the Indo-Fijian experience

423 Pages·2004·2.28 MB·English

by  Emily Brissenden

BITTERSWEET
‘… stories of fears and fractured hopes, of leaving
home, an epitaph to a threatened culture.'
EDITED BY BRIJ V. LAL
Pandanus Online Publications, found at the Pandanus Books
web site, presents additional material relating to this book.
www.pandanusbooks.com.au

BITTERSWEET

BITTERSWEET
the Indo-Fijian experience
EDITED BY BRIJ V. LAL
Photographs by Peter Hendrie
PANDANUS BOOKS
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
THEAUSTRALIAN NATIONALUNIVERSITY
Cover: An Indo-Fijian girl, Nadi market, 1999. Photograph by Peter Hendrie.
© Brij V. Lal2004
This book is copyright in all countries subscribing to the Berne convention.
Apartfrom any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism
orreview, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by
anyprocess without written permission.
Typeset in Goudy 11pt on 14pt and printed by Pirion, Canberra
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Bittersweet : the Indo-Fijian experience.
ISBN 1 74076 117 0.
1. East Indians — Fiji — History. 2. Fiji — History. I. Lal, Brij V.
996.11
Editorial inquiries please contact Pandanus Books on 02 6125 3269
www.pandanusbooks.com.au
Published by Pandanus Books, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies,
The Australian National University, Canberra ACT0200 Australia
Pandanus Books are distributed by UNIREPS, University of New South Wales,
Sydney NSW2052 Telephone [phone] Fax [phone]
Production: Ian Templeman, Justine Molony and Emily Brissenden
For Indo-Fijians
At home and abroad
This is my mother country. The same place you live in,
the same place I live in. You must think about that. My
mother and father came to this country. They work hard
here. Where can we go? Tell me. We must stay here and
die here. No other place. That’s the important part. We
must remember that.
‘Babuji’ Bechu Prasad, Indo-Fijian, Sabeto, 102 years old
GREETINGS
NAMASKAR
Every inheritance is alike beneficial and baneful;every historically
conscious society has had to reassess that balance for itself.
David Lowenthal
ANNIVERSARIES mark milestones and measure the passage of
time. Whether they celebrate some event of personal or
collective significance — a birthday, wedding, national
independence, the end of a conflict; or remember a loss — the
death of a friend, family member or public figure (or the ravages
of a natural disaster) — they provide an opportunity for
reflection and introspection. We often remember the way things
were nostalgically: how we dressed then, how slim we looked, the
friends we had, the pranks we played, the things that gave us joy
and hope or created fear and anxiety. We recall false prophets,
false steps and false dawns. We talk wistfully about what might
have been, why and how things turned out the way they did, the
role we might have played in shaping our destiny. And, from the
myriad images and impressions that cloud our minds and
compete for our attention, we construct meanings and models to
confront the future. For intensely personal moments, memory is
often all we have with which to contemplate the meaning and
purpose of our time onEarth.
This collection marks the 125th anniversary of the arrival
of the Indian people in Fiji. The experience and the predicaments
of the Indo-Fijian community have been well chronicled. Even
so, much work remains to be done, especially on its inner social,
cultural and spiritual experience, its symbols, rituals and
ceremonies, which impart coherence and continuity; the way its
people see themselves and their place on the national stage. We
attempt to capture not the totality of the Indo-Fijian experience
— an impossible task — but diverse and scattered fragments
which illuminate its broad patterns through essays, memoirs
and recollections. They are about personal journeys and
transformations, chance encounters, individual discoveries, private
moments, unexpected revelations as well as overarching themes
and concerns that touch some aspect of the community’s life but
which, as a general rule, do not find a place in conventional
historical narratives. Each contribution has its own unique
character, its own distinctive voice, but collectively they throw a
sharper beam of light on to a troubled people caught in a world at
once complex and conflicted, with its fair share of benevolence
and violence, greed and generosity, curiosity and nonchalance,
ambition and despair, purpose and powerlessness, emptiness and
anticipation.
It remains for me to thank the contributors – some of
them writing for publication for the first time — for responding
so readily to my request to write. Without them, of course, this
book would not exist. I am delighted in niggling middle-age to
include in the collection representatives of a younger generation
who were school-age children, not much more, when the
centenary celebrations took place in 1979. Among them are
Indo-Fijians living in Fiji and in the diaspora as well as ‘outsiders’
who have become honoured ‘insiders’ through their enduring
cross-cultural relationships, deep cultural affinity and imaginative
sympathy. I hope that their creative spirit will not be sapped by
the exigencies of earning aliving in a brutally competitive world.
More power to their pen — or word processor. Donald Denoon
and Hank Nelson, my colleagues in Pacific and Asian History at