the inten­ sity of the influences from India was not great, they came at a critical time in the history both of India and of the Fiji Indians. The Indian

102 Dharma, Disputes and Education communities in Mauritius and the West Indian colonies were longer established, better integrated in their local environment, not as recep­ tive to influences from India, and less vulnerable. An infant Indian community in Fiji, struggling out of its indentured past to find identity and respect, turned for help to an India which was awakening to national pride, political agitation and communal conflict. The influ­ ences from India were often modern adaptations to the challenge of British rule and western civilisation rather than traditional Indian culture. Indian society in Fiji before 1920 was not entirely undiversified. Almost all the immigrants passed through the hands of the CSR or a few other employers as indentured agricultural labourers, but there were exceptions. Some had been employed as sirdars over the others, or had been engaged on non-agricultural work as clerks, domestic servants, sugar mill workers, or engine-drivers. Some had come to the colony as free immigrants, notably Punjabi agriculturists and Gujarati shopkeepers or artisans. Some had been brought by the government under contract as interpreters or policemen. There was the odd teacher, doctor, Hindu pandit, and Muslim maulvi. The indentured labourers themselves were of very diverse background. Although the majority were of the ordinary agricultural and village menial classes of the United Provinces and Madras Presidency, this covered a great diversity of castes, customs, languages and dialects. There were high caste people and untouchables, Hindus and Muslims. There were occasional educated people and artisans. Despite the unifying and brutalising tendencies of plantation life, cultural diversity did exist and this was the base for the reconstitution of a complex Indian community, res­ ponsive to a variety of cultural influences. Some further diversification, even among those who had been plantation labourers, had taken place before 1920. A few Indians had acquired a rudimentary education in mission schools. Some had taken to a new occupation such as hawker, shopkeeper, boat-man, mechanic, taxi-driver and transport operator. Others had become prosperous cane-growers; some of these employed indentured labour themselves and lent money to other Indian farmers. Many of the more prosperous people were of the high castes; some of these had been made sirdars by the employers; even the indenture system had not erased all traces of the old order. Although religious harmony was the rule in indenture days, the Muslims held to their faith, established religious societies, and built mosques. Totaram Sanadhya described the activities of a

103 The Fiji Indians number of Hindu sadhus (holy men) and sects before 1914.1 The appeal of the Arya Samaj to the more prosperous, and the emergence of a small community of Indian Christians, have been noted in previous chapters in the context of the industrial and political unrest at the time of the end of the indenture system. The abolition of the indenture system and the strikes of 1920 and 1921 had been big events in the life of the Fiji Indians. But following the enforced departure of Manilal, the deportation of Bashishth Muni, the visit of the deputation from India, and the agitation over the resi­ dential tax, the interest of the leading Fiji Indians turned from indus­ trial and political action to religious and social questions. This may be attributed to the greater prosperity of the community and the suc­ cess of the CSR tenant-farmer scheme. In 1929 political agitation was resumed, and in 1937 industrial agitation, with the formation of the first successful farmers’ union, but in the late 1920s the Indians quar­ relled more among themselves than with the European establishment of Fiji. There was some political activity at that time, though the leadership was poor and the organisations ephemeral. Manilal’s Indian Imperial Association of Fiji collapsed after his departure. The agitation against the residential tax was intense and widely supported but soon died down. Babu Ram Singh did try to revive Manilal’s organisation as the Indian Association of Fiji, with a fairly representative committee, including Ilahi Ramjan as president, Ram Singh as secretary, and Deoki and Ratu Ram Samujh as vice-presidents, and stated objects that included the moral, social, educational and political uplift of the Indians. It made representations to the Secretary of State for the Col­ onies about the residential tax and proposed an address of welcome to a visiting Special Service Squadron that contained political remarks which the government insisted on expunging. The government regarded the Indian Association as representative only of the discontented urban ‘babu’ (English educated) class and declined to recognise it in any way; it died a natural death.2 Another organisation, this time on the western side of Viti Levu, was the Young Men’s Indian Association of Lautoka (president C. Chattur Singh, secretary Ramsamujh Prasad). In 1926 it asked for an Indian member to be nominated again to the Legislative Council and Badri Mahraj was so nominated in 1926.3 On other occasions the Indians combined for temporary and specific pur­ poses, such as the presentation of petitions and addresses, including one to the governor in 1926, and another to L. S. Amery, the Secretary

104 Dharma, Disputes and Education of State for the Colonies, on his visit to Fiji in 1927. The petitions asked for better educational and medical facilities, greater representa­ tion on the Legislative Council than the three members envisaged, longer terms of leases for land and simplified leasing regulations, mini­ mum wage and worker’s compensation, and the abolition of the resi­ dential tax. Significantly, the address of December 1927 included this statement: ‘Most of us regard Fiji as our permanent home’ — a measure of how the Indian community had settled down in Fiji only a few years after the disorders following the end of indenture.4 In the middle years of the decade a number of new Indian organisa­ tions were formed. In 1924, following the refusal of the Suva Y.M.C.A. to admit Indians, even Indian Christians, the Indian Reform League was founded by A. W. McMillan, who had been sent to Fiji by the New Zealand Y.M.C.A., and a number of modern-minded Indians. Several Fiji Government clerks and interpreters — M. S. Buksh, W. M. Caldwell and S. S. Chowla — were prominent in the League, and other leading members included J. F. Grant, Ilahi Ramjan, and Deoki.5 The majority of the members were Indian Christians and it soon acquired a sectional, though nominally non-political, character. It encouraged cricket and other organised sports that did much for the new generation and provided a link between the races in Fiji; it pressed for social reform, including changes in the marriage law; it provided service to the people, including volunteer nurses during the typhoid epidemic of 1925. Its counterpart was the Stri Seva Sabha (Women’s Service League), founded in 1934, which carried out social work and pressed for social reform. The first major religious conflict in Fiji to emerge in the 1920s was, not surprisingly, that between the Hindus and the Muslims. Of the immigrants who came to Fiji, 14-6 per cent were Muslims, the great majority of them from North India. In indenture days the distinction between the Hindus and Muslims was there, of course, and the Mus­ lims managed to maintain their sense of religious identity more than many Hindus. But the Hindus and Muslims did live and eat together, they intermarried, and they joined in each other’s celebrations. The principal festival of the Indians in indenture days was muharram (usu­ ally called in Fiji the tazia, after the bamboo and tinsel structure representing the mausoleum erected over the grave of the martyred Imam Husayn). In India the tazia was a Shia sectarian addition to the month of fasting and prayer enjoined by Islam. It was a noisy, colour­ ful festival, and in Fiji an occasion for general frivolity without much

105 The Fiji Indians religious import. For many years the celebration in Suva was organ­ ised by a Chamar (a low Hindu caste) and degenerated into a mixture of merry-making and casual observance of Muslim rites by non-Mus­ lims. Muslim protests caused the government to ban it after 1930,6 and to ban an attempted revival in 1940. The tendency was for relig­ ious observance to become more standardised. In place of the many sadhus and diverse eclectic observances of indenture days, certain festivals came to be prominently recognised. Among these, Ramlila and Holi were pre-eminent among the Hindus, Diwali was observed by the Gujaratis especially, the South Indians had their Maha Devi festival and associated firewalking, and the Muslims Id-ul-Fitr and Bakr-Id. Even before 1920 there had been signs of increasing differentiation between the Hindus and the Muslims. Heightened Muslim conscious­ ness found expression in the formation of Islamic societies in various centres to build mosques and teach Arabic and the principles of Islam. In 1926 a central body, the Fiji Muslim League, was formed and an annual general conference of Muslims initiated.' In the 1920s this trend towards greater Muslim self-consciousness and organisation led to conflict with the Hindus, who were undergoing a similar transform­ ation. This trend was not just a reflection of the growing complexity of the local Indian community, but parallelled and owed much to similar processes in India, where the 1920s saw mounting communal tension that derived more from modern politics, organisation and mass communication than from traditional religion. The Fiji Indians, seek­ ing identity in their new found freedom, reached out to India for exemplars, and it was the more modern communally-minded type of person and association that was ready and organised to provide them. Government officers deplored these influences from India, and so did many of the Fiji Indians themselves. Some effort was made to keep them out, but with limited success. It is noteworthy how the organisa­ tional names, books and issues that aroused tension in Fiji followed those in India itself. The first important breach between the Hindus and the Muslims in Fiji occurred before the arrival of the preachers from India, who then did much to widen it. In December 1926 the Hindus of Suva and Rewa held a meeting to protest against the granting of a licence for a slaughter-house at Koronivia to Inayat, a Muslim butcher, in partner­ ship with a European. The matter aroused intense public controversy, and the Hindus were also offended by the public selling of beef by

106 Dharma, Disputes and Education

Muslims elsewhere. Then came the news of the assassination by a Muslim of Swami Shradhanand, a prominent Hindu leader in India. Hindus made threats against Muslims, especially in the Suva-Rewa area which was to be the locale of most of the tension between the Hindus and Muslims in subsequent years.8 The Hindu Maha Sabha was established in Suva with the aim of uniting the Hindus of Fiji and was controlled by the Arya Samajists, who were more militantly anti- Muslim than the more tolerant orthodox Sanatanis. Early in 1927 Pandit Srikrishna Sharma, from Etawah, U.P., who had been sent for by the Arya Samajists, arrived in Fiji. In India he had been an Arya Samajist preacher, though he had also been involved in nationalist agitation and had been tried and convicted during a satyagraha about the national flag. He soon stirred up controversy in Fiji by the public denunciations of Christianity and Islam that accom­ panied his preaching and singing. He toured the colony under the patronage of the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Fiji (Arya representative society), stirring up communal feeling while urging Hindus to eschew European customs and collecting funds for an Indian girls’ boarding school. He was soon joined by two other Arya Samajist arrivals: Kun- dan Singh Kush, a school teacher brought from India, and Kunwar Bachint Singh, a Punjabi school teacher who had been in Singapore. Other leading Arya Samajists in Fiji included Badri Mahraj and his son Raghvanand (a government clerk), both of whom the government warned off becoming involved in communal agitation, B. L. Hiralal Seth, a storekeeper and cane-grower, and Randhir Singh, a rich cane- grower. The Gujarati commercial community, most of whom were recent immigrants to Fiji, also provided support for the Arya Samaj and the Hindu Maha Sabha. But the leading champion of Hinduism, and the Arya Samaj in particular, was Pandit Vishnu Deo. Vishnu Deo was the most important Indian leader in Fiji for more than two decades. He was born in Fiji, unlike most of the other leaders of his time. After attending the Marist Brothers’ school, he took a post with the government as a clerk. He then became an accountant and commission agent, drawing much of his business from the Gujarati community in Suva. But most of his energy was spent on his political career and the welfare of the Indian community — as he saw it. He owed his political position in Fiji to his reputation as a friend of the poor and an uncompromising champion of Indian, and especially Hindu, interests, as well as to his skill in debate and talent for the rough and tumble of politics. Although he had not visited India, he

107 The Fiji Indians

was inspired by the ideal of a renascent Hindu India and saw the cause of the Fiji Indians as involved in the cause of the freedom of Indians everywhere. He was a dedicated Arya Samajist and a consistent critic of Islam, Christianity and orthodox Hinduism. His work for the Arya Samaj included managing schools and editing the papers Fiji Samachar and Vaidik Sandesh. In 1932 Dr McGusty, the Secretary for Indian Affairs, praised Vishnu Deo as an interesting character, genuinely concerned for the social well being of the Indians, and a reasonable advocate of their cause. He observed, correctly, as time was to show: ‘His quick mind, strong personality and undoubted qualities of leader­ ship will always make him a powerful influence in Indian politics in the Colony.’9 In 1933 Bajpai in Delhi gave another assessment: ‘It is regrettable that Mr Vishnu Deo wastes the ability and prestige with which he is credited on questionable activities which can only discredit him and the Indian community generally.’10 Overt communal conflict within the Indian community in Fiji reached a peak in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Vishnu Deo announced that he was protecting the chastity of a Muslim girl under 13 from some leading Muslims of Lautoka, Ba and Nadi.11 In an address of welcome to Pandit Amichand, a new teacher from India, the Arya Samaj leaders, in the vituperative tone they then used, claimed that the Indian Reform League consisted of ‘Jai Chands’ (traitors) who were leading the Indians to be ashamed of Indian culture and encouraging them, under the guise of physical culture and refinement, to take up dancing, drinking, meat-eating and profligacy. Chowla and other government servants then sued Ram Singh, the printer and pub­ lisher of the Fiji Samachar, for libel, and the suit was withdrawn after he apologised.12 The Arya Samajists also tried to seize control of the Samabula Indian school in Suva by packing the committee. But Mus­ lim and Christian parents objected to the employment of Kundan Singh Kush as a teacher and took their children away. The school was taken over by the government as part of a program of educational expansion and it re-opened with a headmaster who was a qualified teacher, a Christian. The Arya Samajists protested at the passing over of Kundan Singh, but the Fiji Muslim League, the Madras Maha Sangam, and the Indian Reform League approved.13 Further unpleasantness in the Suva-Rewa area was associated with the militant activities of the Hindu Sangathans, or local Hindu societies. In some places where Muslims were few in number they were ostra­ cised, boycotted and threatened, and pressure was put on them to give

108 Dharma, Disputes and Education up beef-eating and become Hindus. Hindus who showed friendship to Muslims were punished. The salutation ‘salaam’, hitherto used in Fiji, was replaiced by ‘Ram, Ram’, a specifically Hindu greeting. The Mus­ lims did not suffer in silence.Those who renounced Islam were taunted, cattle were killed ostentatiously, meat was carried about openly, a calf-skin was put in a Hindu’s well, Hindus were stopped from throwing soil into the graves of their Muslim friends. There were petty assaults and court cases. 14 The breach was not general and the boycott move­ ment was not supported by the Arya Samajists on the western side of Viti Levu, but the old easy relations had gone forever. Both sides complained to the government. The Hindus asserted that the trouble was caused by the growing habit of beef-eating among the Muslims (more of whom could now afford it) and by greater Muslim exclusivity in their feasts and festivals; the Muslims said that the real reason for the trouble was not Inayat’s butchery or beef-eating, but the fact that the Hindus and the Muslims were fighting in India. 15 There was truth in both these claims. A more diversified Indian community was turning to the past customs of its homeland and being caught up in its present turbulence. The Arya Samajists directed their attacks against Christians and orthodox Hindus as well as Muslims. On the Rewa they even tried to convert some Fijians, but the government warned the Fijian officials to keep their people away from them. The opposition to the Arya Samaj found a curious champion in Dr Hamilton Beattie, a wealthy and philanthropically minded Scottish doctor, who set out to improve the status of the Indian community and become a leader of it. He acquired the Pacific Press and published a new paper, Vriddhi (later, Vriddhi-Vani), a weekly edited by J. H. Waller (a printer who had once lived in Calcutta) and Pandit Durga Prasad (actually a Christian). Vriddhi reported items of interest to the Indians, including regular news about the religious controversies, it dispensed advice, and it criticised the Arya Samajists. For instance, it recommended the book Rangila Rishi (‘a rake as a saint’) by Pandit Madhavacharya Sastri, which attacked the character of Swami Dayananda, the founder of the Arya Samaj, and together with its parallel anti-Muslim volume Rangila Rasul (‘the prophet as a rake’) was proscribed in British India. Beattie was generally regarded as a well-meaning intruder who stirred up trouble without having the authority he wanted. Naturally the Arya Samajists called on the people to boycott him and his paper. 16 For the first few years the Arya Samajists, with advocates like Vishnu

109 The Fiji Indians

Deo and Srikrishna Sharma and ample financial support from rich adherents, had almost all their own way in polemics against the less organised Sanatanis. However, in December 1930, Pandit Ramchandra Sharma was brought to Fiji by the Sanatanis. He made a good impres­ sion by the good humoured moderation that accompanied his dis­ courses on traditional Hinduism, his singing and his playing on the harmonium. He opened meetings of the Sanatan Dharm association to Muslims, Christians and others, and was called a ‘Jai Chand’ by the Samajists. Another Sanatani preacher from India was Pandit Murarilal Sastri. The two criticised the Arya Samaj, the Hindu Maha Sabha and the Sangathan movement for causing dissension. The Sanatanis were now able to more than hold their own in debate, but the Arya Samaj had a newspaper, the Fiji Samachar. In 1931, in an attempt to score points over the orthodox Hindus, the Arya Samaj published Fiji men Arya Samaj se Shastrarth (Religious Debate in Fiji with the Arya Samaj), in part a vivid account of the sex life of various deities, taken from the Purana. Vishnu Deo and Babu Ram Singh were prosecuted and pleaded guilty to publishing an obscene work.17 Because of his conviction, Vishnu Deo was disqualified from standing as a candidate for the Legislative Council, with political consequences that will be considered later. One group that tried to stand apart from these conflicts was the South Indian community. Although some Madrasis were drawn into the Sangathan movement, they were dissuaded by their fellows from becoming too involved. A quarter of the immigrants had embarked from Madras. They included Tamil, Telegu, Malayalam, Kannada and Hindustani speaking people. The majority were Tamils from crowded districts such as North Arcot and Chingleput who were accustomed to the temporary migration of agricultural labour to Burma, Ceylon, and Malaya. Unlike the North Indians, they had no prejudice against overseas travel, and they maintained closer ties with their homeland. They came to Fiji later than the North Indians, and many were inden­ tured to the lately established plantations on north-west Viti Levu. On plantations where they were isolated, they suffered greatly from lone­ liness and home-sickness, and many committed suicide. They were discriminated against by the northerners, but they had closer relations with the Fijians and were regarded as better workers by the CSR and other employers. As with the northerners, their search for cultural identity was in part a reflection of events in India, where Tamil and Telegu regional nationalisms were asserting themselves in the inter-

110 Dharma, Disputes and Education war years. The South Indian leaders in Fiji included the merchants M. N. Naidu and V. M. Pillay, Sadhu Kuppuswami, several government interpreters, and Doctors C. M. Gopalan and A. D. Sagayam. Local associations called Sangams were started. In 1926 a central body was formed, the Then India Sanmarga Ikya Sangam, generally called simply the Sangam, a loose association of local groups with a centre at Nadi. In 1927 the South Indians in Suva, Rewa and Navua established the Madras Maha Sangam; the name was changed to the Then India Vali- bar Sangam (South Indian Young Men’s Society) in 1936.18 The South Indians saw education as the key to the survival of their languages and culture in Fiji. Schools were established in the name of the Sangam and managed by local committees. South Indian languages were taught, and the government eventually allowed these to be used as the medium of instruction for Madrasi children in registered grant-aided schools. For its first decade the Sangam was not particularly concerned with political or economic matters, but with cultural identity and prestige. Later the South Indian community became involved in the political and industrial conflict that will be discussed in the next chapters. Although the South Indians were a category distinct from the north­ erners, they came from various ethnic groups in India and these divis­ ions found expression in Fiji also. Again, direct influence from India was important. In 1937 Swami Avinashananda of the Ramakrishna Mission arrived in Fiji, in response to a long-standing request from the Sangam for the Mission to send someone to undertake educational and social work. He did not stay long but was followed in 1939 by Swami Rudrananda, who was to become an important leader of the South Indians and the cane-farmers generally. Under the Swami’s guidance the Sangam became more tightly organised and centrally directed from Nadi. In 1937 the Then India Sanmarga Ikya Sangam was registered as a company, and A. D. Patel, a Gujarati lawyer, became its general manager. The government agreed to subsidise the Sangam’s schools and orphanages and the bringing of teachers from South India. Of the first two brought, one was a Tamil and the other a Telegu, but increasingly the organisation took on a more explicit Tamil flavour. Tamils were in the majority and the two Ramakrishna Mission swamis were both Tamils. There were too few Malayalam and Kannada speaking people to withstand the Tamil predominance in the Sangam, but the Telegus were better placed to do so. Dissatis­ faction with the increasing central control of the schools from Nadi

111 The Fiji Indians and with Tamil ascendancy found expression in the formation of the Dakshina India Andhra Sangam (South Indian Andhra Society) by Tataiya and Veeranna, of Penang, Ra, in 1941, with the objects of promoting the study of the Telegu language and literature and preserv­ ing Telegu culture in Fiji. Again, events in Fiji parallelled those in India where the Telegus looked forward to the formation of a separate Andhra State. Another source of friction within the Sangam was the resentment at the way Swami Rudrananda used his growing power to identify the organisation with the Ramakrishna Mission, which was not specifically a South Indian organisation.19 Although the Muslim community presented a more united front to outsiders than the Hindus, it was not immune to sectarian conflict of an analogous type to the Arya Samajist/Sanatani conflict among the Hindus. When the Fiji Muslims appealed to their homeland for help it was not the traditional, orthodox Sunni Muslims who responded, but the modern missionary type, in this case the Ahmadiyya sect of Lahore, regarded as heretical by the orthodox. In the communal conflict in India in the 1920s the Ahmadiyyas were prominent as vocal cham­ pions of Islam against the Arya Samajists and were also active in proselytising abroad. Several Fiji Indian Muslims were converted to Ahmadiyya ideas by Muhammad Abdulla, headmaster of the Hidayat- ul-Islam school at Nausori. Prominent Ahmadiyyas included Muham­ mad Tawahir Khan, a garage proprietor, transport operator and elec­ tricity contractor of Lautoka, the Sahu Khan family of Suva, and X. K. N. Dean. In 1933, in the name of the Fiji Muslim League, they brought out an Ahmadiyya preacher, Mirza Muzaffar Beg, after secret negotiations that angered the older orthodox Muslims. But they were not able to secure control of the League, and formed their own organ­ isation, the Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat-i-Islam. Disputes over the control of mosques and schools continued for some years, accompan­ ied by violence and police intervention on occasion. The orthodox were more numerous, but the Ahmadiyyas had able, educated and wealthy leaders. Muzaffar Beg also angered the Arya Samajists, who protested that they had no champion since the government had refused to allow Srikrishna Sharma to return to Fiji after a visit to India and had also refused entry permits to other known Arya Samajist preachers. But the government did not take sides in these religious and sectarian disputes, and it applied the same treatment to Muzaffar Beg after his return to India.20 For a few years after 1934 the controversy between the Ahmadiyyas

112 Dharma, Disputes and Education and the orthodox Muslims died down, but rows within the Muslim community continued over personalities and political ambitions rather than doctrines. The Punjabi brothers, Said Hasan and Muhammad Hasan, both lawyers and Sunnis, won for themselves positions of leadership in the Muslim community and respect from the government. But they were unable to control the Suva branch of the Muslim League, and their political ambitions were challenged by the Sahu Khan family, who formed the Muslim Association in 1938, with other Ahmadiyyas and some Sunnis as well.21 There was further trouble after the arrival of an orthodox teacher, Aziz Ahmed, in 1938, and there were quarrels over the possession of the Lautoka mosque in 1939, but the details need not detain us here. Enough has been said to indicate the pattern of sectarian conflict, exacerbated by personal and political rivalries and the activities of preachers and teachers from India, as the Indian community in Fiji struggled to educate its children and find dignity and acceptance in its new land and links with its past in India. There were many other organisations formed by the Fiji Indians in our period, some of them ephemeral, others longer lasting. There were professional associations like the Fiji Teachers’ Union, unions like the Indian Motor Drivers’ Union, commercial organisations like the Indian Chamber of Commerce, and communal organisations like the Sikh Gurdwara Committee, the Samyukt Gujarati Mandal, the Kabir Panth Maha Sabha, the Arya Young Men’s Association, the Indian Christian Society of Fiji, the Young Men’s Muslim Association, and the Sanatan Dharm Rishikul Maha Sabha. The negative aspects of the sectarian conflicts should not obscure the facts that most of these organisations did useful work in education, social service, and relief during natural disasters, and that they provided the Indian community in Fiji with organisation, where virtually none had existed before, training in par­ ticipation and leadership in a modern setting, and channels of com­ munication with the government. But even after making allowance for the benefits, it was unfortunate that the Indian community could not stand together, that it was not better led, and that it had so much bad advice from narrow-minded though admittedly well-meaning people. Sectarian conflict weakened the Indians’ claim to respect, enabled wedges to be driven between them by self-interested parties, and threw up the wrong type of leaders, who used sectional conflict to promote their own interests. Most Fiji Government officers had no knowledge of Indian languages, and often the Indian clerks and interpreters were themselves involved with sec-

113 The Fiji Indians tional organisations and did not command the full confidence of either the government or the Indians. The Fiji Government had refused to accept an agent of the Government of India in Fiji; neither Pearson, the first Secretary for Indian Affairs, nor McMillan, the Inspector of Indian schools, enjoyed much respect, particularly from the Arya Samajists; and there was no Indian in the colony of sufficient stature to act as a leader of all. The administration, particularly Sir Murchison Fletcher (governor, 1929-1936), was not above taking advantage of the conflict. To its credit, the Government of India firmly advised the Fiji Government against granting requests from the Fiji Muslim League that the Muslims be given separate political representation and recog­ nition of Muslim personal law, though this differential treatment existed in India itself. And if communal bodies in India provided the wrong type of inspiration and leadership for the Fiji Indians, there was at least one friend who gave them good advice. Benarsidas Chaturvedi, pursuing a lonely concern for the interests of the Indians abroad, publicly criticised those who dissipated the energies of the Fiji Indians in religious quarrelling.22 In consequence, he fell from favour with Vishnu Deo and the Fiji Samachar, which instead began to praise another champion of the overseas Indians, Bhawani Dayal Sannyasi, whom the Fiji Government refused permission to come to Fiji. Of course, not all missionaries from India engaged in polemics, while some who arrived full of fervour soon settled down to teaching and quiet service to their people. Another source of division within the Indian community was that between those already in Fiji and the newcomers, who were mainly Punjabis and Gujaratis. There had been a small number of Punjabi free migrants, even before 1920. They were more willing to travel abroad on their own initiative than the people of Bengal or the United Pro­ vinces, in part because of their freedom from caste restrictions, and experience in military and police service. They were accustomed to migrating to make money and return to their home villages, and this became a tradition in heavily populated districts. Economic pressure was not unique to the Punjab, but there it operated within a cultural context that sanctioned overseas migration. Many went to Fiji in the late 1920s, following the closing of other countries to them. Most of them were from the Jullundur, Ferozepore, Hoshiarpur, and Ludhiana districts of central Punjab. Jullundur district, which provided the majority, was troubled by rising population, diminishing size of hold­ ings, increasing agricultural indebtedness, declining water-level, and

114 Dharma, Disputes and Education lack of canal irrigation. There was a shortage of women and bride prices were high. Most of the migrants were young, unmarried, Jat Sikhs who had to negotiate loans for their passages on the security of their shares in the land. In 1928 their passages were being arranged by Saiyed Wali Mohammad and Ganga Singh of Karnana, tahsil Nawa- shahr, Jullundur. Wali Mohammad had been in Australia and Ganga Singh had been a storekeeper in Ba. It was said that they charged about Rsl50 a head, in addition to the steamer fare, for arranging passports and the journey to Calcutta. Chain migration followed, as successful Punjabis in Fiji wrote to fellow villagers and sent remittances home. The Punjab Government estimated that the total amount re­ mitted from Fiji to Jullundur in 1928 was at least a million rupees. In Fiji, the young Sikhs took to a variety of occupations and acquired a reputation for being hard workers and tough bargainers. They were the backbone of the road-gangs, worked as artisans in Suva, cut and sold fire-wood, set up as market gardeners and yaqona cultivators between Suva and Rewa, and many went to the cane districts, where there were several wealthy Punjabi planters.23 In contrast, the other main group of Indian migrants in this period, the Gujaratis, became traders and artisans, rather than agriculturists and labourers. Like the Punjabis, the Gujaratis were more inclined to go overseas in search of fortune than most of the Indian peoples. Gujarat, which is astride the old trade routes from the Arabian Sea to Central and Northern India, has a long history of commercial and industrial enterprise, and Gujarati traders have long been accustomed to travelling overseas. As the colonial powers established their type of commercial order throughout the world, Gujaratis followed in their wake. Like the Punjabis, a few arrived in Fiji before the first world war, but the immigration did not gather pace until the late 1920s. The 250 who arrived on the direct steamer from India in 1930 included 57 whose occupation was given as tailor, 43 as hawker, 29 as jeweller, 26 as laundryman and 25 as barber.24 The Gujarati immigrants to Fiji came from a variety of places, including Saurashtra and Kaira district in central Gujarat, but the majority of them were from Surat District and the adjoining Baroda State, especially Navsari town. They were of various castes, but principally Khatris, Darjis and Patels. In Fiji the Gujaratis often had to take to new occupations. The great majority were Hindus, including some Arya Samajists, but there were a few Muslims. Gujarati migration to Fiji was chain migration, and those who became established sent for kinsmen. They became the shop-

115 The Fiji Indians keepers, tailors, jewellers, shoemakers, laundrymen, and barbers of the colony, and in time largely ousted the local Europeans and the ex- indentured and Fiji-born Indians from the retail commerce of Fiji, though the Chinese were just as successful in business and the large European firms retained their positions at the top. The Gujaratis were skilful in craft and business, hard-working, frugal, clannish — and unpopular with other Indians. Normally they brought their business partners and assistants from India and did not employ locals. Most of the assistants were employed on four or five year contracts, and because of an over-supply of migrants had to accept employment for a few shillings a month and their keep — conditions which the locals would not accept — though sweatshop conditions were tempered by paternalism and kinship solidarity. Until 1930 there was still a labour shortage in Fiji and free migrants were welcomed by the Fiji Government and European planters, even though they did not intend to stay permanently. It was thought that transients, who should be encouraged by a regular steamer service between Fiji and India, could tide over the labour needs of the colony until these could be met from the natural increase of the Indians already in Fiji and from the entry of more Fijians into the labour market. The Fiji Times and Herald wrote: ‘Fiji does not require per­ manent settlers of the Indian type. Her lands and her climate are for Europeans who can employ what labour they require.’25 In a letter to Bajpai, Pearson stressed the government’s responsibility towards the Fijians and the need for caution in encouraging permanent Indian immigrants; it now preferred a regular flow of enterprising temporary immigrants who would come out for a few years to improve their prospects in life and return to their homes.26 But this attitude changed as an increasing flow of young Sikhs poured on to an overcrowded and depressed labour market in 1930. On the repatriation steamer which arrived from Calcutta in February 1930 there were 347 Punjabi and 250 Gujarati migrants, and others were coming via Australia.27 In 1930 the Fiji Government imposed restrictions on immigration. It asked the Government of India to refuse passports to anyone wishing to go to Fiji unless he was accompanied by his wife, or produced evidence that he was a resident of Fiji, or the consent of the Fiji Gov­ ernment had first been obtained.28 In the 1930s the Fiji Government further restricted immigration, giving as reasons the worsening economic situation, the risk of unem­ ployment and discontent among the Gujarati and Punjabi immigrants,

116 Dharma, Disputes and Education the competition with local Indians and the emerging Fijians, and the excess of male immigrants at a time when a disproportion of the sexes still survived from indenture days. From 1931 onwards Indian immi­ gration was limited to 500 to 700 a year. In the issue of permits, preference was given first to family groups and then to agriculturists, and an attempt was made to limit the number of traders and artisans to the colony’s actual requirements. There were still more male immi­ grants than female, but the restrictions did redress the balance to some extent. The majority of the immigrants were still Gujaratis and Pun­ jabis. The regulations were evaded by various subterfuges, and were tightened in 1935 by the introduction of a system under which Fiji passports were issued only to bona fide residents, defined as Fiji-born Indians, those brought in under the indenture system and still resident in Fiji, and those who had lived in Fiji for ten years and also had business interests or employment of a permanent nature there. All others, whether new immigrants or not, needed a landing permit. The Indian Association of Fiji and the Indian Chamber of Commerce pro­ tested against these restrictions, and their protests were taken up with the Government of India by the Imperial Indian Citizenship Associa­ tion and the Indian Merchants’ Chamber of Bombay. The Government of India told London that it was not satisfied that the new restrictions were justified, and it re-affirmed that only in exceptional circumstances should Indians be denied entry to a British colony. In the late 1930s the Fiji Government proposed to go even further in restricting Indian immigration. In 1938 the Executive Council decided to set an annual quota of 350 Indian immigrants, exclusive of the wives and minor child­ ren of residents, but the matter was held over until after the war.29 In December 1937 an official committee on immigration heard evidence from the public. There was a conflict of opinion among the Indians. Some wanted travel between Fiji and India to be as unres­ tricted as it was to the British Commonwealth countries from which most of the Europeans in Fiji came, but some favoured a quota system with preference to agriculturists, and others asked that there be no further Indian immigration. A. D. Patel chaired a conference of Indians at Lautoka that pressed the first view, which was the most generally held. But 200 Indians at Ba signed a petition asking that immigration be stopped ‘in the interests of those already settled here, their offspring and for the good of the Colony as a whole’. The petition went on: There are certain undesirable types of Immigrants; Fiji is full with

117 The Fiji Indians

such. These men refuse to admit in their social circle which in itself creates bad feeling; there is nothing but these traders refuse to employ local borns in services; they refuse to teach them any form of trade; they refuse to spend in Fiji; their God is money and their interest in Fiji merely matter of £ S P . . . Our troubles date from far back, and it dates back from the days when professional men arrived amongst us. Our party feelings and religious troubles come from India.30 The petition reflected the growing feeling against the Gujarati money­ lenders and the sentiment that Fiji should be for the Fiji-born. Similar attitudes were evident during the 1937 election campaign, when Chattur Singh made effective use of the fact that he was Fiji-born in order to defeat his Gujarati opponent, A. D. Patel, in the north­ western Indian division. Chattur Singh and his brother, Parmanand Singh, together with Ayodhya Prasad and Siri Ram, organised a secret body, called the Nawa Jawan Sainik (New Youth Army). It was com­ posed largely of Fiji-born Indians, and it excluded Gujaratis, Punjabis and even Madrasis. The associated Indian Trading Company was an unsuccessful effort to supplant the Gujarati storekeepers. The land­ lord of a store building expelled his Gujarati tenant and formed the Rakiraki Indian Farmers Store Company. The anonymous commander- in-chief of the New Youth Army made a press attack on the Samyukt Gujarati Mandal, a Gujarati social organisation.31 However, the agita­ tion, though it reflected widespread attitudes, was mainly occasioned by the election campaign, and it soon died down, though anti-Gujarati feeling remained latent and was expressed again during the war when there was profiteering by Gujarati storekeepers. In later years the Gujaratis steadily consolidated their hold on retail commerce and became the richest Indian group in Fiji. In recent years they have become much more settled in the colony, and have used some of their considerable wealth on the welfare of others — especially on educa­ tion. As the general contentment of the community improved, the Fiji Indians looked to the future of their children in Fiji and wanted formal education for them. The Christian missions had schooled the Fijians, but had done less for the Indians, though they had made a start in 1898. In the days of the indenture system most of the Europeans thought that it would have been unnecessary, and self-defeating, to provide schools for the Indians, who had been brought to Fiji to serve

118 Dharma, Disputes and Education as an unskilled labour force. This view did not go unchallenged and the 1909 Education Commission and various missionaries protested against it. The Indian work of the Methodist Missionary Society of Australasia, the largest mission in Fiji, was predominantly in the educational field, and the Anglican and Roman Catholic missions maintained schools also. They made few converts, but many non- Christian leaders of the Indian community received their formal educa­ tion in Christian schools. There were other formidable problems besides the indifference or hostility of the European community. There was little on which to build except the keenness of the Indian parents and their willingness to sacrifice for their children. The parents were themselves illiterate and there were few educated Indians in Fiji, especially qualified teachers. The Indians were poor, the missions were already heavily committed to the education of the Fijians, the government faced seri­ ous financial difficulties in the early 1920s because of the crisis in the sugar industry, and in any case had always left most of the work of education to the missions. It was implicit government policy to keep the races separate and, even apart from the problem of language, it was not considered appropriate for Indian children to be admitted to schools for the Fijians or to the few European schools. There was no system of Indian local government and no educational rating system. There was the need to find competent school managers. One of the most serious problems of all related to the lack of social cohesion of the Indian community in Fiji. The Fijians, who lived in villages under a communal system, found it easier to co-operate to establish schools, build school-houses from local materials, pay the teachers almost entirely in kind, and keep up enthusiasm and contributions under the guidance of the Christian missions, which provided training for the teachers. The Fijians largely paid for their own education and it was relatively easy to organise them to do so. But Indian settlement was scattered, there were no recognised villages and no shared local tradi­ tions or established institutions, and labour and building materials had to be bought. The Indians were divided by language and religion and in the 1920s became more conscious of these differences. It is not surprising that progress in providing Indian schools lagged well behind the growth in population. In 1931 it was estimated that of 16,200 Indian children 6-14 years of age, 4402 were attending school (3440 boys and 962 girls). They were being taught in 68 schools by 165 teachers (30 of them Euro-

119 The Fiji Indians peans), of whom 76 were trained and 89 untrained. The government managed 7 of those schools, the Methodist mission 11, the Roman Catholic mission 7, the Anglicans 2, the Seventh Day Adventists 2, Muslim associations 2, South Indian associations 4, the Arya Samajists 3, the CSR 3, and others 2. Twenty-five others were classified as ‘general’; in 8 of those Arya Samaj influence predominated, in 9 ortho­ dox Sanatan Dharm influence, and in the case of the remaining 8, the local Indians were said to be without any strong religious leanings. Slightly different figures given elsewhere for 1931 show that of 4530 Indian pupils, 500 were being taught in government schools, 1800 in Christian mission schools, 120 in schools managed by the CSR, 100 in Muslim schools, and 2010 in schools conducted by other Indian societies and committees.32 Behind these statistics, though not clearly shown by them alone, is a story of inadequate government aid to Indian education compared to that given to the Europeans and Fijians; high-quality mission school­ ing in central places; extensive Indian voluntary effort, particularly by the Arya Samajists; much low grade schooling in local schools con­ ducted by faction-ridden committees and untrained teachers; attend­ ance by many Indian children for three or four years only; attempts by the Muslims and South Indians, where they were in sufficient num­ bers, to retain their cultural identity and the teaching of Urdu, Tamil and Telegu; a lag in education for girls; fragmentation and duplication of effort, particularly in the towns and more populous centres; the neglect of remote areas where there were often no Indian schools at all; and the reinforcement of the pluralistic pattern of Fiji society, with separate schooling for the Europeans, the Fijians and the Indians. The policy of providing separate schools for the Fijians and the Indians was not seriously questioned in Fiji by any of those involved in education: the government, missions, Indian societies, parents, and teachers. Some of the leading Indians did object to the exclusion of Indian children from the European schools, including the Suva Grammar school. Until 1929 no education was available for them in Fiji above primary level. Badri Mahraj was the first to send his sons to New Zealand for secondary schooling, others followed, and later the Fiji Government gave overseas scholarships. From 1925 to 1936 a number of children were sent to Arya Samaj institutions in India for higher education, and this helped to keep alive Indian culture in Fiji. The government and the local Europeans took it for granted that, in the context of the European dominated order, it would be inappro-

120 Dharma, Disputes and Education priate to admit Indian children to their schools. Differences in customs, backgrounds and languages were the rationale for this discrimination, as it was in the case of the separate schools for the Fijians and Indians. As most of the Fijian schools were village schools, integrated into the Fijian social structure and Fijian Christianity, it was simply more convenient to set up separate schools for the Indian children. Although there were a few multi-racial schools, the different patterns of settle­ ment, government, economic life, religion, recreation and associations were generally reinforced by Fiji’s school system. The debate about Indian education in Fiji concerned rather the question of government aid, the type of education to be imparted, and the medium of instruction. The 1909 Education Commission had recommended that the government do more for Indian education by providing assistance to the missions and to the employers of inden­ tured labour and by establishing government schools. By 1917 a Board of Education and a Superintendent of Schools had been appointed and provision made for grants-in-aid. Andrews spent much of his time on his second visit in 1917 in setting up schools and recommending the value of education for the Indians in Fiji. He felt that the government should do more to help Indian initiative in the educational field. By 1919 the government was assisting seventeen schools for Indian child­ ren, and in the same year a government school was opened at Natabua, Lautoka. From 1923, following the end of the post-indenture political and industrial troubles, the Indians began to show a much keener interest in the education of their children, and there was much private initiative in trying to set up schools. Indian organisations, including the Indian Reform League, asked the government for aid to Indian education, and in 1925 the new governor, Sir Eyre Hutson, proposed to London that there be a commission into education in Fiji. He pointed out that the government could not with safety allow the Indians to grow up without education, noted that they wanted other schools besides those run by the Christian missions, and commented: ‘This aspiration of a people who adhere to the great Faiths of the East is one which com­ mands my sympathy.’33 In 1926 there was no high school for Indians, and no teacher training other than that provided by the Methodist and Roman Catholic missions. The Education Commission of 1926 received submissions from a variety of Indian associations, represent­ ing several religious and linguistic groups. It recommended that more Indian schools be provided, education be adapted to Fiji rural condi-

121 The Fiji Indians tions, a secondary school be established, and teacher training provided in Fiji by the government. It proposed that an education rate be levied on Indians to provide funds for education and introduce a measure of local government in the Indian districts. It noted that the missions could not be expected to carry the whole burden of educating the Indian population, even apart from the religious problem, and saw no alternative to either a system of government schools or the exten­ sion, under strict regulation, of the system of grants-in-aid.34 A full­ time Director of Education was appointed in 1927; A. W. McMillan became Inspector of Indian Schools; a secondary department and teacher training facilities were attached to Natabua; and a few schol­ arships were provided for secondary schooling in New Zealand. How­ ever, progress was delayed, first by disputes over policy and the opposi­ tion of the European leaders in Fiji, and then by the economic depres­ sion from 1931 onwards. The first Director of Education, John Caughley, who had held the same post in New Zealand, was critical of the mission and private Indian schools and favoured government schools. He said that at least 100 more schools, each accommodating 100 pupils, were needed to meet the needs of the Indian children aged 6-10 years, and asked that 13 schools be established in 1929. But Hutson wanted government schools to be tried on a small scale at first. He proposed that the thirteen schools be established over a five year period commencing in 1930, and this was accepted by the elected members of the Legislative Council, though not discussed in open council. It was understood that these government schools were to be an experiment. Figures given to the council showed that in 1928 the government spent £7639 on the education of 870 European children, £12,195 on 16,000 Fijians, and £5040 on 3500 Indians at school. Of children aged 5-14 inclusive, 91-5 per cent of the Europeans were attending school, 80 per cent of the Fijians, and 17-5 per cent of the Indians. Over all Europeans 5-14 years of age, the government spent £8 per head on education, over all Fijians 12s. and over all Indians 5s.35 In 1929 Hutson left Fiji, and the acting governor, A. W. Seymour, decided, on the advice of Caughley and Pearson, to hasten the provis­ ion of schools for the Indians. In a message to the Legislative Council he proposed that six boys’ and three girls’ schools be set up by the government in 1930. He observed that progress since 1909 had been meagre; the need was pressing and action could not be delayed until a reasonable rating system had been worked out. In an annexed state-

122 Dharma, Disputes and Education ment Caughley observed: ‘No one can help noticing the eagerness, amounting to a kind of hunger, for education among the Indians of Fiji.’36 Pearson, who helped draft Seymour’s message, thought that education for Indians was fast getting out of hand, boys were being crammed in English far too soon, nothing but a literary education was being given, schools were becoming centres of factional strife, and the people, left to their own devices, were becoming subject to nationalist influences from India. In his view, the system needed stabilising by having government schools as models.37 The European elected members were shocked by Seymour’s mes­ sage. In 1929 there was heightened political tension between the Euro­ pean and Indian leaders following the elections of that year and the subsequent walk-out of the newly appointed Indian members of the Legislative Council. The European members asked that the proposals be deferred. They said they agreed that provision was needed for Indian education, but they doubted whether government schools would be successful and asked that the experiment be tried on a smaller scale first; in any case, the proposals should first have been submitted to the Board of Education. When Seymour refused to back down, his rela­ tions with the European elected members deteriorated rapidly and they asked that their protest be referred to the Secretary of State. They objected to a temporary incumbent, on the eve of the arrival of a new governor, trying to push through an educational program which had been drastically altered from one that had been agreed with the previ­ ous governor. The Indians rallied to Seymour’s support and condemned the European elected members at a meeting in the Suva Town Hall. After the arrival of Sir Murchison Fletcher, the European elected mem­ bers petitioned for Seymour’s removal from Fiji and refused to serve on any committee of which he was chairman, alleging that he had been discourteous towards Hedstrom, the senior elected member. Personal differences, Seymour’s tactlessness, and constitutional issues were undoubtedly involved, but there were more fundamental questions. The Secretary of State agreed not to press for larger expenditure in the existing estimates, but told the elected members that he thought the three extra schools they were proposing were not adequate, and instructed Fletcher to make an early inquiry into the matter and submit supplementary estimates.38 To Seymour and the Indians, the real issue was European opposition to the education of the Indians — though this was publicly denied by the European members and by Fletcher in his despatches to London.

123 The Fiji Indians

Seymour wrote to London: ‘It is my settled opinion that Indian educa­ tion has been deliberately shelved for the past 6 years. The European members thought they could shelve it in this Budget also. They seem to think Education even in the vernacular is bad for Indians.’39 He claimed that the CSR was behind the opposition to Indian education; but the European members hardly needed prompting on this matter or on questions touching their constitutional rights and dignity. In the Colonial Office, one official noted: ‘Fiji is on its way to becoming a little Kenya — the unofficials are not yet too stout to be dealt with — we must make sure that they don’t become so — on no account must Mr Seymour be thrown to the wolves.’40 Whitehall was only too pleased to snub the elected members. The European members were told in reply to their petition for Seymour’s removal: ‘His policy of endeav­ ouring to remedy past neglect of Indian education, which appears to be the gravamen of the charges against him, is one which commends itself to Lord Passfield’ (the new Labour Party Secretary of State).41 Over the next few years the Colonial Office and its Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies, in agreement with the Government of India, repeatedly complained to the Fiji Government about the dis­ parity between the educational facilities provided for the Indians and those available to the Europeans and Fijians, and particularly about the lower proportion of Indian than of Fijian children attending school.42 In November 1929 and only four days after his arrival in Fiji, Fletcher held a meeting on educational policy, attended by representa­ tives of various interests, including four Indians. There was general agreement that there should be separate education for the Europeans, Fijians and Indians, that the Indians should provide schools of their own, to be managed by local committees and supervised by the Board of Education, and that the Indians should be taxed to pay up to half the cost of elementary education for their children. Fletcher set out to implement this policy. The grant-aided school continued to be the norm, though the government did take over three existing schools and build three new ones to serve as models. The government concentrated on improving standards, and relied on private initiative to set up new schools.43 However, it was unable to meet the demand for grants. A system of rating for Indian education was provided for by ordinance in 1930 but for various reasons was not introduced: there were admin­ istrative difficulties, the return to be had from a rate would have fallen far short of requirements, it might have reduced voluntary Indian

124 Dharma, Disputes and Education contributions, it would have been difficult to devise a fair system, poor people would have found it hard to pay, a rate would have implied that all could go to school.44 Expansion was further retarded by the high standard of school building demanded before grants were given, and by the shortage of teachers. The government dragged its heels on drawing up a program for the establishment of new schools and the acceleration of teacher training, though urged to do so by the Colonial Office. After his visit in 1936, A. I. Mayhew, the Colonial Office’s principal educational adviser, gave his opinion that although Indian education had been greatly improved since 1929, ‘Indian education in quality and quantity in all its aspects and grades is still considerably below the level of Fijian education’45 It should be noted, however, that the statistics did not tell the full story; many of the schools in Fijian villages were of a very low standard indeed. Shortage of funds, aggravated by the depression and World War II, undoubtedly had much to do with the slow progress in Indian educa­ tion, but Fletcher, who was governor for six critical years from 1929, was clearly unsympathetic to Indian political and educational aspira­ tions, and in this he was one with the European elected members. He wrote in 1936: The Colonial Office have not in my time evinced the smallest interest in Fijian education . . . The Indian community are far wealthier than the Fijian community, and therefore better able to help them­ selves in the matter of education. The Indian always clamours loudly, when he wants anything. The Fijian never defends his needs . . . It is necessary to beware lest under Govt, of India — Colonial Office — local Indian pressures we act unfairly by the Fijians and give the Indians more than their share.46 Not that Fletcher thought that true education was being neglected. Soon after his arrival he wrote to London: I may here pause to examine the charge, which is being made against this Colony, that next to nothing is being done to promote Indian education. If education connotes a scholastic training in English on European lines, the charge is true. If, after the modern fashion, the test is the counting of heads, then Fiji can at least claim that 5-63 per cent of its Indian population are students, as compared with 3-47 per cent in India. If however there is a wide definition: if education includes those methods which are designed to inculcate

125 The Fiji Indians

discipline and an orderly habit of life, teaching the people to adjust themselves to their environment, so that they may find contentment and progress within that environment: then Fiji can point to an achievement which few can emulate. I refer to the achievement of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, and 1 claim no credit for the Government. When it is realised that some seventy per cent of the Indian population depends directly or indirectly upon the Com­ pany, it cannot be said that education in its true sense is neglected in Fiji. In short, the Indians were to be kept in their place as farmers and labourers. Fletcher was quite explicit on the point: the Indian in Fiji ‘almost without exception, has no prospects at all apart from the land’.47 It followed, in Fletcher’s analysis, that education should be in the vernacular, not in English. The Education Commission in 1926 had recommended that, where suitable teachers were available, a simple course of reading and speaking English should be introduced at an early stage, and that English should also be used as the medium of instruction at an early stage. This was already the practice in most Fiji schools for Indians. Hindustani was the medium of instruction in the lower primary grades, and English in the upper and secondary grades and in the teachers’ training schools. Fletcher was opposed to the teaching of English in the primary schools and tried to arrest this trend. He told London: ‘The indiscriminate teaching of English will lead the people away from their present contentment.’ ‘Very costly and very tragic mistakes’ made elsewhere in the tropics were to be avoided; an educated urban, unemployed, discontented, and disloyal class was not to be created in Fiji. In his view of the Indian, ‘the mainspring of his demand for education is his determination to get away from the land’.48 There was some validity in this analysis. Indian parents did want educa­ tion in the English language which they saw as opening up better prospects for their children and that is why they were prepared to send them to Christian schools, where a high standard of English was main­ tained. They did not send their children to school to learn to do manual work that could be done at home. Agricultural courses and schools such as those of the CSR and the Seventh Day Adventists that empha­ sised agricultural training were not well patronised by Indians. Yet the few non-manual jobs were still usually reserved for Europeans: in 1930 the Fiji public service employed no more than forty Indian

126 Dharma, Disputes and Education clerks, interpreters, messengers, and assistant treasury officers; the business firms employed few Indians in clerical capacities and even the shop assistants were still nearly all Europeans. The Colonial Office took a broader view. Its Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies stressed the advantages in spreading a knowledge of English as a second language: a higher standard of educa­ tion, the bringing together of the races, and the avoidance of a situa­ tion where the Fiji Indians looked to India for all their ideas and policy; English was destined to be the lingua franca of the Pacific; if all were taught English, there would be no gap between a small English educated class and the rest of the Indian population; English could be taught in such a way as to be useful in all occupations.49 Fletcher did not succeed in arresting the trend towards teaching English in the schools. Most schools taught some English from an early stage and used it as the medium of instruction in the higher grades. The question of the medium of instruction was complicated by cultural diversity among the Indians. The education ordinance of 1929 provided for the medium of instruction in primary schools to be Hindu­ stani in the Nagari script. The government tried to keep up Hindustani standards in the schools, and books, magazines, and films from India reinforced the trend towards a more correct form of the language than the old Fiji-bat of the plantations. The militant Arya Samajists wanted a more sanskritic form of Hindi than that propagated by McMillan in his Hindustani Handbook, school journal, and teachers’ examina­ tions. On the other hand, the Muslims objected to the teaching of the Nagari script, and in 1931, in response to their requests, the govern­ ment permitted the use of the Urdu script for Muslim pupils in regis­ tered schools. Urdu and Arabic were taught in religious schools, which did not have to be registered under the Education Ordinance. Simil­ arly, Tamil and Telegu were taught as additional languages in schools run by South Indian organisations, and the government agreed to their use as a medium of instruction. But Hindi still became the common language of the Fiji Indians. Education is an important subject but it has not been possible to give more than a general treatment here. Several points emerge. Schooling was rightly seen, by those who asked for it and those who opposed it, as the key to the future of the Indians in Fiji: the oppor­ tunity for them to enter non-manual occupations and compete with the Europeans. Most of the Fiji Indian leaders concerned themselves with the establishment and management of schools; the European

127 The Fiji Indians leaders recognised Indian education as a threat and tried to block it. The administration, particularly Fletcher, was apprehensive that too much schooling, particularly in the English language, would increase social and political discontent and give the Indians an added advantage over the less ambitious Fijians that could prove awkward in the future. The European settlers and the government were able, with the help of the depression and the war, to slow the Colonial Office’s impetus for faster progress in closing the gap. Although the Christian missions and the government’s professional educationists, who were mainly from New Zealand, did excellent work, particularly in keeping up standards, the initiative for the education of the Fiji Indians came mainly from the people themselves. Apart from the mission schools, the typical school was established by local residents, who formed a committee, appointed a manager who was often a prominent local figure such as a solicitor, built a schoolhouse, and sought recognition from the Educa­ tion Department, which would approve the facilities, post and super­ vise a teacher, approve a curriculum, and make a grant-in-aid. The committee had a continuing responsibility for providing the running costs of the school, but enthusiasm was difficult to maintain and the work and financial support, as usual, devolved on to a few people. The school committee was one of the few associations in Fiji Indian rural society, and the forum not only of general aspirations but also of disputes of a personal and sectarian kind. A later governor, Sir Philip Mitchell, wrote in criticism of the educa­ tional policy hitherto followed in Fiji: No one seems to have given much attention to the broad question of the kind of education suitable for Fiji. The approach has rather been to consider how the education given elsewhere, most commonly in the United Kingdom or New Zealand, can be provided in increas­ ing quantities for the people of these Islands. Moreover, at least in the official attitude to education, racialism has been accepted as inevitable and all educational arrangements have been made on the assumption that the races must be educated separately.50 Of course, it was but natural for the conventional British educational wisdom of the day to be applied to a Crown Colony, and there is nothing unique about educational inequality or white privilege. What is singular about Fiji was the maintenance, largely because it was the easy course, of a tripartite school system that was only rarely ques­ tioned — as it was by Mitchell, and by C. F. Andrews on his visit in

128 Dharma, Disputes and Education

1936 — from the standpoint of inter-racial understanding and future national solidarity. In 1944 in a special report on education commis­ sioned by the government, F. B. Stephens from New Zealand recom­ mended that there should be more multi-racial schools in the larger centres and that the government should take over all the schools. Although it imposed stricter control over the schools, the government did not take his advice on multi-racial schools.51 As a visitor from India noted in 1937: ‘What a contrast between Fiji and Hawaii! The different races are kept apart practically at every stage of education in Fiji.’52

129 VII Common Roll

‘Honour’ is the refrain of the overseas Indians. The indenture system was hated in India more because it was seen as a symbol of national degradation than because of the suffering it caused. The deputation of the Government of India in 1922 listed izzat (honour) — with pet (livelihood), insaj (justice), and ‘shipping’ — as one of the four main grievances of the Indians in Fiji. By crossing the waters and disregard­ ing caste custom, the migrants had failed to observe dharma (religious duty), and those who returned to India were soon reminded of it. Those who stayed in Fiji were conscious, too, that they were disliked by the Europeans and Fijians, especially by the former whose con­ tempt was more freely expressed and — in the context of European dominance — more important. To most Fiji Indians, preoccupied with livelihood and family, izzat was a background problem but to the emerging leadership it was supremely important. Specific economic grievances attracted followers, but what moved the leaders was (after taking self-interest for granted) more often than not a resentment of the inferior position assigned to Indians in the European dominated order. In 1929, the governor, Sir Murchison Fletcher, put his finger on that need for recognition and respect: I believe that the point of view of the Indian in all parts of the world is largely coloured by his resentment that, no matter what his stand­ ing is in terms of culture and of wealth, the European persists in ignoring his social existence, but, be this as it may, the important point with the local Indian is, not constitutional forms, but a deter­ mination that he shall get what the European has got, and that he shall be granted an all-round equality of status.1 Throughout our period the majority of the Europeans in Fiji were unwilling to concede to the leading Indians the respect they longed for. They excluded them from their clubs and schools, did not invite them to their homes, and reminded them in various ways that they were the sons of indentured labourers and fortunate to be in Fiji at all. Understandably, those who aspired to respect within the European dominated order tended to react to this treatment with a touchy resent­ ment that itself became part of the problem. There were different paths to izzat. Some sought it in a non-political attempt to recreate dharma

130 Common Roll in Fiji through a revival of ritual or in reformed religion. Most wanted modern education for their children. A few saw the full acceptance of western ways, even the Christian religion, as the answer. Others looked for respect, not primarily from the Europeans in Fiji, but from India and its national movement, and they played to a gallery outside the colony. Some, of course, combined several approaches or used them at different times. The co-operators and the non-co-operators, the collaborators and the protestors were often the same people. In 1929 the Fiji Indians could look back on fifty years of their history in Fiji. The Crown Colony was only five years older. The hard work of the Indians had made Fiji’s modern administration and econ­ omy financially viable. The indentured labourers had suffered, some of them appallingly, but many of them and particularly their descend­ ants had later found a modest and secure living and contentment in Fiji, though manifestly they were still not on equal footing with the Europeans. It was with mixed feelings that the people of the colony faced the prospect of celebrating the jubilee of the arrival of the first Indian settlers. In Suva an Indian committee was set up to organise a celebration. The government was asked to proclaim a public holiday but the lead­ ing Europeans were opposed to this and the Executive Council unani­ mously advised the acting governor against it. But, as on the education question, Seymour did not disappoint the Indian community. Fie pro­ claimed 15 May as a public holiday and bank holiday and as a day of rejoicing. The contempt and opposition of many Europeans to this decision found expression in the Fiji Times and Herald. Moreover, not all the Indian leaders agreed that the day should be celebrated. Vishnu Deo and some of the other Arya Samajists wanted it to be observed by mourning. Others, particularly on the western side of Viti Levu, said that while they could not bring themselves to celebrate the anniversary with rejoicing, they were opposed to recrimination and morbid dwelling on the past; their idea was to mark the occasion with consultations about future progress. On 12 May, at a meeting at Lau- toka, it was decided to fast and pray on the day and organise a Fiji Indian National Congress. Two days later, Dr Beattie in Suva formed a body with the same name. The Suva celebrations passed off unevent­ fully and the extensive police precautions proved to be unnecessary. On the evening of 14 May, old immigrants recounted their experiences in the Suva Town Hall; most were inarticulate in the strange surround­ ings but some provided tall stories of their loved ones being eaten by

131 The Fiji Indians the locals in the early days. On the next day there was a procession of floats through Suva to Albert Park, where Seymour spoke to the crowd. Happily, the event was largely a children’s day and an affirma­ tion of encouragement and hope for the future. In the rival camp, a black flag was displayed from the Arya Samaj office and the indenture system was burnt in effigy. Neither function attracted much attention from the public at large.2 Later in the year the Fiji Legislative Council assembled, still with an official majority, under new letters patent that provided for three Indian members elected on a separate roll. There were literacy and property qualifications for the franchise and only 1404 registered Indian voters in all. No big issues were presented to the Indian voters in the elections in September, the question of the separate electoral roll was scarcely mentioned, and there was no hint of the troubles that were to follow. In the southern electoral division, Vishnu Deo, draw­ ing on his reputation as a champion of Hinduism and on canvassing by Arya Samajist supporters, defeated his Christian opponent, John F. Grant. In the north-western division, Parmanand Singh of Ba was returned, and in the eastern division, James Ramchander. The elections for the Indian seats were uneventful and unexceptionable from the standpoint of race relations, but this was not the case for the European seats. Some of the Europeans had all along mistrusted the extension of the franchise to the Indians. European resentment had already found expression in criticism of the Indian Jubilee celebrations and opposi­ tion to the granting of a public holiday on that day. The reduction in the number of European seats from seven to six meant that one of the leading Europeans would have to lose his seat in the council. In the election campaign, two of the candidates, Sir Henry Scott and Henry Marks, made bitter attacks on Indian aspirations. Pearson, the Secretary for Indian Affairs, wrote to Stewart at the India Office about the speeches: I happened to hear portions of one and was amazed at the way racial prejudices were worked upon and cheers raised from the audience at successive gibes against the Indians. The general attitude was that Indians were not wanted except as labourers and small farmers and must be kept in their place. If they did not like it they could clear out and make room for a more docile set of plantation workers. Pearson observed that the speakers were appealing to the racial pre-

132 Common Roll judices of the poorer people on the European electoral roll, including the part-Europeans — in short, those who feared Indian competition. He ended on a more hopeful note: I rather think that a good deal of the talk is discounted by moder­ ates both European and Indian as mere election hysteria and that the principals are a little repentant now. Anyhow, there is a strong body of European opinion which deplores the outburst and is quite willing to give the Indians a fair chance.3 The Indians in Fiji voted on a separate electoral roll, but those in Kenya were still demanding a common roll and being supported by the Government of India and by organisations interested in Indians overseas, such as the Imperial Indian Citizenship Association in Bom­ bay and the Indians Overseas Association in London. Early in 1929, Chattur Singh of Ba, Parmanand Singh’s brother, was travelling over­ seas and met H. S. L. Polak, the Secretary of the Indians Overseas Association and the leading lobbyist in London for Indians abroad. Polak later wrote: At the beginning of this year, an Indian gentleman from Fiji came to see me and we discussed the whole of this question at length, and I explained to him the harm that I knew would result both to Indians overseas and India generally, if the Fiji Indians alone, under a mis­ apprehension of fact, or a misunderstanding of principle, were to accept a communal franchise based upon racial considerations. He assured me that upon his return to Fiji he would discuss the matter in that light with his countrymen there, who he felt sure did not know that they would be rendering a disservice to their motherland and to the cause of their brethren abroad, by accepting a type of franchise fraught with so much peril to Indian welfare and dignity.4 More important in determining the stand of the Fiji Indians than Chattur Singh was Shiwabhai Bhailalbhai Patel, who had come to Fiji in 1928 at Polak’s suggestion, to practise law and help organise the Indian community. He had been with Gandhi in the Kaira satyagraha in 1918, then in Rangoon, then in London. After Dr Beattie wrote to Polak about the problems of the Indians in Fiji, the latter suggested that S. B. Patel go to Fiji. At first he was reluctant, but Gandhi urged him to go to help the Indians there. He was met at the Suva wharf by both Beattie and Vishnu Deo, who were opposed to each other, and soon learnt the reality of local dissensions. He wrote to Polak of

133 The Fiji Indians the mean and petty quarrels between the Arya Samajists and the Indian Reform League and said he would proceed with caution and moder­ ation because the Europeans were suspicious and he had to outlive the reputation of Manilal as an agitator. Mahadev Desai, Gandhi’s secretary, with whom S. B. Patel corresponded, wrote that he had spoken to Totaram Sanadhya, then living in Gandhi’s ashram, who had advised S. B. Patel not to take sides in the quarrels in the Indian community nor to let the government think he intended to carry on Manilal’s work.5 S. B. Patel did, in fact, work quietly. He saw educa­ tion as the most pressing need of the Indian community, and in addi­ tion to his law practice, he managed schools. He eschewed the lime­ light that was enjoyed by others more temperamentally suited to public politics, such as his close associate, Ambalal Dahyabhai Patel, also a Gujarati, a younger man whom he had known as a law student in London and who came to Fiji in 1929 to practise law and to help the Indian community. Nevertheless, S. B. Patel played a very important political role in Fiji in 1929. He explained in a letter to Polak: The Letters Patent were out in May last and the election was fixed for the first week in September. The registration of voters was finished in May, for which registration only one month was given. It was all new here, especially to the Indian settlers. When the Letters Patent were issued Ambalal (Patel, a professional colleague) and I considered the position and felt that the election should be proceeded with, as without preparation the people could not have been prevented from registering their votes, notwithstanding the invidious and humiliating racial discrimination which they did not realise. We accordingly decided to wait until after the election. We had begun discussing the question of the common franchise with leading people even before the election. After the election, therefore, we got seriously busy and convened a Round Table Con­ ference of all parties of the Indian community and, on the 13th October, it was held at Lautoka under my chairmanship. We subse­ quently held a further conference with leading people in Suva and Levuka. The three Indian members of the Legislative Council accompanied us, and we decided upon our plan of action . . ,6 Although the common roll agitation was inspired from abroad, par­ ticularly by Polak, it was not directed from abroad. The most important figure in the subsequent campaign was Vishnu Deo, not S. B. Patel or A. D. Patel. Other leaders included Hiralal Seth and Randhir Singh.

134 Common Roll

The principal Fiji-born leaders were Arya Samajists. The Arya Samaj attracted a high proportion of the ambitious, educated, and wealthy, and accustomed them to combination in a modern setting, and it was not surprising that those same people should have been prominent in political affairs. But they were not acting as the ‘Arya Samaj Party’, as the government misleadingly called its opponents. Informal contacts were more important in the common roll agitation than formal organisation, though there was a brief attempt at the latter. In 1929 Vishnu Deo wrote to Jawaharlal Nehru. He asked for a copy of the constitution of the Indian National Congress, saying that the Fiji Indians were contemplating the establishment of a Congress in Fiji. Jawaharlal gave his blessing to that project but declined an invitation to write an article for the Vaidik Sandesh, saying he could not afford the time.7 The two congresses, formed by Vishnu Deo and Dr Beattie on 12 and 14 May respectively, existed separately for several months. Then on 13 October, at the round-table conference of Indians at Lautoka, the delegates from Beattie’s Congress made common cause with the others and resolutions were passed in the name of an un­ divided Fiji Indian National Congress. Beattie’s influence, which had never been as great as he imagined or hoped, was now eclipsed. On 7 November the two bodies were formally amalgamated at a meeting in the Suva Town Hall and new office bearers were appointed. S. B. Patel wrote to Polak: We have decided upon the lines of future work. We have a National Congress of Fiji. The unity and solidarity among the Indian settlers here today are as they never were before. All sections stand united in one demand for the common franchise. We are all coming closer together day by day. We intend organising provincial and district congresses in all important quarters, and passing resolutions demand­ ing the common franchise, in every Congress committee. We intend to take up the work of educating the masses for political conscious­ ness.8 But the unity of which S. B. Patel wrote was illusory. Early in 1930, after floods and storms on the Rewa, the Fiji Indian National Congress collected funds and distributed relief, but the non-Hindu members pro­ tested that only friends of Vishnu Deo’s faction received any help, and resigned.9 The Fiji Indian National Congress was a poor imitation of its counterparts in India and Africa and really existed in name only. Benarsidas Chaturvedi pointed to the difference: ‘We [presumably the

135 The Fiji Indians friends of the overseas Indians] were in favour of better organisation and thorough preparation before the commencement of the struggle’.10 Some days before the Legislative Council met, the Indian leaders decided upon their plan of action: to ask searching questions about the treatment of the Indian community, then to move a motion for the acceptance of the principle of a common roll, and after it was defeated, to resign their seats. S. B. Patel wrote to Polak: After deciding upon this plan of action, I suggested that we should meet the European elected members and other leading persons in Government and outside. There was general agreement with my suggestion and I was deputed to meet the Europeans. I had long discussions with Sir Henry Scott, Sir Maynard Hedstrom, Mr Barker, of the Fiji Times and Herald, and Mr J. P. Bailey [sic] and the Sec­ retary for Indian Affairs, Dr MacGusty [sic] (who was acting in the absence of Mr J. R. Pearson on leave). I said to them in brief: ‘It is the recognition of the principle of the common franchise for all His Majesty’s subjects in the Colony that we are looking for. We stand for the Colony as a whole and not for any one section of it. We do not wish or desire to dominate. We do not want to see the Fijian suffer. His interest in the Colony is paramount and we want to maintain it and help him towards the achievement of elective representation in place of nomination. We do not want to predom­ inate. We do not want any special or lower franchise qualifications. All we want is the recognition of the principle of common and equal rights. We should not mind if we had only 100 Indian voters, provided we had a common franchise. We should not even mind if a European represented us, so long as he was elected on a common ticket. If the common franchise were created there would not be much friction among the races in the political field and we should be pulling together for the good and welfare of Fiji as a whole, instead of pulling against each other. The good and well being of Fiji would depend upon the harmonious co-operation of all the races in the Colony’. The Europeans quite appreciated my arguments and the strength of them, but with them, as it is with us, it is the question of the Empire and the Kenya problem. Sir Maynard Hed­ strom told me frankly that the Kenya Europeans have fought and were fighting their battle for them to keep the Indians off the common roll, and the Fiji Europeans would have to keep themselves in line with the Kenya Europeans and fight tooth and nail. I thereupon told

136 Common Roll

him that, in that event, he must appreciate our desire also to join the Kenya Indians in this fight for the common franchise . . . Please assure our friends of the Kenya deputation that we, in Fiji, are wholeheartedly in support of their fight for the common franchise, not only in Kenya and Fiji but in all the other colonies of the British Empire, and we shall stand by them through thick and thin.11 The Legislative Council met in solemn mood. The government and the European members had failed to dissuade the Indian members, and they knew what was to come.12 S. B. Patel stayed in Suva with Vishnu Deo and sat in the gallery behind him. For three days the Indian members, especially Vishnu Deo, asked long lists of questions which detailed Indian grievances, both colony-wide and local. Many subjects were covered. There were the matters that had been discussed with the Government of India, such as the appointment of an agent of the Government of India and an economic inquiry commission, the resi­ dential tax, the proposed declaratory ordinance on the status of Indians in Fiji, and other questions such as difficulties over the leasing of land, racial discrimination in the Suva swimming baths, the public perfor­ mance of labour by Indian prisoners and mental patients, educational and medical facilities, aid to destitutes, co-operative credit, the govern­ ment officials’ ignorance of Hindi, the absence of public holidays on the occasion of Hindu and Muslim festivals, repatriation rights and the conditions on the repatriation ships, workers’ compensation, and the racial composition of the police force. The questions were orientated to the problems of the Indians alone and expressed a strong sense of grievance. Some showed a decided lack of proportion. Several sharply worded replies were drafted in the secretariat but discarded. In the end the government gave patient factual replies that conceded nothing but avoided provocation.13 Then, on 5 November, Vishnu Deo moved that the council endorse the view that political rights and status granted to Indians on racial lines were not acceptable to them, and that the Indians should be granted a common franchise along with other British subjects resident in Fiji. In the debate that followed the European members were more provoca­ tive than the government had been. Hedstrom claimed, inaccurately, that most of the Indian immigrants had come from the Calcutta streets, and Scott said that the only change that could possibly be made would be for Fiji to abolish elections and revert to the nominative system. The motion was defeated and the Indian members, the only ones to vote for

137 The Fiji Indians

it, resigned.14 Their action was approved by a meeting of Indians in the Suva Town Hall, and lengthy cables were sent to India and London. A blow had been struck for the cause of Indians overseas, but at what cost? Gandhi readily gave his approval. He congratulated the three mem­ bers on their patriotic spirit in resigning as a protest and said they should not reconsider their decision until a common franchise had been obtained.15 Polak, who had all along been against the acceptance of the communal franchise in Fiji, wrote to Wedgwood Benn at the India Office: It is quite clear that the issues in Kenya and Fiji cannot be separated. The same principles are involved in each case. I venture to think that the matter has been considerably simplified by the fact that now nowhere throughout the British Empire can it be alleged that the Indians are parties to separate electorates, but that, on the contrary, everywhere they stand by the principle of the common franchise as symbol of equal citizenship.16 Public opinion in India was predictably sympathetic, and a meeting of the Standing Emigration Committee of the Indian Legislature and of party leaders asked the Government of India to have the question of the Fiji franchise re-opened. But that government had, after all, accepted the communal franchise with three elected Indian members. Bajpai minuted that the members would probably seek re-election and ‘act in a manner that will enable them to continue to bask in the sunshine of Gandhiite goodwill’.17 In November writs for a new election were issued, but no nomina­ tions were received. On 27 December Fletcher called a conference of Indian leaders and asked them to co-operate. He explained his view that the communal franchise was best for a heterogeneous population and that it did not imply that any group was inferior. A. D. Patel, who was already emerging as an able spokesman for the community, said that the franchise on racial lines was unacceptable to the Indians, not in the best interests of Fiji, and likely to lead to racial trouble, and that acceptance of it would damage the cause of Indians in other colonies. He assured the governor that the Indian political bodies would continue to co-operate with the government and give it advice on the welfare of the Indians in Fiji. This assurance was carried out. Although the government consistently referred to the boycott of the Legislative Council as ‘non-co-operation’, the Indian leaders fully co-operated with

138 Common Roll the government in other matters and in turn were consulted by it. On the day after the conference the Indian leaders wrote to the governor that they could not participate in elections under the communal fran­ chise since this implied inferiority of status; it was the principle that was important, not the number of Indian members; they were not asking for manhood suffrage or for a lower qualification for Indian voters or for Indian domination in the Council.18 It was obvious, how­ ever, that with the Indian population increasing in numbers, education and wealth, and in Fiji’s plural society, where people were likely, for the foreseeable future, to vote along racial lines, a common roll with­ out reservation of seats for each race would have led eventually to an Indian majority in the Legislative Council, and that, of course, is why it was unacceptable to the other communities. The boycott of the Legislative Council widened the growing divisions within the Indian community. The majority knew and cared little about common roll, though they were still willing to give tacit support to the leaders who were fighting for Indian interests and honour in Fiji. But some, like Dr A. D. Sagayam, a South Indian doctor who had come to Fiji in 1925, were quietly critical of the course being followed by Vishnu Deo and the others. John F. Grant, who was one of those who signed the letter of 28 December, later told McGusty he had acted under pressure and against his real convictions.19 The most serious breach in the Indian community was, however, that between the Hindus and the Muslims, and, understandably, Fletcher was quick to exploit it. Even before the elections the Muslims in Fiji were moving towards political separatism, in line with the trend in India. In 1927 the second annual conference of the Muslims in Fiji asked the government to safe­ guard their interests when political privileges were extended to the Indians.20 After the elections in 1929, a meeting of Muslims of Suva, Rewa and Navua passed a resolution that deplored the use of religious appeals by the Hindus in the recent election, assured the government of Muslim loyalty, and dissociated the Muslim community from uncon­ stitutional measures for the attainment of Indian aspirations. But the Muslim leaders were evidently holding back from a final breach, and the resolution was not sent to the government until January 1930. On 5 January 1930 another meeting elected a ‘Provisional Committee for the Attainment of Muslim Political Rights’ and authorised it to press for separate political representation. The committee asked that the Muslims be allowed to elect their own representative in one separate constituency, though they conceded that a common roll was a legitimate

139 The Fiji Indians aspiration to be achieved by evolutionary stages, provided seats were reserved for minorities. The secretary of the Fiji Muslim League, X. K. N. Dean, then wrote to the government: The idea of a Hindoo voting for a non-Hindoo (or even an unmilitant Hindoo) candidate, though he may be much superior to his Hindoo opponent, was considered as nothing short of apostasy. The credu­ lous Hindoos are mere tools in the hands of the Arya Samajists who ostensibly champion the Hindoo cause but really aspire, as has been proved in this Colony and elsewhere, for something beyond the realm of their religion. The bulk of the Hindoos are carried away by the charms of the music of the Arya Missionary (Pundit Sree Krishna Sharma) whose harmonium acts as a magic wand to their less intel­ ligent minds. Note. Although this letter was written on the 18th October last it has been withheld from dispatch until now for the purpose of further studying the Hindoo mentality.21 Fletcher grasped the opportunity to weaken the hold of the advocates of common roll by widening the existing divisions among the Indians. He wrote to London that it would be useful for the government to have the views of each important section of the community, that the Mus­ lim could not expect consideration from the Hindu, and that he was ‘the more loyal and more law-abiding citizen’.22 He proposed that one of the three existing Indian seats be turned into a Muslim communal constituency. The Government of India objected, because it could not be justified in terms of relative numbers, because it would create a permanent state of friction between the two communities, and because the Government of India still adhered to the principle of a common electoral roll in the colonies and its case would be weakened by acceptance of separate Muslim representation. An additional complica­ tion was the Indian Round Table Conference in London, where the question of communal representation in India itself was a major issue.23 No further action was taken on Fletcher’s proposal. Like Rodwell ten years earlier, Fletcher saw a rather too direct connection between Indian discontents in Fiji and nationalist agitation in India. He wrote: The articulate element, in a very small minority, has little real understanding of or interest in the shibboleths which it is instructed to voice. I regard the local politician as the uninformed tool of an extraneous organisation which is dangerously seeking opportunity

140 Common Roll

to use the Colony for the purposes of its world-wide attack upon the British Raj.24 But in 1931 Jawaharlal Nehru, writing on behalf of the Indian National Congress, gave only a lukewarm reply to Chattur Singh’s appeals for help for the Fiji Indians in their fight for the common roll: Rest assured that our countrymen overseas are always present in our minds. We shall gladly be of service to you wherever you are. We feel however that ultimately the battle of India’s freedom as well as the freedom of our countrymen abroad must be fought in India. We are concentrating all our energies on this fight here and when freedom comes to us you will certainly profit by it.25 Indeed, the Congress, with pressing issues at home, took relatively little interest in the problems of Indians overseas; more concern was shown by public associations, members of the legislature, and private individuals, of whom the most noteworthy was Benarsidas Chaturvedi. But India was not forgotten in Fiji. The majority of the leaders of the Fiji Indians in the period covered by this book identified themselves with Indian nationalism and expected the independence of India to bring benefits to the overseas Indians. Sympathy was shown in many ways: pictures of Gandhi and Nehru, resolutions and messages of sup­ port, financial contributions, avid reading of political news from India, and even the direct participation in agitation in India by Fiji-born Indians, including some of those who had been sent to Arya Samaj schools in India. One incident which particularly offended local European opinion was a meeting of the Hindu Maha Sabha in Suva where resolutions were passed expressing sorrow at the execution in India of the terrorists Bhagat Singh and Sukhdeo.26 The Fiji Govern­ ment, in liaison with the Government of India, kept a watch on these activities. In 1930 it set up an intelligence committee; police officers or district commissioners were appointed as intelligence agents. Letters were opened and read, and publications held up in the post office and destroyed if thought to be seditious. They included certain publications from India and, especially, from Indian nationalist groups in the United States. The Inspector of Indian Schools and the District Commissioners also watched for possible seditious instruction in the schools. From the standpoint of the Fiji Government most of the Indian nationalist activity in Fiji was comparatively harmless, but it confirmed their opinion that the local Indian leaders were inspired from outside the colony and were pursuing extraneous interests. The Europeans,

141 The Fiji Indians

Fijians, and government officers had little understanding of India’s historic progression towards independence in alternating and complex co-operation and non-co-operation with the Raj. A. D. and S. B. Patel and the Gujarati shopkeepers and artisans were recent immigrants to Fiji and were particularly suspected. Many of the Gujaratis came, not from British India, but from Indian states, especially Baroda. The area of Gujarat that provided most of the emigrants to Fiji was one of particularly intense nationalist agitation. They had deep affection for Gandhi, himself a Gujarati, and when news reached Fiji that he had been arrested in 1930 the Gujarati shopkeepers closed their doors in a hartal (stopping work as a protest). In Fiji politics they provided sup­ port for the Patels and Vishnu Deo. The Gujaratis were discreet but not so some of the Sikhs, who were also recent immigrants. In 1932 Ghadr party agents were corresponding with revolutionaries abroad and collecting money for them. The leaders were Shiv Singh, Kuldip Singh and Santa Singh. British rule in India was criticised in speeches at a public meeting of 300 Sikhs at Ba. The Fiji Government intercepted letters from Ghadr party headquarters in San Francisco instructing the Fiji agents to collect funds, form societies to spread revolutionary propaganda among the Sikhs, and send recruits to be trained in Berlin and Moscow before being posted for service in India. Some did go from Fiji for training, though letters from the agents in Fiji deplored the poverty of the local Sikhs, their lack of education and, to some extent, their lack of interest in the party’s aims.27 Clearly the Raj was in no great danger from the Fiji Indians. Only a few individuals went beyond vicarious identification with India’s national awakening, and they were closely watched by the government. While he castigated the extremists, Fletcher had the sense to see that all the Indian community could not be allowed to remain outside the body politic. In the 1920s the gap between the administration and the Indians had been improved to some extent. Hindustani was given a place in the government cadets’ examinations and gradually a know­ ledge of colloquial Hindustani spread among other government officers, as more of their work came to be concerned with the Indians, who were increasingly seen as permanent residents and not as temporary sojourners in the country. In 1926 the new Secretary for Indian Affairs assumed a general responsibility for Indian affairs. The first Secretary, J. R. Pearson, did not give satisfaction, at least not to Fletcher, who thought him too old and lacking in initiative and drive.28 He was cer­ tainly unable to stop sectarian conflict or to mollify Vishnu Deo and

142 Common Roll his party, but he did put forward various proposals to help the Indians, particularly the farmers for whom he, as an old ICS officer, felt more sympathy than for the urban educated classes, and he sought to have the Europeans treat the Indians with greater courtesy and respect. In the tone of a paternalistic ICS officer, he wrote: We cannot keep the population down to one dead level. Gradation must come and it is for us to see that with it comes a sense of respon­ sibility and a sense of obligation to the authority that has conferred it.29 Although he shared this opinion, Fletcher did not reappoint Pearson in 1932 but instead made Dr V. W. T. McGusty, who had acted in Pearson’s absence on leave, Secretary for Indian Affairs, in addition to his post as Chief Medical Officer. McGusty proved, with his tactful good humour, more popular than Pearson, both with the government and with the Indians.30 The Secretary for Indian Affairs had less and less to do as repatria­ tion dwindled and the government established other contacts with the Indians through the district commissioners, the Indian advisory com­ mittees, Indian members of the Legislative Council, and local boards. In any case, important questions were decided by the colonial secretary or the governor. The value of the office lay more in providing a channel of communication at the senior level in Suva between the government and the leaders of the Indian community, and in reassuring Indians with specific grievances that there was some officer in Suva who would listen patiently to their troubles, in the tradition of personalised Indian government. The correspondence of the Secretary for Indian Affairs often related to matters that were important only to individuals; for example, requests for the tracing of relatives. As a later governor put it, Dr McGusty was almost a family solicitor on Indians’ behalf.31 Another useful function of the office was in providing a direct channel of communication between Suva and New Delhi, through the demi- official letters written by Pearson and McGusty to Bajpai and other Indian officials. However, the Fiji Government had other calls on its funds and it was anxious to see the Indians settle down in Fiji, be governed by the ordinary administration applying to all non-Fijians, and not look to India for help. Successive governors sought to phase out the office, though the Colonial Office argued that that would be unwise as it would strengthen India’s case for an agent in Fiji.32 The office was finally abolished in 1945 on McGusty’s retirement.

143 The Fiji Indians

Periodically, especially at times of political trouble, there was disf cussion within the government about the possibility of establishing some form of Indian local government to foster co-operation under official auspices, bring the government closer in touch with Indian opinion, and get its own message across. In 1930, McGusty proposed that village headmen be appointed. This had already been tried by several inspectors of immigrants, but had been unsuccessful because it was difficult to obtain suitable men who would act impartially. Where an outstanding man was looked on as the leader of his settlement, it was because the others were his tenants or debtors; and there was sec­ tional rivalry between North and South Indians and Muslims. Alter­ natively, panchayats (councils) were suggested. These bodies already existed in many areas, and there had been sporadic official attempts to foster them because they were indigenous Indian institutions. But the social conditions which made them work in Indian villages did not exist in the Indian localities in Fiji: it was hard to find suitable men who commanded general respect and there was no dominant caste to enforce compliance. It was decided instead.to set up Indian Advisory Com­ mittees in the districts, and the first was established in Rewa in 1930. Unlike the bodies of the same name in 1920, they comprised prominent local Indians, who met with the District Commissioner and gave their opinion on issues affecting their people. In 1934 there were advisory committees in eight districts and they were working well.33 They dis­ cussed such problems as water supply, store licences, fire brigades, crematoriums, immigration, compassionate allowances, location of post offices, education, control of motor traffic, taxi-stands, dispen­ saries, roads and bridges, harassment by Fijians of an Indian who had given evidence in a cattle killing case, CSR tenancies, renewal of leases of Fijian land, gambling, sexual immorality, straying wives, and occasionally, wider political issues.34 In another move to give Indians recognition and responsibility, Fletcher appointed them to the district road and sanitary boards. In the case of the Ba Road Board, this was over the opposition of the local Europeans. They were also appointed to the township, education, hos­ pital and lunatic asylum boards, and minor racial discriminations were removed from the statute books. In 1933 the first Indian Justice of the Peace was appointed. Some of these actions can, of course, be inter­ preted in an unfavourable light. Those appointed, sometimes men with inferior qualifications, were grateful for government favour, and basked in their new position while the extremist leaders were not appointed or

144 Common Roll refused to be ‘bought’. But these changes showed that Fiji had advanced a long way since 1920, and that the Indians were now clearly regarded, by the government at least, as a permanent part of the population and more than just a labour force. Nevertheless, Vishnu Deo and the other leaders continued their boycott of the Legislative Council in defence of the principle of com­ mon roll. In 1932 elections were held for the new Council. The Fiji Samachar declared: Remember Mahatma Gandhi’s instructions to continue ceaseless agi­ tation until equal status be granted. For the sake of your country, your nationhood, and most of all, for the preservation of your dignity, let no candidates be nominated for the election to the Council.35 However, one was nominated: Narbahadur Singh, the editor of Beattie’s paper Vriddhi-Vani and a Christian. Rather than see him returned unopposed, Vishnu Deo, who was himself disqualified because of his conviction for obscene publication, put up K. B. Singh, who had been in communal conflict in the Suva-Rewa area and was expected to be a loyal supporter. No candidate was nominated for the eastern con­ stituency, but a South Indian, Muniswamy Mudaliar, also presumed to be a supporter of common roll, was nominated for the north-western Indian seat in order to provide a seconder for another common roll motion. Vishnu Deo, who was by now acting more on his own initia­ tive and less on the Patels’, intended that one of the members would move the motion, the other would second it, and then both would resign when it was defeated. At this stage there was no disagreement among the Indians on the principle of common roll: even Beattie’s group supported it, and the Muslims did, too, provided there was reservation of seats for Muslims. The only disagreement was on whether it was to be achieved by working within the council or by boycott. Common roll was more a talisman than a considered political objective. On 14 October 1932 the two new Indian members moved a new common roll motion that made reference to the British White Paper of June 1930, which accepted that in colonies where there was a mixed population a common roll was an object to be aimed at and attained. They were being shepherded and tutored by Vishnu Deo, and as on the previous occasion the motion was preceded by a long list of questions, mostly drafted by him. They related to education, land, im-

145 The Fiji Indians migration restrictions, repatriation, the number of Indians in govern­ ment service, the demand for the appointment of an agent of the Government of India, the proposed economic enquiry commission, and other matters that affected the Indians. The government gave detailed replies to some of them, but Fletcher described others as untrue, misleading, and designed to appeal to the Indian National Congress and to inflame the Indians against the Europeans. He said that there was about them ‘a stale odour of envy, hatred, malice and uncharitableness’.36 He appealed to the Indians to co-operate, and the two members then withdrew their motion on the assurance that the record of the debate would be sent to the Secretary of State. These events were not all they seemed. McGusty had prior negotiations with Vishnu Deo, who was aware that the two members wanted to keep their seats. He agreed to frame a non-provocative motion and for the members to remain in the council while the record of the debate was sent to the Secretary of State; when the anticipated unfavourable reply was received, the question of whether the members should then resign would be referred to the Indian public.37 The common roll was a lost cause, just as it was in Kenya and in India itself. The question of a common roll for Fiji was discussed in the Colonial Office, but there was no real possibility of it being introduced there if it had been rejected for Kenya. In 1930 Whitehall was con­ sidering common rolls with reservation of seats for each race (the cross­ voting system) for both Kenya and Fiji, but the idea was dropped. The Labour Government had approved of the common roll in principle and showed more sympathy with the Indian case than the Conservatives, but the knowledge of white settler power in Kenya, and the doctrine of the paramountcy of native interests, strengthened the hands of the per­ manent officials in the Colonial Office in their opposition to the Indian demands in both places.38 The Government of India, under pressure from public opinion, did try to re-open the question of the common roll in Fiji, but they were told by London that any consideration of Fiji at that time might prejudice their case for Kenya.39 Then in 1931 the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Closer Union in East Africa said it would be impracticable to have a common roll under present conditions. In February 1933 the Fiji Legislative Council was told the same.40 That reply had been anticipated in Fiji. Vishnu Deo had intended the two members to resign as soon as it was received. Mudaliar refused to resign. K. B. Singh did resign, stood again, and was re-elected with

146 Common Roll

Vishnu Deo's support, but then, contrary to his instructions, took his seat at the session of July 1933 and evaded the common roll issue by tendering a motion too late to comply with the provisions about due notice. Vishnu Deo and the other leaders were furious at this betrayal of their cause. Public meetings denounced the two members. As they could not expect to be returned again by the Indian electorate, their only political future now lay with the government, which was already directing their performance in the council. They were rewarded by being made Justices of the Peace. On 23 March 1934 Singh introduced another motion for common roll. Only the two Indian members voted for it, but the intended effect was that another motion on the subject would be inadmissible for twelve months and therefore could not be immediately moved by those returned in the next elections.41 On 1 January 1934 the All Fiji Indian Conference, organised by Vishnu Deo’s party, and chaired by S. B. Patel, was held at Lautoka. Resolutions asked for better land tenure and for a common roll, and Singh and Mudaliar were condemned for remaining in the council. This conference was preceded by a meeting of the Arya Samajists at Ba and was facilitated by the opening of the long-awaited road from Suva. On 7 January a rival meeting, chaired by John Bairangi, a Fiji-born South Indian Christian, asked the two Indian members to stay in the council and continue co-operation with the government.42 Vishnu Deo’s party included the ablest Indians in Fiji and could command majority support from the electorate but was politically frustrated because of its adherence to the principle of the common roll to be attained by boycott. Vishnu Deo and his friends were isolated still further when in 1933 the Indians in Kenya abandoned non-co-operation. The common roll issue now became joined to another: in a counter­ attack Fletcher decided to do away with elections altogether, firstly for the Suva Municipal Council, which already had a common roll. It is to the history of this question that we now turn. All Indian ratepayers had once enjoyed the right to vote in elections for the Suva Municipal Council, but in 1915, in order to preserve European control, a literacy test in the English language had been introduced for electors, and this effectively excluded Indians from election. The Government of India objected at the time, and later, during the negotiations with the Colonial Office in the 1920s, asked that Indian languages be admitted also, and that a ward system of voting be introduced. The Fiji Govern­ ment agreed to set up a committee to look into the question of Indian representation on the Suva Municipal Council and it reported in 1928.

147 The Fiji Indians

The majority report by the unofficial European and Fijian members of the committee submitted that the existing system was equitable and that no change in the franchise was necessary. A minority report by the three Indian members submitted that Hindustani, Tamil and Fijian should be admitted as qualifying languages and that two seats should be reserved for Indians until sufficient Indians were qualified as voters to ensure them of representation, and claimed that the municipality was not carrying out its obligations to the Indian ratepayers with respect to roads and lighting and was discriminating against Indians by refusing them admission to the public baths and library. Another minority report by Pearson, the Secretary for Indian Affairs, was intermediate in position; he recommended that only Hindustani be added to English as a qualifying language, that Suva be divided into wards, and that the residential and property qualifications be raised. The government ap­ pointed a commissioner to inquire into the Indian grievances; he held them justified in part only. In a letter to the government, Sir Henry Scott argued that the admission of Indian languages would mean Indian domination and would be inequitable to the Europeans who paid three-quarters of the rates, that few if any European candidates would stand, and the government might then have to take over control of the municipality. Pearson pleaded for concessions ‘from the imperial point of view’ and because there were dangers in not having a safety valve.43 As a compromise, the governor, Sir Eyre Hutson, recommended to London that two Indians be nominated to the Municipal Council, but the Government of India repeated its request that Hindustani and Tamil be admitted and asked that the property qualification not be raised. The Colonial Office agreed with the Government of India and pointed out that there were many people capable of taking an intelligent part in municipal affairs who did not know English, that Indian languages had been admitted for the Legislative Council elections, and that compara­ tively little had been done to assist Indians to learn English; moreover the reform of the municipal franchise might be a good way to test the operation of a common roll on a safe scale.44 These were good democratic arguments but the new governor, Sir Murchison Fletcher, had other ideas that were based in part on his service in Hong Kong. He submitted that the admission of Indian languages as qualifications would lead to Indian domination of the Municipal Council, to European withdrawal from it, and to Fijian resentment; any institution that was controlled by popular vote would

148 Common Roll be run on racial lines. He recommended that the Municipal Council be replaced by a government-controlled board on the model of the Hong Kong Sanitary Board. The Colonial Office was unenthusiastic, but Fletcher, supported by Hedstrom and Scott, pressed on with his attempt to do away with democracy in Suva. He proposed that there be a board of seven members, four of them government officials, and three of them elected by the Europeans, Fijians and Indians on separate rolls, though he would not mind if these three were appointed too. The proposal was referred to the Government of India, which, rather than further prolong the non-representation of the Indians, reluctantly con­ curred on condition the Fiji Indians were agreeable. On 13 October 1933 Fletcher told the Legislative Council that the choice was between a common roll for the municipality, or central government control, which he favoured.45 On 28 March 1934 the Legislative Council agreed to government control of the municipalities in Fiji. At first the two Indian members, Singh and Mudaliar, opposed the change, stating their objection to representation, nominated or elective, on a communal basis, but later the same day they reversed their position, giving as reasons that the debate had shown that the European and Fijian communities would never agree to any proposals that might lead to Indian domination; the Indians would at least have some representation under the new system. Two of the European members opposed the change to government control, and one of them, Barker, the Mayor of Suva, began an agita­ tion against Fletcher’s proposals. Fletcher told London that Barker was inclined to be obsessed with the dignity and importance of the office of mayor, and he denigrated his supporters: The European and half-caste community contains a not unsubstantial element, known as the Beach, whose immediate reaction to a Govern­ ment proposal is to oppose it. In the present instance the unthinking do not require much persuasion that the Government proposal is a cloak for Government encroachment upon the people’s privileges.46 He claimed that the only alternative to his proposal could be one to add Fijian, five Indian languages and perhaps Chinese and Samoan, as qualifying languages. Such a move would be bitterly opposed by the Europeans, who would be supported by the Fijians. The Colonial Office approved the change to government control though Ramsay MacDonald, the Secretary of State, did not like it and thought it should be given up as soon as possible.47 Barker made a last-ditch attempt to

149 The Fiji Indians stop it. He held a referendum of the Suva ratepayers; the great majority of those who voted, including an absolute majority of those on the electoral roll, voted against the change. The Suva Council then deputed him to go to London to put a case before the Secretary of State. He asked the Legislative Council to delay the introduction of the measure but his proposal was defeated,48 and Suva and Levuka passed under government control. On 1 January 1936 the Suva Municipal Council was replaced by a Town Board of seven official members and six nominated unofficial members (two Europeans, two Fijians and two Indians). But direct government control of the towns was only part of Fletcher’s design. In 1933, before he left London, where he was on leave, he had discussed the Fiji franchise with the Colonial Office. He told them he was in favour, not only of government control of the municipalities, but also of government nomination of all the members of the Legislative Council, with equality of unofficial seats for the three races. As well as the familiar reasons, that the Indians were per­ sisting in their demand for common roll, that only through nomination could eventual Indian control be averted, and that Indian control would be resisted by the Fijians, there was a new one: that the European electoral roll was being so swamped by part-Europeans that Europeans of standing might not be elected in future. The Colonial Office would not commit itself in advance, but it authorised Fletcher to pursue his idea, provided the initiative was seen to come from the unofficial mem­ bers and not from the government. The answer to the question why the officials in London were prepared to consider putting the clock back in Fiji lies, I believe, not just in Fletcher’s arguments, but in the times. In 1933 democracy was on the defensive in the western world. One Colonial Office official minuted, flippantly perhaps, T wish we could abolish elections everywhere’.49 On his return to Fiji, Fletcher held discussions on his proposals, at first in private. He explained that the public initiative for the abolition of the elective system would have to come from the elected members themselves. The leading European elected members, Hedstrom and Scott, were ready. They had for some time contemplated nomination as the only alternative to common roll and eventual Indian domination, and they now conceded that the Indians should have the same number of seats as the Europeans, which they had previously opposed. Before making their position known publicly, they prudently asked for an assurance in advance that the Secretary of State would approve the

150 Common Roll change, but when the Colonial Office would not agree, they decided to go ahead anyway.50 Fletcher then tried to build up wider support for his proposal. In 1933 the Council of Chiefs had agreed to support government control of the Suva and Levuka Councils, and had also resolved: This Council records its strong and unanimous opinion that Fiji having been ceded to Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, Her Heirs and Successors, the immigrant Indian population should neither directly nor indirectly have any part in the control or direction of matters affecting the Fijian race.51 The Young Fijian Society (Viti Cauravou) passed even stronger reso­ lutions against Indian political aspirations. One read in part: ‘It is our desire to remain united with the Europeans but not with the Indians.’52 When the issue of nomination of members of the Legislative Council first came to a vote in the Council on 21 May 1935 the Fijian members did not take part in the debate or vote on the motion, but later, after consultation with the other leading chiefs, they fully supported the proposed change, arguing that democracy was unsuited to conditions in Fiji.53 The two Indian members, Singh and Mudaliar, readily agreed to support the abolition of the elective system. Whatever their private reasons (harsh words were said by Vishnu Deo’s party, and an official in New Delhi described their action as ‘political opportunism of the worst type’) they could argue with truth that a common roll was un­ attainable and that the governor’s proposal would at least give the Indians the same number of seats as the Europeans. In a petition, sub­ mitted through K. B. Singh, 399 Indians asked for nomination and an equal number of seats for the three races.54 The Muslim League also supported the nominative system. One of their arguments had a topical ring: ‘Democracy’ has been put to the most crucial test the world over and it has been definitely proved that ‘Government of the people, by the people, for the people’ is only a high-sounding phrase and that the man in the street who happens to be a voter, often sailing with the wind, has no more right to determine the fate of a nation than the man at the wheel. Many progressive nations have therefore taken up to dictatorships and even free England has had to coalesce itself into a National Government.55

151 The Fiji Indians

But most Indian opinion was against nomination. On 9 December 1934 the Indian Association of Fiji, a less controversially named suc­ cessor to the defunct Indian National Congress of Fiji, was formed ‘to safeguard and further the political rights of the Indian community in Fiji’.56 A. D. Patel was president and Vishnu Deo, secretary. When it became generally known that Fletcher proposed to proceed with the change, there was an outcry. A deputation, headed by A. D. Patel and Vishnu Deo, waited on the governor. Patel told him that equal represen­ tation on a communal basis was now acceptable to the Indians and that the demand for a common roll would not be pressed while it was so clearly unattainable.57 Petitions against nomination were signed by thousands. Fletcher said he had the support of the South Indian com­ munity, but was unable to sustain that claim when M. N. Naidu, Dr Gopalan, and other leaders of the T.I.S.I. Sangam and Madras Maha Sangam organised public meetings and forwarded petitions repudiating the two Indian members and supporting the Indian Association’s oppo­ sition to nomination. The Indian Association sent letters and telegrams to the Government of India and to Polak, who in turn made representa­ tions to the India Office.58 In mid 1935 Fletcher was back in London again and pressed his pro­ posals. He argued that the circumstances were particularly favourable for a change and would not recur, as in the next elections the Indian extremists would be returned to the council and revive the common roll issue. He asked for an understanding that the Secretary of State was not definitely opposed to nomination. The Colonial Office was favourable on the whole. The Permanent Under-Secretary minuted: ‘It may be the last chance of preventing the domination of the country by a democracy of half-castes.’59 But although it agreed to prolong the life of the exist­ ing council for up to a year, it still refused to commit itself until it had more information on local attitudes in Fiji and until the India Office had been consulted. In the Legislative Council on 21 May 1935 three of the six European members (T. W. A. Barker, J. P. Bayly and W. E. Willoughby Tottenham) had in fact voted against nomination. On his return to Fiji Fletcher held wider discussions, making no secret of his own opinion. The CSR, the heads of the Anglican, Methodist and Roman Catholic Missions in Fiji, E. G. Theodore of the new gold­ mining industry, Burns Philp and Company, and the Bank of New South Wales, all gave their approval to nomination.60 When another vote was held in the Legislative Council on 14 November 1935, only Barker and Bayly were still opposed.

152 Common Roll

In Septenber 1935 the Government of India told London that the change would be a retrograde step that would lead to a renewal of serious agitition among the Fiji Indians who were now willing to co-operate under the communal franchise. On 18 March 1936 it accepted a resolution in the Council of State that reflected strong public feeling in Irdia against the proposed move. One member, P. N. Sapru, observed: ‘Our izzat is involved in this.’ The Government of India told London: ‘Sibstitution of nomination for election will have the most un­ fortunate repercussions on Indian opinion in this country’. Bajpai had no illusions that the Government of India could have much influence over the Colonial Office, but it was at least trying to satisfy Indian public opinon. It held Vishnu Deo at arm’s length, making only per­ functory replies to the pleas from Fiji. In the end Vishnu Deo wrote, despairingly ‘The Indian community in Fiji looked to the Government and people of India for ready assistance but in vain.’61 Actually the Government of India was doing all it could, but had little bargaining power. The Indians in Fiji also turned to their old friend, Charles Freer Andrews. Ii 1936 while on a trip to Australia and New Zealand to conduct unversities’ missions at the invitation of the World Student Christian Federation, he visited Fiji too, at the invitation of the Indian Association of Fiji. He was warmly welcomed by the Indians, and, with his captivaing personality, generosity of spirit, and truly Christian character, vas well received by the Europeans also. He was delighted by the improvement in conditions since his last visit: The aboition of indenture has made such a change in the general conditior of the people, that it is hard to recognize the Indians of to-day a; the same community which I saw under the miserable conditiors of indenture in 1915 and 1917. The improvement which has folloved economic freedom, has quickened the whole life of the Indian prople and made them independent in such a manner that they are now rapidly becoming peasant proprietors and tenant farmers. Mrove all, the home and family life of the Indian people has amazingly advanced.62 He took ip with the government the questions of the franchise, education, particularly of girls, and the insecurity of tenure of the Indian farners leasing land from the Fijians. But, as always, he was concerned vith building bridges between the races, and told the Indians that they must remember that Fiji belonged to the Fijians, and that they

153 The Fiji Indians were there as guests.63 On the franchise, he suggested various com­ promises, including a scheme, which he put forward without consulta­ tion with the Indian leaders in Fiji and later withdrew, that was similar to the one finally devised, quite independently, by the Colonial Office. Andrews was in no way responsible for the final decision.64 In the end it was Barker and Bayly who saved the franchise in Fiji, and the irony is that they were hardly friends of the Indians. Ram Chandra, Bajpai’s successor in New Delhi, observed: ‘What will really help the Indians is the lack of unanimity amongst the Europeans them­ selves and the clear indication that a large section of the European com­ munity is against nomination.’65 As an opponent of the government on the municipal issue, Barker was likely to lose his seat on the Legis­ lative Council if nomination replaced election. Fletcher sought to discredit him as an ambitious ‘beach’ politician whose influence was inflated by his own newspaper, the Fiji Times and Herald. But Fletcher did concede that if a referendum were held, as Barker asked, a major­ ity of the electors on ‘the so-called European roll’ would vote for the retention of the existing system.66 In May 1936 Barker and Bayly put their case in person at the Colonial Office. They stressed that the democratic rights of taxpayers were being taken away without refer­ ence to them in an election, and that Fletcher had openly taken sides, while professing to be impartial. Eventually in June 1936 the Secretary of State decided he could not wholly support Fletcher, as a very strong case was required before electoral rights were taken away, and there was a sharp division of opinion within Fiji. He imposed a compromise.67 In the new Legislative Council there were to be sixteen official mem­ bers and fifteen unofficials, five from each of the main races. Three of the European and three of the Indian representatives were to be elected, and two Europeans and two Indians nominated; the nominated members would enable representation of minority interests. The Fijians were to be chosen as before, by the governor from a panel submitted by the Council of Chiefs. Lord Linlithgow, the Viceroy of India, was consulted on the plan and, after discussing it with his Indian advisers, agreed that it was satisfactory from the Indian point of view.68 By then Fletcher had left Fiji but Juxon Barton, the Colonial Secretary and acting governor, who had recently come from Kenya, where he had spent all his previous colonial service, and made no secret of his racial opinions, took a last ditch stand against the proposals. He pro­ tested that they would be regarded as an Indian victory, would result in domination of the European roll by part-Europeans, and might

154 Common Roll upset the Fijians. He proposed that the part-Europeans be put on a separate roll and given the same number of representatives as the others.69 But the Secretary of State’s decision was final, and it was announced in Fiji in July 1936. Vishnu Deo then wrote an emotive letter to the Government of India accusing it of letting down the Fiji Indians. He declared: ‘the Government of India must do something to protect the rights of the Indians settled here as otherwise Fiji will become in all respects South Africa.’ An official in New Delhi deplored his sense of proportion and form, and the Government of India ignored him.70 When the Legis­ lative Council met for the first time under the new system, there was a further instance of that lack of a sense of timing that has so often weakened the Indian cause in Fiji. The three elected members (includ­ ing Vishnu Deo whose disqualification had been removed as a gesture of conciliation towards the Indian community and a recognition of his political abilities and public support) objected to the governor’s decision to list the five Indian members in order of precedence accord­ ing to age, thus giving precedence to a nominated member, Said Hasan. They claimed that the elected members should have precedence over the nominated members. They absented themselves from the council on the first day, and then left on the second day after the governor (Sir Arthur Richards) told them to withdraw until they could take the oath of allegiance. The Indian Association sent telegrams of complaint to London and India, but the Government of India urged them to attend the council in the larger interests of the Indian community.71 The three members soon thought better of their action, apologised, took their seats, and thereafter fully co-operated in the work of the Legislative Council. In 1946 an Indian (the nominated member, K. B. Singh) was appointed to the Executive Council. What did the agitation for a common roll and the boycott of the council achieve for the Fiji Indians? A common roll was not a prac­ tical possibility: it would have been bitterly resisted by the Europeans and Fijians, and the colonial government would not have imposed it on them. The agitation was initially inspired from abroad, was resented by the Europeans and Fijians, led to Fletcher’s counter-attack, and increased the anti-Indian feeling that had been showing some signs of abatement by 1929 — though it must be acknowledged that Indian competition with the Europeans and part-Europeans, and eventually with the Fijians, would have produced resentment in any case. The boycott accelerated the granting of equality of Legislative Council

155 The Fiji Indians

seats for the Fiji Indians, but in retrospect it was probably a mistake from the standpoint of their long-term interests and adjustment in the Fiji body politic. Still, it was undeniably an affirmation of awakened self-respect and pride, an important if futile gesture against the colonial order and against racial prejudice in the name of the liberal principles that Britain herself had enunciated.

156 VIII Kisans Unite

Even while the leaders of the Fiji Indians were fighting for equality of political status with the Europeans, there were those who saw other serious problems ahead. The typical Fiji Indian was a cane-farmer with little interest in the Legislative Council, that ‘circus on top of what is really happening’, as A. D. Patel and Swami Rudrananda put it to the writer in 1956. The importance of the communal and sectarian quarrels among the Indian people should not be exaggerated either, however significant they were as efforts towards self-definition and evidence of growing differentiation within the community. What con­ cerned the Indian farmer most was access to land, the future of his children, debt, cane prices, and the power the CSR still had over him more than fifteen years after the end of the indenture system. In 1937 the governor, Sir Arthur Richards, writing to London about the need to restrict immigration, referred to Fiji’s economic problems, its remote­ ness from markets and dependence on the imperial preference for the viability of its sugar industry, the growing population pressure, par­ ticularly in the sugar districts, and the need to settle the question of the use of Fijian-owned land and protect the communal Fijians from premature competition with the highly individualistic Indians, lest race relations suffer.1 It is to the problems of the Indian farmers and their relations with the CSR and Fijians that we must now turn. The success of the company’s tenant-farmer scheme was the main factor in the growth of a prosperous and stable Indian community in Fiji. That Fiji provided a better living than India for most of its people — in the material if not necessarily in the cultural sense — was due less to colonial institutions than to the natural environment, but it was fortunate for Fiji and for the Fiji Indians that the advantages of land and climate were not wasted. They did not fall back into an economy of subsistence agriculture, eking out an aimless and impoverished existence on tiny plots. That, rather than Gandhian mutual aid as evidently envisaged by Sadhu Bashishth Muni, would have been the outcome of a final breakdown in the relations between the Indians and the European dominated order represented by the CSR, as had seemed likely in 1922. The company’s announcement in April 1923 of higher wages, and cane prices guaranteed for three years, was the beginning of a rapid recovery in the Fiji sugar industry. A few years later, Dixon, who all along had been more pragmatic

157 The Fiji Indians and less pessimistic than Knox, proudly wrote in vindication of the policy he had pressed: The effect was immediate and far-reaching. The whole >f the people concerned were galvanised into vigorous effort. The iidustry took on a new lease of life and the confidence that was sooi engendered by the improved outlook warranted the development (f a vigorous and progressive policy, which in the space of two yeirs has prac­ tically re-established our business, and if maintained will place it on a firmer footing than it was before.2 Three factors were, he thought, important in that remarkable improve­ ment: the indirect effect of the British preference; the company’s supply to the Indians of cheap food and clothing which enabled it to keep wages down so that it could compete in the world sugar market; and the policy of leasing company lands to Indian small farme-s. The inter­ national market and the British preference set a price for sugar that was too low to make the plantation system viable, yet wa; just enough to provide an incentive for the CSR to continue in Fiji

158 Kisans Unite because of the lack of close supervision by company overseers—though it is true that the company owned or leased the most fertile land. The CSR had long-standing doubts about the reliability of the Indian when working on his own. The stereotype ambitious and industrious Indian was far from the image held by the company’s managers, who had repeatedly argued that most of the Indians in Fiji would, if paid higher wages or given a higher price for their cane, simply do less work and keep their living standard just above subsistence level. Nor was the CSR alone in this view. Other Europeans in Fiji often contrasted the Indians unfavourably with the Chinese and with themselves, though not, of course, with the Fijians. Even Rodwell, who was critical enough of the CSR, gave as his opinion of the Indians in Fiji: ‘the great major­ ity of them are too lazy to do an honest day’s work’.3 The company feared that the Indians would neglect the land and the growing cane and bring about low yields, and it also believed that it would be diffi­ cult to get individual farmers to combine for group work like the harvesting of the cane. The CSR tried various alternatives to the plantation system before finally settling on the tenant-farmer scheme.4 As early as 1891 Knox suggested that some land be leased to ex-indentured Indians for grow­ ing cane, and the experiment was tried from the next year, though the company’s officers in Fiji were sceptical. The scheme was not a suc­ cess and was discontinued; of the 2500 independent Indian cane- growers in 1921 only a small number leased their land from the com­ pany. Instead, from 1909 onwards, the company leased many of its estates to experienced European planters, usually ex-overseers, and from 1916 onwards this scheme was extended to Indian planters, though with smaller areas. Under another scheme, in force from 1912 onwards, the company subdivided some of its estates and leased them to Indians grouped in what were called ‘settlements’ of 10-15 tenants, each of whom had about 4 acres. The company undertook to provide the horse-work at stated rates and each tenant was to do the hand­ work on his farm, but a system of gang work developed, the company paying daily wages and debiting each tenant’s account with the wages for the work done by the gang on his holding. The company regarded the experiment as a failure, because the tenants had no responsibility yet earned more than their less fortunate fellows who were ordinary labourers. The shortage of labour that followed the cessation of immi­ gration under the indenture system spelled the end of those European and Indian planters who employed large bodies of labour. In 1921

159 The Fiji Indians

Knox proposed to bring the settlement scheme to an end and to use paid labour to work the estates, including those recently resumed from the planters.5 The problem, of course, was that local labour was in very short supply. The CSR did make some effort to recruit Fijians, but at no time did it see them as more than a supplement to its Indian labour force. In 1927 Dixon noted: The employment of Fijians as a supplementary labour force has undoubtedly been an important factor in enabling us to carry on and in discouraging the Indians from further trials of strength, but the Fijian, though greatly improved, is by no means a satisfactory worker, and is moreover uncertain as regards numbers available.6 The Fijian lacked diligence in routine field labour and cost more than the Indian because of the hearty rations provided. In any case, there were few Fijians available for plantation work because they had little incentive to leave the villages except to earn money for specific pur­ poses such as the building of a church or the purchase of a boat, and because of the continuing existence of communal obligations and their enforcement by government regulations. The Indian tenant-farmer scheme provided the way out. Knox and other company officers were doubtful whether Indian small farms were practicable, but this course was urged on the company by the Fiji Government, the Colonial Office, and by G. L. Corbett. Within the company, the main proponent of the scheme was W. P. Dixon, who clashed strongly with Knox on the point.7 But with India closed, the Indians reluctant to work for the company, and the estates reverting to bush, it was decided to give the scheme a trial. Indians were settled on small farms of 8-12 acres (generally 10 acres) on 10 year leases. The farms were divided into four equal parts where sugar-cane was grown in rotation with leguminous crops. Dixon was soon vindicated. In 1927 he noted: The time has come for a recognition of the fact that we cannot hope to grow cane as cheaply as we can buy it.’8 The scheme was extended as quickly as was consistent with prudent selec­ tion and supervision of the tenant-farmers. The company insisted on very close control. It was fortunate from its own point of view that it was dealing with a people who were used to the hard conditions of the indenture period, when the word of the kolambar (overseer) was law.9 The new generation grew up in the company’s hard school, as good farmers, the economic mainstay of Fiji.

160 Kisans Unite

The tenart-farmer scheme meant a good deal less than freedom for the farmer. To him, the CSR was an all-powerful and all-knowing zamindar. As Kunzru wrote in 1938: T had no idea till I went to Fiji of the enornous power wielded by the C.S.R. Co. Its tenants are no better than labourers and completely under its thumb.’10 The company owned the :>est land and decided who should have leases on it; a tenant did n)t have the automatic right to pass on his farm to his widow or children. The CSR had a monopoly of sugar milling in Fiji and was able to impose conditions on all the growers. Disobedience meant eviction for a tenant, and for a contractor it meant that his cane would not be bought. The farmers had to submit without question to the company’s cecisions at every turn. They had to cultivate their cane to the satisfacton of the company, they were restricted in the other crops they could grow and the stock they could keep, they had to provide labour in the cane-cutting gangs and in the mill. While the CSR had no reason not t) be fair within the rules it established, the wise farmer did not argue wth the sector overseer or the sirdar who had his ear. At its best the coirpany was paternalistic. It gave expert advice to the farmers; it sold food, clothing, fertiliser, and building materials at low prices to compensate for the low wages and cane prices, and disregarded the protests of tie European storekeepers; it gave the tenants loans at a low interest rate it subsidised and managed Indian schools and contributed to festivals and the building of mosques; it organised agricultural shows that provided useful instruction, ploughing competitions, and entertainment and merry-go-rounds for the children. Few other Euro­ peans in Fij had as much contact with and knowledge of the Indians as the officers of the CSR, and in the last analysis they did more for them than he government or the missions. However, this was not generally appreciated by the farmers, who saw the irksome restrictions and heard tie orders that reminded them of the hated indenture system, and did not understand the reasons for them. The CSR, secure in its power and conscious of its own rectitude and agricultural and technical efficiency, dd not think it worthwhile, or even appropriate or wise, to take the farmers into its confidence or treat them with civility and respect. At first al went well. Those who were allotted 10 acre farms found themselves far better off than they had been before as plantation labourers. For most of them, families were small, needs and obligations were few ard social cohesion weak. The 10 acre farms were designed to be worked by one man with his wife and children. But a decade

161 The Fiji Indians later, adult sons and their wives were living with parents on the same small areas. Farms were much sought after, and not enough new land was being brought into cultivation to meet the demand. The farmers wanted a higher standard of living than before: shoes, European-style clothing, furniture, corrugated-iron houses, motor-bus and taxi trans­ port, education for their sons, elaborate weddings for their daughters, and entertainment with kin and neighbours. Cane-farming is seasonal work, and many preferred to take their higher standard of living in the form of leisure. Some paid for substitutes in the cane-cutting gangs rather than do the work themselves. Soon, most of the farmers fell into debt. Debt was one of life’s major problems for the Indian farmer in Fiji, as it is for farmers elsewhere. First he borrowed to obtain a lease of land that he could nominally call his, and so win freedom from wage labour. To obtain a lease, large premiums were often paid to the Euro­ pean, Fijian, or Indian holders of the land. Then the farmer borrowed more to build a house, to buy seed, implements, and household pos­ sessions, and for support for the first year. Hurricanes, floods, and expensive weddings brought more recourse to the lender. The farmer would borrow from other Indians or from Europeans at interest rates as high as 60 per cent per annum.11 The CSR’s tenants paid only 5 per cent interest, but the company would only lend on security and for approved purposes, and the farmers had recourse to promissory notes given to outside money-lenders. In the early days few of the tenant farmers were in debt, but as time passed their standard of living and their expenses increased while their incomes remained constant. Early surpluses were used to pay deposits on the acquisition of further areas of land (often placed in the names of wives, sons or other family members). As the people became more settled in the country, their expenditure on weddings and religious celebrations increased. A few bought motor vehicles or tried to set up as storekeepers. Not all were energetic and prudent. Those who engaged substitutes for the cane­ harvesting gangs found that they had to pay increasingly high wages and bonuses to the few Indians who offered themselves as wage labour. Debt became a problem for the tenants of the CSR, as for other farmers. Europeans and Indians, including lawyers, storekeepers, and the bigger farmers, became rich by lending money. Most of the money was not lent by persons whose primary business was money-lending. In 1930 the problem was most acute in the Ba and Tavua areas where there was a large area of cane land leased from the Fijians rather than

162 Kisans Unite the CSR, and there were a number of prominent farmer-money-lenders, especially Punjabis.12 The Fiji Government had long recognised the existence of the prob­ lem of Indian rural debt and discussed the possibility of remedial action. In 1932 an ordinance was passed, along the lines of legislation in India, which gave the courts the power, in any suit for the recovery of a loan, to reopen the transaction where the interest was excessive or the transaction substantially unfair. But this was largely ineffective, because the law was easily evaded by verbal understandings and false book-entries and the debtor could seldom afford to apply to the court for relief. The Gujarati storekeeper, who became predominant in storekeeping in the 1930s, lived on credit himself and granted very easy credit to others. Not all the borrowers would repay as promised, even if they could. But the lender would take a promissory note against the book debts before he supplied to the farmer, and, just before the harvest, would sue and obtain from the court a garnishee order on the monies held by the company on the customer’s account, and repeat the process year after year. The lender filled a needed role in rural society —at a price— and as elsewhere it has proved difficult, if not impossible, either to eliminate him or to impose any real control over his activities other than that provided by the market-place. Pearson, the first Secretary for Indian Affairs, who had spent his Indian Civil Service career in district administration, argued, not only for the regulation of money-lending, but also for the establishment of co-operative credit societies, which he thought would do even more to improve the conditions of the small farmers and foster a much-needed spirit of co-operation among them. He was disappointed by the response from his official colleagues, and wrote to India: Over cooperation I have not progressed much. It is very difficult to get officials and others here to grasp even the elementary principle of joint responsibility or understand the needs of the small farmer. I was disappointed to find that some information I had asked for about progress in other Indian colonies had simply been pigeon­ holed on receipt without my seeing it, with a note on the file that the time was not ripe for such developments here. Other matters such as local organisation are held up in much the same way . . ,13 The Fiji Government continued to take no interest in fostering co-oper­ ative credit schemes, believing them to be toe complicated and too expensive.14 Experience elsewhere in the Empire supported its judg-

163 The Fiji Indians ment. The farmers remained dependent on the Gujarati money-lenders, the European and Indian lawyers, the richer of their own kind, and the CSR Company. In the cane areas the company still loomed larger than the government. As the indenture system receded into the background, the new generation of Fiji-born Indians was more disposed to question the company’s system. Since the period of 1919-21 there had been little combination among the cane-growers and labourers, and the CSR had been able to treat with individuals separately. The political leaders of the Indian community, including Vishnu Deo and A. D. and S. B. Patel, were not cane-growers themselves and had not shown much concern for the problems of the farmers, who in their turn did not worry about the common roll agitation or racial discrimination in urban areas. At the Indian Conference held at Lautoka on 1 January 1934, a Planters Association was formed, but this was incidental to the political preoccupations of the organisers of the conference. S. B. Patel explained to the CSR’s Lautoka manager that the association had not been formed with the intention of attacking the company, but to procure better conditions for the leasing of land and renewal of leases and the lowering of fees.15 The association did not survive; like the Indian Cane Growers Association of 1919, it had no permanent fund, no recognised office, and no systematic membership. Late in 1937 the first moves were taken on the north-western coast for the formation of the Kisan Sangh, or ‘Farmers’ Association’. The initiator was Ayodhya Prasad, who had first come to Fiji in 1926 as a schoolteacher. On a visit to India he noted the vigorous farmers’ movements in the U.P. and other provinces. A Fiji Government officer remarked after a meeting with him in 1941: Throughout his discourse his hostility to the Company was evident but it was also apparent that he was speaking with real conviction. There is no arrogance about him, but rather a fanatical sincerity. It is he who conceived and built up the Sangh. It is he who, but for restraints imposed on him by other more cautious members of the Central Board, would probably have taken direct action long before this, and it is evident that he is impatient with the caution of his colleagues.16 Ayodhya Prasad wrote a vivid account of the formation and early struggles of the Kisan Sangh.17 The campaigns for the 1937 elections and the formation of the New Youth Army had aroused interest among

164 Kisans Unite the local farmers. The inaugural meeting of the Kisan Sangh was held at Wailailai, Ba, on 28 November 1937 and was attended by 600 delegates from Rewa to Sigatoka. Among the other leaders were Padri Mehar Singh of Tavua, and Parmanand Singh and Ramcharan Singh of Ba. Padri Mehar Singh spoke at length on the grievances of the cane-planters: the heavy burden of debt, the irksome CSR restrictions on cultivation even by those who were not its tenants, the deduction of money for labour, cane-cutting, tramlines and transport. Resolu­ tions were passed asking for greater freedom to cultivate, for proper written statements to be provided, for the CSR to provide its own labour for the mills. It was also ‘resolved that the CSR Company should see that its overseers do not insult us — we are no more inden­ tured men’. At a subsequent meeting at Lautoka in December 1937 it was resolved to approach the CSR with a list of grievances. The company ignored them. The CSR Company’s refusal to treat with the Kisan Sangh or even to acknowledge its letters was only one of the problems the new union faced. Many of the farmers were apathetic and afraid of the company, and for this reason the Kisan Sangh concentrated on the contractors, who could not be evicted and were not as closely watched as the tenants. Sectarian, communal and personal rivalries hindered the efforts to mobilise the farmers, just as they had in the strike of 1921 and the common roll agitation. This time the major division was between the North and South Indians. There was an economic dimension to this as well as a cultural one, as the South Indians, who had come to Fiji later, tended to be poorer than the North Indians, among whom there were some rich planters. The leaders and advisers of the Sangam, especially M. N. Naidu, A. D. Patel, and Swami Avinashananda, told the South Indians to concentrate on the educational, social and cul­ tural advancement of their community and the preservation of their South Indian identity through the Sangam, to save their funds for that purpose, and not to become embroiled in conflict with the powerful CSR, at least until the Kisan Sangh had shown it could stand up to the company. Some of the leading members of the Kisan Sangh were Arya Samajists who had shown contempt for South Indian customs and languages, and others were distrusted for different reasons. Some of the Punjabi farmers stayed aloof because of Chattur Singh’s advo­ cacy of immigration restrictions during the election campaign and the immigration committee’s inquiry in 1937. A. D. Patel had been defeated in the 1937 elections by Chattur Singh, whose relatives at Ba

165 The Fiji Indians were prominent in the Kisan Sangh, and he refused to become its legal adviser. Then, too, there were the usual personal factions, bickering, and accusations of misappropriation of funds. During 1938 the Kisan Sangh set out to enlist the farmers. Ayodhya Prasad was the secretary and most active spirit, and a rich Muslim businessman, M. T. Khan of Lautoka, was made president. A Euro­ pean lawyer, D. C. Chalmers, became legal adviser. Following Gandhi’s example, Ayodhya Prasad and his associates went to the people.18 They travelled through the cane-growing areas in a car and lived in a tent. The CSR overseers ordered them off their land and deterred many a prospective member. At first the response was slow but mem­ bership steadily increased. In areas where the Sangh was strong, moral pressure and physical intimidation were sometimes used against those who did not wish to join, including many South Indians. In 1938 the Kisan Sangh was able to attract members, establish a permanent organisational structure and financial base, and win the respect of government officers, if not yet of the CSR. Early in 1939 there was talk of a possible strike against the CSR. Grievances were aired at meetings on the north-west coast, and the leaders urged the farmers to stand up to the company and not be afraid. The Kisan Sangh sent a letter to the company asking for various changes in the system of purchasing cane. Reflecting the Indians’ deep distrust of the CSR and their growing resentment of its autocratic procedures, the Kisan Sangh asked that the farmers be provided with written accounts and be allowed to have representatives at the weigh­ bridge. It also asked for more secure sub-leases for the company’s tenants; for permission to grow food-crops on the holdings; for the 10 acre blocks to be increased to 16 acres, as the former was said to be too small an area on which to practise the company’s mandatory four-field rotation system; for an end to compulsory labour on the tramlines and in the mills; and for the payment of a flat rate for each ton of cane instead of the p.o.c.s. (percentage of pure obtainable cane sugar) system, which worked against the interests of those whose cane was harvested early or late in the season. The CSR still refused to treat with the Kisan Sangh, on the stated ground that the leaders were not cane-growers and certainly not company tenants, with whom its relations were its own business. The government was afraid there would be serious trouble. In April 1939 the governor, Sir Harry Luke, saw Sir Philip Goldfinch of the CSR in Sydney and urged him to make concessions, and in May, Luke

166 Kisans Unite received a deputation from the Kisan Sangh, though as a body of men rather than an organisation. The company did make some con­ cessions in 1939 in response to this intervention and the evidence of growing support for the Kisan Sangh among the farmers. It agreed to give written accounts (as it had once done), it allowed a small area of land for food-crops, it tried to hire more Fijian labour so that there would be less need to compel farmers to work in the mills and on the tramlines, and it agreed to consider various other suggestions. But it still refused to recognise the Kisan Sangh. In July Goldfinch visited Fiji and talked to the Indians, though as cane-growers, not as repre­ sentatives of the farmers’ organisation. At the end of the year a gen­ eral meeting of the Kisan Sangh, attended by about 500, decided that the farmers would not plant cane until the company granted them acceptable written contracts. Fiji appeared to be heading towards a major breakdown in the sugar industry. Many farmers were not planting, sometimes because of pressure from bully-boys, and some cane was ploughed in. There was burning of cane, and some assaults, but these ceased after the local district commissioner spoke to M. T. Khan. The government was impressed by the discipline and restraint shown by the Kisan Sangh and the wide support it commanded among the farmers, and deplored the attitude of the CSR in not negotiating or even behaving civilly towards it. The government recognised, even if the company preferred not to, that although there were political and sectarian aspects to the movement, and some hot-heads among the members, the Kisan Sangh was the most successful, organised and broad-based combination the Fiji Indians had yet achieved, and could not be ignored. Yet Goldfinch telegraphed the CSR attorney in Fiji in words reminiscent of Knox’s twenty years earlier: Would remind you my statement to him [Luke] Suva we consider if he convinced we are acting fairly Government should not interfere or attempt role of intermediary which fatal future Fiji. We will continue conduct our own business with our growers and will not deal through any third party. We regard this vital and must main­ tain at all costs . . . Only assistance we require firmness dealing with dangerous political agitation supported by intimidation and violence.19 The impasse highlighted the fact that there was in Fiji at that time no law governing the registration of trade unions or the settlement of

167 The Fiji Indians industrial disputes. Back in 1930, under a Labour government, the Colonial Office did ask that trade union legislation be enacted in all colonies, but Sir Murchison Fletcher argued that it would be inappro­ priate for Fiji, where there were few wage-earners, the Fijians still lived in a communal society, and the Indians were mostly peasants, and that unions would be used by disloyal agitators. After the Colonial Office pressed the matter, Fletcher passed on a letter from the CSR, in which it threatened to stop buying cane, as it was entitled to do, without notice, under a clause in its cane purchase conditions, ‘in the event of legislation being passed limiting its freedom of action in the matter of buying crops to be grown on the said land or otherwise affecting the conditions under which it carries on its operations’. The company’s attorney in Fiji reminded the government — as the com­ pany was never backward in doing — that the result would be the immediate collapse of the sugar industry, a disaster for Fiji.20 He was not exaggerating. The CSR rightly took the credit for the fact that the depression of the 1930s had a relatively slight impact on Fiji, except on the copra planters, because the company continued to pay the same wages and cane prices throughout the period. Goldfinch wrote to a later governor in words that some could well consider patronising but which merely expressed the reality of economic power: ‘These are not altogether easy times, but Fiji has so far steered through fairly well, due largely I think to this Company’s policy during the depres­ sion of keeping the economics of the country on an even keel.’21 The Colonial Office did not insist on trade union legislation being enacted then, but said the matter was to receive further consideration in the event of wage-earners showing any disposition to form unions.22 In fact, before the Kisan Sangh, there had been little interest in forming unions. In the past most of the skilled workers had come from Australia and New Zealand. They had refrained from introduc­ ing unionism because of the relatively high wages, good living condi­ tions and other privileges Europeans enjoyed in Fiji and did not want to share with others. Although European skilled workers received higher wages than non-Europeans, it was not until the late 1930s that they were supplanted by part-Europeans, Chinese and Indians. The unskilled workers were Indians and Fijians, but the Fijians were mostly temporary rather than permanent members of the modern labour force. What initiative there had been for the formation of unions had come from the Indians. Manilal, Mitter and Bashishth Muni had all, in various ways, shown an interest in the problems of labour, but their

168 Kisans Unite efforts did not lead to any lasting organisations. In June 1930, a time when there was unemployment and disgruntlement among newly- arrived Punjabi immigrants, Vishnu Deo and K. B. Singh formed the ephemeral Fiji Bharatiya Mazdur Sangh (Indian Labour Union of Fiji) at a meeting attended by 140 Punjabis, 80 of whom were enrolled.23 In 1934 the Suva Motor Drivers’ Union and the Indian Motor Drivers’ Union applied to the government for registration under the British Trade Union Act of 1871, and were told it did not apply to Fiji. In January 1938 there was a dispute at the CSR Company’s Lautoka mill over a proposed alteration in the method of paying wages. Chattur Singh persuaded the strikers to return to work and advised them against the formation of a labour union. But on 3 April 1938 the Mazdur Sangh (Workers’ Union) was formed at Lautoka. Mangal Singh was the principal organiser, and there were Fijian, as well as Indian members. The Mazdur Sangh asked the CSR for an increase in wages and for the institution of sick pay. The company ignored it, just as it did the more formidable Kisan Sangh.24 There was another brief strike of labour at Lautoka in August 1939, but the men agreed to return to work at the request of the Kisan Sangh. The Mazdur Sangh, which in 1944 became the Chini Mazdur Sangh (Sugar Workers’ Union), lacked influential leadership; it was to be many years before non-farmers’ unions became a strong force in Fiji’s affairs. The inter­ ests of the farmers and the wage-earners were not, of course, identical, and the typical Indian was a farmer, rather than a labourer. But the questions of trade union legislation and the peaceful settlement of industrial disputes were relevant to them both. In 1938 the Kisan Sangh asked the government to enact trade union legislation so that it could be registered. The governor, Sir Arthur Richards, said he thought Fiji needed a labour department, while the Colonial Office was anxious that the development of trade unions should be guided by the government.25 By 1940 the question of industrial legislation was very much to the fore. Under the United Kingdom Colonial Development and Welfare Act (1940), support for schemes involving the employment of local labour was conditional upon the existence of trade union legislation. Even in the darkest days of the war, there was a feeling that the post­ war empire must reflect new ideals of service and welfare. Moreover there had been labour trouble in Mauritius and Trinidad in 1937; the Colonial Office was concerned that there could be similar problems in Fiji and was disturbed by Luke’s reports of the dispute between the

169 The Fiji Indians

CSR and the Kisan Sangh. An official in Whitehall correctly observed: ‘The Company’s attitude, as disclosed in these papers, is about as reactionary as can possibly be imagined. It is the attitude of British employers in this country when the Trade Union movement was in its infancy.’26 In 1940 the Fiji Government appointed an industrial rela­ tions officer, Stuart Reay, who had been sent to Mauritius, Northern Rhodesia and other places in Africa, to study industrial legislation and problems. He returned in early 1940 at the time of the trouble between the CSR and the Kisan Sangh, and later wrote to London: The uncompromising attitude of the Colonial Sugar Refining Com­ pany towards the growers’ organisation led me to propose tentatively compulsory arbitration legislation on the lines of the Mauritius Ordinance (1938) though I was somewhat nervous about this as the Company may have shut down in order to coerce Government, a threat it has more than once in the past held over Government’s head.27 The dispute between the CSR and the Kisan Sangh was settled in April 1940 without a shut-down of the mills and without industrial legislation. The Fiji Government urged restraint on both the parties. On 28 March the Executive Council resolved that arbitration legisla­ tion on the lines of the Mauritius law should be introduced. On 6 April 1940 there was a break-through when the company’s officers met a deputation of cane-growers. They were not formal representatives of the Kisan Sangh, and M. T. Khan and Ayodhya Prasad were not among them, but six of the seven had been deputed by the Kisan Sangh. The CSR made a number of concessions. There were to be contracts for the purchase of cane for the next ten years, with provision for an increase in the price if the price of sugar was increased in that period, and the company agreed to provide cheaper fertilisers, and let the farmers grow second ratoons where justified, and be represented at the weighbridge. In effect, the company had recognised the principle of collective bargaining, even though it had not yet recognised the Kisan Sangh. On the same day, the Kisan Sangh advised the growers to sign the contracts and the dispute was over. The government then decided not to legislate for compulsory arbitration, but instead for conciliation and arbitration on the less severe lines of the Trinidad ordinance, and for the registration of trade unions. The CSR and the Australian gold­ mining interests at Vatukoula were still opposed to all labour legisla­ tion on principle.28

170 Kisans Unite

The CSR had reason to be concerned at the increasing power of the Kisan Sangh. By July 1940, according to its president’s books, of 5918 cane-growers from Nadroga to Ra, 4245 had joined and signed a printed declaration of faith, and 1780 of these were financial mem­ bers.29 It had won concessions from the CSR and brought Goldfinch to Fiji. The farmers no longer had to work in the mill, there were ten year contracts, checks on weights, and a new system of paying for cane to replace the p.o.c.s. system. The first issue of its weekly news­ paper Kisan appeared on 7 February 1941. Its editor, B. D. Laksh- man, a Fiji-born Indian who had studied in India, was elected to the Legislative Council in 1940 with the support of M. T. Khan and the Kisan Sangh. The government was impressed by the wide support, discipline, non-political character, and essential moderation of the Kisan Sangh, and was concerned that the CSR might be out to smash it in a confrontation that would be disastrous for the colony. There was a further trial of strength in 1941. In March the company offered three year, instead of ten year, leases to seven allegedly unsatis­ factory and quarrelsome tenants at Rakiraki. The Kisan Sangh argued that this was an attempt to keep the growers in a state of nervousness and subservience, and organised protest meetings. When the tenants refused to sign, eviction proceedings were started on instructions from the head office in Sydney. Luke remonstrated with the company and pressed it to recognise the Kisan Sangh. The possibility of the immedi­ ate enactment of labour legislation was mentioned. The CSR gave in, and on 23 May 1941 there was an historic meeting between King- Irving of the CSR, M. T. Khan and B. D. Lakshman. A week later, a conference attended by five CSR officers and thirty-seven representa­ tives of the Kisan Sangh reached accord on the terms of the harvesting agreement for 1941. Luke then suggested to London that the proposed industrial legislation be held over until after the war. The Colonial Office insisted on enactment, to bring Fiji into line with other colonies, but allowed a suspending clause to provide that the ordinances not be brought into operation until notified by the governor.30 They were passed in December 1941 and brought into operation the following year. The Kisan Sangh had achieved much in a few years but was now at the peak of its power. It had been accorded recognition by the company, with which it negotiated harvesting agreements on behalf of the growers. Through the election of its nominees as sirdars it con­ trolled most of the cane-harvesting gangs, one of the most important

171 The Fiji Indians institutions of Fiji Indian rural society. But it had made enemies. The Indian politicians had seen their influence eclipsed by the leaders of the Kisan Sangh. The elections of 1940 had demonstrated the import­ ance of the union as a political base. M. T. Khan and Ayodhya Prasad were now powerful men, and the Kisan Sangh was beginning to be regarded with jealousy by others, including A. D. Patel and Vishnu Deo. Chattur Singh broke with the organisation in 1940 and even tried to have the government declare it to be illegal until the end of the war. It had not won the hearts of many South Indians, though it probably had the majority of them enrolled as members by 1941. There was increasing resentment, particularly among the poorer South Indian and Fijian cane-farmers, at the high-handedness of Kisan Sangh officials, sirdars and bully-boys, their financial levies, and mismanage­ ment of funds. The critics saw their chance. On 15 June 1941 the first convention of a new farmers’ organisation, the Akhil Fiji Krishak Maha Sangh (All Fiji Farmers’ Union), was held at Nadi. The founder of this body was Swami Rudrananda, and its main advocates were A. D. Patel, the Sangam leaders, and in the Suva-Rewa area, Vishnu Deo. More than a thousand people attended the convention, including hundreds of dedicated Kisan Sangh members who tried to prevent the formation of the new body, arguing that A. D. Patel and the Swami were dividing the farmers just when they had the CSR down and by the throat.31 The supporters of the Maha Sangh retired into the schoolhouse to form their new union, and violence was forestalled by the police. It soon attracted most of the South Indian farmers. Vishnu Deo helped form branches on the Rewa. Bitter accus­ ations of financial corruption and political opportunism were aired in the pages of the Kisan, the Fiji Samachar (Vishnu Deo’s paper), and the Dinbandhu (the organ of the Maha Sangh). Once again in the history of the Fiji Indians, communalism, factionalism, pettiness and personal political ambition had triumphed over unity and statesman­ ship.

172 IX War, Land, Fijians

In the years from 1936 to 1946 the place of the Indians in Fiji was settled for at least three decades ahead. They passed the indigenous Fijians in numbers, but the constitutional arrangements of 1936 ruled out a common roll and established that, notwithstanding their numeri­ cal ascendancy, they would not be allowed to become the rulers of Fiji. They remained outsiders in the land of their birth while the Fijians, aided by the events of the war years, particularly the contrast between the Fijian and the Indian war effort, and the sugar dispute of 1943, confirmed their claim to have their interests treated as paramount in what was once their country exclusively. Fijian interests were pro­ tected by legislation that put the corner-stone on the institutional framework of Fiji’s plural society, as the Fijians came to terms with the European settlers before the advancing Indians. The period also saw the final exclusion of India from the affairs of Fiji. In the years before the war Fiji received three visitors from India in response to the appeals of the Fiji Indians for assistance from their homeland. A few months after C. F. Andrews in 1936, there was Kodanda Rao, secretary of the Servants of India Society. He was fol­ lowed in 1938 by Pandit Hirday Nath Kunzru, who was the president of the society and a member of the Council of State in New Delhi. The visitors were shepherded by Vishnu Deo and A. D. Patel and acquainted with the grievances of the Fiji Indians, principally those relating to political representation, access to Fijian land, the CSR’s treatment of its tenants, immigration restrictions, education, and the appointment of an agent of the Government of India. Kodanda Rao and Kunzru were more critical of conditions in Fiji than Andrews. Rao was publicly discreet, but Kunzru was not. He told the CSR’s Lautokä manager that its closely supervised tenants were living in ‘slavery’, and the government that the tenants were being disgracefully exploited. Addressing the Rotary Club in Suva, he ‘gave it hot to the Europeans and criticised their racial arrogance in Fiji’. He presided over an All-Fiji Conference, organised by the Indian Association, where resolutions were passed about Indian grievances in Fiji: land relations, education, immigration restrictions, medical facil­ ities, labour legislation, and racial discrimination in the public service. The old requests for the appointment of an agent of the Government of India and for an economic inquiry were repeated. Kunzru spoke to

173 The Fiji Indians the conference of the need for better security of tenure, and for educa­ tion, particularly of girls, and of the duty of the Indians to work for the advancement of the Fijians. He later wrote to Kodanda Rao: I was afraid that my remarks on the last point might not be liked by the Indians but I am glad to say that they met with approval. I was told that in referring to the duty of the Indians towards the Fijians I broke new ground and that my countrymen agreed with me in toto. I referred to these subjects at every meeting I addressed and invariably asked the Indians not to let the Christians alone have the privilege of serving the Fijians.1 But the time was past when visitors from India, however well-mean­ ing, could have any say in the affairs of Fiji. The Fiji Indians would have to make their own terms with the other peoples of Fiji, and they would have to make them not on the basis of patronage of the Fijians, but on terms of equality with them, at best, and in the realisation that they could not supplant the Europeans. Just before the Pacific war there was a temporary aligrment between the Fijians and the Fiji Indians at the political level. In 1937 there was a Legislative Council debate concerning a proposed reorganisation of the public service which included a provision that there be separate rates of pay for Europeans and non-Europeans in the junior division for posts carrying the same title and similar duties. Tie Fijian and Indian members of the Legislative Council later submitted a joint petition against the provision. Ratu J. L. V. Sukuna, :hen the only Fijian leader able to operate in the western political stvle, at least in the Legislative Council, had personally been offended cS well by the racial prejudice being displayed by Barton, the Colorial Secretary. At that time, though not so much in later years, Europeans were not always careful to distinguish between Fijians and Indians in their expression of racial contempt. Following the debate on public service reorganisation the Fijian members ‘generally made a practice of voting against the Government’. Sir Harry Luke wrote to London of what he described as the growing Indian influence over the Fi ians and the latters’ emancipation from their almost automatic acceptince of Euro­ pean guidance.2 In 1942 a new governor, Sir Philip Mtchell, noted: There is an underlying rather nasty touch of racialkm about the place and I think it is true that Fijians and Indians ire beginning to feel that on colour grounds they ought to make common cause against the Europeans. Even Ratu Sukuna seems to me to be inclin-

174 War, Land, Fijians

ing to colour consciousness; he was, I am told, free of it entirely until he heard — call him a — .3 The significance of this alignment between the Fijian and Indian coun­ cillors should not, however, be over-estimated as Luke and Mitchell surely did over-estimate it. The objection of the Fijians was to their being put in the same category as the Indians, and the public service re-organisation affair was no more than a short interruption of a long­ term trend towards the political alliance of the Europeans and the Fijians. Before Japan went to war in the Pacific, Fiji had been little affected by the second world war. Apart from the lower price for copra, some shortages and rises in prices, and some unemployment, the everyday life of the people of Fiji was not much altered. There were appropriate expressions of loyal sentiment, and some of the Europeans went over­ seas to join the forces. But the war in the Pacific had important effects on Fiji. Bases were built for tens of thousands of American and New Zealand servicemen. Through their service in the army, the war brought the awakening of the indigenous Fijians much closer, and it greatly increased the respect held for them by the Europeans. On the other hand, the war raised new questions about the place of the Indians in Fiji. Although they emerged from the period stronger in numbers, more prosperous, and more orientated towards Fiji than India, they were still isolated from the other communities, and the institutions and sentiments of a plural society had taken even firmer hold. The Fijian people are rightly proud of their contribution in the Pacific war. The hierarchical and communal Fijian way of life was well suited to providing a quick response to the call for volunteers made by the government and the chiefs. The Fijian officials told the young men to go off to war, and they were ready enough to do so. Thousands of Fijians served in the forces, saw action in Bougainville and the Solomons, and earned high praise from allied commanders. There vas no reason to doubt the loyalty to the Crown expressed by the Fijian chiefs and echoed by most of the people. Outsiders may be sceptical, but analogies drawn from other colonies do not properly convey the reality of this sentiment in Fiji. In ideal terms Fijian loyalty was an extension of the principle of hierarchy embodied in traditional Fijian society and reinforced by Fijian Christianity. Practically it was an acknowledgment that colonialism was far from oppressive to the Fijians: they had been left with more than enough land for their needs

175 The Fiji Indians and their culture had been respected and honoured, even though altered and standardised as the approved ‘Fijian way of life’. Thanks to Indian immigration, they had not had to work on the sugar planta­ tions. It was for good'reasons that indigenous Fijian protest was a rare event in the history of the crown colony of Fiji. The Fijians have no need to be reminded — though they often have been — of the disparity between their war effort and that of the Fiji Indians. The difference between the responses of the two communities was a reflection of Fiji’s divided society. The response of the Fiji Indians was a legacy of Fiji’s past, of the colonial plural society and its lack of concern for national integration. Although most of them had been born in Fiji they did not yet feel much emotional identifica­ tion with Fiji. They were outsiders still. Any national sentiment they felt was for India, not Britain or Fiji. Most of the leaders of Indian opinion in Fiji thought that, while India was still enslaved and they were denied racial equality in Fiji, it was not really their war but one in defence of imperialism and European dominance. But it would be going too far to assert, as some Fiji Europeans have done, that the Indian leaders were deliberately sabotaging the war effort, consciously following Gandhi’s non-co-operation movement or the radio propa­ ganda of Subhas Chandra Bose and his Indian government in exile. Some people probably did have sentiments of disloyalty but they kept them carefully hidden during the war. For the great majority, it was indifference, rather than positive disloyalty. There were, too, important practical circumstances, related to Fiji’s plural society, that conditioned the different responses of the Fijians and Indians. The majority of Fijian young men were not permanent wage-earners or independent farmers and could leave their villages more easily than the Indian farmers could leave their farms. There was little surplus labour in the cane areas; many Indians were already working on military projects and were happy to do so provided they could return to their farms each day and have time off for rice planting and other necessary work; and there were complaints of recruiting interfering with the supply of labour in the sugar industry. The Fijian village system lent itself to directed and organised recruitment more than the dispersed Fiji Indian settlement pattern and individualistic social structure. The Fijian value system emphasised physical prowess and traditions of warfare, unlike that of the majority of Indians in Fiji. In any case, the government did not really want the Indians as soldiers, only as labourers. But when all that has been said, the fact

176 War, Land, Fijians remains that, at the height of the Pacific war, the leaders of the Fiji Indians cavilled and pursued grievances and organised a breakdown in the sugar industry. Indians had in fact been allowed to join the Fiji Defence Force in 1934 as part of Fletcher’s policy of giving them greater recognition and opportunity to participate in the general life of the colony and encouraging them to regard Fiji as their permanent home. The forma­ tion of the Indian platoon was opposed by Hedstrom and Scott, the leading European unofficial members of the Legislative Council. After the outbreak of the European war the force was called out for active service, but the Indian platoon was offered lower pay than the Euro­ peans. When the Indians objected to the discrimination, the New Zealand military authorities pressed strongly for the disbandment of the platoon on the grounds that its work was unsatisfactory and that its dissatisfaction could be disturbing to the rest of the army. The Indians were then given the opportunity to be discharged, which they accepted rather than accept the discrimination.4 There was little call for manpower until the entry of Japan into the war and the need for labour for construction work for the allied bases. At first the district commissioners reported a mixed response from the Indians to the appeals for the ‘Fiji Bombers Fund’ and the ‘Red Cross Fund’ but this was in part because of a lack of news about the war and poor organ­ isation, and the later response was better; in 1943 the Fiji Indians’ ‘Fighter Fund’ was over-subscribed. An Indian Reserve Motor Trans­ port Section was organised and worked well. On 1 May 1942 the governor called a conference of representative Indians to consider how the Indian community could be more closely involved in the war effort. The conference unanimously passed a num­ ber of resolutions, the first two of which read:

1. This conference while appreciating the change of attitude exhib­ ited by the Government in inviting the members of the Indian community to this conference for discussing ways and means for the furtherance of the War Effort of this Colony, feels itself bound to express the opinion that a further assurance should be given by the Government that the policy of political and econ­ omic discrimination against non-European races in this Colony would be abandoned. 2. In the event of the Government proposing to enlist Indian Troops for:

177 The Fiji Indians

(a) Fighting Battalions (b) Pioneer Battalions (c) Reserve Pioneer Battalions (d) Other Units including Medical Corps, such enlistment, in the considered opinion of this conference, would be acceptable to the Indian community if the Govern­ ment recruits on a voluntary basis and offers the same terms of service (including pay, allowances, pensions and other privileges) as those offered to European Troops.5

In August 1942 the Legislative Council approved the introduction of compulsory national service; it was not in fact brought in, but remained in reserve as a threat. In November the government opened recruitment of Indians for the Fiji Labour Corps (military) but the response was poor. In May 1943 the government appealed for 1000 Indian volunteers for labour service and threatened to obtain that number by compulsion if they were not forthcoming. M. T. Khan and K. B. Singh were commissioned as officers and tried to raise recruits without interfering with the sugar industry; but in all less than 300 Indians served in the military forces. Some of the other Indian leaders were not so helpful to the government. Vishnu Deo’s paper, the Fiji Samachar, published a serial record of another meeting of the Central Indian War Committee in November 1942 at which most of the speakers took the view that Indians could not be expected to enlist unless they were paid the same as Europeans. The government res­ ponded by removing Vishnu Deo from the war committees on which he was serving, and by suspending the publication of the Fiji Samachar for six months. The government also decided to set up an Indian Civilian Labour Force and the Indian members of the Legislative Council, including Vishnu Deo, agreed to co-operate in recruiting vol­ unteers for that body; although 331 were enlisted, the Force was reduced in size after three months because they were no longer needed following a reduction in the American forces’ demand for labour. In 1944 K. B. Singh approached the government with a proposal to raise a token unit of fifty Indians for combat overseas in the Indian Army or elsewhere, but the British Government said it would be impracticable except on the basis of individual enlistment in the Indian Army; any­ way, K. B. Singh was unable to obtain any volunteers.6 The Indian response to the call to assist with manpower can be explained in various ways, as has been attempted above, but, like the

178 War, Land, Fijians common roll agitation, it was probably a mistake from the standpoint of the overall interests of the Indian community in Fiji, as some of them have recognised. The Europeans and Fijians thought that to pursue grievances at such a critical period in the war was disloyalty at worst, unhelpfulness and selfishness at best. The Fiji Government’s Information Officer reported in 1943: A new spirit has arisen among Fijian soldiers. They are becoming very critical of the Indian community, whose contribution to the war effort shows up in a very poor light when compared with that of the Fijians . . . Fijians are becoming increasingly resentful of the fact that Fijians are serving in large numbers in the war and Indians are not. Economic fear enters here also when Indians are seen to be trying to buy land with war profits or to lease land left vacant because the native owners are in uniform.7 Among the Europeans, resentment against profiteering Gujarati shop­ keepers tended to be transferred to other Indians. Because of the large number of allied servicemen in Fiji, Indian artisans, bootmakers, dom­ estic servants, tailors, and washermen refused to accept work from civilians or accepted it only at higher rates of pay. Europeans and part- Europeans resented the increasing employment of Indians as clerks and in other occupations once predominantly held by Europeans. The economic effects of the war were nowhere felt more keenly than in the sugar-cane districts of north-west Viti Levu, where the main allied bases were located. The cost of living and the cost of growing cane soared. The Indian farmers and their families could earn more money doing laundry and supplying vegetables and services to the American and other forces than by growing cane or working in the sugar mills. The attitudes and living standards of the allied servicemen aroused the expectations of the Indian farmers and made them more critical of the local order. Towards the end of June 1943, 600 Indian and Fijian workers went on strike at the Ba and Lautoka mills, pre­ venting their opening for the crushing season. They asked for a large increase in pay and assistance in obtaining scarce essential commodities at reasonable prices. On the previous day Vishnu Deo had addressed the workers on the subject of national service and had persuaded a number to hand in their names for the Civilian Labour Force at better pay than they were getting from the CSR. The Director of National Service held a conference with the representatives of the workers and they agreed on terms for settlement. The CSR rejected the terms but

179 The Fiji Indians the government then appointed an arbitration tribunal which made a similar award, and this was accepted by both parties.8 The mill workers’ strike was important because, by delaying the opening of the mills, it gave more time for agitation to develop among the cane-farmers. In 1940 the CSR and the farmers had agreed on a contract for the purchase of cane for the next ten years that included provision for an increase in the price of cane if there was a rise in the price of sugar, and under this formula it had in fact been increased. In 1941 there were difficulties for the Fiji sugar industry because of the shortage of shipping, and in 1942 because of the military incursions in the cane areas. In March 1943 the Kisan Sangh asked the company to increase the price of cane above the agreed formula and was refused. In April the Kisan Sangh asked the government to ask the British Government, which now had control of Empire sugar prices, to pay more for sugar, and these representations were passed on to London. In June the Maha Sangh told the government that unless the price of cane were raised to at least double the pre-war level the farmers would have to give up sugar-cane cultivation. In July the Kisan Sangh asked for the appoint­ ment of a commission to inquire into the price of cane and threatened direct action if one was not appointed within a month. On 19 July Mitchell met representatives of the Kisan Sangh and Maha Sangh and was told that the farmers probably would not cut their cane at the existing price. He agreed to the appointment of a commission, but stressed that any decision for an increase in the price of sugar depended on London, though he would support it if they could make out a case. He pointed out, however, that there was no time for a reply to be received from London before a great part of the cane would be worth­ less for cutting. He said it was their cane and their decision whether or not to cut it, but he advised them to do so. On 21 July the commission was appointed to inquire into the demand for an increase in the price of cane. The unions (the Kisan Sangh, the Maha Sangh, and the newly formed Rewa Cane Growers’ Union) then asked for a court of arbitration, which would have been able to make a binding award, and declined to appear before the com­ mission which, after further sessions at which no evidence was pre­ sented, was closed. The government announced it would protect farmers who wanted to cut their cane, and extra police and troops were sent to the cane districts. At the end of July some of the farmers began cutting their cane in defiance of majority opinion. An order was made prohibiting the holding, without police permission, of meet-

180 War, Land, Fijians ings of twelve persons or more in the neighbourhood of Ba, where a large number of farmers wanted to cut their cane. Another order con­ fined the Maha Sangh leaders, A. D. Patel and Swami Rudrananda, to within five miles from their homes and required them to report to the police daily. On principle they refused to report, and were twice prosecuted, fined the first time, and sentenced to imprisonment the second time (reduced to a fine on appeal). These actions gave them added prestige as fighters for the farmers’ cause. Several others were convicted of endeavouring to stop the cutting of cane and the manu­ facture of sugar which had been declared in 1940 to be an essential service, but their appeals were upheld on the ground that, since it was not the legal duty of the farmers to cut their cane, it could not be an offence to try to persuade them not to cut it. The Defence Regulations were soon amended to make it an offence. Persuasion gave way to arson, as cane-fields were set alight. Some aimed to ruin the cane of others, but some fired their own cane in the hope of getting it to the mill quickly (burnt cane has to be harvested within four days). Threats and fear pervaded the cane areas. A remarkable quantity of arms, including automatic weapons and grenades, had been acquired by gift, purchase, or theft from American servicemen. An American was con­ victed of trying, at Indian instigation, to burn down the court-house at Nadi and to burn cane, a reminder that there were some people who were prepared to go to extremes.9 The voice of the CSR was like one from the past history of Fiji. A telegram from Sydney to London expressed head office’s ‘misgivings as to attitude of local authorities’ as ‘agitators have had free hand to foment trouble’. For his part, Mitchell reported to London: The Company opposes any increase in wages and cane prices because it is convinced that pre-war conditions will return including the dumping of Javanese and other sugars, and all the other objection­ able features. That is to say that we must manage the present and plan for the future in terms of the lamentable past. If we consent to let such assumptions be made they will prove to be right in the event, for the confusion and colonial misery due to previous market­ ing conditions were due at least as much to fatalistic acceptance of starvation prices and wages as inevitable as to any other single cause even including self-interest. And in another telegram: Farmers here are seeing more and more clearly that real substance

181 The Fiji Indians

of their case is standard of living. Company takes its stand on the assumption that world price level is uncontrollable and omnipotent and would be a charge ranking prior to producers standard of liv­ ing. Unless I have misunderstood the papers your department makes the same assumption as the Company. Since officially the two con­ ceptions are fundamentally opposite and irreconcilable, no solution can be expected from price fixing machinery or any other palliative, but only at the best a succession of armistices.10

That was, of course, the crux of the matter. The sugar industry of Fiji was part of a world-wide system of providing cheap tropical produce to the industrialised west. The imperial preferences granted by Britain and Canada, which supplanted New Zealand as the main market for Fiji sugar, enabled the Fiji sugar industry to survive in the inter-war years, but they made possible only a meagre standard of living for the colonial farmers. The CSR can be criticised — and was certainly criticised in private by the Fiji Government and the Colonial Office — for its arrogance and financial secrecy (entirely its own business, in the company’s view), but it was in truth not making more than a mod­ est return on the capital it had invested in Fiji.11 Whatever the com­ pany’s motives for being so secretive, they did not include the need to conceal any vast profits being extracted from Fiji. Understandably, the farmers did not believe it, they wanted a higher standard of living, and they did not have to grow cane while more money could be made elsewhere under wartime conditions. As usual, the trouble was complicated by personal political ambi­ tion, factionalism, and communalism. The militancy of A. D. Patel and Swami Rudrananda upstaged the leaders of the Kisan Sangh, M. T. Khan, Ayodhya Prasad, and B. D. Lakshman, who lost control of most of their members to a rival faction headed by a Punjabi, Mehar Singh, which supported the line taken by the Maha Sangh. Anti-Muslim propaganda was used against the Kisan Sangh. The South Indians rallied to their Swamiji. The Punjabis were among the most determined and feared of the anti-cutting forces. The Gujarati community, which financed the election campaigns of both Vishnu Deo and A. D. Patel, because it wanted friends in the Legislative Council, was suspected by some of being behind the Maha Sangh and the strike, because A. D. and S. B. Patel were Gujaratis and because the Kisan Sangh had set up the Kisan Co-operative Store to provide cheap provisions for the farmers and reduce their dependence on the Gujarati storekeeper-

182 War, Land, Fijians money-lenders. Others believed that the strike could not be dissoci­ ated from the wider movement of Indian nationalism. Certainly it was part of the story of Indian struggle against European dominance in Fiji. There were various motives involved. The key figure was A. D. Patel with his complex ambitions for himself and his people. In August a deputation, headed by Lakshman, asked the government to reconstitute the sugar inquiry commission, but a big gathering of members of both Sanghs resolved not to cut their cane until they received the increase in price for which they were asking, and to boy­ cott any new commission. A. D. Patel told the governor that the farmers would harvest their cane if the government would buy it at a fair price, an offer which was rejected as impracticable.12 In Sep­ tember the British Ministry of Food approved an increase in the price of sugar from all colonies, but most of the farmers thought it insuffic­ ient. The leaders were evidently determined on a fight to the finish with the CSR and the right wing of the Kisan Sangh. Militant meetings resolved that the plant cane should be ploughed in, though in fact this was only implemented by most in a token way. The reconstituted sugar inquiry commission, which was boycotted by the militants, concluded, on the basis of rather inadequate evidence and the assumption of a very low standard of living for the Indian farmers, that the increase in the price of cane since 1939 had kept pace with the increases in the cost of living and in the volume of production, and that no further increase was justified. Even the right wing of the Kisan Sangh was dismayed by the report and asked the government for a Royal Com­ mission composed of people from outside Fiji. The Maha Sangh, the Rewa Cane Growers’ Union, and the left wing of the Kisan Sangh asked for a court of arbitration, or the nationalisation of the sugar industry, or a sugar industry control board to determine the price of cane and subsidise it if the cost of production exceeded the cost of living. Meanwhile most of the cane remained uncut, and the burning continued. In December 1943 the Legislative Council debated the dispute. Mitchell appealed to the Indians to show a more patriotic spirit. Laksh­ man asked for a Royal Commission, and Vishnu Deo for a court of arbitration or a permanent control board; both proposals were defeated. K. B. Singh (now a nominated member) condemned the rivalry among the Indian leaders: ‘When the elephants fight the grass is trampled.’ Two distinguished Fijian leaders, Ratu Sukuna and Ratu Edward Cakobau, criticised the war effort of the Indians, accused them

183 The Fiji Indians

of trying to hold the colony to ransom, and asked the government to requisition the cane so that the Fijians could cut it.13 Some Europeans called for the deportation of those leaders not born in Fiji, that is A. D. Patel and Swami Rudrananda especially, and some Indians signed petitions supporting the idea.14 The government, mindful of pos­ sible repercussions in Britain and India, was more cautious. The acting governor later observed that an editorial in the Fiji Times and Herald reflected ‘the views of those many Europeans who advocated deporta­ tion of “agitators” and who see dispute as another chapter in story of gradual assumption by Indians of political and economic power which they consider should properly be concentrated in hands of white minority’. For their part the Indian militants sent telegrams appealing for support from the old friends of the overseas Indians, Polak, Kunzru, and the Imperial Indian Citizenship Association, and also to the Sec­ retary of State for the Colonies and to the Ramakrishna Mission in India.15 By the end of the year most of the uncut cane was spoilt, and the dispute was still deadlocked. But when A. D. and S. B. Patel and Swami Rudrananda approached Ratu Sukuna, Mitchell authorised him to negotiate with them. On behalf of the farmers, they re-iterated that although they would not sell the cane to the company at the existing price, they would sell it to the government if it would, through a price fixing board, be responsible for the payment of a fair price, but the government still would not agree to any general formula that would imply that its intervention had put an end to the existing cane pur­ chase agreement. When they offered to harvest the cane in return for cutting expenses only, in order to prove to the democratic world that the farmers had no wish to impede the war effort, Sukuna replied that they had been impeding the war effort for five months by refusing to continue production of an essential commodity.16 A. D. Patel and the Swami could hold out no longer. In January 1944 Sukuna visited Nadi and spoke to a gathering of farmers. He delivered a message from the governor advising them to harvest their cane and telling them that he and the Secretary of State wanted their standard of living raised. Sukuna spoke of the war and added a threat that those who were leasing Fijian-owned land might find it difficult in the future. The farmers resolved to resume planting, without com­ mitting themselves to the future harvesting of the cane. There was a rush to the mills with what was left of the season’s crop. Of an estim­ ated crop of 824,801 tons, only 434,168 tons were harvested, and

184 War, Land, Fijians

101,499 of that was burnt cane; the sugar content was very low. The farmers lost at least £1,000,000 in income from cane at the very time they lost their added income from the allied forces who were moving on from Fiji. Because of the neglect of planting, it was several years before the quantity of cane harvested reached pre-war levels. During the dispute more than a thousand fires were reported to the police, including sixteen cases involving houses, and there were eleven derail­ ments on the CSR railway.17 Many of the farmers were left confused, disillusioned, and impoverished. The confrontation now became one between the governor and the CSR. Like previous governors, Mitchell complained to London about the company’s intransigence and secrecy. In February 1944, without consulting him, the CSR served notice on fifty-six tenants and con­ tractors, all of whom had been leaders of the anti-cutting faction, that it would not buy cane from them in future. Mitchell told London that this action had increased the bitterness of the farmers and the influ­ ence of A. D. Patel; he would not tolerate evictions in wartime and would use his emergency defence powers if necessary. Appropriate regulations were in fact drafted and the CSR was threatened with their introduction. Mitchell predicted that, unless there was either an immediate showdown with the CSR to force it to disclose its accounts, or the Ministry of Food paid an extra bonus to the farmers, there would be arson, violence or even bloodshed in the next cane-cutting season; the farmers simply did not trust the company and believed it to be making huge profits.18 In words reminiscent of Rodwell’s and Fell’s more than twenty years before, he told London:

Whichever course is adopted and whatever the law may be the Company will use with the investigation every means of obstruction and evasion and may when it realises you mean business threaten to close down in Fiji altogether as they have at intervals threatened to close the Nausori mill. They may even mean it this time. But the intolerable situation which their recalcitrant attitude has created cannot be allowed to continue nor can any Government or S. of S. in the year 1944 sit down under a refusal, by a Company enjoying a monopoly of processing an essential food crop — to disclose any information whatsoever either of its receipts or its costs of produc­ tion. I must ask that it should be kept continuously in the forefront of consideration of this matter that the whole dispute centres around the blunt refusal of the Company to disclose to you, to me, to the

185 The Fiji Indians

growers or presumably to the Ministry of Food any information whatsoever about their costs and receipts. Whether when this inform­ ation has been forced (as it must be forced) out of these obstinate and disingenuous men it will be possible to reach a lasting peaceful solution I do not know. Unless there is a pronounced change in heart I doubt it for unhappily race and economic division coincide and there is now on both sides bitter racial intolerance. But the plain fact is, however much it may be muffled by smoke screening, that the Company having for years defied this Government has in fact now defied the S. of S. If you are not prepared to grasp that nettle then the short range consequences will be grave loss and serious disturbances here and the end the ruin of the industry and the Colony. There are too many desperate men on the farmers’ side and they are too well financed for the dispute to end by capitula­ tion once more to the Company.19

The British Government refused to grant a bonus for Fiji sugar because that would have constituted special treatment for one colony, and would have meant satisfying Fiji farmers at the expense of the British consumers, but it agreed to send Professor C. Y. Shephard of the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture, Trinidad, to report on the sugar industry in Fiji. The Colonial Office telegraphed Mitchell that it hoped that his inquiry would lead to an established and sustained influence by the government in the affairs of the sugar industry. It told the CSR representative in London that it regretted the eviction notices and the company then withdrew them. The farmers hailed the announcement in March that Shephard was being sent out, and all the parties to the dispute gave him full co-operation, though the Indian leaders were pre-occupied with the coming elections, and factional quarrelling and retaliatory burning of cane continued even during Shephard’s visit in June 1944. Mitchell wrote to London that the events of the past year had thoroughly shaken up the CSR, which was now more co-operative.20 In his report Shephard, who was given full access to its accounts, praised the company for its efficiency, gave his opinion that it had been receiving an unattractive return on its capital, and recommended the retention of the existing method of assessing the price of sugar-cane, stricter controls over the transfer of Fijian leases, and the establishment of a sugar board to advise the government. The farmers’ unions, the 1943 strike, and Shephard’s visit inaugu­ rated a new era in the history of the sugar industry: the old company

186 War, Land, Fijians hands were told by head office to mind their manners or were succeeded by new men, :he overseer became the field officer, and more normal commercial relations replaced those of the explicit dominance reminis­ cent of indenture days. The cane areas simmered down for some years. The sugar board was not set up until 1961, following another serious breakdown in the industry.21 In 1970 after yet another dispute and an award by Lord Denning, who had been appointed to arbitrate, the CSR announced that it would withdraw from the Fiji sugar industry— as it had so often threatened to do in the past. The sugar dispute of 1943, taken in conjunction with the enlistment records of the respective communities, reinforced the existing pre­ ference of the local European settlers and the majority of government officers for the Fijians over the Indians. This preference had many roots, some psychological and social and some political. The introduc­ tion of Indian labour had made it possible for the Fijian to stand aside from the competitive pressures of the modern world and to retain that special charm and dignity that impresses locals and visitors alike. The Fijian was not a threat to the interests of the Europeans nor as ready to come forward with grievances as the Indian. A perceptive explana­ tion of the European preference for the Fijian was given in 1942 and 1943 by a Colonial Office official who had served on secondment in Fiji in 1939-40:

The high regard in which the Europeans hold the Fijians is, of course, due to the unsophisticated natural charm of the Fijians as a people, and to the fact that they have as yet attained no conception of politics, and thus are quite content to continue to serve in various very useful but comparatively menial ways — in short they give no trouble. The Indian is disliked and feared by the Europeans princi­ pally because he is politically conscious and is aiming at placing him­ self on a level with Europeans, and also because he is commercially astute and is apt to undercut Europeans in their own line of business owing to his lower standard of living.22 There is at present among most Fiji Europeans, and especially among administrative officials, a tendency to favour the Fijians as opposed to the Indians. The Fijians are superficially a much more attractive people, their relations with Europeans are much easier since they are not afflicted with the characteristic Indian inferiority- cum-persecution complex; and, of course, the country is theirs and they naturally have, in view of the conditions under which it was

187 The Fiji Indians

ceded to the British Crown, first claim on the attentions of Govern­ ment. Moreover, the Fijians are somewhat backward politically, and the position of European officials towards them is roughly that of the guardians of attractive, promising, but not yet quite fully developed children. The result of all this is the to my mind quite lamentable tendency among officials, especially the junior men, to be excessively philo-Fijian, and to regard the Indians as aliens, interlopers, and in general, nuisances who cause 90% of the trouble in the Colony:— the Indian passion of petty-litigation, and unnecessary petitioning, is necessarily one of the principal curses of the Indian officials’ life.23

During the war there were two major legislative acts which, though they did not arouse controversy at the time and related more directly to the Fijians than to the Indians, were to have important effects on the future of Fiji and the position of the Fiji Indians. They were the Native Land Trust Ordinance of 1940 and the Fijian Affairs Ordinance of 1944. The Indian leaders did not realise at the time that these acts constituted an entrenchment of the interests of the Fijians. With the educational system, they underpinned Fiji’s enduring racial separation and plural söciety. The majority of the Indians who came out of the indenture period found a place on the land, as tenants of the Fijians. The latter retained the ownership of most of the land of Fiji, they clung to their rights, and perforce the majority of the Indians had to become their tenants. It was estimated in 1931 that 5000 acres were held by tenants of the Crown, 31,000 acres by tenants of the CSR, and 60,000 by tenants of the Fijians (divided about equally between sugar and non-sugar land); as well, an unstated but smaller area was held freehold or under lease or sub-lease from others, presumably private Europeans.24 There were a few government settlements for Indians but the government had little suitable land in accessible areas. As Pearson wrote to Bajpai: ‘Between you and me the different “advertisements” of land available strike me as somewhat disingenuous.’25 The Indian Land Settlement Ordinance of 1916 provided for the appointment of a board to acquire land on which to settle Indians, but this remained largely theoretical. In 1915, at the suggestion of the governor, the Council of Chiefs had agreed that all available Fijian lands not required by the Fijians for their own use, and all Fijian lands then the subject of lease, should be surrendered to the government to be leased or otherwise dealt with on behalf of the owners. Thousands of acres were surrendered, but it was mostly poor

188 War, Land, Fijians land, unsuitable for settlement. Much more good, unused land was not surrendered. So it became necessary to seek the surrender of definite areas, as specified by applicants.26 The government was happy to see the Fijians lease their unused lands to Europeans or Indians, but was concerned that Indian settle­ ment should be controlled. Haphazard leasing of small areas would have made it difficult to lease large areas to others with capital to develop them, especially European planters, and it would have led to a spread of settlement, making it difficult for the administration to maintain contact with the Indians and control their possible impact on the Fijians. There was specific discrimination against Indians in the Native Lands (Leases) Regulations of 1915 made under the Native Land Ordinance of 1905. Not all provinces were open to general agricultural settlement by Indians. In effect the Indians were excluded from the greater part of the windward side of the Fiji group, further widening the separation of the communities in the colony’s plural society. Settlement was also discouraged in certain districts not freely accessible to district officers: Indians could secure new leases there only in exceptional circumstances, though some did acquire existing freehold or sub-leases from Europeans, and store-site leases were freely granted. Second, the regulations provided that leases to Indians were as a rule to be limited to 10 acres, though this was not strictly enforced in practice. Third, leases to Indians were limited to 30 years and ordinarily in practice to 21 years, whereas Europeans were allowed up to 99 years. In 1933 the second and third discriminations were removed from the regulations and replaced by rules of general appli­ cation.27 It was a persistent grievance of the Indians that it was hard to obtain leases without paying high premiums, and that the procedures were cumbersome and expensive. In theory, the applicant selected the land he wanted, ascertained its Fijian name and the name of the land- holding group which claimed it, and then lodged an application with the government, which invited the owners in their District Council to place the land at its disposal for leasing. The practice was rather dif­ ferent. The Indian had first to negotiate with the Fijian owners who took their loloma (gift) before they would consent to lease the land, and further payments were necessary to assure the renewal of the lease. Ejectments were not common, because the Fijians could rarely afford to pay compensation for improvements, but the threat of them gave rise to considerable uncertainty.28

189 The Fiji Indians

In the mid 1930s the land problem was coming to seem to some of the more perceptive observers of the Fiji scene to be the most important that Fiji faced. The European planters and the CSR had enough land already, including the most accessible and the best agricultural land in Fiji, most of it as freehold. For years the Indians had complained about difficulty in obtaining land without vexation and insecurity. On the other hand, the Fijians appreciated the value of their land to themselves, as well as to others; they jealously guarded what they had left despite repeated efforts by successive governors to induce them to surrender control to the government. Fijian loyalty was freely expressed and sincerely meant, but it was grounded on self-interest and trust in British protection and the established interpretation of the Deed of Cession. In the 1930s they were becoming more aware of their economic weakness. Their numbers were on the rise just as were the Indians’, the land was needed for their children, and they wanted to grow more cash crops.29 In some cases, when they could afford to pay compensation for improvements, they were refusing to renew leases when they came up for renewal. Sometimes the land was then used for their own cultivation, but often it reverted to bush. A large number of 21 year leases were shortly to come up for renewal, because they had been taken out at a time when many immigrants were finishing their terms of indenture. In October 1933 the Legislative Council accepted a proposal by K. B. Singh that the land question be investigated by a committee, with a view to lessees being given greater security of tenure. Later in the same year Vishnu Deo and his friends also began to canvass support on this issue, and committees were formed in several districts.30 The CSR also asked the government to impose stricter controls over leases, in order to eliminate bribery, blackmail and frivolous non-renewals. The CSR’s local inspector, F. C. T. Lord, in an internal company memorandum which was passed on by Sir Philip Goldfinch to the Colonial Office, recommended that if the government did not act, the company should use a ‘big-stick’ against ‘dog-in-the-manger’ Fijian landowners by refusing to buy cane from them where an Indian tenant had been unjustifiably turned off the land. He pointed to the growing unrest among Indian farmers and wrote: ‘It is not to be expected that the Indian community will submit meekly to seeing their fellows being gradually eliminated from the cane-farming industry by a process of attrition.’ The company was encouraging the Fijians to be cane-farmers too but it could not be indifferent to the destruction of the tenant-

190 War, Land, Fijians farmer system, which depended on the Indian farmer. Although Gold­ finch assured the Colonial Office that the company would not use a ‘big stick’ on the Fijians without consulting the governor, these com­ plaints from the CSR provided far more effective pressure for a change in the system than the Indians themselves were able to apply.31 In 1936, Barton, the acting governor, held informal discussions with some of the leading Fijians, then referred the land question to the Council of Chiefs. At Sukuna’s urging, that body passed a resolution asking the government to assume control of all native land not required for immediate use and to administer such land in the best interests of the Fijians. The resolution was then referred to the Provincial Councils and a majority of them upheld it. The new governor, Sir Arthur Richards, wrote to London in 1937: The land question lies at the heart of Fiji’s future. If it is not solved in this generation there will infallibly be trouble . . . I have made speeches to Fijian assemblies in every province throughout the country, frankly stating the problem, pointing out that they have five times as much land as they can use, now or in the future, and that they are free to choose, but if they insist on holding back land they cannot hope to use the future of the country must be troubled. I have also pointed out what the Indians have done to bring prosperity to their country. People tell me that I have the confidence of the Fijians and anyway the name of the King’s Representative is still something to conjure with here. The Fijians trust the King and will take from the Governor what they would take from no one else. Perhaps with Sukuna’s help I may be able to solve the problem.32 He stressed the delicacy of the question and the need to proceed slowly, without interference from the Government of India, as that would surely alarm the Fijians. The Government of India had begun to be concerned about the Fiji land question in 1935, following publicity in the press. Dr Sagayam, who had returned to India that year, published an article pointing to the urgency of the land question. He wrote to C. F. Andrews: Unfortunately the political leaders have not put it on the foreground, probably because it is more spectacular to fight for political rights and it creates better impression in India. But the masses are chiefly interested in the land question and they begged me when I left to do what I can for them. The anti-Indian forces in Fiji are now scared

191 The Fiji Indians

over the political demands of the Indians and are using the Fijians to cut the Indians out by debarring them from owning land. And what is the use of franchise to Indians when they have to be con­ tinuously threatened with expulsion for not having any land to settle on.33

Following representations from the Imperial Indian Citizenship Association, the Government of India asked the India Office for infor­ mation and suggested that it might wish to send an officer to Fiji to report on the land question. But the Fiji Government and the Colonial Office were afraid that any hint of interference from India would prejudice the Fijians against the proposed changes. They refused to accept suggestions from the Government of India for the appointment of an Indian agent in Fiji with experience of land tenure and agricul­ ture, or for an independent commission to be sent from Britain, or for local Indian representation on the proposed Native Land Trust Board. In fact the Government of India had little say, but it was assured that the local Indian community would be fully consulted.34 In the event the historic Native Land Trust Bill of 1940 was passed unanimously by the Fiji Legislative Council, in a friendly atmosphere and with very little discussion, and the Government of India acquiesced. Under the ordinance the control of all Fijian-owned land was vested in a board, Fijian reserves were to be proclaimed following inquiries to be conducted by Ratu Sukuna assisted by local advisory committees, on which Indians would be represented, and all land not in the reserves was to be available for leasing by the board. During the debate, Vishnu Deo and K. B. Singh expressed the hope that the pro­ posed regulations would be administered liberally.35 But within a few years, Indian complaints were revived, as some Indian farmers were ejected from the areas demarcated as Fijian reserves as their leases expired—though the policy was to cause as little disturbance as pos­ sible to Indian farmers in the cane areas. The land remains close to the heart of Fiji’s Indian—or Fijian—problems. The second important piece of legislation directly concerning the Fijians that was enacted during the war was the reorganisation of the Fijian administration in 1944. In itself this was not a major administra­ tive innovation, but it was significant because it represented a buttress­ ing of the separate Fijian administration and consequently the rein­ forcement and continued creation of Fiji’s plural society through the acceptance of separate institutions at the national level. In 1915 the

192 War, Land, Fijians decision had been taken to decentralise the Fijian administration and place control in the hands of European district commissioners. Under this system government in Fiji began to look less and less like indirect rule than it had in the early days of colonial rule, and senior Fijians played very little part in it. The 1944 ordinance established a more centralised system and gave Fijians a much more important place in government. The post of Adviser for Native Affairs became the more senior post of Secretary for Fijian Affairs, to which Ratu Sukuna was appointed. The Native Regulation Board became the Fijian Affairs Board, the Fijian members of the Legislative Council were appointed to it, and finances were centralised. Later, the new system of Fijian administration was criticised by visiting experts for its unresponsiveness to greater demands for faster Fijian economic development, and it has since been modified. At the time it seemed to its architects, Sukuna and Mitchell, to be a progres­ sive move that would involve and train the Fijians in modern govern­ ment. The Fijian Affairs Bill was passed unanimously. The Europeans were generally favourable to the change, though some of them were critical, seeing it as a perpetuation of chiefly rule, which would, in their view, have otherwise have died a natural death — an argument with a long history among European settlers in Fiji.36 Sukuna, on the other hand, stressed the continuing prestige and influence of the chiefs and elders in Fijian society, as evidenced by the Fijian war effort.37 The Indians, including the Indian members of the Legislative Coun­ cil, took little interest in the change. The bill seemed to concern the Fijians only, and in general the Indian politicians had not previously involved themselves with questions that did not directly touch the Indians. At that time, the Indian leaders — and the European, too, for that matter — did not realise the political potential and growing strength of the Fijians, who were united with, rather than simply ‘under’ their chiefs. The new centralised Fijian administration, headed by Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna, who was able to command respect in both the traditional and modern contexts, made even sharper the contrast with the Indians, who were increasingly fragmented by class, faction and organised religion and were a ‘community’ in the broadest sense only. The most perceptive observations about the changes were made in the Colonial Office, where there were misgivings. Their first reaction to the proposed reorganisation was to tell Mitchell that it ‘seems to us inevitably to place further emphasis on communal lines of future

193 The Fiji Indians constitutional reforms’.38 He replied that the political aspect should not be exaggerated: the proposals were about local government and were not a great change from the existing system, except that they would give the Fijians direct authority and responsibility, and that would forestall the emergence of irresponsible nationalism or racialism. He added that in a generation or two all race differentiation ought to dis­ appear in Fiji; in the meantime all races would gain experience in the field of local government and the general level of education would be raised.39 The Colonial Office did not persist with its objections: cus­ tomarily, the man on the spot was allowed to make many of the im­ portant decisions on policy. The opinion prevailed that Fiji should ‘work out its own salvation’ in its own time. Typically, the Colonial Office seemed more worried by the financial proposals. But broader misgivings remained. One official minuted: T feel so strongly that the development of separate Fijian institutions in this way is retrograde and mischievous, in that it can only tend to the strengthening of com­ munal separateness and the intensification of communal problems for the future.’40 During and after the war a section of the European community con­ tinued to oppose government control of the Legislative Council and the Suva Town Board. In 1943 the Legislative Council considered pro­ posals by Alport Barker for constitutional changes, including provision for an unofficial majority and six elected members from each of the three main races. The European and Fijian members did not support him, while most of the Indians asked for a common roll, and the Muslim nominated member wanted two seats to be reserved for the Muslims on a separate electoral roll.41 A memorial from the European Electors’ Association in 1946, asking for the creation of an unofficial majority of elected members, was rejected by the Colonial Office, after it was unfavourably reported on by the governor, Sir Alexander Grantham, who gave as his opinion that there was little likelihood of the Indians abandoning their aspiration for a common roll. He went on:

In the meantime, so long as the Europeans are moving in the general direction in which those aspirations point, the Indians will travel cheerfully with them but with their minds set on a much longer journey. It is certainly in this light that the Fijians would view the establishment of an unofficial majority. They would regard it as one more step in the Indian march to power and one more retreat from the obligations assumed by the Crown under the Deed of Cession . . .

194 War, Land, Fijians

The Electors’ Association plainly sees in the ‘emancipated’ Fijian a powerful bulwark against the rising tide of Indian numerical strength and Indian political ambition. The Europeans, being too few in number to fight their own battles with certainty of victory, are to call the Fijians to their aid. The two races, co-operating to dominate the unofficial majority in the Legislative Council, will be able to keep the Indian colossus in check. Of all the futures that one could envisage for the Fijian none could be more disastrous than that in which his function would be to provide a last line of defence against the growing power of his Indian neighbour. It is apparent that there can be only one solution of the Indian problem in Fiji, and that is the reconciliation of Indian aspirations and interests with those of other races in the Colony, and particularly those of the Fijian. Any effort to divide Indians and Fijians permanently into two hostile camps will do grave harm to both races, but the worst sufferers, in the long run, must be the race which is in the minority. If the Fijian, in his present state of development, were suddenly given a vote and pitchforked headlong into the political arena, he would immediately become the plaything of mutually antagonistic forces, from whose collision it is far better that he should stand aside.42

On 16 July 1946 a cathartic Legislative Council debate on ‘safe­ guarding the Fijian race’, generally known as the ‘Deed of Cession debate’, brought into the open the racial tensions in Fiji, and in par­ ticular the European, part-European, and Fijian dislike and apprehen­ sion of the Indians. Resentment had been growing over the Indians’ contribution to the war effort, the cane dispute, the Indians moving into jobs previously held by Europeans, and their purchase of property with money acquired during the war. The Stephens Report on Educa­ tion, which had recommended the establishment of multi-racial schools, put European dominance further in question. The Europeans asked if their children had a ‘future in Fiji’, and the part-Europeans ‘what about us?’. Sir Raghunath Paranjype, the High Commissioner for India in Australia, visited Fiji in 1946, made controversial statements on education, the land system, and the residential tax, and in so doing revived the old exaggerated belief that India had too much say in the affairs of Fiji and that the Europeans, part-Europeans, and Fijians were in danger of being sold short by Whitehall. The Indian population now outnumbered the Fijian and was increasing faster. Fiji did indeed seem to be becoming ‘Little India of the Pacific’.43

195 The Fiji Indians

A European elected member, A. A. Ragg, moved: That in the opinion of this Council the time has arrived— in view of the great increase in the non-Fijian inhabitants and its consequential political development— to emphasize the terms of the Deed of Ces­ sion to assure that the interests of the Fijian race are safeguarded and a guarantee given that Fiji is to be preserved and kept as a Fijian country for all time. During the debate that followed the European unofficial members and the Fijian members spoke of a threat of Indian domination, the swamping of the Fijians by the rapidly increasing Indian population, Indian political agitators, the respective war records of the Fijians and Indians, and possible future conflict over land. The Indian members, who spoke against the original motion, stressed the part the Indians had played in building up Fiji, asserted that they had been promised equal citizenship in the Empire, denied that they were in any way a threat to the Fijians, and challenged the claim that the Deed of Cession made the local Europeans, as distinct from the British Crown, trustees for the Fijian people. An impressive speech was made by A. D. Patel, who had at last entered the Legislative Council in 1944, having gained prestige from his stand during the sugar dispute and support from the Maha Sangh and the South Indian community. The government speakers took an intermediate position. The motion was carried un­ animously after it had been amended to a more innocuous form: That in the opinion of this Council the Government and the non- Fijian inhabitants of this Colony stand by the terms of the Deed of Cession and shall consider that document as a Charter of the Fijian people. The governor, Sir Alexander Grantham, later reported to London: While the final outcome of the debate, in unanimity and the recog­ nition by the Indian Members of the sanctity of the Deed of Cession and the paramountcy of the interests of the Fijians (a position always accepted by the Europeans), —was a happy one and should be reassuring to the Fijians, the speeches during the debate of some of the Unofficial European Members of Council, foreshadowing the complete dominance of the Colony by the Indians, brought to a head the latent fears of the Fijians regarding the possibility of such an eventuality. The meeting of the Fijian Affairs Board was held

196 War, Land, Fijians

only three days after the debate in Legislative Council, and the flesh of the Fijian members of the Board was made to creep still further by Sir Henry Scott, the Legal Adviser to the Board, and a firm believer in ‘the Indian menace’.44 The Fijian Affairs Board passed a strong resolution: After a full discussion the Fijian Affairs Board unanimously resolves:— That this Board views with alarm: (a) the inroads now being made by the Indians of the Colony into the Fijian life. (b) the influence which the Indians are attempting on the everyday life of the Fijians. (c) the influence which the Indians are attempting on the economic life of the Colony with which the Fijians are so closely associated. Further that the attention of the Government be drawn to this serious state of affairs especially in view of the numerical superiority of the Indians so that the Fijians may be protected from su6h domination and that the Administration be requested to adopt a firm attitude towards the Indians in order that the interests of the Fijian race remain pre-eminent in the Colony.45 The Board asked that the resolution be laid before the King and this was done after Grantham reported to London: ‘The members of the Board, and in fact the whole Fijian people, are anxious that you should be aware of their fears vis-a-vis the Indians, and that the paramountcy of their interests is not overlooked in London.’46 But the Fijians had no real cause for concern that their interests would be neglected in favour of the Indians. When Fiji became independent in 1970, it did so under a constitutional system that gave power, not to the Indian majority, but to the non-Indian minorities, including the Fijiarfs them­ selves. In the period covered by this book the Indians failed to achieve equality with the Europeans in Fiji, let alone replace them as the domi­ nant group. They failed for a number of reasons, imperial and local: the stopping of immigration from India and the withdrawal of India from the Empire; world economic conditions, Fiji’s remoteness from markets and relatively low level of economic development, which made it unnecessary to make substantial concessions to India as the price of further immigration; the low economic status of the Fiji Indians and

197 The Fiji Indians the neglect of Indian education; the revival of the Fijians, and the enunciation of the doctrine of the paramountcy of native interests in the Empire which really served to justify continued European dominance and the exclusion of the Indians from power. The Indian case was not helped by disunity within their community. The fact that there was little interaction between the Fijians and the Indians, and the con­ tinued and not misplaced Fijian trust in the colonial government’s concern for their interests, made it impossible for the Indian leaders to enlist Fijian support, as the Europeans were able to do so successfully. The Indians still held to the illusion that they would be admitted as equal partners in the development of the Empire. When all was said and done, the Empire was, after all, the British Empire. But if the Fiji Indians had not achieved the full acceptance and equality they wanted, they had still gone a long way. Their history since 1946 would record, among other things, their population growth until they became an absolute majority of the total population of Fiji, and their economic diversification and educational and political advance; the continual struggles of the cane-farmers against the CSR until that company finally decided to withdraw from Fiji; the continuing worry over the land; the divisions and quarrels among themselves; the moves that led to Fiji’s political independence; and the emergence of the Fijian people into the modern world and into a position of power in their country once again. Their history would also show how, thus far, despite tensions, increasing contact, economic competition and mount­ ing economic difficulties, the Fijians and Indians continued to live warily side by side in peace in a still plural society and polity. And it would show how the Indians continued to adapt to the land to which their great grandparents came under such unhappy circumstances. If they were not yet Fijians, they were certainly the Fiji-Indians.

198 Appendix

The Population of Fiji 1921 1936 1946 C h in ese 910 1751 2705 E u ro p e a n s 3878 4028 459 4 Part-Europeans 2781 4574 6142 F ijian s 84,475 97,651 117,488 In d ian s 60,634 85,002 120,063 Others (mostly Islanders) 4588 5373 9246

Total 157,266 198,379 259,638 (1946 census report, C.P. 35/47)

199 Notes

CHAPTER I 1 For the general history of Fiji in the nineteenth century, see: R. A. Derrick, A History of Fiji; P. France, The Charter of the Land; J. D. Legge, Britain in Fiji, 1858-1880; D. A. Scarr, The Majesty of Colour. For the Fijian people, see especially: Report of the Commission of Enquiry into the Natural Resources and Population Trends of the Colony of Fiji 1959 (C.P. 1/60); C. S. Belshaw, Under the Ivi Tree; R. R. Naya- cakalou, Leadership in Fiji; B. H. Quain, Fijian Village; G. K. Roth, Fijian Way of Life; M. D. Sahlins, Moala; O. H. K. Spate, The Fijian People: economic problems and prospects (C.P. 13/59); R. F. Watters, Koro. 2 The history of the indenture period is treated in Gillion, Fiji’s Indian Migrants', a history to the end of indenture in 1920. 3 Rodwell to C.O., 22 August and 24 October 1919; CSR F.4.0.10, folder 2. 4 Andrews to Rankine, 17 May 1920 (source cannot be published). 5 Fiji Debates, 1 July 1919. 6 Tel., Rodwell to C.O., 20 February 1919. 7 C.P. 2/22. 8 J. W. T. Barton, memorandum for Lord Hailey’s committee on post-war colonial problems, C.O. 83/235, file 85038, 1942. 9 Richards to Dawe, quoted in minute by latter, 24 April 1937, C.O. 83/218, file 85197. 10 Pearson to Bajpai, 24 January 1928, India O.P., April 1928, B.28. 11 A. G. Anderson, Indo-Fijian Smallfarming; R. M. Frazer, A Fiji- lndian Rural Community; C. Jayawardena, ‘The Disintegration of Caste in Fiji Indian Rural Society’, in L. R. Hiatt and C. Jayawardena (eds.), Anthropology in Oceania; A. C. Mayer, Peasants in the Pacific; R. G. Ward, Land Use and Population in Fiji. 12 Memo, by A. A. Wright, ‘Indian Education in Fiji’, 25 June 1930, end. C.O. to Fletcher, no. 211, 9 December 1930. 13 C.S.O. 2839/82; 2141/83; 150/84; 1405/84; 1701/85; 2577/87. 14 Source cannot be published. 15 Fiji annual report, 1926. 16 FTH, 14 June 1938. 17 J. R. Pearson, ‘A Survey of the Position of Indians in Fiji’, Septem­ ber 1932, end. C.O. to Seymour, 9 December 1932. 18 Modern Review, May 1919. 19 Raju report (I.O./I. & O. 2247/22).

CHAPTER II 1 The strike is generally described in the Governor’s report, Rodwell to C.O. no. 66, 12 March 1920 (C.P. 67/20); the Raju report; and Benar- sidas Chaturvedi, Fiji ki Samasya. 2 Rodwell to C.O., 19 August 1920. 3 Rodwell to C.O., no. 66, 12 March 1920. 4 Minutes on tel. Rodwell to C.O., 18 March 1920, C.O. 83/150; India E.P., August 1921, F.13; D. Napal, Manilall Maganlall Doctor. 201 Notes

5 Gandhi, Collected Works, vol. XI, 169-71. 6 C.S.O. 5087/20; Rodwell to C.O., no. 206, 28 July 1920. 7 C.S.O. 710/20. 8 Rodwell to C.O., no. 25, 22 January 1920, C.P. 67/20. 9 Associated Press of India, Lahore, 7 October 1919, C.S.O. 8595/19. 10 Ram Singh to C.S., 22 January 1920, C.S.O. 710/20. 11 C.S.O. 44/20; Benarsidas Chaturvedi, Fiji ki Samasya; FTH, 30 and 31 December 1919, 2 January 1920. 12 Ram Singh to C.S., 29 December 1919, C.S.O. 8590/19. 13 C.S.O. 8590/19. 14 C.S.O. 90/20. 15 Manilal to C.S., 7 January 1920, C.S.O. 90/20. 16 C.S.O. 710/20. 17 C.S.O. 513/20. 18 C.S.O. 764/20; Rodwell to C.O., conf., 7 April 1919. 19 C.S.O. 967/20. 20 C.S.O. 819/20. 21 Rodwell to C.O., no. 66, 12 March 1920. 22 C.S.O. 973/20. 23 C.S.O. 975/20. 24 C.S.O. 765/20. 25 Rodwell to C.O., no. 66, 12 March 1920. 26 Raju report. 27 C.S.O. 1066/20. 28 Rodwell to C.O., no. 66, 12 March 1920. 29 Admiralty to C.O., 6 and 16 February 1920, C.O. 83/154. 30 Rodwell to Governor-General, Australia, secret, 28 January and 4 February 1920, Australian Archives, Prime Minister’s Department, CP 447/3, SC 37/1. 31 New Zealand correspondent, The Round Table, vol. X, 704-5; see also Holland papers, P5/3. 32 Rodwell, address to Leg. Co., 5 May 1920, C.P. 21/20. 33 Rodwell to C.O., no. 93, 5 May 1920; C.P. 46/20; Fiji annual report, 1920. 34 Rodwell to C.O., no. 54, 4 March 1920. 35 C.O. to Rodwell, 26 May 1920. 36 Petition from M. N. Naidu, R. M. A. Saraswati, A. J. C. Patel, B. L. Hiralal Seth and 51 others, 8 April 1920, C.S.O. 2693/20. 37 C.S.O. 1064/20, 1682/20, 4210/20, 4619/20, 5437/20, 5702/20. The ringleaders and the more violent were charged with common law riot, bridge-breaking, wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm and assault; forty-eight of those were convicted and variously sentenced to from six months’ to five years’ imprisonment, and nine were acquitted. Nine persons were charged and convicted of unlawful assembly under the Public Safety Ordinance of 1920, and variously sentenced to from nine months’ to twelve months’ imprisonment. The rest were charged with unlawful assembly; 135 of those were convicted and variously sentenced

202 Notes to from two weeks’ to one month’s imprisonment, and nine were acquitted. There were several women among those convicted. 38 Rodwell to C.O., no. 83, 10 April 1920. 39 C.S.O. 1269/20; tel. Rodwell to C.O., 18 March 1920. 40 Rodwell to C.O., no. 74, 8 April 1920. 41 Minute on I.O. to C.O., 1 June 1920, C.O. 83/154. 42 Rodwell to C.O., no. 75, 8 April 1920; Manilal to C.S., 2 and 10 April 1920, end. Rodwell to C.O., no. 117, 8 May 1920. 43 Rodwell to C.O., no. 117, 8 May 1920. 44 Some paid their own fare back, which they were entitled to do at any time after completing their period of five years’ labour under inden­ ture. The majority could not afford to do this and, in any case, after spend­ ing another five years in the colony they were eligible for a passage to India at government expense. This right could be exercised at any time by those who arrived before 31 May 1906, and also by their children, whether they were born in Fiji or in India, and whether or not they were accompanying their parents. Certain restrictions of the repatriation rights were made by the Fiji Government in 1906 — the right of future (’second- series’) immigrants was to be exercised within two years after it accrued, and children were to be granted passage only if they were under twenty- four if born in India or twelve if born in Fiji. In fact the time limit for second-series immigrants was extended on several occasions and finally expired in September 1958. 45 Rodwell to C.O., 19 August 1920; FTH, 17 July 1920. 46 C.S.O. 8231/20; 561/21. 47 C.S.O. 5176/20; 270/21. 48 C.S.O. 5755/20. 49 Rewa correspondent, FTH, 17 July 1920. 50 C.S.O. 6364/20; 321/21; 562/21. 51 Source cannot be published. 52 C.S.O. 2134/20. 53 C.S.O. 1264/20; 1534/20. 54 Tel. Rodwell to C.O., 24 December 1920, C.O. 83/153. 55 C.S.O. 4689/20. 56 C.S.O. 4672A/20. 57 C.S.O. 5835/20; tel. Rodwell to C.O., 21 July 1920. 58 C.P. 21/20. 59 Dixon to CSR/G.M., 4 May 1920, CSR 251 C/D. 60 The Times Trade Supplement, 5 February 1921. 61 Andrews to Gourlay (Bengal Government), June 1921, India E.P., October 1921, A.6-63. 62 Minute by G. L. Corbett, 10 January 1921, India E.P., May 1921, A.1-12. 63 Tel. C. O. to Rodwell, 15 March 1919. 64 Rankine to Rodwell, 13 January 1920, C.S.O. 2436/20. 65 Rankine to Rodwell, 15 February 1920, C.S.O. 3625/20. 66 Surendra Nath Banerji, chairman, British Guiana and Fiji Emigra-

203 Notes tion Committee, to Sir George Barnes, Commerce and Industry Member, 21 February 1920 (C.S.O. 5917/20). 67 Rodwell to C.O., no. 181, 3 July 1920. 68 Fiji mission to Govt India, 15 March 1920 (C.O. to Rodwell, no. 222, 12 August 1920). 69 Govt India to Bishop in Polynesia, 19 March 1920 (Rodwell to C.O., no. 181, 3 July 1920). 70 Young India, 9 and 22 September 1920; Bombay Chronicle, 14 July 1920 (reprinted in Gandhi, Collected Works, vol. XVIII, 255, 277, 37-41). 71 Gandhi to Barnes, 12 June 1920; Wacha to Barnes, 29 May 1920; India E.P., January 1921, A.1-64. 72 Polak to C.O., 4 October 1920 (C.O. to Rodwell, no. 303, 28 October 1920); Polak to I.O., 18 January 1921 (C.O. to Rodwell, no. 69, 18 February 1921). 73 Govt India to J. B. Petit, secretary, Imperial Indian Citizenship Association, 31 August 1920, India E.P., January 1921, A.1-64; India E.P., March 1922, F. & I. 2-110. 74 Young India, 22 September 1920 (reprinted in Collected Works, vol. XVIII, 277). 75 Rodwell to C.O., no. 181,3 July 1920. 76 C.O. to Rodwell, 20 August 1920; C.O. to I.O., 28 September and 23 October 1920; tel. Rodwell to C.O., 18 October 1920; India E.P., March 1922, F. & I. 2-110. 77 Minute of 20 November 1920 on I.O. to C.O., 17 November 1920, C.O. 83/154. 78 Ends. Rodwell to C.O., no. 216, 31 July 1920. 79 Tel. C.S. to Govt India, 24 December 1920, C.S.O. 6364/20.

CHAPTER III 1 Rodwell to C.O., no. 66, 12 March 1920 (C.P. 67/20). 2 Rodwell to C.O., 19 August 1920. 3 For the history of the CSR in Fiji, see Colonial Sugar Refining Company, South Pacific Enterprise; C.Y. Shephard, The Sugar Industry of Fiji. 4 Resume of Dixon’s letters, late 1919, ‘General Situation’, CSR 251 C/D. 5 C.S.O. 1148/20; 1515/20; 7389/20. 6 FTH, 11 August 1920. 7 Mitter to C.S., 1 November and 8 December 1920, C.S.O. 7793/20; Mitter to CSR, 20 October 1920, CSR F.4.O., folder 2. 8 Rodwell to C.O., 19 August and 18 November 1920. 9 C.S. to Farquhar, 28 September and 26 November 1920, ends. Fell to Green, 30 December 1920, C.O. 83/153. 10 ‘Measures within the Company’s Power for Meeting the Present Situation in Fiji’, 24 September 1920, CSR 251 C/D. 11 ‘Note on Price of Sugar for Local Consumption’, 27 July 1920, CSR 251 C/D.

204 Notes

12 Tel. Knox to Rodwell, 9 November 1920, CSR F.4.0./10. 13 India E.P., May 1921, A.39-52. 14 C.S.O. 8228/20. 15 C.S.O. 343/21. 16 Source cannot be published. 17 H. J. Thomas to C.S., 20 March 1921, C.S.O. 1552/21. 18 Fell to C.O., no. 280A, 18 October 1921 (the official report on the strike). 19 Benarsidas Chaturvedi, Fiji ki Samasya, 280-2. 20 Raju report. 21 Allen to Kane, 30 March 1921. 22 C.S. to Farquhar, 6 April 1921. 23 C.S.O. 2235/21; 3139/21. 24 C.S.O. 4583/21. 25 C.S.O. 2679/21. 26 Raju report. 27 C.P. 2/22. 28 India E.P., June 1921, A.30-31; tel. Viceroy to I.O., 27 January 1921, India E.P., March 1922, F. & I. 2-110. 29 India E.P., March 1922, F. & I. 2-110; May 1921, A.39-52; June 1921, A.30-31. 30 C.S.O. 8263/20. For an account of the repatriates, see also Gillion, Fiji’s Indian Migrants, 190-7. 31 Rodwell to C.O., no. 262, 27 September 1920; C.S.O. 7036/20; Viceroy to I.O., 12 August 1920 (C.O. to Rodwell, no. 251, 4 September 1920); tel. Rodwell to C.O., 19 January 1921; I.O. to Viceroy, 25 January 1921, J. & P. 482/21. 32 Minute to R. B. Ewbank, 21 May 1921, India E.P., October 1921, A.6-63. 33 India E.P., July 1922, B.32-49. 34 Tel. Govt India to Governor, Fiji, 12 May 1921; tel. C.S. to Govt India, end. Fell to C.O., no. 232, 19 August 1921; tel. Govt India to C.S., 2 June 1921, C.S.O. 3237/21; minutes on tel. Fell to C.O., 7 June 1921, C.O. 83/157. 35 Englishman, 10 June 1921; Statesman, 11 June 1921. 36 Andrews to Gandhi, 21 June 1921, typescript from Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya Samiti, held at Santiniketan. 37 Andrews to Gourlay (Bengal Govt), c. June 1921, India E.P., October 1921, A.6-63. 38 Tels. Fell to C.O., 31 July 1921; Montagu to Reading, 11 August 1921; Reading to Montagu, 19 August 1921; Fell to C.O. no. 232, 19 August 1921 (C.O. 83/157); India E.P., July 1922, B.32-49.

CHAPTER IV 1 C.S.O. 2904/21. 2 ‘The Fiji Islands’, The Times Trade Supplement, 25 May 1920. 3 Southwell-Keely to Rodwell, 19 May 1921, C.S.O. 3068/21; also 20 May 1921, C.S.O. 2999/21.

205 Notes

4 Minute of 13 August 1920 on Rodwell to C.O., conf., 1 July 1920, C.O. 83/151. 5 Rodwell to C.O., no. 363, 20 December 1920. 6 Rodwell, ‘Chinese Labour for Fiji’, encl. Rodwell to C.O., 18 August 1921, C.O. 83/159. 7 Ibid. Rodwell was referring to trade restrictions. 8 Rankine to Rodwell, 5 April 1920, encl. Rodwell to C.O., conf., 1 July 1920. 9 India E.P., January 1921, A.1-64. 10 I.O. to Govt India, 24 March 1875, India E.P., February 1880, A.4-29. 11 Dixon to CSR/G.M., 20 June 1921, CSR 251 C/D. 12 Minutes of 13 August 1920 on Rodwell to C.O., no. 181, 3 July 1920 (C.O. 83/152) and of 15 May 1920 on Report of British Guiana and Fiji Colonisation Committee (C.O. 83/154). 13 Govt India to I.O., 27 October 1921, India E.P., March 1922, A.14-21. 14 C.O. to Rodwell, no. 48, 4 March 1922. 15 C.P. 1/21. 16 India E.P., March 1922, A.14-21. 17 C.O. to Fell, conf., 27 August 1921. 18 Tel. Fell to C.O., 11 January 1922. 19 J. J. Ragg to Roko Tui Tailevu, 23 November 1921, encl. Fell to C.O., conf., 23 December 1921. 20 C.S.O. 6741/21. 21 Knox to C.S., 14 February 1922, encl. Fell to C.O., conf., 24 February 1922. 22 Knox to Acting C.S., 14 December 1921, encl. Fell to C.O., conf., 7 January 1922. 23 Fell to C.O., conf., 19 December 1921. 24 Tel. Fell to C.O., 26 November 1921, C.O. 83/158. 25 Fell to C.O., secret, 11 October 1921, C.O. 83/158. 26 Rodwell to C.O., conf., 9 December 1921, C.O. 83/ 159. 27 ‘Present Position of the Sugar Industry in Fiji’, 30 December 1921, C.O. 83/158. 28 Fell to C.O., conf., 19 December 1921; Knox to Fell, 11 January 1922, C.O. 83/160.

CHAPTER V 1 Raju report. 2 India E.P., March 1922, F. & I. 2-1 10; September 1921, F. & I. 3. 3 Private and personal tel. B. N. Sarma to Raju, 30 March 1922, India E.P., May 1922, F. & I. 39. 4 FTH, 23 and 24 January 1922; Raju report. 5 India E.P., August 1922, A.1-35. 6 Corbett to Ewbank, 12 February 1923, India O.P., May 1924, A.1-16. 7 FTH, 1 March 1922.

206 Notes

8 C.S.O. 1409/22; Fell to C.O., conf., 20 March 1922. 9 Raju report. 10 Ibid. 11 Tels. Garu to Viceroy, 14 March 1922, and Knox to Viceroy, 22 March 1922, India E.P., August 1922, A.1-35. 12 Tels. Garu to Viceroy, 16 and 27 February 1922, and Govt India to I.O., 8 June 1922, India E.P., August 1922, A.1-35. 1 3 Minute on tel. Fell to C.O., 16 February 1922, C.O. 83/ 160. 14 Minute on tel. Fell to C.O., 17 February 1922, C.O. 83/160. 15 Tels. C.O. to Fell, 22 February and 6 March 1922. 16 Minute by R. B. Ewbank, 3 February 1922, India E.P., August 1922, A .1-35. 17 Tel. Viceroy to Garu, 8 March 1922, India E.P., August 1922, A.1-35. 18 Small to Fell, 14 March 1922, end. Rodwell to C.O., conf., 25 May 1922. 19 Tels. Fell to C.O., 17 and 28 February 1922. 20 Fell to C.O., conf., no. 1, 22 February 1922. 21 Tel. Churchill to Governor-General of Australia, 2 March 1922, Rodwell to C.O., conf., 8 April 1922, C.O. 83/160; notes on interviews between Knox and Rodwell, CSR F.4.0/10. 22 Memo, of 30 May 1922, on Fell to C.O., conf., 20 March 1922, C.O. 83/160. 23 Note by E. W. Knox, 16 June 1922, CSR F.4.0/10 doc. 8. 24 W. P. Dixon, ‘Crisis in the Fiji Sugar Industry 1920/ 1925', CSR mf. 251 C/D; tel. Rodwell to C.O., 21 June 1922. 25 Wood to Winterton, 21 June 1922, C.O. 83/163. 26 C.O. 83/161 and 83/163; notes on Knox’s and Dixon’s discussions in London, 1922, CSR F.4.0/10, doc. 8. 27 C.O. to I.O., 1 August 1922, India E.P., November 1922, B.l. 28 Tel. Viceroy to I.O., 4 December 1922, India E.P., April 1923, A.1-15. 29 Tel. Rodwell to C.O., 12 December 1922. 30 Tel. Rodwell to C.O., 13 December 1922. 31 Govt India to I.O., 15 March 1923, India E.P., April 1923, A.1-1 5. 32 Correspondence in CSR U .1.0.5. 33 Tels. Knox to Rodwell 21 and 28 March 1923, and Rodwell to Knox, 25 March 1923, end. Rodwell to C.O., no. 121, 11 May 1923; tel. Rodwell to Knox, conf., 25 March 1923. 34 Tel. Rodwell to C.O., 30 March 1923. 35 Tel. Rodwell to C.O., conf., 6 January and 2 February 1923, and minutes on C.O. 83/164; C.P. 12/23; 13/23; 14/23. 36 Rodwell to C.O., no. 53, 13 February 1923; conf., 8 March 1923; no. 102, 21 April 1923; 26 July 1923; conf., 8 August 1923; C.S.O. 5350/22; Fiji Debates, 20 July 1923. 37 Rodwell to C.O., conf., 9 January 1924, and tel. 7 January 1924. 38 Source cannot be published. 39 Rodwell to C.O., no. 252, 4 October 1923, and tel., 26 November

207 Notes

1923; tel. C.O. to Rodwell, 29 November 1923; minutes, C.O. 83/ 166. 40 Rodwell to C.O., conf., 9 May 1923, tel. 18 October 1923, conf., 17 December 1923; C.O. to Rodwell, 14 February 1924 and tel. 19 July 1923; note by Rodwell, 29 March 1924 (C.O. 83/171). 41 Secret brief of instructions to president, Colonies Committee, India O.P., May 1924, B. 10-11; papers submitted to C.O. by Colonies Committee (C.O. to Fell, 23 March 1925); minutes of meetings, India O.P., September 1924, B.8-9; Ewbank to Bhore, 2 July 1924, India O.P., August 1925, A.1-14. 42 CSR/G.M. to McConechy, 17 March, 14 and 24 April 1924, CSR U.l.0.5. 43 Tel. Rodwell to C.O., conf., 14 June 1923. 44 I.O. to Govt India, 31 March 1926, India O.P. May 1926, A.48-51. 45 India O.P., May 1924, A. 1-16; C.O. 83/163; Knox to Irwin, 21 December 1926, India O.P., March 1927, B.124. 46 Tel. I.O. to Govt India, 6 August 1922, India O.P., May 1924, A.1-16. 47 Corbett to Ewbank, 12 February 1923, India O.P., May 1924, A. 1-16. Corbett had discussed possible Indian emigration to the Solomon Islands with Lever Brothers. 48 Tel. private and personal, Reading to Peel, 4 September 1923, I.O./I. & O. 2247/22. 49 Govt India to I.O., 21 July 1923, India O.P., May 1924, A.1-16. 50 Memo, of 15 June 1923, C.O. 83/167. 51 Masterton-Smith to Hirtzel, 18 August 1923, C.O. 83/167. 52 Tel. Peel to Reading, 19 October 1923, I.O./I. & O. 2247/22, India O.P., May 1924, A.1-16. 53 Rodwell to Green, 7 January 1924, C.O. 83/167. 54 India O.P., May 1926, A.48-51. 55 Published as C.P. 15/27; correspondence in C.O. 83/175 and 176. 56 Tel. Govt India to I.O., 4 February 1927, India O.P., March 1928, A. 5-15. 57 C.O. to I.O., 24 March 1927, I.O./E. & O. 6008/26. 58 Hutson to C.O., conf., 19 September 1927. 59 Note of 6 June 1927, India O.P., March 1928, A.5-15. 60 Fiji Debates, 27 and 31 May 1926; Knox to Hutson 21 September 1927; Lord to CSR/G.M., 23 September 1926, CSR Nausori private inwards. 61 India O.P., November 1926, B.31-42. 62 India O.P., February 1927, B.84; June 1927, B.60-61. 63 Fiji Debates, 21 October 1927; C.P. 93/27; Report by Judd, C.P. 41/28; India O.P., April 1928, B.29-105, and October 1928, B. 106-124. 64 C.P. 71/28 and 99/28; C.S.O. 4579/29; Pearson to Bajpai, 5 January 1929, India O.P., August 1929, B.8-16. The immigration fund was closed in 1934. 65 C.S.O. 4579/29; India O.P., August 1929, B.8-16, and June 1930, B. 84-96. 66 Tel. J. Brijbasi Singh to Fiji governor, 9 December 1929, and letter

208 Notes to S.I.A., 12 December 1929; Tel. Daud to C.S., 18 October 1930, C.S.O. 2536/30; minute by Bajpai, 8 May 1930, India O.P., May 1930, B.3.

CHAPTER VI 1 Unpublished manuscript (courtesy of Benarsidas Chaturvedi). For religious observances in indenture days, see Gillion, Fiji’s Indian Migrants, and for later years, see Mayer, Peasants in the Pacific. 2 Fell to C.O., no. 132, 30 May 1924, conf., 1 August 1924; C.S.O. 1.483/24. 3 Hutson to C.O., conf., 28 September 1926. 4 Petition of January 1926, CSR 252/C/D; address of 24 December 1927, C.O. 83/180. 5 FTH, 29 October 1925 and 26 March 1928. 6 C.S.O. 1113/30. 7 C.S.O. 4791/26; FTH, 4 January 1928. 8 C.S.O. 5550/26; FTH, 2 May 1927; J. R. Pearson, ‘Sectional Friction in the Indian Community’, end. Fletcher to C.O., conf., 23 September 1930. 9 Memo, on the Indian political situation, 18 October 1932, end. Fletcher to C.O., conf., 20 October 1932. 10 Minute of 29 December 1933, India O.P. 330/33. 11 FTH, 15 November 1927. 12 FTH, 26 March 1928. 13 FTH, 31 January, 4 and 7 February 1928, and 25 February 1929; C.S.O. 3928/27 and 1140/29. 14 C.S.O. 531/30; 1577/30; 1774/30. 15 Hindus of Rewa to C.S., 27 February 1930; Abdul Karim and others to D. C. Rewa, 27 February 1930 (C.S.O. 531/30). 16 Vriddhi, August 1931; manager, Nausori mill to CSR/G.M., 12 February and 4 March 1929, CSR Nausori private inwards; C.S.O. 2600/30. 17 FTH, 15 February and 9 March 1932. 18 FTH, 7 May 1926, and 7, 17 and 24 January 1928; Subramani M. Mudaliar (ed.), A Quarter of a Century. 19 Oral information; government files; FTH, 14 May 1937 and 14 June 1938; Fiji Samachar, 25 July 1941. 20 Based on oral information and government files. 21 FTH, 21, 22, 24 and 26 November 1938. 22 Vriddhi, August 1930. 23 J. R. Pearson, ‘Further Information about Punjabi Immigrants’, December 1928 (India O.P., January 1930, B.4-8); Govt India to C.S., 5 December 1929, C.S.O. 6026/29; Darling, Rusticus Loquitur, and The Punjab Peasant in Prosperity and Debt; see also Gillion, Fiji’s Indian Migrants. 24 C.S.O. 6026/29. 25 FTH, 29 January 1929. 26 J. R. Pearson, ‘Policy with regard to Indian Immigration’, January 1929, end. Pearson to Bajpai, 5 January 1929, India O.P., August 1929,

209 Notes

B. 8-16. 27 C.S.O. 6026/29. 28 Acting C.S. to Govt India, 6 June 1930. 29 Indian Association of Fiji to Imperial Indian Citizenship Associa­ tion, 30 August 1935; Patel to Bajpai, 22 May 1936; Govt India to C.S., 1 April 1936; Govt India to I.O., 3 December 1936 and 27 January 1938 (India O.P. 247/35); Richards to C.O., no. 78, 14 April 1937; C.S.O. 51/68. 30 Petition from P. Anand Singh and others, 23 December 1937 (S.I.A. Immigration file); C.S.O. 51/102/2. 31 Manager, Lautoka to CSR/G.M., 9 November 1937, CSR mf. 246; FTH, 22 November and 1 December 1937. 32 C.S.O. 28/10/1; Fiji Debates, 7 October 1932 (reply to K. B. Singh). 33 Hutson to C.O., no. 274, 11 November 1925. 34 Report, C.P., 46/26. 35 Message 13 of 1928 (C.P. 92/28); Hutson to C.O., no. 337, 1 December 1928; Fletcher to C.O., no. 101, 14 March 1931; Fletcher to C. O., secret, 16 March 1931. The figures must be taken as approximate only; census figures are for ages 5-15 inclusive, but the Education Ordinance of 1929 defined the school age as 6-14. 36 Message 18 of 1929 and annexed statement (C.P. 113/29). 37 Minute of 28 May 1930, C.S.O. 564/30. 38 Tel. Seymour to C.O., 7 November 1929; C.O. to Seymour, 12 November 1929 (C.P. 120/29); Fletcher to C.O., no. 388, 5 December 1929; Fletcher to C.O., secret, 24 April 1930; Fletcher to C.O., no. 101, 14 March 1931. 39 Seymour to Ellis, 18 November 1929, C.O. 83/183, file 63811. 40 Minute by W. D. Ellis, 28 January 1931, C.O. 83/191, file 73878. 41 Fletcher to H. M. Scott, 14 March 1930, end. Fletcher to C.O., secret, 24 April 1930. 42 C.O. 83/188; 83/194; 83/197; 83/211; 83/218. 43 Fletcher to C.O., no. 48, 15 February 1930, and no. 79, 9 April 1930. 44 Acting Director of Education to C.S., 8 June 1938, C.S.O. 28/169. 45 Mayhew report. 46 Minute of 8 April 1936, C.S.O. 28/10/1. 47 Fletcher to C.O., no. 48, 13 February 1930. 48 Ibid. 49 C.O. 83/188, file 73811. 50 Note ‘Education in Fiji’, n.d., C.O. 83/235, file 85090. 51 Report on Education in Fiji, C.P. 18/44; Plan of Development for the Educational System in the Colony of Fiji, C.P. 27/46; Fiji Debates, 19 November 1946. 52 Kunzru to Kodanda Rao, 24 November 1938, India O.P. 84-11, 1938.

210 Notes

CHAPTER VII 1 Fletcher to C.O., secret, 25 September 1930. 2 C.S.O. 2513/29; 2601/29; Seymour to C.O., no. 197, 1 June 1929; FTH, 13 May 1929. 3 Pearson to Stewart, 2 October 1929, I.O. E. & O. 6008/26. 4 Polak to Wedgwood Benn, 7 December 1929, India O.P. 276/32. 5 Mahadev Desai to S. B. Patel, 21 February 1928 (shown to me by S. B. Patel). 6 Patel to Polak, 31 October 1929, extract included in letter from Polak to Wedgwood Benn, 7 December 1929, India O.P. 276/32. 7 V. Deo to J. Nehru, 18 January 1929, J. Nehru to V. Deo, 1 March 1929, A.I.C.C., F.D.15. 8 Patel to Polak, 31 October 1929, op. cit. 9 McGusty, acting S.I.A., memo, .on the Indian Political Situation, 29 January 1930, end. Fletcher to C.O., conf., 1 February 1930; Fiji Sama- char, 14 and 22 March 1930. 10 Benarsidas Chaturvedi, ‘Indians Abroad', c. 1930. 11 Patel to Polak, 31 October 1929, op. cit. 12 Memo, by McGusty, 28 December 1930, end. Fletcher to C.O., conf., 2 January 1930. 13 Fiji Debates, 30 October, 1 and 5 November 1929; C.S.O. 5143/29; 5193/29. 14 Fiji Debates, 5 November 1929. 15 Gandhi to Congress, Lautoka, 14 November 1929, Collected Works, vol. XLII, 166. 16 Polak to Wedgwood Benn, 7 December 1929, India O.P. 276/32. 17 Minute of 11 December 1929, India O.P. 272/32. 18 Report on conference, S. B. Patel and others to Fletcher, 28 Decem­ ber 1929, end. Fletcher to C.O., conf., 2 January 1930. 19 McGusty, ‘Recent Changes in the Indian Political Situation’, 16 January 1930, end. Fletcher to C.O., conf., 1 February 1930. 20 FTH, 4 January 1928. 21 X. K. N. Dean, sec. Fiji Muslim League to acting C.S.; 18 October 1929; Petition of 8 January 1930; end. Fletcher to C.O., conf., 2 January 1930. 22 Fletcher to C.O., conf., 5 February 1930. 23 Fletcher to C.O., conf., 24 September 1931; Govt India to I.O., 4 April 1932, India O.P. 276/32. 24 Fletcher to C.O., conf., 1 February 1930. 25 Nehru to Chattur Singh, 9 April 1931, A.I.C.C., F.D.15. 26 FTH, 6 and 11 August 1931. 27 Fletcher to C.O., secret, 1 June and 26 October 1932, and 14 November 1933; Seymour to C.O., secret, 29 May 1933. 28 Fletcher to C.O., conf., 29 October 1931. 29 J. R. Pearson, ‘A note prompted by certain ebullitions of anti-Indian feeling in the hope of suggesting an alternative to a policy of “keep under” or “clear out” ’, October 1929, S.I.A. miscellaneous unregistered files.

211 Notes

30 India O.P., March 1932, B.100-101; India O.P. 23/34; Mitchell to C.O., conf., 3 June 1943. 31 Mitchell to C.O., conf., 3 June 1943. 32 C.O. 83/218, file 85179; tel. most secret and personal, C.O. to Mitchell, 11 January 1944, C.O. 83/237, file 85262. 33 C.S.O. 553/30; Fiji annual report 1934. 34 S.I.A. files ‘Indian Advisory Committees’. 35 Fiji Samachar, 9 July 1932. 36 Fiji Debates, 14 October 1932. 37 S.I.A. reports on the Indian political situation, 18 October 1932, and 7 November 1933, end. Fletcher to C.O., conf., 20 October 1932, and 9 November 1933; McGusty to Bajpai, 14 November 1933, India O.P. 330/33. 38 Minute on C.O. 83/188, secret files 73812 and 73812A. 39 Tels., private and personal, Viceroy to S. of S. for India, 27 Sep­ tember 1930; S. of S. to Viceroy, 9 October 1930, India O.P. 276/32. 40 Address by Seymour, 21 February 1933, C.P. 1/33. 41 Fletcher to C.O., secret, 5 May 1934. 42 FTH, 9, 10 and 26 January 1934. 43 C.P. 38/29; C.P. 39/29; H. M. Scott to acting C.S., 7 February 1928; memo, by S.I.A., 24 April 1928, C.S.O. 3603/27. 44 Hutson to C.O., no. 96, 2 April 1929; Govt India to I.O., 12 December 1929, India O.P., December 1929, B.29-30; C.O. to Fletcher, secret, 6 June 1930. 45 Fletcher to C.O., secret, 25 September 1930, 13 May 1931 and 17 November 1932; C.O. to Fletcher, secret, 17 January 1931; Govt India to I.O., 10 March 1932, India O.P. 273/32. 46 Fletcher to C.O., secret, 7 May 1934. 47 Minute by Jones, 7 May 1936, C.O. 83/213, file 85072. 48 Fiji Debates, 8 November 1935. 49 Minutes on files 93397 (C.O. 83/197), 18438 (C.O. 83/202), and 18460 (C.O. 83/203). 50 Fletcher to C.O., secret, 24 October 1933 and 5 May 1934; tel. C.O. to Fletcher, secret, 2 August 1934. 51 Report, C.P. 8/34. 52 Extract from report of 11th meeting of the Young Fijian Society, Suva, end. Fletcher to C.O., no. 213, 13 September 1934. 53 Letter from D. Toganivalu, P. E. Cakobau, and J. L. V. Sukuna to acting C.S., 5 November 1935, Fiji Debates, 6 November 1935. 54 K. B. Singh and M. Mudaliar to Fletcher, 15 April 1934, end. Fletcher to C.O., secret, 5 May 1934; minute by K. P. S. Menon, 29 July 1935, India O.P. 151/35, part 1; Fletcher to C.O., 7 March 1935. 55 Fiji Muslim League to Fletcher, 4 March 1935, end. Fletcher to C.O., 7 March 1935. 56 FTH, 12 December 1934. 57 Notes on interview, end. Fletcher to C.O., 7 March 1935. 58 FTH, 1 October and 16 December 1935; president T.I.S.I. Sangam

212 Notes to C.O., 12 December 1935, India O.P. 151/35, part 2; Vishnu Deo to Polak, 3 June 1935, Polak to Butler, 13 May 1936, I.O. L/P & J/8/227; Polak to C.O., 12 June 1935, C.O. 83/210, file 85038. 59 Minute by Sir J. Maffey, 6 June 1935, C.O. 83/210, file 85038. 60 Fletcher to C.O., secret, 14 December 1935. 61 Govt India to I.O. 30 September 1935 and 9 April 1936; minute by Bajpai, 19 December 1935; Vishnu Deo to Bajpai, 12 March 1936, India O.P. 151/35. 62 Statesman, 10 December 1936. 63 CSR manager, Lautoka, to CSR/G.M., 19 May 1936, CSR mf. 246. 64 C.S.O. 51/46; C.O. 83/215, file 85179; India O.P. 151/35, part 2. 65 Minute of 14 December 1935, India O.P. 151/35, part 2. 66 Fletcher to C.O., 29 November and 14 December 1935. 67 C.O. 83/212, file 85038. 68 Tel. Linlithgow to Zetland, private and personal, 14 July 1936, India O.P. 151/35, part 2. 69 Tel. Barton to C.O., secret, private and personal, 1 July 1936, I.O. L/P & J/8/227. 70 Vishnu Deo to Govt India, 4 August 1936, and minute by G. S. Bozman, 4 September 1936, India O.P. 151/35, part 2. 71 C.O. 83/219, file 85229, 1937; India O.P. 151/35, part 2.

CHAPTER VIII 1 Richards to C.O., no. 78, 14 April 1937. 2 ‘Crisis in the Fiji Sugar Industry 1920/1925’, CSR mf. 251 C/D. In 1925 the CSR itself cultivated 52 per cent of the area under cane, European planters 7 per cent, Indian and Fijian tenants of the company 10 per cent, and Fijian and Indian contractors 31 per cent. In 1933 the CSR cultivated 9 per cent, European planters 1 per cent, tenants 51 per cent, and contractors 39 per cent. In 1938 the CSR cultivated only 4 per cent, there were no European planters, and tenants cultivated 52 per cent and contractors 44 per cent (Shephard report, 38). 3 Rodwell to C.O., conf., 8 August 1923. 4 See Gillion, Fiji’s Indian Migrants, 99-100; Shephard report, 8-9. 5 Knox to Fell, 23 September 1921, end. Fell to C.O., secret, 11 October 1921. 6 W. P. Dixon, ‘Our Fiji Business’, 2 March 1927, CSR 252/C/D. 7 CSR, ‘Mr W. P. Dixon — chief architect of the small farm system in Fiji’. 8 CSR 252/C/D. 9 Kolambar is Fiji bat for ‘overseer’. The derivation is obscure. It is possibly a corruption of ‘call number’, a reference to the dawn musters during indenture days. 10 Kunzru to Kodanda Rao, 8 November 1938, India O.P. 84-11. 11 J. R. Pearson and Badri Mahraj, Fiji Debates, 18 October 1927. 12 C.S.O. 1098/26; 1135/30. In 1938, 1825 writs for the recovery of debt were issued against Indians, and 181 against Fijians (F.51/86).

213 Notes

13 Pearson to Bajpai, 29 May 1929, India O.P., October 1929, B.111-113. 14 Minute by McGusty (S.I.A.), 13 March 1933, C.S.O. 51/13/1. 15 Manager, Lautoka, to CSR/G.M., 17 January 1934, CSR mf. 246. 16 Source cannot be published. 17 Kisan Sangh ka Itihas. Details below are from government records. 18 Ayodhya Prasad, op. cit., 115. 19 Luke to C.O., conf., 7 February 1940; C.O. 83/233, file 85360; tel. Goldfinch to King-Irving, end. King-Irving to Luke, 31 January 1940. 20 Fletcher to C.O., conf., 22 April 1931; C.O. to Fletcher, conf., 19 December 1931; Lord to Fletcher, 4 May 1932, end. Fletcher to C.O., conf., 6 May 1932. 21 Quoted in Luke to C.O., conf., 7 February 1940. 22 C.O. to Seymour, conf., 7 March 1933. 23 C.S.O. 1835/30. 24 CSR mf. 246, Lautoka private inwards 1933-; FTH, June 1938. 25 Richards to C.O., conf., 15 July 1938; C.O. to Luke, secret, 29 October 1938. 26 ‘Labour in Fiji, with special reference to the Sugar industry’, C.O. note, c. April 1940, C.O. 859/28, file 12259/3D. 27 Reay to Orde Browne, 29 April 1940, C.O. 859/28, file 12259/3D. 28 Luke to C.O., no. 124, 24 April 1940. 29 Reay to Hibbert, 6 October 1940, C.O. 859/28, file 12259/3D. 30 Luke to C.O., conf., 31 July, 4 September, 11 and 12 December 1941; C.O. to Luke, conf., 20 August, 25 Odober and 16 December 1941. 31 FTH, 21 June 1941; Fiji Samachar, 27 June 1941; Kisan, 20 and 27 June 1941.

CHAPTER IX 1 CSR Lautoka to CSR/G.M., 28 October 1938, CSR mf. 246; report by D. C. Western, C.S.O. 51/102/6; Kunzru to Kodanda Rao, 8 November 1938, India O.P. 84-11, 1938. 2 C.P. 2/37; Luke to C.O., conf., 2 March 1940, and secret, 19 April 1940. 3 Mitchell to Gater, secret, 14 August 1942, C.O. 83/237, file 85416. Deletion is mine. 4 Fletcher to C.O., conf., 17 August 1932; tels. Fletcher to C.O., secret, 27 July 1934, and C.O. to Fletcher, 31 July 1934; Fiji Debates, 17 October 1934; Luke to C.O., secret, 29 May 1942. 5 FTH, 12 May 1942. 6 Fiji Information Reports for October-December 1942 and January- March 1943, C.O. 875/6, file 6281 11D, 1943; tel. Mitchell to C.O., secret, 25 January 1943; Fiji Debates, 14 and 17 May, 20 August, 17 and 22 December 1943; tels. Mitchell to C.O., secret, 30 May and 30 June 1944, and C.O. to Mitchell, 12 June 1944. 7 Fiji Information Report, March-September 1943, C.O. 875/6. 8 Tels. Mitchell to C.O., secret, 4 and 17 July 1943.

214 Notes

9 ‘Dispute in the Sugar Industry', C.P. 16/43, 25 August 1943; tel. Mitchell to C.O., secret, 2 October and 6 November 1943. 10 Tels., CSR/G.M. to CSR/London, 23 July 1943; Mitchell to C.O., secret, 3 August and 3 December 1943, C.O. 83/238, file 85460. 11 Shephard report, 29-30, 49. The company calculated a loss in the years 1930-1934, and a profit on total assets in Fiji of 0.9 per cent in 1935, 1.1 per cent in 1936, 1.9 per cent in 1937, 0.4 per cent in 1938, 3.0 per cent in 1939, 4.0 per cent in 1940, 4.8 per cent in 1942, and a loss in 1943. 12 Tels. Mitchell to C.O., secret, 1 and 6 September 1943. 13 Fiji Debates, 21 and 22 December L943. 14 Tel. Mitchell to C.O., 5 January 1944. 15 Tel. Rankine to C.O., 21 March 1944. Nevertheless Mitchell tried to have Rudrananda recalled by the Ramakrishna Mission after intercepted letters revealed that it had replied to his appeals for help by rebuking him for engaging in political activities, which were strictly forbidden by the order; but the Government of India declined to approach the Mission as the Fiji sugar industry was about to be investigated by an independent expert (Marhavananda, Belur Math, to Rudrananda, 24 October 1943, end. Mitchell to C.O., conf. no. 7, 19 January 1944; Banerjee tb Gilchrist, 5 July 1944), C.O. 83/243, file 85460. 16 Tel. Mitchell to C.O., 5 January 1944; Fiji Debates, 23 February 1944. 17 Tels. Mitchell to C.O., 8 and 11 January and 3 February 1944. 18 Tels. Mitchell to C.O., 16, 18 and 28 February 1944. 19 Tel. Mitchell to C.O., secret, 28 February 1944. 20 Tels. C.O. to Mitchell, secret, 2 March 1944; Stanley to Mitchell, private and personal, 2 March 1944; Mitchell to C.O., 21 March 1944, and secret, 21 June 1944; Mitchell to Stanley, 23 May 1944, C.O. 83/242, file 85460/1944. 21 See Mayer, Indians in Fiji, for this and other post-war developments. 22 Minute by Trafford Smith, 10 August 1942, C.O. 83/238, file 85466. 23 Minute by Trafford Smith, 4 September 1943, C.O. 83/237, file 85262. 24 J. R. Pearson, ‘Land Tenure for Indians’, 17 October 1931, C.S.O. 1366/30. 25 Pearson to Bajpai, 24 January 1928, India O.P., April 1928, B.28. 26 Note by Commissioner of Lands, 6 October 1925, C.S.O. 4627/24. 27 Memo, by Commissioner of Lands, 7 March 1933, C.S.O. 51/13/1. 28 Pearson to Ram Chandra, 27 June 1931, India O.P., February 1932, B.149. 29 C.S.O. 1366/30. 30 Fiji Debates, 26 October 1933; C.S.O. 51/102/10. 31 CSR memo, for Governor of Fiji, 23 February 1934; Fiji Inspector to CSR/G.M., 30 August 1934; C.O. 83/207, file 38470; CSR, R.3.0.2. 32 Richards to Creasey, 7 September 1937, C.O. 83/216, file 85044. 33 Sagayam to Andrews, 16 June 1935; also article in Hindu, 22 June 1935 (India O.P. 187/35).

215 Notes

34 Govt India to I.O., 9 August and 2 July 1936, India O.P. 187/35; C.O. to Luke, 23 September 1939; C.O. to I.O., 4 June 1940, encl. C.O. to Luke, conf., 6 June 1940. 35 Fiji Debates, 22 February 1940; Govt India to I.O., 24 June 1940, encl. C.O. to Luke, 4 July, 1940. 36 Mitchell to C.O., no. 47, 16 July 1943; Mitchell to Gen:, personal and conf., 29 November 1943, C.O. 83/241, file 85231/1944: quarterly report, Fiji information office, October-December 1944, C.O. 83/241, file 85231/1944. 37 Quoted in tel. Mitchell to C.O., 20 March 1944. 38 Tel. Gater to Mitchell, personal and conf., 30 September 1943, C.O. 83/235, file 85038/1943. 39 Tels. Mitchell to Gater, personal and conf., 4 and 13 October 1943, C.O. 83/235, file 85038/1943. 40 Minute by Caine, 26 February 1944, C.O. 83/241, file 85231/1944. 41 Luke to C.O., secret, 19 April 1940, C.O. 83/235, file 85038/43; Fiji Debates, 26 August 1943. 42 Memorial from European Electors’ Association, 2 April 1946, Grantham to C.O., secret, 10 May 1946, C.O. 83/239, file 85038/46. 43 The title of a book by an American, J. W. Coulter, published in 1941, and the heading over a letter to the editor, Fiji Times and Herald, 10 March 1945, which prompted further correspondence. 44 Grantham to C.O., no. 104, 28 August 1946. 45 Resolution of 19 July 1946, encl. Grantham to C.O., no. 115, 19 September 1946. 46 Grantham to C.O., no. 104, 28 August 1946.

216 Bibliography

This bibliography does not include works on Indians in other colonies, for which a considerable literature now exists. Further references to works on Indian emigration and Indians in Fiji during the indenture period are given in Gillion, Fiji’s Indian Migrants. Some of the official sources consulted are available in several different archives; for example, copies of the despatches between the Governor of Fiji and the Secretary of State for the Colonies are to be found in the National Archives of Fiji, the Public Record Office, and the National Library of Australia, and many of them were also sent to the India Office and the Government of India. Where Indian names are given in full, they are listed under the initial letter of the first name. Official Publications Fiji Government Fiji Blue Book for the Year, 1920-1940. Fiji Royal Gazette, 1920-1946. Legislative Council of Fiji, Debates of, 1920-1946. Legislative Council of Fiji, Journal of, 1920-1946. Howlett, R. A. The History of the Fiji Military Forces 1939-1945, Suva 1948. Mayhew, A. I. Report on Education in Fiji, Suva, 1937. McMillan, A. W. Notes on the Indians in Fiji, Suva, 1944. The Colony of Fiji 1874-1924, Suva, 1924, and later editions, 1874- 1929, 1874-1931, Fiji. Handbook of the Colony, 1936. United Kingdom Government R. W. Dalton, Report on the Trade of the Fiji Islands, Cmd. 201, 1919. Fiji: Report for the Year 1920-1947. C. Y. Shephard, The Sugar Industry of Fiji, Colonial no. 188, London, 1945. F. Stockdale, Report by Sir Frank Stockdale, K.C.M.G., C.B.E., Agri­ cultural Adviser to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, on his visit to Fiji, 1937, Colonial Advisory Council of Agriculture and Animal Flealth, C.A.C. 365. London, 1937. Unpublished Official Records Australian Archives, Canberra Home and Territories Department, Al, 21/7046. Prime Minister’s Department, C.P. 447/3, SC 37/1. India Office Library, London Judicial and Public Proceedings, 1919-1920. Industries and Overseas Proceedings, 1921-1924. Economic and Overseas Proceedings, 1924-1929. Public and Judicial Proceedings, 1930-1947. National Archives of Fiji, Suva Correspondence between the Governor and the Secretary of State for the Colonies. Minute Papers and Files Colonial Secretary’s Office, 1919-1941. Bibliography

Secretary for Indian Affairs, 1929-1941. National Archives of India, New Delhi Emigration Proceedings of the Departments of Commerce and Industry, 1915-1921. Revenue and Agriculture, 1921-1923. Education, Health and Lands, 1923. Overseas Proceedings of the Departments of Education, Health and Lands, 1923-1941. Indians Overseas, 1941. National Archives, Wellington Governor-General, G.48, F /l. External Affairs, EX83/12. Public Record Office, London Colonial Office Correspondence C.O. 83/150-244 (1920-1946); 859/28, file 12259/3D; 876/6, file 6281. Confidential Prints. C.O. 934/1 and 934/2. Manuscripts Australian National University, Canberra. The Archives, Research School of Social Sciences H. E. Holland papers, P 5/3. CSR Limited, Sydney Fiji Inspector’s reports, internal memoranda, press clippings and corres­ pondence with mill managers, Fiji Government, company’s agent in India, and other bodies. Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi All-India Congress Committee Papers. Rabindranath Tagore Memorial Museum, Santiniketan Andrews-Tagore correspondence. Typescripts of certain important letters from Andrews to Gandhi, held by Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya Samiti, New Delhi. Totaram Sanadhya, unpublished manuscript on the Indians in Fiji, c. 1920. In Hindi. Articles, Books, Newspapers and Periodicals Agrawal, P. N. Bhawani Dayal Sannyasi. A Public Worker of South Africa, Etawah, 1939. Anderson, A. G. lndo-Fijian Small farming: profiles of a peasantry, Auck­ land, 1974. Anderson, G. From the Middle Temple to the South Seas, London, 1927. Andrews, C. F. Fiji Indentured Labour, a Supplementary Statement, Cal­ cutta 1919. — India and the Pacific, London, 1937. —The Returned Indian Emigrants: a problem of reconstruction’, Indian Review, July 1922.

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Andrews, C. F., and Pearson, W. W. Indentured Labour in Fiji: an inde­ pendent enquiry, Calcutta, 1916. —and — Indian Indentured Labour in Fiji, Perth, 1918. Arya Samaj, 1936-1937. In English and Hindi. Ayodhya Prasad Sharma. Kisan Sangh ka Itihas [The History of the Kisan Sangh] two parts, Rajkot, 1962. In Hindi. Barrow, G. L. Fiji for the Fijians: a protest and a plea, Korolevu, 1921. Beishaw, C. S. ‘Indian Peasants in the Fijis’, a review of Mayer, Peasants in the Pacific, in Economic Development and Cultural Change, XVI, no. 3 (April 1963), pp. 333-4. — Linder the Ivi Tree: society and economic growth in Fiji, London, 1964. Benarsidas Chaturvedi. Fiji ki Samasya [The Problem of Fiji], Ahmedabad, c. 1923. In Hindi. — Fiji Pravasi Bharatiyonki adha Shatabdi; [Fiji Indian Jubilee], Calcutta, c. 1929. In Hindi. — Indians Abroad, Calcutta, c. 1930. —and Sykes, M. Charles Freer Andrews: A Narrative, London, 1949. —and Bhawani Dayal Sannyasi. A Report on the Emigrants Repatriated to India under the Assisted Emigration Scheme from South Africa and on the Problem of Returned Emigrants from all Colonies, Calcutta, 1931. Burns, A. Fiji, London, 1963. Burton, J. W. The Fiji of To-day, London, 1910. Cato, A. C. ‘Fijians and Fiji-Indians: a culture contact problem in the South Pacific’, Oceania, vol. XXVI, pp. 14-34. Chappie, W. A. Fiji — Its Problems and Resources, Auckland, 1921. Chettiar, A. K. Maleyamutal Kanatavalara [From Malaya to Canada], Madras, 1955. In Tamil. Colonial Sugar Refining Company. ‘Mr W. P. Dixon — chief architect of the small farm system in Fiji’ (reprinted from a CSR Company publica­ tion, 1969). — South Pacific Enterprise (A. G. Lowndes, ed.), Sydney, 1956. Coulter, J. W. The Drama of Fiji: a contemporary history, Tokyo, 1967. —Fiji, Little India of the Pacific, Chicago, 1941. Darling, M. L. Rusticus Loquitur, or the Old Light and the New in the Punjab Village, London, 1930. — The Punjab Peasant in Prosperity and Debt, 4th ed., London, 1947. — Wisdom and Waste in the Punjab Village, London, 1934. Derrick, R. A. A History of Fiji, vol. I (up to 1874), Suva, 1946. — The Fiji Islands: a geographical handbook, Suva, 1951. Dinbandhu, 1943-1946. In Hindi and Tamil. Doumenge, F. L’Homme dans le Pacifique Sud, Paris, 1966. Fiji Samachar, 1927-1941. In English and Hindi. Fiji Times and Herald, 1920-1947. Fisk, E. K. The Political Economy of Independent Fiji, Canberra, 1970. Foster, H. L. A Vagabond in Fiji, New York, 1927. France, P. The Charter of the Land: custom and colonization in Fiji, Melbourne, 1969.

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Frazer, R. M. A Fiji-lndian Rural Community (Pacific Viewpoint Mono­ graph, no. 3), Wellington, 1968. Free Emigration to Fiji. Suggested Scheme. Unsigned and undated (pre­ sented by Fiji Mission, Delhi, 1920). Gandhi, M. K. The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, New Delhi, publication continuing. Gill, W. Turn North-East at the Tombstone, Adelaide, 1970. Gillion, K. L. Ahmedabad: a study in Indian urban history, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1968. —‘C. F. Andrews and Indians Overseas’, Visva-Bharati News, vol. XXXIX, nos. 8-9 (February-March 1971), 206-17. —Fiji’s Indian Migrants: a history to the end of indenture in 1920, Mel* bourne, 1962. —‘The Sources of Indian Emigration to Fiji’, Population Studies, vol. X, no. 2 (November 1956), 139-57. Govindsahay Sharma. Meri Fiji Yatra [My Fiji Trip], Calcutta, 1928. In Hindi. Gregory, R. G. India and East Africa. A history of race relations within the British Empire, Oxford, 1971. Gyani Das. Bharatiye Upnivesh Fiji [Fiji — an Indian Colony], Suva, 1948 In Hindi. (Abstract in English in the Mitchell Library, Sydney.) Hancock, W. K. Survey of British Commonwealth Aßairs, vol. I, London, 1937. ‘Herald’ Handbook of Fiji, Suva, 1921. The Hindu ,1920-1938. Humphrey, S. K. Loafing through the Pacific, New York, 1927. Indian Annual Register, 1923-1927. Indian Review, 1920-1938. Iremonger, L. ‘Seventy-five years of British Rule in Fiji’, Crown Colonist, vol. 19, no. 215 (October 1949). Jayawardena, C. ‘The Disintegration of Caste in Fiji Indian Rural Society’, in L. R. Hiatt and C. Jayawardena, eds., Anthropology in Oceania, Sydney, 1971, 89-119. —‘Migration and Social Change: a survey of Indian communities over­ seas’, Geographical Review, vol. LVIII, no. 3, 1968, 426-49. Keesing, F. M. The South Seas in the Modern World, New York, 1941. Kisan, 1941. In Hindi. Kondapi, C. Indians Overseas, 1838-1949, New Delhi, 1951. Lambert, S. M. East Indian and Fijian in Fiji: their changing numerical relation, (Bernice P. Bishop Museum, special publication 32), Honolulu, 1938. Legge, J. D. Britain in Fiji, 1858-1880, London, 1958. Luke, H. From a South Seas Diary, 1938-1942, London, 1945. McArthur, N. Island Populations of the Pacific, Canberra, 1967. McMillan, A. W. ‘Fiji—Where Three Continents Meet’, Pacific Aßairs, July 1929. — Hindustani Handbook, Suva, 1931.

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223 Index

Abdulla, Muhammad, 112 Caldwell, W. M., 105 Africa, 8, 11, 17, 21, 27, 79, 135, Canada, 182; see also Vancouver- 145-6, 155, 170; see also Kenya Fiji Sugar Company Ahmadiyyas, 112-14 Cane-Growers Association of Fiji, Akhil Fiji Krishak Maha Sangh, 55 172, 180-7, 196 Caste, 5, 6, 7, 13, 54, 59, 62, 99, Americans, 141, 175, 179, 181 103, 115, 130, 144 Amichand, Pandit, 108 Caughley, John, 122-3 Andrews, Charles Freer, 9-10, 17, Chalmers, Douglas C., 166 20, 22, 23, 32, 40-2, 58, 61, Chaturvedi, Benarsidas, 9, 40, 63, 63-5, 79, 99, 121, 128, 153-4, 79, 114, 135-6, 141 173, 191 Chinese, 11, 12, 67-8, 73, 75, 116, Apolosi Nawai, 74-5 159, 168 Arya Samaj, 50, 59, 102, 104, Chini Mazdur Sangh, 169 107-10, 112-15, 120, 127, 131-5, Chowla, S. S., 105, 108 140, 141, 147, 165 Christians, Indian, 17, 25, 31, 34, Australia, 10, 11, 16, 18, 19, 23, 59, 105, 108-10, 118, 131, 132, 29, 33, 39, 49, 53, 55-7, 68, 75, 145, 147 80, 84, 87, 89, 152, 168, 170, Colonial Office: approves Rod- 195; see also Colonial Sugar Re­ well’s handling of strike, 39; fining Company; Gold-mining warns Rodwell renewal of Indian industry; Knox, E. W.; Mel­ immigration impossible, 41-2; bourne Trust Company; Gold­ negotiates with India, 44-5, 83-4, finch, Sir Philip; Theodore, E. 87-9, 93-9; attitude to repatria­ G. tion rights, 64, 83-4, 92-3; re­ Avinashananda, Swami, 15, 111, fuses to agree to Chinese labour, 165 68; reminds governor of Fijian Aziz Ahmed, 113 land rights, 70-1; attitude to franchise, 71-2, 150-4; opinion Bairangi, John, 147 of CSR, 77, 170; negotiates with Bajpai Sir Girja Shankar, 79, 98-9, CSR, 86-8; presses for education 101, 108, 138, 143 of Indians, 124-5, 127-8; against Barker, Sir Thomas William Al­ appointment of Indian agent in port, 82, 99, 136, 149-50, 152, Fiji, 94, 143; attitude to labour, 154, 194 169-71; role in cane dispute, Barton, C. J. J. T, 154-5, 174, 191 186; misgivings about Fijian Bayly, John P., 136, 152, 154 Affairs Ordinance, 193-4. Beattie, Dr Hamilton, 109, 131, Colonial Sugar Refining Company: 133, 135, 145 enters Fiji, 2; relations with Bhawani Dayal Sannyasi, 114 Andrews, 9-10, 79; relations British Guiana, 36-7, 42, 44, 62, with Indians, 36, 77, 161; rela­ 68, 94 tions with Fijians, 59-60, 160-7, Buksh, Mirza Salim, 105 190-1; power in Fiji, 11, 31, Burton, Rev. John Wear, 9 47-50, 61; profits, 49, 52, 76-7, 85, 214; reputation in India, 65; Cabrie, Madame, 21, 31 wants more Indians, 65, 75-7; Cakobau, Ratu Edward T. T., threatens to close down in Fiji, 183-4 76-7; taxes paid, 76, 85, 90-1; 225 Index

cuts wages, 81-3; negotiates with Fell, Thomas Edward, 30, 52, 66, Colonial Office, 86-8; negotiates 73, 74, 77, 80-2, 85-6, 185 in India, 89-90; makes conces­ Festivals, 105-6 sions, 90-1; acknowledges Fiji Bharatiya Mazdur Sangh, 169 strength of opinion in India, 94; Fiji Indian Labour Federation, 51- doubtful about return of re­ 3 patriates, 99-100; tenant-farmer Fiji Indian National Congress, 131, scheme, 101, 104, 153, 157-62, 135 188, 213; and education, 120, Fiji Muslim League, 106, 112-14, 125-6; relations with Kisan 140, 151 Sangh, 164-72; again threatens Fiji Samachar, 108, 110, 114, 145, ruin of colony, 167-8; attitude 172, 178 to labour legislation, 168-71; Fiji Times and Herald, 19, 24-5, labour strikes, 179-80; dispute 33, 35, 39, 81-2, 116, 131, 136, with farmers, 180-7; criticised 154, 184 by Mitchell, 185-6; Shephard Fijians: cession, 1, 61, 69-71, 74, report, 186; withdrawal from 151, 195-6; administration, 1-2, Fiji, 187; attitude to land ques­ 67, 98, 175-6, 188, 192-4; rela­ tion, 190-1 tions with Europeans, 10, 59-61, Copra, 2, 168, 175 74, 121, 129, 173-5, 179, 187-8, Corbett, Sir Geoffrey Latham, 79- 194- 8; relations with Indians, 85, 95-7, 160 12-16, 34, 56, 59-61, 74-5, 92, Council of Planters, 67 94, 120-1, 129, 144, 148-9, 151, Crompton, Robert, 11, 31, 74, 94 153-4, 155, 157, 174-5, 188-98; relations with Chinese, 12, 68; population numbers, 1, 12, 61; Dakshina India Andhra Sangam, labour, 2, 12, 67, 73, 160, 167- 112 8, 169; used as special con­ Dean, X. K. N., 112 stables, 14, 28-9, 55, 60; land­ Debt, 50, 162-5 holders, 2, 14-16, 23, 70-1, 67, Deo, V., see Vishnu Deo 85, 188-92; attitude to conces­ Deoki, 32, 105 sions to Indians, 74-5, 94, 148- Dinbandhu, 172 51, 154-5; protest, 74-5, 92; Disease, 1, 5-7, 17, 23, 25, 105 taxes, 91-2; interests stated to Dixon, W. P„ 50, 85-7, 90, 157, be paramount, 93, 136, 195-8; 160 Legislative Council representa­ tion, 88-9, 94, 154, 194-5; Arya Education, 16, 19, 53-4, 102, 111, Samaj attempts to convert, 109; 118-29, 134, 141, 173-4, 195 education, 119-22, 124, 125; Equal rights for Indians, proposed Viti Cauravou, 151; cane- guarantee, 43, 69-72, 98 farmers, 172; war effort, 174-6; European Electors’ Association, attitude to 1943 strike, 183-4; 194 Native Land Trust Ordinance, European-Indian relations, 6, 16- 190-2; Fijian Affairs Ordinance, 17, 21, 25-30, 34-5, 39, 55, 57, 192-4; Deed of Cession debate, 73-4, 102, 120-1, 127-9, 130-3, 195- 7; see also Apolosi Nawai; 144, 155, 173-5, 179, 187-8, Cakobau, Ratu E. T. T.; Gani- 194-8 lau, Ratu Epeli; land; Sukuna, 226 Index

Ratu Sir J. L. V. gin, 4, 103, 110, 114-15; castes, Fletcher, Sir A. G. Murchison, 5, 6, 103; sex proportion, 5, 117 114, 123-8, 138-56, 168 Immigration, Indian: wanted by Fiji Government and Europeans, Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand, 1, 10-11, 17, 68, 89; Fiji mission 8, 20, 21, 40-6, 53-7, 64, 97, to India, 17, 23, 41-3; return of 133-4, 138, 141-2, 145, 166, repatriates, 62-5, 99-101; change 176 of mind by Fiji Government and Ganilau, Ratu Epeli, 92 Europeans, 66, 93-4; restriction Garu, B. Venkatapatiraju, 79-85, proposed, 92; restriction, 116-18, 96 165, 173; see also Indenture sys­ Ghadr party, 141-2 tem Gokhale, Gopal Krishna, 8, 9, 21 Imperial Conference: 1921, 72; Goldfinch, Sir Philip H., 167, 171, 1923, 93 190-1 Imperial Indian Citizenship Asso­ Gold-mining industry, 152, 170 ciation, 22, 40, 99, 117, 133, Gopalan, Dr Chambadan Mana- 184, 192 kadan, 111, 152 Inayat, 106, 109 Gordon, Sir Arthur Hamilton, see Indenture system, 3-10, 17, 18, Stanmore, Lord 130-1, 153, 160-1 Government, relations with Indians India, Government of: attitude to at local level, 19, 37-9, 113, emigration, 3-4, 7-10, 41, 90; 143-5 opinion of Fiji, 8-10, 40-6; nego­ Grant, Anthony, Peter and John tiates with mission from Fiji, 42; F., 25, 32, 33, 105, 132, 139 deputation to Fiji, 17, 28, 43-4, Grantham, Sir Alexander W. G. H., 63, 78-85, 88, 130; negotiates 194-7 with Colonial Office, 44-5, 83-4, Gujaratis, 7, 21, 64, 100, 107, 87-9, 93-9; deputation’s report 115-18, 134, 142, 163-4, 179, suppressed, 93, 95-8; relations 182-3 with Fiji, 42-6, 61-5; loses in­ fluence on treatment of Indians Hardinge of Penshurst, Baron, 8, overseas, 98-9; attitude to com­ 75, 87 mon roll, 88, 93, 94, 138, 151, Hasan, Muhammad, 113 153-5; attitude to land question, Hasan, Said, 113, 155 191-2 Hawaii, 87, 129 Indian Advisory Committees, 38, Hedstrom, Sir John Maynard, 11, 144 123, 136-7, 149-52, 177 Indian Association of Fiji: 1920, Hindu Maha Sabha, 107, 110, 141 51; 1924, 104; 1934, 117, 152, Hindu-Muslim relations, 24, 103, 155 105-9, 112-14, 139-40, 144 Indian Cane Growers Association, Hughes, Thomas, 41, 89 50, 164 Hutson, Sir Eyre, 98, 100, 120, Indian Imperial Association of Fiji, 148 22-5, 32, 34, 37 Indian Motor Drivers’ Union, 113, im Thurn, Sir Everard, 2, 66, 67, 169 71 Indian National Congress, 22, 40, Immigrants, Indian: areas of ori­ 135, 141, 146 227 Index

Indian Reform League, 105, 108 posals for changes, 194-5; Deed Indian Settler, 22 of Cession debate, 195-7 Indians Overseas Association, 44, Luke, Sir Harry Charles, 166-7, 133 169, 171, 174-5

Java, 52, 67, 76, 181 McGusty, Dr Victor William Jordan, G. R., 35-6 Tighe, 108, 136, 143, 146 McMillan, A. W„ 105, 114, 122, Kenya, 11, 14, 44, 71-3, 85, 92, 127, 141 93, 96-8, 124, 133, 136-8, 145-7 Madras Maha Sangam, 108, 111, Khan, Fateh, 26 152 Khan, Fazil, 26-7, 32, 33 Maha Sangh, see Akhil Fiji Kris- Khan, Lieutenant Hissamuddin, hak Maha Sangh 79-85 Maharaj, Harapal, 32 Khan, Muhammad Tawahir, 112, Maharaj, J. P., 21 166-7, 170-2, 182 Mahraj, Badri, 30, 32, 51, 59, 91, Khilafat agitation, 19, 33 104, 107, 120 Kisan, 171-2 Manilal, Mrs Jayakunwar, 21, 26, Kisan Sangh, 164-72, 180-7 27, 28, 32 Knox, Edward William, 9, 10, 41, Manilal Maganlal Doctor, 21-38, 52-3, 75-7, 79, 83, 85-7, 95, 159, 51, 56, 134, 168 160, 167 Marks, Sir Henry, 11, 132-3 Kundan Singh Kush, 107, 108 Mauritius, 3, 16, 21, 76, 92, 94, Kunzru, Pandit Hirday Nath, 79, 103, 169-70 97, 161, 173-4, 184 Mazdur Sangh, 169 Kuppuswami, Sadhu, 111 Melbourne Trust Company, 49, 55, 158 Lakshman, Brahma Dass, 171, Methodist Mission, 48, 85, 119, 182-3 121, 152 Land, 1-2, 15-16, 23, 43, 49, 67, Milverton, Baron, 1 1-12, 155, 157, 70-1, 75, 78, 85, 88, 93, 105, 169, 191 144, 147, 153, 157, 158, 173-4, Mitchell, Sir Philip E„ 128, 174-5, 188-92, 195-6, 198 180-6, 193-4 Languages, 15, 126-7, 147-9 Mitter, N. B„ 51-3, 168 Legislative Council: European re­ Mohammed, Dost, 32 presentation, 11; part-European, Money-lenders, see Debt 12; Indian nominated member, Mudaliar, Muniswamy, 145-7, 151 38, 91; proposed Indian elected Muni, Sadhu Bashishth, 53-9, 61, representation, 43, 44, 69, 71-2, 64, 157, 168 88, 93-4, 105; Fijian representa­ Municipal franchise, 23, 43, 88, 93, tion, 88-9; European members 94, 147-50 protest against concessions to Muslims, 7, 13, 59, 103, 105-10, CSR, 90-1; and against Sey­ 112-14, 115, 127, 139-40, 145, mour, 123-4; elections in 1929, 151, 194 132-4; common roll question, Muzaffar Beg, Mirza, 112 134-40, 145-56; constitution, 154-5, 173, 197; Fijians voting Naidu, M. Narainswamy, 111, 152, against government, 174-5; pro­ 165 228 Index

Nawa Jawan Sainik, 118, 165 Rao, Kodanda, 173 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 135, 141 Reay, C. Stuart de C., 170 New Zealand, 11, 19, 29, 39, 48- Repatriation to India, 3-4, 19, 35-9, 50, 57, 58, 68, 75, 84, 89, 120, 43, 45, 61-5, 82-5, 92-3, 99-101, 122, 128-9, 168, 175, 177 203 Residential tax, 91-3, 97, 104, 195 Pacific Age, 73 Rewa Cane Growers’ Union, 180-7 Pacific Press, 109 Riaz, Theodore D., 50, 73, 81 Panchayats, 144 Richards, Sir Arthur F., see Milver­ Paranjype, Sir Raghunath, 195 ton, Baron Part-Europeans, 11, 12, 149-50, Rodwell, Sir Cecil Hunter, 11, 20, 154-5, 168, 179, 195 24-30, 32, 34, 37-9, 47-8, 52, 56, Patel, Ambalal Dahyabhai, 111, 58, 63, 67-8, 73, 86, 89, 90, 117-18, 134, 138, 142, 152, 157, 92-3, 97, 140, 159, 185 164, 165-6, 172, 173, 181-5, 196 Roman Catholic Mission, 107, 120- Patel, Shiwabhai Bhailalbhai, 133- 1, 152; see also Christians, Indian 7, 142, 147, 164, 182, 184 Rudrananda, Swami, 111-12, 157, Pearson, J. R., 15-16, 98, 99, 114, 172, 181, 182, 184, 215 1 16, 122-3, 132-3, 142-3, 148, 163, 188 Sagayam, A. Devi, Dr, 111, 139, Pillay, V. M., 57, 111 191-2 Pingal, Mahant, 22 Sahu Khan, family, 112-13 Piper, Rev Richard, 9, 73 Salisbury, Lord, 69-70, 75 Polak, Henry S. L., 44, 133-8, 152, Sanadhya, Totaram, 9, 21, 40, 103, 184 134 Population, 1, 4, 5, 11-12, 68, 100, Sangam, 111, 152, 165, 172 195-8, 199 Sangathan movement, 108, 110 Prasad, Ayodhya, 118, 164-6, 170, Sannyasi, Bhawani Dayal, 114 172, 182 Sarju, 26 Prasad, Pandit Durga, 109 Sastri, V. S. Srinivasa, 79, 98 Prasad, Ramsamujh, 104 Scott, Sir Henry Milne, 11, 31, Punjabis, 7, 32, 100, 114-16, 118, 132-3, 136-7, 148-52, 177, 197 163, 169, 182 Secretary for Indian Affairs, 14, 38, 94, 98-9; see also McGusty, Ragg, Amie A., 196 Dr V. W. T.; Pearson, J. R. Raghvanand, B., 107 Seth, B. L. Hiralal, 107, 134 Raihman, Peter, 32 Seymour, Alfred W., 122-4, 131-2 Rajdut, 91 Sharma, Bhagwati Prasad, 26 Raju report; see Garu, B. Venka- Sharma, Pandit Govind Sahai, 79- tapatiraju; India, Government of 85, 96 Ram Rup, 21 Sharma, Pandit Ramchandra, 110 Ram Singh, Babu, 21-5, 104, 108, Sharma, Pandit Srikrishna, 107, 110 110, 112, 140 Ramakrishna Mission, 111-12, 184 Shephard, Professor C. Y., 186 Ramchander, James, 132 Sikhs, 7, 114-16, 142, 182 Ramjan, Ilahi, 32, 104, 105 Singh, C. Chattur, 104, 118, 133, Rankine, Richard Sims Donkin, 17, 141, 165 23, 41-3 Singh, Kuldip, 142 229 Index

Singh, Kunwar Bachint, 107, 145- Then India Sanmarga Ikya Sangam, 7, 151, 155, 169, 178, 183, 192 111, 152, 172 Singh, Mangal, 169 Then India Valibar Sangam, 111, Singh, Narbahadur, 145 152, 165 Singh, Padri Mehar, 165, 182 Theodore, Edward Granville, 152, Singh, Parmanand, 118, 132-3, 165 170 Singh, Ramcharan, 165 Trade Unions, 51-3, 167-71 Singh, Randhir, 50, 107, 134 Twitched, Right Rev, T. C., 17, 23, Singh, Santa, 142 41-3, 67, 70 Singh, Shiv, 142 Siri Ram, 118 Vaidik Sandesh, 108, 135 South Indians, 7, 13, 21, 89, 110- Vancouver-Fiji Sugar Company, 12, 127, 144, 152, 165, 172, 49, 77, 158 182, 196 Veeranna, 112 Sport, 105 Vishnu Deo, Pandit, 107-10, 114, Stanmore, Lord, 1-3, 70 131, 132-9, 142, 143, 145-7, 152, Stephens, F. B., 129, 195 153, 155, 164, 169, 172, 173, Stri Seva Sahha, 105 178, 179, 182, 183, 192 Suchit, George, 23 Viti Cauravou, 151 Sugar, 1,51, 180-2; contribution to Vriddhi and Vriddhi-Vani, 109, 145 export income and revenue, 2-3, 47-8; market, 49, 58, 182; imperial preference, 87, 100, Waiz, S. A. 99 158, 182; see also Colonial Sugar Waller, J. H„ 109 Refining Company; Melbourne West Indies, 3, 9, 16, 47, 67, 69, Trust Company; Vancouver-Fiji 87, 103, 169 Sugar Company Willoughby Tottenham, Major W. Sukuna, Ratu Sir Joseva Lalabalavu E„ 152 Vanaaliali, 151, 174-5, 183-4, 191-3 Young Fijian Society, see Viti Suva Motor Drivers’ Union, 169 Cauravou Young Men’s Christian Association, Tamils, 7, 110-12, 127 64, 105 Tataiya, 1 12 Young Men’s Indian Association, Telegus, 110-12, 127 104

230 Dr Gillion is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Pacific and Southeast Asian History at The Australian National University. He has served in the New Zealand Department of External Affairs and taught history at the Universities of Western Australia and Adelaide. Dr Gillion first visited Fiji in 1949 and has subsequently spent several periods doing research there and in India. He is the author of Fiji’s Indian Migrants (1962) and Ahmedabad: A Study in Indian Urban History (1968).

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