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Resurgent tribalism in Fiji
By Sam Rajappa (opinion from "The
Hindu", published 4 August 2003)
Over decades, the gulf between the indigenous
Fijians and Indo-Fijians has widened.
THE CRUX of the problem facing the Republic of
Fiji Islands, which has witnessed three coups d'etat since
independence from British colonial rule in 1970, is resurgent
tribalism. Even after the historic July 18, 2003 judgment of the
Supreme Court, ordering Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase to include
representatives of the Fiji Labour Party in his Cabinet, the
Government has been playing truant. The address of the President,
Ratu Josefa Iloilo, to the joint session of Parliament on July 28
stressed the paramountcy of the indigenous Fijian community and
asserted that the Blueprint Action Programme contained in the
election manifesto of Soqosoqo Duavata ni Lewenivanua, the party of
the Prime Minister, would continue to be implemented. The Blueprint
is a 20-year development plan for the exclusive benefit of Fiji's
indigenous communities, including Rotumans.
When European colonisers gobbled up Melanesia in
the South Pacific in the 19th century, the Fiji archipelago
comprising 320 islands, not all inhabited and dubbed as Cannibal
Isles, had no takers. To get over this seeming neglect by the `white
man,' Ratu Seru Cakobau, high chief of Bau Island, embraced
Christianity in 1854, emerged as the most powerful among the high
chiefs, and proclaimed himself Tui Viti (King of Fiji). In 1874,
Cakobau, in consultation with the other high chiefs, requested Queen
Victoria of England to annex Fiji Islands to the British empire and
declared her as their Chief of Chiefs. Flattered by the honour, the
British allowed the chiefs to retain power traditionally exercised
by them, and formed the Bose Levu Vakaturaga (Great Council of
Chiefs), which, to this day, wields considerable power in Fiji.
Not knowing what to do with the latest acquisition
of the jewel in Britain's crown of colonies, Arthur Gordon, who was
appointed the Governor of Suva, capital of Fiji, requested his
principals to recruit indentured labourers from India to clear the
forests in Fiji and raise sugarcane plantations. Two labour depots
were opened, one in Kolkata and the other in Chennai. Between May
1879 and November 1916, when the indentured system was abolished,
60,553 workers were transported from India to Fiji in 87 ships.
According to the Girmit agreement, they were to work initially for a
period of five years, after which they would be set free, although
no return fare to India was offered. However, if they signed up for
another five years, they were promised return passage. Hardly anyone
chose to return. After the abolition of the indentured system, more
Indians, mostly from Gujarat, migrated to Fiji and entered into
business activities in their adopted country.
Having lived together for long in barracks in the
most inhuman conditions in the initial stages and subsequently among
aliens with a different culture, the Indian community, irrespective
of caste or creed, achieved a great degree of integration not
witnessed in its motherland. A hybrid Hindi became their lingua
franca. Hindus and Muslims lived as neighbours in complete harmony
and participated in each other's religious and social festivities.
Inter-caste and inter-religious marriages were quite common among
them.
Over years and decades, the gulf between the
indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians has widened. The two groups have
completely different attitudes and philosophies of life. The
indigenous Fijian culture is that of a communally kin-based
organisation, which restricts economic activity towards an
individualistic way of living. The Indo-Fijian attitude is to
achieve main ends in life by individual hard work. The Fijian chiefs
wanted to preserve the old order in which they have held a
privileged position. Commoners owed their chiefs allegiance and paid
them tribute in food and other material goods. Thus there existed
two separate orders and two different ways of life until Fiji became
independent.
While the indigenous Fijians were content to
remain a colony of Britain, Indo-Fijians wanted independence. They
formed the first political party in the country, the National
Federation Party (NFP), and agitated for independence. As a counter
move, indigenous Fijians organised the Alliance Party under the
leadership of Ratu Kamisese Mara, who eventually became the first
Prime Minister of Fiji. Under the 1970 Constitution of Fiji drawn up
by the British, Indo-Fijians, who accounted for 48 per cent of the
population, and indigenous Fijians, with 44 per cent, were given 22
seats each in the 52-member Parliament. Europeans, part-Europeans
and Chinese, who together constituted eight per cent of the
population, were given eight seats under the category of General
Electors. The Indo-Fijians' demand for a common electoral roll with
`one-man one-vote,' undiluted democracy, and no racialism was
rejected. With the support of the General Electors, the Alliance
Party was able to form the first Government after independence with
Ratu Mara as Prime Minister. He continued in office for a second
term. In the third general election held in 1987, the multi-racial
Fiji Labour Party (FLP) made its debut in alliance with the NFP and
swept the polls. Timoci Bavadra of the FLP, an indigenous Fijian,
became Prime Minister, but his 11-member Cabinet was dominated by
Indo-Fijians belonging to both the NFP and the FLP.
Lt. Col. Sitiveni Rabuka, a young officer of the
Fiji Army who had obtained a Master's degree in Defence Studies from
Madras University, staged a coup and brought the country under
military rule. Interestingly, the subject of his M.A. thesis was
"How to stage a successful coup." Promoting himself to the
rank of Major General, Rabuka abrogated the 1970 Constitution and
imposed a new one in 1992, under which Indo-Fijians were reduced to
second-class citizens; among other things, they could not hold the
office of President or Prime Minister. There was a mass migration of
Indo-Fijians to countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and
the United States. This altered the demographic profile of the
country. The process continues even to this day and the proportion
of Indo-Fijians in the population has come down to 44 per cent. Fiji
was suspended from the British Commonwealth while the European Union
and neighbours like Australia and New Zealand imposed economic
sanctions. The economy suffered and unemployment grew.
To arrest the trend, a new Constitution was drawn
up under the guidance of Sir Paul Reeves, a former Governor-General
of New Zealand, and endorsed by all political parties in Fiji. It
provided for a 71-member House of Representatives, in which 46
members were to be elected from four separate electoral rolls and 25
from an open electoral roll. Voters registered as indigenous Fijians
were to elect 23 members, Indo-Fijians 19, Rotumans one; and three
were to be elected from the mixed races roll. Under Article 99 of
this Constitution, any party that wins 10 per cent or more of the
total number of seats is entitled to be represented in the Cabinet
in proportion to its numbers and the Prime Minister must establish a
multi-party Government. The Constitution was adopted in 1997 and
elections were held in 1999. Mahendra Pal Chaudhry, who led the FLP
at the polls, emerged with a majority and became the first
Indo-Fijian Prime Minister.
Although Mr. Chaudhry did establish a multi-party
Cabinet by accommodating a couple of minor indigenous Fijian parties
with which the FLP had an electoral alliance, he kept the Soqosoqo
ni Vakavulewa ni Taukei, the party of Gen. Rabuka that had contested
the election on the slogan of "Fiji for the Fijians" and
emerged with more than 10 per cent seats, out of his Cabinet.
While the SVT was content to remain in the
Opposition, the powerful timber lobby that made millions of dollars
from the illegal logging of mahogany for which Fiji is famous,
pressed into service George Speight, a part-Fijian businessman, to
bring down the Chaudhry Government. Leading seven hooded men with
semi-automatic assault rifles and pistols and backed by certain
extreme right wing elements in the Fiji Army, Speight held Mr.
Chaudhry, his Cabinet colleagues, and MPs belonging to the ruling
coalition captives in Parliament House in Suva for nearly two
months. The armed forces in Fiji, incidentally, are the exclusive
preserve of the indigenous communities. Mr. Chaudhry, whose
ancestors hailed from Haryana, looked to India in vain. When Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi laid the foundation stone of the Girmit
Centre in Suva in 1981, she said: "I feel somewhat like a
mother about the welfare of a married daughter who has set up home
far away." Many years later, all that Prime Minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee could do was to say that the coup in Fiji was
"not acceptable to India."
Eventually the Army installed Mr. Qarase as
interim Prime Minister and he, in turn, set up a Government of
indigenous Fijians to the exclusion of Indo-Fijians. In the general
election that followed in 2001, Mr. Qarase's SDL won 32 seats, four
short of an absolute majority, and the FLP 27. Mr. Qarase enlisted
the support of like-minded parties such as the Conservative Alliance
Matanitu Vanua, the New Labour Unity Party, and two independents
while extending a formal invitation to Mr. Chaudhry to join his
Cabinet to fulfil the constitutional requirements without really
meaning it.
Mr. Chaudhry challenged the denial of
representation to the FLP in the Qarase Cabinet in the High Court,
the Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court and obtained favourable
verdicts. Mr. Qarase, left with no option, grudgingly agreed to
accommodate 14 FLP nominees without dropping his allies or reducing
the number of the SDL nominees in his 22-member Council of
Ministers. The FLP, however, can play a more effective role by
occupying the Opposition benches as willed by the people of Fiji in
the 2001 election. |