Citizenship and belonging
THIS series was prompted by an unexpected reference to Fijians of Indian descent as “visitors” at this juncture in Fiji’s evolution into a modern nation. It needs to be noted that some nations evolve around ethnic groups while others arise from an affiliation to a socio-politically developed constitution. The concept of nation in a multi-cultural setting like Fiji involves concessions, compromises, accommodation and copious amounts of trust and goodwill.
This is how the landmark 1970 constitution came into being. It was the work of people who decided that trust and goodwill were necessary for Fiji to gain its independence. I mentioned earlier that this magnanimity became contentious as soon as Ratu Mara advocated affirmative action in education for Fijians in 1973. The fact that political discourse became adversarial right from the outset in the 1890s did not help in this regard.
The two major ethnically demarcated political parties were at loggerheads for 17 years after independence. There were too many obstacles in finding common ground between Fiji’s two major communities. All of this came to a head in 1987 when the Alliance Party lost to a multiethnic coalition involving the NFP and the newly formed Fiji Labour Party. The carefully crafted order of the 1970 constitution was disrupted and Fiji witnessed its first coup d’etat.
... Ratu Mara managed to include Indo-Fijian input in discussions
that led to the formation of the heavily ethnically-weighted 1990 constitution.
– Dr Subhash Appanna
issue until it was too late, but that is not the purpose of this article.
What needs to be highlighted is that Ratu Mara managed to include IndoFijian input in discussions that led to the formation of the heavily ethnicallyweighted 1990 constitution. The two Indo-Fijian reps, Fred Achari and Irene Jai Narayan, were roundly criticised by the Indo-Fijian community at the time, but their involvement helped keep the Indo-Fijian hand within the ambit of that constitution-building experiment.
A key inclusion in that constitution that appeared to have been missed by critics at the time read: “This Constitution shall be reviewed after a period of time but before the end of seven years after the promulgation of this Constitution. Thereafter, the Constitution shall be reviewed every 10 years” (Section 161). In other words, that was not the end of the road in working out a constitutional presence for the Indo-Fijian in Fiji.
I am reliably informed that it was upon Ratu Mara’s insistence that this provision was included in the 1990 constitution. It paved the way for what was to follow after the 1992 elections. After all, the 1990 constitution was not a consensus document, but Fiji needed to return to parliamentary rule with haste. This is why some researchers refer to the 1990 constitution as an “interim constitution” prepared by an “interim government” aimed at leading the country to a more permanent platform for democratic governance.
The Coup of 1987
A short personal journey through a coup-ravaged Fiji was covered through three personal experiences of the author in the last article. That was just the tip of the iceberg; there are many recorded as well as unrecorded tales of harassment, violence, robberies, rapes and home invasions. There is no intention in this series to trivialise the horror that was wreaked on a largely helpless community.
However, it would be remiss not to mention the goodwill and assistance that flowed from neighbours and officials who silently helped out wherever they could. There are stories of airport officials overlooking money and jewellery being taken out of the country, neighbours sitting in to provide moral support and physical protection from thugs, children being looked after by neighbours for safety, etc.
All of this showed that all was not lost for Fiji – there was light at the end of the tunnel. All we had to do was navigate our way towards it with care and concern. That is exactly what was being attempted between Ratu Mara, the Methodist Church, the Military, the Great Council of Chiefs and a motley crew of ethno-nationalists masquerading as “freedom warriors”. Sitiveni Rabuka was riding through uncharted territory and the conflicting demands would hound him to 1999.
Navigating in the dark
It should go without saying that the Fiji of 1987 was very different from the Fiji of 1970. This called for a profound re-adjustment of political priorities amid drastically changed socio-political realities.
Commoner Fijians had become increasingly assertive and suddenly public utterances were being made against Ratu Mara, the Governor-General, Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau, and the Great Council of Chiefs (GCC). Second and third-tier chiefs had also begun to speak out against those who had dominated Fijian politics throughout history.
These angry voices refused to accept any sort of return to the old order. The Governor-General tried various strategies to plot an acceptable middle path leading to the Deuba Accord of 22 September 1987. This was not acceptable to the GCC and other anti-Mara forces as they persuaded Rabuka to execute a second coup on 7 September and declare Fiji a republic.
Fiji was thus, for the first time, no longer part of the Commonwealth of Nations, the Queen was no longer its Head of State and there was a whole new realm of uncertainty to navigate without the steadying influence of the British Crown. IndoFijians were left like helpless orphans in a hostile foreign land that appeared too ready to ostracise, condemn and castigate them. They had no legal recourse as the 1970 constitution was abrogated with that second coup of 1987. It is what comes next that is of key importance to this series.
Much of democracy relies on good faith that those in power will follow set conventions and protocols within the ambit of the law. These checks, balances and controls falter when those in power have no respect for them. They become meaningless as the field opens up for political excesses and abuse at the whim of those who wield power.
This was the reality in Fiji at that critical juncture. Strangely enough, the public bureaucracy held firm. The police did their jobs as best as they could, the military could be relied on (even though there were reports of unnecessary excesses by them), the Queen remained very much in the official realm of the country through her public portraits and through the Fijian currency. Life ticked along in a seemingly politically rudderless Fiji.
Sure, extremists and opportunists ran rampant as seen with reactive roadblocks and the ill-conceived Sunday Decree. Life, however, was moving along on Fiji time as a search began for a new constitution. Ratu Mara’s hand in this process appears to have been trivialised in most analyses. I highlight this because it was Oxford-educated and British-trained Ratu Mara who understood best the national significance of the Indo-Fijian in the further development of Fiji.
It was Ratu Mara who had attempted to forge a middle ground in the lead-up to and after independence in 1970. It was Ratu Mara who gained the trust (and votes) of some 30 per cent of Indo-Fijians in the general election of 1972. It was his steadying influence that had kept extremist sentiments under control until 1987. A case can be made that he delayed addressing this
It would be remiss not to note that the backdrop to the emergence of the 1990 constitution involved intense vanua-politicking. There were fissures that involved how much national influence each of the three confederacies should have. Many had decided that Ratu Mara’s time was up and this opened up unprecedented opportunities to jockey for power and influence.
Apart from this, there was lobbying by the Methodist Church, expectations from the military and questions regarding the composition and role of the Bose Levu Vakaturaga (Great Council of Chiefs). All this was little understood by the Indo-Fijian as he was primarily concerned about his presence and security in a radically changing constitutional context.
Thus began another search for political legitimacy and permanency by the descendants of the girmitiya who felt that through no fault of theirs, they were being victimised once again. This will be discussed further in the next article in this series.
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