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Indentured workers in Fiji. Credit: Fiji Museum
From 1879, across four decades, more than 60,000 Indians were brought to the British colony of Fiji under the indentured labour system.
They endured gruelling conditions in the canefields and the sugar mills.
If you woke up late... you got whipped.Hausildar, former indentured worker
Today, the emotional trauma of that era is still being felt by many of their descendants.
This episode of Our Pacific explores the arrival of indentured workers from India in Fiji, and their legacy.
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SBS acknowledges the traditional custodians of country and their connections and continuous care for the skies, lands and waterways across Australia.
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SBS Examines, Our Pacific is a series which celebrates the journeys of Pacific peoples, the stories and the issues which connect Australia and the Pacific.
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For SBS Examines, Our Pacific, I'm Suhayla Sharif.
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Identity is an issue many Australians from migrant families grapple with.
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And it's a challenge facing a new generation of Indo-Fijians born in Australia to parents from Fiji who trace their roots back to India.
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But there is one historical event which stands out as a marker in their search for identity.
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On the 14th of May 1879, a ship called the Leonidas landed in Fiji. On board was the first group of contracted labourers from India. They and those who followed became known as Girmit, a take on the word Agreement.
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The echoes of this history are still having a significant social impact on today's generations in Fiji and abroad.
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Well, the scars of Girmit will remain for a long time.
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Satendra Nandan is an Indo-Fijian
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author and poet who has written about the journey of Girmit from India through the sugar cane fields of Fiji and into the modern era, but the story of Girmit actually begins even earlier than the first arrival.
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Driven by a demand for cheap labour to do the work formerly done by slaves, the British implemented a system known as indentured labour.
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This meant workers were bound to an employer by contract for a fixed period.
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Indentured labourers would often have to repay debt for travel, housing, and food.
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In many situations, the conditions were exploitative and harsh.
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It was this system that was used to build a sugar industry in the British colony of Fiji. India was identified as a preferred source for cheap labour to contract. From 1879, across four decades, more than 60,000 labourers were indentured or bonded to work in Fiji's sugar cane industry. But Satendra Nandan says their journey to a new way of life was something few could have anticipated.
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The condition of course in the ship in which they were carried was no different or maybe slightly different from what the conditions must have been on slave ships from Africa to America and other parts of the world.
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Fiji-born but Australian raised Shivanjani Lal says the Leonidas arrival is deeply personal, as her ancestor was among those on board.
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You know, I was aware that there was like over 400 people that came over on that ship, but I didn't think children would be part of that conversation. Like I like I feel heartbroken by the idea that a child who probably didn't know how to read and write was put onto a ship. That's devastating.
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Life in the sugarcane fields was characterised by a cycle of hard labour and strict control. The labourers called it Narak, the Hindi word for hell.
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In an interview with the Fiji Times newspaper, a former indentured labourer reflected on his life in the canefields.
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If we woke up late, that is later than 3 a.m., you got whipped. No matter what happened, whether there was rain or thunder, you had to work. We were here to work and work we had to do. Otherwise we were abused and beaten up. Hausildar, former indentured labourer.
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But from the hardship and despair of the canefields, author Satendra Nandan writes about the emergence of a communal spirit, a fierce will to survive, and a never waning hope for a brighter future.
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And they created their own little temples, uh, for identity, their mosques and later the gurudwares, etc.
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The temples and the mosques and the gurudwares and other holy places gave the Indians a sense of identity and also a sense of value of education and ceremonies for Indians who grew up. We grew up with all kinds of celebrating.
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All the holy festivals like holy Diwali, Ramnovi, Krishnashtami, Eid, etc. But the point is that I think one of the lucky things that happened in Fiji, they were given freedom to worship their gods.
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In 1916, the final ship carrying indentured labourers from India arrived in Fiji, with the last contracts terminated on New Year's Day in 1920, the end of an era, but Satendra Nandan says it didn't end the hardship nor the enduring sense of injustice.
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Well, the scars of Girmit will remain for a long time and unfortunately,
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The scars were deepened during the coups. National identity like that is important in making children think as Fijians rather than Fiji Indian or Indo-Fijian or Europeans or part Europeans or native Itaukei, etc. That will take a long time.
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For Shivanjani Lal, there still lingers persistent intergenerational pain.
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Lots of people or different peoples, uh, figuring it out on their own terms and like I think like my dad, going into that Ramayana situation is like a way of how to navigate that trauma, I think some form of accountability feels really important because, you know, the 150th anniversary is coming up, you know, it's like 3 years away.
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It's sort of one of the largest Indian, Indo-Fijian communities lives in Australia, outside of Fiji.
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It's probably like another 60,000 people here. I don't know if it would change things, but I think it would begin things in a very different way.
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This episode was produced by Tavishek Sharma and Tuipoloa Evan Charlton and presented by Suhayla Sharif.
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To find out more, search as SBS Examines, Our Pacific.
