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THE SOCIAL BACKGROUND of FIJI's 1987 COUP Carolyn Henning

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THE SOCIAL BACKGROUND of FIJI's 1987 COUP Carolyn Henning THE SOCIAL BACKGROUND OF FIJI'S 1987 COUP Carolyn Henning Brown Department of Anthropology Whiteman College Walla Walla, Washington, U.SA. Until May 14, 1987, Fiji enjoyed a reputation as a model plural society which made parliamentary rule work well in spite of its knife -edge ethnic balance. The native Fijians, slightly in the minority (47%) to the Indians (49%), dominate the government and the military, while the Indians dominate agriculture, business and the professions.1 It is the sort of division of economic and political power in which there is always plenty for anyone to feel disgruntled about. For the same reason, mutual distrust has been a chronic state of relations; but animosity has never flared beyond occasional pushing and shoving to anything remotely like the violence of similarly structured societies in Northern Ireland or Sri Lanka. This has remained true even during the aftermath of the May 14 coup in which the military stole power from the Indian-dominated coalition which won its first election in seventeen years since Independence. Commentators who have sought to interpret the May 14 and sub- sequent events have had three levels of power relations to examine: Fiji's internal ethnic power struggle; the regional relationships dominated by Australia and New Zealand with Fiji as a leader of the smaller Island societies, where recently Polynesian-Melanesian differences are emerging into political importance; and the stratosphere of Superpowers where there is just the beginning of Soviet competition for influence in a steadfastly pro-Western Pacific scene. Given the nature of the factors involved in the coup, it makes best sense to begin with the local level political structure and its social context; the broader levels may well be affected by Fiji events, but played little part in shaping them. Fiji 1874-1987: A Balanced Plural Society It was the labor needs of European cotton and sugar planters which brought Indians and Fijians together, creating a classic plural society2 out of an indigenous ethnically Melanesian society structured on hierarchical Polynesian principles, a system of ranked lineages and competing chiefdoms. And it was British administrative SOCIOLOGICAL BULLETIN, 38 (1), March 1989 96 SOCIOLOGICAL BULLETIN policy which preserved relatively intact the traditional Fijian chiefly system and political hegemony, structuring a post-independent state in which ethnic competition has inevitably been the foremost political preoccupation. The Indigenous Fijians Fiji was ceded to Great Britain in 1874 by joint action of the paramount chiefs led by Cakobau, Tui Viti (Paramount Chief of Fiji) in order to protect themselves from US extortion over the burning of a local resident's house and to bring British law to control a small but growing community of European planters, traders, and adventurers. At that time there were eleven great chiefdoms spread among Fiji's 300 islands, the most powerful of them surrounding the Koro Sea. The highest ranked of these chiefdoms was and still is Bau, on Viti Levu's southeastern coast; another great chiefdom was Lau, the island group to the east; and a third was Cakaudrove on Vanua Levu. The three elder statesmen of modern Fijian politics just happen to be Sir George Cakobau, recently retired Governor-General and the Vunivalu Bau (great-grandson of the Cakobau who ceded Fiji to Great Britain); Ratu Penaia Ganilau, Governor-General until October 1987 and Roko Tui Cakaudrove; and Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, Prime Minister and Tui Nayau of the Lau Islands.3 The critical document on which present Fijian claims to hegemony are based is the 1874 Deed of Cession which carried the provision that "the rights and interests of the said Tui Viti and other high chiefs and the ceding parties hereto shall be recognized so far as is and shall be consistent with British Sovereignty and Colonial form of government."4 The humanitarian ideology of the time, as formulated into policy by Sir Arthur Gordon, the first governor, was protectionist; Fijians were to be isolated from the depredations of Western culture (with the major exception of Christianization, which was already far advanced), economic interests and land alienation. In both the latter two policies he ran counter to the desires of the 2,000 or so planters who wanted Fijian land and labor, and thought the best future for Fiji would be dissolution of the traditional social organization which could be achieved by a policy of benign neglect. To govern the Fijians, a Native Administration5 was established as an encapsulated government within the broader colonial government. It was modeled on the British officials' understanding of traditional Fijian social organization, giving offices to traditional chiefs, establishing provinces and districts roughly corresponding to FIJI'S 1987 COUP 97 traditional states and lineage territories, and creating a native court system which enforced a blend of Fijian custom and British justice. An advisory body, the Council of Chiefs, could make recommendations to the superordinate legislative Council, but there was no general franchise for Fijians, and membership in the Legislative Council was by appointment. The actual administration was carried out by British District Commissioners and District Officers. Through this structure Fijians were subject to laws and policies dis tinct from those which governed Indians, Europeans and other resident of the colonies. The system had the further conservative effect of preserving traditional village life so that Fijians have suffered far less from the disruptions of mo dernization than has been true of most developing nations. In truth, their politicization in any significant way dates from 1970. The second major conservative policy of Fiji's colonial ad- ministrators grew out of their determination to prevent the destruction which was wrecked on the Maoris and Native Americans. This was effectively accomplished by Britain's land policies based on an extensive study from 1876 to 1879 of the land tenure system and its preservation, though in distorted form, in the Native Land Ordinance of 1892.6 By this act 83% of Fiji land was permanently vested in Fijian lineages and since 1940 has been administered through the Native Lands Trust Board. It could be leased but never sold to non-Fijians. Although these percentages have not significantly changed in the 95 years since enactment of the ordinance, the danger of loss of land was a primary incitement to the coup of 1987. Fiji Indian Society These institutions for preservation of Fijian interests were largely in place by the time Indians began arriving in 1879 under five-year indentures to work in the cotton and sugar plantations.7 If the colonial government invested considerable administrative ingenuity in protecting Fijian traditions, the same could not be said of their governance of Indian migrant workers. Humanitarian opinion had brought about an end to slavery throughout the empire half a century earlier but not the end to the economic need for cheap labor, an inseparable concomitant of the plantation system, and the indenture system was, as Hugh Tinker has observed, a new system of slavery. In all, 60,553 Indians embarked from Calcutta and Madras, mostly young, single men, unskilled labourers, to work for a 98 SOCIOLOGICAL BULLETIN promised shilling a day on the plantations. Although the Government of India insisted that one-third of recruits be women so that some kind of family life could develop in the islands, it was rarely possible to meet that quota. Fiji's Indian population is a diverse group, a diversity originating in the pattern of migration, and that was a reflection of economic conditions pertaining in India in the late 19th century. Very few Bengalis went, even though Calcutta was the principal embarkation point, but Bihar, where one-fifth of the population was landless by 1916, sent more recruits than any other province. From 1879 to 1903, all Indians came from North India and were relatively homogeneous, speaking mutually intelligible dialects of Hindustani for the most part. According to Gillion (1962: 209) 16% were high castes, 31% were agricultural castes, 6% were artisans, 31% were low castes, and 14% were Muslims. In 1903 this population was surprised by the arrival of a kind of Indian they had never seen before: "We didn't know what they were," remembers an aged ex-indentured labourer. They were "Madrassis", speakers of Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam, and followers of Islam, Christianity and Hinduism. All these migrants, brought as girmitiya, formed the original base of Fiji Indian society. Two other groups came between 1920 and 1936 as free men paying their own fares: Punjabis, mostly Sikhs, who settled in agricultural areas and generally fit in well with the preceding migrants; and Gujaratis, almost wholly small tradesmen who settled in towns and maintained a social gap between themselves and the "coolies" who worked on the plantations. The census of Fiji does not enumerate Indians by sub-group, but estimated proportions of the self-identified "cultural groups" are as follows: North Indians 64% South Indians 20 Muslims 10 Sikhs 3 Gujaratis 3 These cultural groups have far greater significance in Fiji Indian society than do caste identities. This is so for several reasons. More " than 50 castes can be identified among Fiji's 350,000 Indians, and these are distributed rather randomly around the two main islands in a pattern established to meet the needs of plantation owners. None of these castes has organized associations, they rarely have any occupational significance8, and local-level politics is managed by FIJI'S 1987 COUP 99 cultural groups and to a certain extent dominated by men of high caste status for whom caste identity means little more than a "bonus of esteem".9 Several studies of marriage patterns10 have shown a persistent preference for endogamous marriage, albeit a low expres- sion of it when compared to India; in one conservative region, that of the town of Sigatoka and vicinity, Brahmans, Chamars and Thakurs had the highest rates of endogamy at 70%, 60% and 56% respectively.
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