Ram Singh (Fiji)

Last updated May 04, 2019

Babu Ram Singh was a Fiji Indian who had come to Fiji under the indenture system and was one of the few people who, after indenture, prospered and made an attempt to help his less fortunate ex-indentured brethren. Babu Ram Singhs surviving Business, Fiji Rubber Stamp Co Ltd is still under operation in Mark Street, Suva, and is looked after by his children.

Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean about 1,100 nautical miles northeast of New Zealand's North Island. Its closest neighbours are Vanuatu to the west, New Caledonia to the southwest, New Zealand's Kermadec Islands to the southeast, Tonga to the east, the Samoas and France's Wallis and Futuna to the northeast, and Tuvalu to the north. Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands—of which 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 is Ono-i-Lau. The two major islands, Viti Levu and Vanua Levu, account for 87% of the total population of 898,760. The capital, Suva, on Viti Levu, serves as the country's principal cruise-ship port. About three-quarters of Fijians live on Viti Levu's coasts, either in Suva or in smaller urban centres such as Nadi—where tourism is the major local industry—or Lautoka, where the sugar-cane industry is paramount. Due to its terrain, the interior of Viti Levu is sparsely inhabited.

The Indian indenture system was a system of indentured servitude, by which 2 million Indians were transported to labour in European colonies, as a substitute for slave labour, following the abolition of the trade in the early 19th century. The system expanded after the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 in the British Empire in 1833, and in the French Colonies in 1848, and continued until the 1920s. This resulted in the development of a large Indian diaspora in the Caribbean, Natal, Réunion, Mauritius, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Myanmar, to Fiji, as well as the growth of Indo-Caribbean and Indo-African populations.

Successful businessman

There were few roads in Fiji around 1900 and the main form of transportation was by boat. Ram Singh saw this as a business opportunity, acquired a launch and started providing passenger and cargo facilities to communities living along the coasts of the islands of Fiji and along the banks of its numerous rivers.^[1]

Leadership through Indian Imperial Association

Ram Singh was one of the founding members of the Indian Imperial Association of Fiji (IIA) and together with Totaram Sanadhya was instrumental in persuading Mahatma Gandhi to send an Indian lawyer, Manilal Doctor, to Fiji. Manilal arrived in 1912 and took up the leadership of the IIA, as President and Ram Singh became its Secretary.^[2] The Indian Imperial Association of Fiji (I.I.A.) came into existence in Fiji on 2 June 1918. The association contained mainly educated Fiji Indians. It sent petitions to the Government seeking review of marriage law, an end to the death penalty and representation into the Legislative Council. The aim of the association was to ‘watch the interests of and to assist in the general improvement of the Indian community in Fiji’. As president of the I.I.A., Manilal Doctor wrote to Mahatma Gandhi, other Indian leaders and the British Labour Party on the sad plight of Indian indentured labourers in Fiji. C.F. Andrews and W.W. Pearson were dispatched to Fiji to enquire into the complaints. Manilal Doctor made submissions for their report, published on 29 February 1916, which reported on the deplorable living conditions of the indentured labourers and their lack of access to education and medical facilities.

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.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was an Indian activist who was the leader of the Indian independence movement against British colonial rule. Employing nonviolent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific Mahātmā was applied to him first in 1914 in South Africa – is now used worldwide. In India, he was also called Bapu, a term that he preferred and Gandhi ji, and is known as the Father of the Nation.

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.

Ram Singh remained an active member of the IIA and in 1919 joined in the campaign to stop the resumption of the indenture system. Ram Singh and Manilal Doctor organised a conference, of Fiji Indians, in Suva on 26 December 1919, which passed resolutions highlighting the difficulties being faced by Indians in Fiji. The Government tried to ignore the IIA, but it led to the strike of Indian labourers which began on 15 January 1920. As a result of the strike, Manilal was deported from Fiji and the IIA collapsed. In 1924, Ram Singh tried to revive the IIA as the Indian Association of Fiji, with representatives from all sections of the Indian community and with the aims of moral social educational and political uplift of the Indians. The IIA made representations to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, but was ignored and became ineffective.^[3]

Suva is the capital and largest metropolitan city in Fiji. It is located on the southeast coast of the island of Viti Levu, in the Rewa Province, Central Division.

Member of Arya Samaj in Fiji

Ram Singh was a member of the Arya Samaj in Fiji. He was the printer and publisher of the Hindi language newspaper, Fiji Samachar and together with Vishnu Deo (who was the editor) was involved in conflict with other sections of the Indian community as a result of which he was sued for libel.^[4]

Pt. Vishnu Deo OBE was the first Fiji born and bred leader of the Indo-Fijians. From his initial election to the Legislative Council in 1929 to his retirement in 1959, he remained the most powerful Indo-Fijians political leader in Fiji. He was a staunch supporter of Arya Samaj in Fiji and also the editor of the first successful Hindi-language newspaper to be published in Fiji.

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Charles Freer Andrews was a Church of England priest. A Christian missionary, educator and social reformer in India, he became a close friend of Mahatma Gandhi and identified with the cause of India's independence. 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.

Badri Maharaj was an Indo-Fijian farmer, politician, and philanthropist. He was the first Indian member of the Legislative Council serving for two periods between 1916 and 1923 and 1926 to 1929 as a nominated member but he was not a popular choice for Fiji Indians, who preferred the lawyer, Manilal Doctor to be their representative. Despite his unpopularity, he was a man of principle and resigned from the Council in protest at what he believed was an unfair imposition of poll tax on the Fiji Indian people. He proposed an innovative system of Indian administration (panchayat) and showed himself to be ahead of his time by opposing child marriage and promoting education.

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.

The Muslims of Fiji comprise approximately 7% of the population (62,534). The Muslim community is made up of people of Indian origin, descendants of indentured labourers who were brought to the islands in the late 19th century by the British colonialist rulers of the time. There are also thought to be a few hundred Indigenous Fijian Muslims, such as the well-known politician Apisai Tora, but no accurate statistical data exist in this regard.

Unlike the bulk of Fiji's Indian population, who are descendents of Indian indentured labourers brought to Fiji between 1879 and 1916, the Gujaratis came to Fiji as free immigrants beginning in 1904. While the indentured labourers, on becoming free, generally took up farming, the Gujaratis were traders and craftsmen. In the Indo-Fijian population as a whole, the caste system disappeared within a few years of indenture, but the Gujaratis still maintain it and very rarely marry outside their caste. The Gujaratis continue to maintain strong links with India, usually sending their sons and daughters to be married there while the rest of Fiji's Indian population have little contact with their country of origin.

Thakur Kundan Pal Singh Kush (1881–1967) was an Arya Samaj missionary and teacher who arrived in Fiji, from Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, India in 1928. He first taught at the Dharamshala School in Nausori where he later became the founding Head Teacher of Vunimono Arya School in 1929. He taught in a number of Arya Samaj schools which included Gurukul Primary School near Lautoka in 1939, Arya Samaj Girls' School in Saweni, Lautoka, from 1940 to 1945, Swami Shraddanand Memorial School in Suva, Vunikavikaloa Arya School in Ra, and Veisari Primary School near Suva.

The Indian Reform League was formed in Fiji in 1924, following the refusal of the Suva Y.M.C.A. to admit Indians. Its founder was A.W. McMillan of the New Zealand Y.M.C.A and educated Indians and Government clerks and interpreters such as M. S. Buksh, S. S. Chowla, John F. Grant, Ilahi Ramzan, and Ram Narayan Deoki. Its aim was to carry out social work and apply pressure for social reform, like changes to marriage laws. Since most of its members were Indian Christians, it soon acquired a sectional character.

The Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Fiji is the national body for all the Arya Samajs in Fiji. It was formed in 1918 and registered as a religious body through the efforts of Manilal Doctor, who was in Fiji from 1912 to 1920 at the behest of Mahatma Gandhi to provide legal assistance to the Fiji Indians. Its first President was Swami Manoharanand Saraswati who had arrived in Fiji, from India, in 1913. The Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Fiji is affiliated to Sarvadeshik Arya Pratinidhi Sabha based in New Delhi.

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.

Hindu Maha Sabha was an organisation representing various Hindu organisations and was formed in Fiji in 1926, following the formation of All-India Hindu Maha Sabha in India. The formation of the organisation both in India and Fiji occurred after the assassination of Swami Shraddhanand, a Hindu activist in India. The formation of the Sabha in Fiji coincided with the formation of a national Muslim organisation, the Fiji Muslim League.

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 helped others in time of need. Some of the successful organisations are listed below in order in which they were established. Some, such as the National Federation Party, are no longer exclusively Indian, but are still predominantly so.

Indian Association of Fiji has been the name used by organisations formed at different times in the history of Fiji, to unite different groups within the Fiji Indian community to work to improve the plight of Indians in Fiji.

Indo-Fijians or Indian-Fijians, are Fiji citizens who are fully or partially of Indian descent, which includes descendants who trace their heritage from various regions of the Indian subcontinent. Although Indo-Fijians constituted a majority of the Fijian population from 1956 through the late 1980s, discrimination and the resulting brain drain has resulted in them numbering 313,798 (37.6%) out of a total of 827,900 people living in Fiji today.

References

↑ Sanadhya, Totaram (1991). My twenty-one years in the Fiji Islands. Fiji Museum. ISBN 982-208-003-4.
↑ Gillion, K.L. (1962). Fiji's Indian Migrants: A history to the end of indenture in 1920. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-550452-6.
↑ Gillion, K.L. (1977). The Fiji Indians: Challenge to European Dominance 1920 - 1946. Australian National University Press. ISBN 0-7081-1291-9.
↑ Gillion, K.L. (1977). The Fiji Indians: Challenge to European Dominance 1920 - 1946. Australian National University Press. ISBN 0-7081-1291-9.

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[1] Sanadhya, Totaram (1991). My twenty-one years in the Fiji Islands. Fiji Museum. ISBN 982-208-003-4.

[2] Gillion, K.L. (1962). Fiji's Indian Migrants: A history to the end of indenture in 1920. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-550452-6.

[3] Gillion, K.L. (1977). The Fiji Indians: Challenge to European Dominance 1920 - 1946. Australian National University Press. ISBN 0-7081-1291-9.

[4] Gillion, K.L. (1977). The Fiji Indians: Challenge to European Dominance 1920 - 1946. Australian National University Press. ISBN 0-7081-1291-9.