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 ^i»rw ö» TO;.“ EO;'sI.;?JAL DEPARTMENT ! RECOMMENDED RETAIL PRiOE fq qt PuiLUiH iöfl DA i b 2^-to. 77 1HE FIJI INDMNS 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.