Some Brutal Facts About the Indian Situation

In Fiji and Elsewhere

By

R. W. Robson

iRE are seemingly irreconcilable factors in a situation which, some , must be reconciled.

The Indian population of Fiji >,000) is now much in excess of Fijian population (under 130,000), still is growing faster.

The great majority of the Fiji ms have been born in Fiji, and asingly are inclined to argue that have as much right to Fiji’s land natural resources as the indigent The only way to keep Fiji for Fijians is to deport the Indians Chinese—the two most rapidly ing communities—but such a dy (politically impracticable, ay) would bring about the 3mic collapse of one of the most )erous of Britain’s smaller lies.

There is racial antagonism be i Indians and Fijians. There is iter-marriage. Each race holds •ther in contempt. The Indian is iseless toiler. The Fijian is not.

Those who put their hopes in Jducated young Indian born in are discouraged by evidence of influence of India, exercised gh family tradition, school n and religion. That influence ally is anti-British.

Apart altogether from consid ►ns of justice, defence, and the

maintenance of a sound racial balance, the British are bound irrevocably, by the Fiji Deed of Cession, to protect the land rights of the Fijian, given him by his prior occupation of the country.

This Fiji-Indian problem—which has intrigued and baffled me every time I have visited Fiji in the last 25 years—becomes steadily worse, and now is aggravated by two recently added factors: One is the appearance of India as an independent nation, member of the British Common wealth; and the other is the tragic fall in British prestige in Asia, brought about primarily by the Attlee Socialist Government of 1945-51. The Indian is naturally anti-British—always has been and I think always will be—and these new factors tend to make him arrogant and cheeky generally in his relations with the British in Fiji, and elsewhere around the world.

TF this were purely a Fiji problem it could be fairly easy of solution; but it cannot be divorced from the problem of Indian implantations gen erally.

Those who, hundreds of years ago, gave the name of Indian Ocean to the huge sea enclosed by Asia, Africa, Indonesia and Australia had pre science. Large and growing Indian communities are established now along the coasts of Africa and Malaya, in Indonesia, and in the Indian Ocean

islands. In Madagascar, Kenya, Natal and Mauritius their industry, their acquisitiveness and their amaz ing fecundity have created social and political problems even more acute than those of Fiji.

There is a difference between the Indians and other problem-making races—the Africans, for instance.

The Indian is proud of his race.

Racially, the Indian is closer to the European than any other non-Euro pean people. India had a civilisation and a culture which ante-dated those of Europe. India now is an in dependent nation, with a potential strength (if enormous population is strength) second only to that of China.

It is only natural that Indian leaders now dream of the day when India, a resurgent Power, will dom inate the Indian Ocean, and when all the lands now populated by Indians (East Africa, Mauritius, Madagascar, Indonesia and Malaya, and Fiji) will be part of the new Indian Empire. It is against that rather startling background that the Fiji-Indian problem should be con sidered.

Much may be done on the spot in Fiji, by a wise and long-visioned Government. But the final solution 7 —if ever there is to be one—lies not in Suva, but in London and Delhi; and it is irrevocably tied up with the Indian racial problem in those other countries around the Indian Ocean.

Are those various Indian com munities to become an integral part of the countries in which they have planted themselves, conforming to

the manners, language and institu tions of those countries? Or will they continue to cling to the language, ways and institutions of Mother India, while regarded by the host country with a suspicion that tends to become hatred? Sooner or later, Delhi must indicate a policy in re lation to those questions, and the fate of Fiji could depend upon that policy.

HHHE Fiji-Indians, like any other community similarly placed, could •solve the Fiji problem by forgetting Mother India, and making common cause with the British and the Fijians in seeking a way out of the mess.

With a spirit of co-operation, goodwill and mutual trust, a way could be found of making Fiji a permanent and happy home for both Fijians and Indians, under British guardianship.

But that would mean the severance by the Fiji-Indians of all ties with the home-land; and there is not the slightest indication that this has ever been considered. Family ties, trad ing connections, juvenile education and, above all, religious teaching, seem to bind the Fiji-Indians com pletely to India. That such a system has the official blessing of Delhi is evident from the fact that, since India was granted independence, India has maintained in Fiji an Indian Commis sioner, whose job apparently is to guard the interests of the Indians in the British Colony.

In Fiji, in October, I talked with numerous Indians, clever and in telligent young fellows, who have been educated in English and who never have seen India. All expressed substantially the same view: “Fiji is my home. I have no con nection now with India. We will gladly sever all association with our Indian leaders here, who urge us to resist the British and the Fijians, if only the British administrators will trust us, and ask our co-operation in settling the future of Fiji.” Assur ances like that.

It gave me at first some hope that there might be a way out. But this class of young Indian intelligentsia is so small; the Indian leaders generally are basically anti-British and anti- Fijian; the official and non-official ties with India are so strong—l can not see any way out unless and until there is a clear understanding between India and Britain on the future of Indian implantations in British countries.

There is a deadly record against the possibility of Indian co-operation with the other races in Fiji. There is the wartime record—British and Fijians rallying to our defence in

those critical years, with all they had; and the Indians lifting not a finger to help us, but devoting all their energies to a greedy exploitation of the trading opportunities created by wartime conditions.

There is the post-war record. This journal already has published some deplorable stories of Indian disloyalty.

There were, for example, scenes which attended the celebration of India Independence Day in 1948 and subsequently; and speeches made on October 6, 1948, when the first Indian Commissioner arrived.

Before me as I write is a published account of an incident in a Labasa cinema on November 5, 1952. The theatre was packed with Indians. The picture of Queen Elizabeth came upon the screen and the British National Anthem was played. About 50 out of 400 Indians stood up—the remainder, cheeky and arrogant, lounged in their seats. “Why should we stand—we were independent long ago,” said a young Indian to a young Fijian who was beside him, and who stood up.

One may note that I2i per cent, were loyal and decent; but is that a sufficient proportion to give us hope of reform from within Fiji itself?

IT'HESE young Indians, for the most part, are badly trained, badly in structed, badly led—nothing worth mentioning is done by the Fiji-Indian leaders (a poor lot) to counter the anti-British antagonism that is partly inherited and partly pumped into them by a biased press and un

scrupulous agitators.

If ever there is to be agreeme between all races in relation to t future devlopment of Fiji, a me towards real co-operation must coi from the Indians themselves, eitl spontaneously, or as the result of Delhi directive. But that will mean big change in the attitude of offic India • towards Britain; and there not a sign of this to-day.

On the contrary, it is impossible escape the feeling that the lead* of India are following a folded-han policy, awaiting what they believe w be the disintegration of the Briti Empire, when they will have th« opportunity to jump in and seize t lands in which they already ha planted their tireless community Meanwhile (say the Pan-Indians) us breed, and work, and clamour, a hold together, as Indian communiti with a mission, India, officially, is a member of t British Commonwealth. Since tf status was achieved, there has be no outstanding act by India to she that she values membership, or loyal to it. She has created in me British countries the belief that s will leave the Commonwealth just soon as it profits her to do so.

If there is to be no move 1 Indians towards the inauguration a new and better era in Fiji, th the Indians cannot blame the Briti if the latter proceed to take steps Fiji—and in some other countries to guard certain fundamental rigt which the present situation seems menace.