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The National Congress of Fiji was a Fijian political party that existed from 1965 to 1967. It was created to represent Indo-Fijians as a rival to the Citizens Federation. [1] It soon merged, along with the General Electors Association, which mainly represented Fijians of European descent, to form the Alliance Party.
The National Congress of Fiji formed on 10 January 1965 at the Kisan Sangh Hall in Lautoka, in front of 1,500 farmers, led by Ayodhya Prasad.[ citation needed ] The Congress sent a telegram to the Secretary General of the United Nations stating that 80,000 Fiji Indians wanted to settle in a foreign country. The purpose of the telegram was to draw the attention of the United Nations to the plight of the Fiji Indians.[ citation needed ] The telegram had the desired result, as under pressure from the United Nations the Colonial Secretary called a Constitutional Conference for 26 July 1965.
Prasad and the Congress were bitterly opposed to A. D. Patel and the Federation Party. Prasad believed that A.D. Patel actually did not want independence for Fiji and used the fear of common roll to deter other groups from agreeing to independence.[ citation needed ] On 21 July 1965, before the delegates departed for the London constitutional conference, the Congress called a meeting in which Fijian and European members of the Legislative Council were invited. The purpose of the meeting was to ensure that delegates to the London Conference were aware that there was at least one group of Fiji Indians willing to work with other groups to achieve independence.[ citation needed ]
In October 1965, Prasad met Ratu Kamisese Mara and suggested the establishment of a new political party made up of the Fijian Association and National Congress of Fiji.[ citation needed ] Kamisese Mara got the Europeans to join up as well and several meetings were held before it was decided on 29 November 1965 to form the Alliance Party. The Alliance was formed on 12 March 1966 with the coming together of the Fijian Association, National Congress of Fiji, General Electors Association, Suva Rotuman Association, Rotuman Convention, Chinese Association, All-Fiji Muslim Political Front, Fiji Minority Party and the Tongan Organization, along with Vijay R. Singh, who joined it independently. [2]
For the 1966 elections, the Alliance Party asked the National Congress to put forward names of its candidates. Prasad put his own name for the Western cross-voting seat, while K. S. Reddy was nominated for the Nadi/Nadroga seat and James Shankar Singh for the Ba seat. Singh, was able to use his influence with Kamisese Mara to have the Western cross-voting ticket given to Reddy and the Nadi/Nadroga ticket (against Patel) given to Prasad.[ citation needed ] This incident showed both Prasad and Singh trying to outmaneuver each other for the leadership of Indians in the Alliance Party. Prasad lost to Patel by 7601 votes to 4025 votes and Reddy won against his Federation party opponent. The Alliance party took 23 seats during this election. [3]
Originally Indians had joined the Alliance Party as members of the National Congress, but Singh encouraged people to join the Party directly[ citation needed ]. Prasad believed that the Indians would have a better say in the Alliance Party if they joined it through the National Congress but was powerless to prevent the move to direct membership as he was afraid that this would be seen as an attempt by him to destabilise the Alliance Party. With failing health he could do little and the National Congress was wound up in 1967.
The Alliance Party, was the ruling political party in Fiji from 1966 to 1987. Founded in the early 1960s, its leader was Kamisese Mara, the founding father of the modern Fijian nation. Widely seen as the political vehicle of the traditional Fijian chiefs, the Alliance Party also commanded considerable support among the Europeans and other ethnic minorities, who, although comprising only 3–4% of Fiji's population, were over represented in the parliament. Indo-Fijians were less supportive, but the Fijian-European block vote kept the Alliance Party in power for more than twenty years.
Articles about people, places, things, and concepts related to or originating from Fiji, include:
Siddiq Moidin Koya was a Fijian Indian politician, Statesman and Opposition leader. He succeeded to the leadership of the mostly Indo-Fijian National Federation Party (NFP) on the death of the party's founder, A. D. Patel, in October 1969, remaining in this post until 1977. He later served a second term as leader of the NFP, from 1984 to 1987.
General elections were held in Fiji between 15 and 29 April 1972, the first since independence from the United Kingdom in 1970. They were characterised by the lack of rancour between racial groups, typical of the 1966 general election and the 1968 by-elections.
The National Federation Party is a Fijian political party founded by A.D. Patel in November 1968, as a merger of the Federation Party and the National Democratic Party. Though it claims to represent all Fiji Islanders, it is supported, in practice, almost exclusively by Indo-Fijians whose ancestors had come to Fiji between 1879 and 1916, mostly as indentured labourers. However, in the 2018 general election, the party recorded a considerable change in its support base due to the inclusion of more indigenous Fijian candidates.
"General Electors" is the term formerly used in Fiji to identify citizens of voting age who belonged, in most cases, to ethnic minorities. The 1997 Constitution defined General Electors as all Fiji citizens who were not registered as being of Fijian, Indian, or Rotuman descent. Also included were citizens who did qualify to be registered in the above categories, but who chose not to be. Persons of biracial or multiracial ancestry could opt to enroll either as General Electors, or as descendants of any of the other three groups to which they had an ancestral claim. General Electors were thus a diverse electorate, whose members included Europeans, Chinese, Banaban Islanders, and many smaller groups. They were allocated 3 seats in the House of Representatives, the lower and more influential house of the Fijian Parliament.
Sir Vijay Raghubar Singh, KBE was an Indo-Fijian lawyer and politician who held Cabinet office in the 1960s and 1970s. Vijay Singh served in Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara's government in a variety of positions, including Attorney-General, and was president of the Indian Alliance, a division of the ruling Alliance Party. He quit the party in 1979 following disagreement with Alliance leadership and later joined the opposition National Federation Party. Vijay Singh was involved in the restructure of the Fiji sugar industry and was a leading member of the Jaycees movement in Fiji.
Ambalal Dahyabhai Patel, better known as A.D. Patel, was an Indo-Fijian politician, farmers' leader and founder and leader of the National Federation Party. Patel was uncompromisingly committed to a vision of an independent Fiji, with full racial integration. He was one of the first to advocate a republic, an ideal not realized in his lifetime. He also advocated a common voters' roll and opposed the communal franchise that characterized Fijian politics.
General elections were held in Fiji between 26 September and 8 October 1966, the last before independence in 1970 and the first held under universal suffrage. The result was a victory for the Alliance Party, which won 23 of the 34 elected seats. Its leader Kamisese Mara became the country's first Chief Minister the following year.
Communal constituencies were the most durable feature of the Fijian electoral system. In communal constituencies, electors enrolled as ethnic Fijians, Indo-Fijians, Rotuman Islanders, or General electors vote for a candidate of their own respective ethnic groups, in constituencies that have been reserved by ethnicity. Other methods of choosing parliamentarians came and went, but this feature was a constant until their final abolition in the 2013 Constitution.
Ayodhya Prasad Sharma was an Indo-Fijian farmers' leader and politician. He formed the most successful farmers' union in Fiji and forced the Colonial Sugar Refining Company to make concessions to farmers after 60 years of total control over Fiji's economy. However, other Indo-Fijian leaders formed rival unions and his initial success was not repeated. He also served as a member of the Legislative Council between 1953 and 1959.
Akhil Fiji Krishak Maha Sangh was a sugar cane farmers' union formed on 15 June 1941 in opposition to the existing union, the Kisan Sangh. Supporters of Kisan Sangh tried to stop the formation of the Maha Sangh but were unsuccessful. The people responsible for the formation of a second sugar cane farmers' union were A. D. Patel and Swami Rudrananda. The union was supported by the South Indian sugar cane farmers in Fiji.
James Shankar Singh, MBE was a Fiji Indian farmer, businessman, social worker and politician who served as a Minister in the Alliance Government of Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara. Like many Fiji Indian politicians of the era, he joined the Alliance Party with a belief in mutiracialism, but was disappointed with the Alliance Party's appeal to Fijian nationalism after 1977 and left the Alliance to join the National Federation Party.
Andrew Indar Narayan Deoki was an Indo-Fijian statesman who served his community as a social and religious leader, soccer administrator, member of the Legislative Council and Senate in independent Fiji and as Attorney General.
The Federation Party was Fiji's first formal political party. The Citizens Federation, which had won three of the four seats reserved for Indo-Fijians at the 1963 elections, decided to formalize its role as a political party, which was officially founded on 21 June 1964 with A. D. Patel as President and Sidiq Koya as Vice-President. The merger took place in time for the party to participate in the 1965 constitutional conference which was called to map out a path towards independence from the United Kingdom. In 1968, the Federation Party merged with the National Democratic Party to form the National Federation Party, which is now (2021) the oldest political party in Fiji still in existence.
Krishna Subba Reddy was a Fiji Indian school teacher, leader of a farmers' union and both a nominated and elected member of the Legislative Council. Although he started his political career as an ally of A. D. Patel, disputes over the leadership style of A. D. Patel led to a split within the farmers' union that they both led and later they became members of opposing political parties. After independence, he was elected to the House of Representatives as an Alliance member and also served as an assistant minister.
The Citizens Federation was the political expression of a predominantly Indo-Fijian trade union movement, and was a forerunner of the present day National Federation Party.
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.
Sir John Neil Falvey, K.B.E., Q.C. was a New Zealand-born Fijian lawyer, who served as Attorney General of Fiji from 1970 to 1977. Previously, he had served as legal adviser to the Fijian Affairs Board.
