Retiring Indian Commissioner in
p. 10 · Read in the full issue
Fiji Gives Some Blunt Advice
From Our Own Correspondent
Suva, Oct. 9.
MR. S. A. WAIZ, retiring Commissioner for the Government of India in Fiji, left Nadi Airoort on October 6, after two years’ service in the Colony. His successor has not yet been appointed.
Before leaving Suva, Mr. Waiz created a major sensation by administering a comprehensive sorting-up of the Indian situation in Fiji in the course of an ad dress at a farewell gathering organised by the Indian Association of Fiji.
He sharply criticised Indian political leaders for maintaining factional divi sions (Punjabi, Gujerati, Madrassi, and so on) in the Indian community as a means to their own “glorification.”
He said that the younger Indians were profoundly dissatisfied with the present Indian political leadership and added that there was a strong possibility of a “revolt” against that leadership.
“If the experience of the older genera tion and the enthusiasm and energy of the younger people cannot be harnessed for the common good of everyone con cerned —the Colony as a whole —I wish the younger generation all success in their contemplated revolt,” Mr. Waiz added.
After bluntly telling the Indian com munity that all its members were sub jects of the British Crown with the same rights and responsibilities as other British subjects in Fiji, the Commissioner de livered a broadside on the question of de fence.
In the Second World War, he said, the Indians in Fiji failed to take their full share in the defence of their adopted homeland. He continued: “It is not good, and it ought not to happen again. It is your bounden duty as men to come forward and do your bit in the defence of your home. You can not expect others to defend your home for you. . . .
“If ever I visit Fiji again, I would, for a change, love to meet a Private Sharma, a Sergeant Singh, a Lieutenant Kapadia, a Colonel Vishnu Deo, or a Lieutenant- General John Grant.
“These are not empty words, and I am serious.”
PRESUMABLY alluding to the fact that Fiji’s peacetime military forces (over whelmingly composed of volunteer Fijians) contain only one or two Indians and that at no time has the mass of Indians shown the slightest interest in the defence of the Colony, the Commissioner said: “I beseech you to come forward in your hundreds and thousands and enlist iyourselves in the Army, Navy and Air Force of the Colony. . . . India expects her sons in Fiji to come forward in the defence of their adopted homeland. . . .
I hope that leaders of the Indian com munity and others will seriously ponder over my last advice and will act imme diately. Delay will be fatal.”
Speculation on Mr. Waiz’s speech has centred very largely, as far as non-Indians are concerned, on what factor produced the note of extreme urgency in his ap peal.
On October 3, the Governor (Sir Brian Freeston), addressing the Legislative Council, warned the Colony that its plight, economic and otherwise, might be serious if the outbreak of another world war were followed by the temporary cutting of the South Pacific shipping supply-lines by enemy long-range submarines, and added that the Government was contemplating possible “drastic measures” to counter any emergency rising from such possibilities
as external attack (in the event of an outbreak of war) or sabotage of indus trial plant or essential services in Fiji itself.
The Governor’s warning, of course, ap plied to all races and thus can in no sense be interpreted as applying to any one sec tion of the population more than to an other.
Non-Indians now ask if the Commis sioner’s plea is the first open attempt to break the stranglehold of those who preach the doctrine of “India first.” re gardless of the fact that India’s present pro-Communist swing is already creating non-Indian misgivings about the attitude of the many Indians in Fiji who appear to be swayed by the anti-British, anti- West influences at New Delhi.