The Racial Problem In Fiji
pp. 20-21 · Read in the full issue
By R. W. Robson
IN his farewell broadcast on* March 24, the departing Governor of Fiji (Sn Alexander Grantham) made the fol lowing reference to the problem created by the rapid growth of the Indian com munity in Fiji: “One hears much about the racial prob lem.
“Admittedly, it would be simpler if there were one homogeneous people only in the Colony. But we have our three distinct racial groups, which is a fact that we have simply got to accept.
“And are things as bad as some people make out? My considered opinion is that they are not. I have been much struck
by the generally harmonious manner in which the three races, so separate and so distinct, get on together.
“Contrast the position here with what it is in many other parts of the world — political strife, industrial strife, civil war, riots. And frequently, too, between peoples of the same blood and of the same religion.
“Have we not in fact, here in Fiji, learnt —whether consciously or unconsciously I know not —to live and let live, and to practice mutual tolerance? Am I not therefore justified in anticipating a con tinuance of the happy relationship between the European, the Fijian and the Indian?
“The coming independence of India also will tend to make the Fiji-Indian even more Fiji-minded than he is at present.”
THE casual visitor to Fiji is likely to be more deeply impressed with the “ugliness” of the Indian problem there than is the man who has lived a long time in the Colony, or who has had the chance—as had Sir Alexander Grantham—ol examining conditions very closely from the inside.
That is because the casual visitor who sees the Indians sees mostly the Bombay shopkeepers of Suva, Nausori and Lautoka —a small, aggresive, hungry, hard-trading class, who give one the impression that they dislike everyone, even their own compatriots. To paraphrase Kipling.
What do they know of Fiji-India, who only Suva know?
Again and again, in Fiji, it was said to me: “If only we could ship away all the Bombay traders, and a large proportion of the Indian lawyers, we should have a very peaceful industrious, Indian com munity here, who would be a real asset to the Colony.”
The great majoriity of the 120,000 Indians in Fiji are primary producers, and an ever-increasing proportion of the latter are Fiji-born; and if a wise administra tion could, through the avenues of educa tion and local government, make effective use of those two factors, the future of the Colony would have a less murky appear ance.
Of course, the Indians must accept as a fact, fundamental to their continued residence in Fiji, that the British will not now, nor in the future, permit the alien ation of the natives’ land, in favour of the Indian. We know that the Indian is hungry for land; and that the lack of land tends to drive the Indian, who other wise would be a peasant farmer, into the towns where he becomes a trader or artisan. Nothing, however, can be per mitted to remove from the British the obligation they accepted with the Deed of Cession, to protect the Fijians’ land rights. And, despite the appalling fecun dity of the Indian, there still are as many native Fijians as Indians.
If there could be a reasonable spirit of give-and-take between the Europeans (who are there to hold and administer the country on behalf of Britain, and to protect the Fijians) and the Indians (whose presence in Fiji is the result of an industrial accident) there need be no great unhappiness about the future of Fiji—all the troubles now foreseen would tend to iron themselves out.
But we shall never have a reasonable spirit between Europeans and Indians while the latter permit themselves to be represented by snarling Madrassi traders and hair-splitting Bengal lawyers, avid for political power. While the ideas and hatreds of Mother India rule the Fiji Indians, there is no more hope of com promise in Suva than in Delhi.
Including the Bombay traders, they are mostly Hindus in Fiji. But there is a substantial minority of Moslems; and there is little love lost between Hindus and Moslems in Fiji, as elsewhere.
Very terrible things are going to happen in India before India finds nationhood — if it ever does. Maybe, during the forth coming period of throat-cutting and famine, which may extend over years, the Fiji Indians will grow away from Mother India, and establish themselves closer to Fiji. In that event, the op timism of Sir Alexander Grantham would be justified.