In exile at home : a Fiji-Indian story

Abstract

This DCA is essentially concerned with researching and making a film about the exile of approximately 60% of the indentured Indians laborers in Fiji who are now commonly known as girmitiyas. First let me briefly explain this term as it is repeated throughout this paper and the film. Girmit and girmitiya are derived from the word 'agreement' under which the Indian indentured laborers were taken to Fiji. They could not pronounce the word 'agreement', calling it 'girmit'. The word became part of the local language and today the indenture system is referred to by most historians as the girmit system and the indentured laborers as girmitiyas. This investigation attempts to reexamine Fiji's girmit history in order to find out why approximately 60% of Fiji girmitiyas did not return to their homes in India, and to present the findings in the form of a 45 minute documentary film. The initial task involves the investigation of Fiji's history to determine why approximately 35,000 (60%) of the original 60,500 girmitiyas did not return to their homes in India, as stipulated in their indenture agreement (girmit). Through this research, I hope to present a new thesis: that the majority of these girmitiyas were prevented from returning to India so that they could continue to provide cheap and much-needed labor on the sugarcane plantations in Fiji. I will also investigate how these girmitiyas made a home for themselves and their children in Fiji until the coups of 1987 in Fiji sent many of their descendants into exile from their adopted homes (a second exile of Indians of Fiji).

Date of Award	2010
Original language	English