Fiji Indians Celebrate

"Independence"

Flag-wagging Processions and Speeches on August 15

From Our Own Correspondent

Suva, Aug. 16.

THE Government of Fiji declined, for obvious reasons, to declare a public holiday on August 15, so that the Indians within the Colony could cele brate what was at first called Indian Independence Day and, later, Dominions Day.

But what of official disapproval? The Indian population (with the exception of the Moslems) had made up its mind to have a holiday, anyway.

Many European-owned businesses, in eluding most of Suva’s major firms, quietly bowed to Indian dictation and closed down for the day, knowing that if they had not, their Indian employees would have taken the day off, anyway.

The Government, the Suva Town Board and others let their Indians stay away on the understanding that they would not be naid for the time off; and the Colonial Sugar Refining Company shut down every mill in Fiji and kept them

shut down for three days because the day after Dominions Day was a Saturday half-day, and it was not worth while starting up again.

The Moslem community put up a strenuous fight- against a splash on Dominions Day, maintaining that what ever cultural, racial and sentimental ties might link the Fiji Indians with India, they, and particularly the Fiji-born In dians, were people whose interests lay m Fiji and not m India. Therefore the new Dominion of Pakistan (modern) was welcomed only by special prayers in the mosques.

But the non-Muslims insisted on cele brating the new Hindustan Dominion, and they went to town with the greatest political demonstration yet seen in Fiji.

Several thousand men, women and chil dren carrying Congress (now Dominion of Hindustan) flags, decorated floats and the

usual trimmings, with an occasional Union Jack in case non-Indians began imagining things, paraded through Suva in tinsel splendour, and well over 10,000 were at Albert Park for an exceedingly wordy, Indian flag-raising ceremony in front of the Government Buildings, But except for the Fijian police (Srdin ary and traffic) who shepherded the de vout thousands, the rest of Suva’s citizens regarded it as just another day.

“We pay to-day our homage and humble tributes to our Indian leaders. . .

It is the privilege and duty of every Indian, be he in India or beyond her shores, to pledge to-day his love and toil through the years. . . Long live India!

Jai Hind!”

The above, quoted from the speech of the president of the Indian Association of Fiji, gives the keynote of proceedings.

For all their astuteness and clamorous persistence, the political leaders of Fiji’s Indians are sometimes extraordinarily naive.

The procession on its way to Albert Park, Suva. The new flag of Hindustan, flanked by the flags of the United Nations, is carried in front. It is followed by a float carrying a drawing of what apparently is supposed to be Gandhi.

Photo by Caine’s Studios.