Role of Youths in the Cultural Survival during Indenture
In 1874, Fiji became a British colony. Between 1879 to 1916 the colonial government brought in about 60,500 laborers from India under a five-year ‘agreement’, Girmit, to work on the sugar cane plantations (Lal 2017).
The colonial government introduced the indenture system after slavery was declared illegal in 1833.
They took the first batch of Indians under the indenture system to Mauritius in 1834 and to the other colonial countries.
The last country to receive the Indian labourers was Fiji.
Uprooted from their home land, these indentured labourers had no idea where they were going.
While some were tricked into coming to Fiji, others chose to travel for work.
This phenomenon to travel for work has always been part of any human society.
Today we are witnessing a lot of young people travelling abroad for better pay.
Since they were promised a very good pay by the recruiters, many chose to travel.
The most important thing to remember about the indentured labourers is that almost all of them
were young.
They were youths mostly below the age of 30.
Two reasons for this age group to travel was that firstly this group would have chosen to travel for better pay and the colonial government would only recruit young people who could work on the plantation.
These young people while on the journey to Fiji abandoned most of
Fiji Government the inhibitions of the caste system and developed a brotherly love for each other known as Jahaji bhai. This can be regarded as the first progressive thought of the indentured labourers coming out of India.
One great example of a young man who travelled to Fiji and later became a prominent person was Tota Ram Sanadhya.
He was only 16 when he left India
and though he was a Brahmin by birth he got himself registered as a Thakur.
The demands of the plantation work coupled with the atrocities committed by the overseers on the farm made life a narak ‘hell’.
To find some inner peace, the migrants turned to their religious texts for spiritual peace most of the time.
This saw the beginning of the organisation of the cultural and religious life of the indentured labourers.
As days and years went by different religious organisations began establishing themselves in Fiji.
The tradition of reciting Ramayan and forming
Mandalis became a major religious system.
It was done under the Sanatan tradition and in 1930 Pandit Ram Chandra Sharma gave it a formal recognition in Ba.
Similarly in 1894 the Kabir Panth was formed by Babu Ora Das and in 1904 the Arya Samaj movement was formed.
In 1923 the Fiji Sikh Society was established and from as early as 1915 Muslim associations such as the Anjuman-i-Hidayat-ul-Islam (1915), the Anjuman Ishait El Islam (1916), and the Anjuman-e-Islam (1919) with separate social and cultural focuses emerged (Ali, 2004). The Fiji Muslim league was established in 1926. Also, in 1926 under the inspiration of Sadhu Kuppuswami, the TISI Sangam was formed in Nadi. All these religious organisations were formed by the young indentured labourers.
Senior people of each group began arriving from India to organise them better but the fact remains that it was the girmitiya’s themselves who took the initiative.
The other major growth parallel with the religious organisations was the school system.
All these groups established schools in communities to provide education for the young ones.
That shows their foresight for the future where they knew that investing in education will bring the best for the future generations.
The perseverance of the Girmitya’s is a living example for our youths today. They have left a lasting lesson that to do something for the society and the country, age should not be a factor. We can all play a major role in the national development of the country.