Race and Politics in Fiji by Robert Norton

Author:Robert Norton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction/General
ISBN: 9781921902161
Publisher: University of Queensland Press
Published: 2008-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

“Federation Party stands for the People”

Federation propaganda reflected a tension between the different opportunities and pressures of two political arenas: the international and the domestic, between the Indians’ appeal to Britain and the United Nations for equality under common roll elections and their desire also for harmonious relations and wider political support in Fiji. The immediate objective was to demonstrate to the audience abroad that most Indians endorsed the party’s demand for constitutional change. In pursuing this racial aim the party was trying to influence decisions of the imperial power as the arbiter between opposed groups in Fiji. Britain’s authority to decide the issue implied some freedom from pressures to reach agreements at home. Federation speakers assured their audiences in Fiji that when the elections proved Indian unity the British would have to admit a United Nations investigative team and this would lead to the introduction of common roll. But preoccupation with the racial demand would not help the party win government in Fiji. For while there was precedent in interracial cooperation for upholding the paramountcy of Fijian interests there was none for claims about the special rights of Indians.

The Federation Party maintained that the geographical distribution of racial groups would prevent Indians from dominating under a common roll. It played down the significance of racial divisions and cultivated an image as a populist movement alleging that the common people were oppressed by a coalition of European capitalists, expatriate officials, and Fijian chiefs. The party claimed to be defending the victims of colonialism against the beneficiaries. The demand for the common roll voiced the peoples’ desire for a just participation in their society. Common roll meant “equal rights politically to all and with it other equal opportunities must come”:

Our object is to change the power structure ... As political and economic have-nots it is our duty to assert ourselves and get our rightful share. Our aim is to see that even the poorest, even the weakest citizen feels proud that he is a Fijian, that he is a human being, and regains that dignity which is by right his...35

Patel assured Indian farmers that Fijians sympathised with his objectives but were being incited against him by their chiefs who feared that in common-roll elections they would lose their power “and have to be together with the commoners”:

The Fijians are being told that if the Federation Party comes to power it will suppress them. During all the time I have lived in Fiji, if a Fijian brought a case to me I have fought it in court without charging a fee. Who can say I am their enemy?.

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