Journey to the Isles of Fiji from Ghar Mata

By Judge Ray Singh CBE

As a young person growing up in Fiji it was great fun, mixing with a very close-knit family at the same time a very wide range of friends. I was particularly interested in finding out about where my great grandparents had come from and why, but never had the opportunity of talking about it with my MGGF and MGF as they both died before I could talk to them. However, I was fortunate to have met my dear Par Nani and Nani both whom of I was very closely connected with. However, the information really came from my PGF, Baba Shankar Singh, s/o Raghunath Singh, s/o Hari Singh. Baba and I would sit together with questions galore for him. The history he outlined was that he and his friend Maslam Baba were young men looking for employment when they were approached by a gentleman (presumably a recruiting officer), and they were offered jobs with good money; they were to work on an island not far from the shores of India. Both these young men were allured with a promise of good money, privileges “of coming home every week, two weeks or monthly”. Both decided to accept those mouthwatering offers and talked about surprising their parents by bringing home lots of money and settled for returning home once a month. Both sent messages through friends left behind to their respective families that both had secured good job with lots of money and they’ll back at the end of the month. They, like many others signed up their “Girmit”.

As the days turned into weeks and weeks into month, they began to wonder if in fact “they had been kidnapped “as the Leonidas seemed to be sailing forever!! By the time Leonidas got them to the Isles of Fiji, on the 14/5/179 many recruits had died en route, not being able to fulfil their ambitions to earn lots of money for the the support of their poor families. Instead, they were taken to sugar cane plantation, where they toiled the land for 12 or more hours each day, in cloudless sun with temperatures raging in the mid-thirties to forty. The generous offer of paradise was nowhere to be seen or experienced. In the early days their living conditions were appalling.

They worked hard despite being removed from their culture, family and religion and amidst daily bouts of rejection and discrimination they made a home for themselves in Fiji, Apparently the previous recruits from China were not suited to ‘toiling the sugar cane farms’. There were no proper communication structures in place leading to many girmytias never having the opportunity of either seeing their loved ones or having any communication with them.

The story of my PGF and his friend Maslam Baba is one of tragic and heartbreaking beginning of their lives in Vatuwaqa, Suva. Maslam Baba’s mental health took its toll on him. They were devastated not to be able to see or communicate with their loved ones, many many carried their memories of home and their loved ones to their graves.

My grandfather would stop me once I would start asking him questions about his family in India, but often I saw him wipe off his tears, without uttering a word and looking up to the heavens, and as I write/speak these words my eyes are filled with tears! The Girmitiers’ brought their culture and religion with them and practised it in harmony, without treading on their newly imposed home.

Despite their contributions to the economy and education and all areas of development of infrastructure in Fiji, the indigenous population never made Girmitiars feel welcome and allow them to call Fiji their ‘home’. They toiled the lands, but many never were able to own it as the majority of the lands fell under the jurisdiction of the Native Lands National Trusts, and as such the ownership of laid with the Chiefs of The Villages. These hardworking men and women lived and toiled the lands at the mercy of the Fijian Chiefs, many of whom were the supporters of Sitiveni Rabuka, who brought the hatred and rejection of the indentured labourers to the surface in his first coup to overthrow Sir Ratu Mara’s Coalition Government which had embraced the up coming Indian politicians and forced third/ fourth generation to’ leave or die’, thus “evicting them “and making them yet “another group of travellers”. Many lost all the assets, businesses they had worked to build and what their parents had invested and found themselves exiting the beautiful Islands, never to return making ‘yet another home again’.