Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about 1,100 nautical miles north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands—of which about 110 are permanently inhabited—and more than 500 islets, amounting to a total land area of about 18,300 square kilometres (7,100 sq mi). The most outlying island group is Ono-i-Lau. About 87% of the total population of 924,610 live on the two major islands, Viti Levu and Vanua Levu. About three-quarters of Fijians live on Viti Levu's coasts, either in the capital city of Suva, or in smaller urban centres such as Nadi or Lautoka. The interior of Viti Levu is sparsely inhabited because of its terrain.
Dr. Ahmed Ali was a Fijian academic and politician who held Cabinet office several times from the late 1970s onwards. Unlike the majority of his fellow Indo-Fijians, he was aligned with the Alliance Party of Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara in the 1970s and 1980s, and with the Soqosoqo Duavata ni Lewenivanua Party of Laisenia Qarase in the early 2000s. He was one of only two Indo-Fijians to agree to serve in the interim government established in the wake of two military coups carried out to assert indigenous political supremacy in 1987.
Charles Freer Andrews was an Anglican priest and Christian missionary, educator and social reformer, and an activist for Indian independence. He became a close friend of Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi and identified with the Indian liberation struggle. He was instrumental in convincing Gandhi to return to India from South Africa, where Gandhi had been a leading light in the Indian civil rights struggle.
The Catholic Church in Fiji is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the canonical authority and spiritual leadership of the Pope of Rome.
Leonidas was a labour transport ship (schooner) that played an important role in the history of Fiji. She had been earlier used to carry indentured labourers to the West Indies, having transported 580 Indian indentured labourers to St Lucia in 1878. Captained by McLachlan, the ship departed from Calcutta, India on 3 March 1879 and arrived at Levuka, Fiji, on 14 May that year. The indentured labourers who disembarked were the first of over 61,000 to arrive from the Indian subcontinent over the following 37 years, forming the nucleus of the Fiji Indian community that now numbers close to forty per cent of Fiji's population.
Sadhu Vashist Muni was a Hindu missionary from India, who came into prominence in Fiji when he assumed the leadership of the strike in the western districts of Fiji in 1921. Mystery surrounded him during his short stay in Fiji and tales of his miraculous deeds still circulate in Fiji. The Government could not find out much about him from its sources of intelligence but deported him in the belief that he was an agent of Gandhi. After his arrest, the Government House in Suva was struck by lightning and destroyed which only heightened the belief in the power this mysterious sadhu.
Manilal Maganlal Doctor was a British Indian barrister and politician, who travelled to numerous countries of the British Empire, including Fiji, Mauritius and Aden, providing legal assistance to the local ethnic Indian population. He met Gandhi, who asked him to go to Mauritius, where he represented Indo-Mauritians in court and edited a newspaper, The Hindustani. Gandhi later informed him of the need for a barrister in Fiji and he arrived in Fiji in 1912. In Fiji he also represented Indo-Fijians in court, started a newspaper, Indian Settler and established an organisation for Fiji Indians, known as the Indian Imperial Association. In 1916 when he was by-passed for nomination to the Legislative Council of Fiji, his relationship with the Government of Fiji deteriorated. The Government accused him of the violence and sabotage of the 1920 strike and deported him. He was barred from practicing law in several British colonies. He later managed to practice law in Aden, Somalia and Bihar State in India but spent his final days in Bombay.
Hinduism in Fiji is the second-largest religion, and primarily has a following among Indo-Fijians, the descendants of indentured workers brought to Fiji by the British as cheap labour for colonial sugarcane plantations. Hindus started arriving in Fiji starting in 1879 and continuing through 1920, when Britain abolished the slavery-like indenture system. Fiji identifies people as "Indo-Fijians" if they can trace their ancestry to the Indian subcontinent, Hindus form about 27.9% the population of Fiji.
Totaram Sanadhya (1876–1947) was deceitfully recruited as an indentured labourer from India and brought to Fiji in 1893. He spent five years working as a bonded labourer but was never afraid to fight for his rights. After completing his indenture he established himself as a small farmer and a Hindu priest but spent most of his time trying to assist the less fortunate still under the bondage of indenture. He sought the help of Indian freedom fighters and missionaries and encouraged the migration to Fiji of Indian teachers and lawyers who, he believed, could improve the plight of Indians in Fiji. After living in Fiji for twenty-one years, he returned to India, in 1914, and wrote about his experience in the book, "My Twenty-One Years in the Fiji Islands" (Hindi). This book was used as the main source of information in the campaign to end the Indian indenture system.
Islam in Fiji is the third largest religion. There are about 60,000 Muslims in Fiji. Muslims in Fiji are mostly Sunni Muslim with a Shia and Ahmadiyya minority. In the 1966 Fiji elections, a Suva-based Muslim communal party, the Muslim Political Front, took part. Presently, Urdu and an Urduized/Arabized/Persianized form of Fiji Hindi is widely taught among Muslim schools for the Fijian Muslims all across Fiji.
The Indians in Fiji are mainly descendants of the 15,132 contract labourers who were brought to Fiji between 1903 and 1916. This represents about 25% out of a total of 60,965 contract labourers who were brought to Fiji between 1879 and 1916. They were forced in to ships from Madras and were mainly recruited in the districts of North Arcot, Madras, Krishna, Godavari, Visakhapatnam, Tanjore, Malabar and Coimbatore. More than half of the labourers from South India were recruited from North Arcot and Madras, but most of those recruited in Madras were originally from North Arcot and Chingleput.
Hannah Dudley (1862–1931) was a Methodist mission sister who worked amongst Indo-Fijians in the Suva area of Fiji for 13 years. She had few educational qualifications but was revered for her kind-heartedness and self-sacrifice. Indo-Fijians in Suva called her Hamari Mataji. She did her work with dedication but was sometimes eccentric and independent minded.
The Poonah, named after the city of Poonah in western India, was a three masted sailing ship of 1199 tons, owned by Tyser & Haviside and was built in 1867 by William Pile at Sunderland.
Dr Anirudh Singh is a Fiji Indian academic who has undertaken research on muon implantation in solids but is best known for the stand he has taken on national issues, in particular those relating to social inequities in Fiji, resulting from the 1987 military take-over of the Fijian Government.
Unlike the majority of Fiji's Indian population, who are descendants of Indian indentured labourers brought to Fiji between 1879 and 1916, most of the Sikhs came to Fiji as free immigrants. Most Sikhs established themselves as farmers. Sikhs also came to Fiji as policemen, teachers and preachers. In recent years large numbers of Sikhs have emigrated from Fiji, especially to the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. Sikhs in Fiji are generally referred to as Punjabis. Total population of sikhs in Fiji is around 3600. Discourse on the experiences and histories of Fijian Sikhs tends to subsume them under discourse framed in terms of other South Asian groups.
This is a synopsis of organisations formed by Indians in Fiji. When they became free from the bondage of indenture and were able to organise themselves, they founded numerous organizations to seek social and political justice. These organisations promoted the teaching of Indian languages and religious practices and also to help others in time of need. Some of the successful organisations are listed below in the order in which they were established. Some, such as the National Federation Party, are no longer exclusively Indian, but are still predominantly so.
The Indian Association of Fiji is the name used by organisations established in Fiji seeking to unite different groups within the Fiji Indian community to facilitate the plight of Indians in Fiji.
Indo-Fijians, also known as Indian Fijians, are Fijian citizens of South Asian descent, and include people who trace their ancestry to various regions of the Indian subcontinent. Although Indo-Fijians constituted a majority of Fiji's population from 1956 through the late 1980s, discrimination and the resulting brain drain resulted in them numbering 313,798 (37.6%) out of a total of 827,900 people living in Fiji as of 2007.
There is a small Nepalese community in Fiji, scattered all over the two main Islands of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu.
The majority of Fiji's islands were formed through volcanic activity starting around 150 million years ago. Today, some geothermic activity still occurs on the islands of Vanua Levu and Taveuni. Fiji was settled first by the Lapita culture, around 1,500–1,000 years BC, followed by a large influx of people with predominantly Melanesian genetics about the time of the beginning of the Common Era. Europeans visited Fiji from the 17th century, and, after a brief period as an independent kingdom, the British established the Colony of Fiji in 1874. Fiji was a Crown colony until 1970, when it gained independence as the Dominion of Fiji. A republic was declared in 1987, following a series of coups d'état.
