Author – Awadhesh Sharma
Fiji is an island nation situated in the Pacific Ocean in the southern hemisphere. It comprises numerous islands. The majority of population lives on the two largest islands, Viti Levu and Vanua Levu. The population of Fiji includes about 37.5% people of Indian origin.
Fiji became a British colony in 1874 and an independent country in 1970.
Originally, Indians were brought to Fiji under an agreement to work for a five-year term. The first ship with Indians under the agreement arrived in Fiji on 14 May 1879. The Fiji Indian community marks this date as Girmit Day. Girmit is the Indian vernacular pronunciation of agreement. All those who came under Girmit were known as Girmitiya. British called them indentured or bonded labour. They also addressed them coolie.
Between 1879 and 1916, a total of 60,553 Indians came to Fiji as indentured labour. The majority were transported form Kolkata port in the beginning, and later on, from Chennai.
Indians in Fiji lived a life of hardship and despair. Their working and living conditions were appalling. They experienced discrimination, deprivation and mistreatment.
Totaram Sanadhya was one of the bonded labourers. He was brought to Fiji in 1893 and experienced the similar sufferings as others. He described them in a book after his return to India.
He explained how the workers were enticed in India, tricked into signing contracts, forced to travel to Fiji and their treatment in Fiji. A number of events he experienced and documented demonstrated the systemic cruelty and dehumanisation of indentured Indians.
Totaram was born in 1876 in village Hirangau, district Firozabad, in modern Uttar Pradesh. His father passed away in 1887. Deceitful lenders appropriated his mother’s jewellery and other family valuables.
Totaram was upset by the family’s financial situation and left home in 1893 in search of a job to support his mother. He arrived Prayagraj, looked for a work but could not find anything suitable.
In Prayagraj, once when he was in the market, worried with his situation, a person approached him, and indicated that he could arrange a job.
The man was a recruiting agent for indentured labourers. Such agents were engaged by the government to hire Indians to work in Fiji. They used to roam around public places such as markets, transport hubs and religious centres, and targeted those who were mostly in distressed conditions, to lure them with false hopes and promises. These agents were known as Arkati.
Totaram consented to the Arkati’s proposal and followed him to a house where many other men and women were already staying. After a few days in the house, he was brought in a group of 165 people to a magistrate, to register as an indentured labourer. The Arkati, who was fully aware of the questions that the magistrate asked, had advised the group to answer ‘yes’ to all questions. In about twenty minutes all were registered.
They were brought to Kolkata by a special train and taken to a depot, the place where indentured labourers were kept before departure to Fiji.
At the depot, an immigration officer disclosed details of travel to Fiji, work as a labourer for five years and payment. Totaram had believed that he would be working for six months and then would return home. He objected to the five-year term and attempted to withdraw from the agreement. He was forcibly locked in a room and compelled to agree to the specified terms.
Medical checks were conducted and emigration passes issued. Totaram was born in a Brahmin family but authorities falsely recorded his caste as Thakur in his pass.
Totaram, together with five hundred Indians boarded the ship at Kolkata. Fellow travellers on the ship established a close bond of camaraderie and became Jahaji Bhai.
The ship arrived in Fiji on 28 May 1893 and disembarked at Nukulau Island. The island was a quarantine centre and also a depot for holding newly arrived Indians until their pickup by plantation owners.
Doctors performed medical checks of each labourer. Their clothes and other items were sanitised. They were divided into groups. Plantation owners paid a fee to the Immigration Department and collected their assigned labourers.
Totaram objected to his treatment as a servant by local authorities, but he was forced into a boat and taken to the Colonial Sugar Refining Company’s Nausori Plantation.
At the plantation, a twelve feet long and eight feet wide room accommodation was built in a complex known as coolie lines. A man with wife or three males or females in a group was allocated such a room. This was used for sleeping, cooking and all other domestic purposes.
The company provided them provision on a weekly basis and its cost was deducted from their pay. The amount given for a week was only enough for four days. Labourers had to manage their supplies to last for a week or go hungry and ask free Indians for food.
Totaram complained about the quantity of provision. He convinced the manager that the provision for him was inadequate. The manager increased his provision, but it was reduced to the previous level when others also demanded a similar increase.
Labours were under direct control of a kulambar or overseer and sardar. A sardar was generally an Indian person who assisted the kulambar in allocating the daily work and implemented his orders. Engaging an Indian as sardar also helped the plantation owners to divide the labourers.
Labourers were given a land of sugarcane 1,200 to 1,300 feet long and six feet wide to weed with a hoe or other work of similar difficulty. If workers did not complete the allotted daily task, they were fined.
To get his daily workload reduced, once he fooled the doctor into believing him to be unwell during a medical check up. People were forced to commit unlawful acts in desperation.
Totaram’s frustration with the situation once led him to attempt suicide in his room. At the moment he was about to hang, someone knocked at the door. He removed his noose and opened the door. A local Fijian was at the door looking for food. Totaram thought God had saved him and realised the folly of misadventure. He decided against committing suicide.
An overseer used to whip the workers during his round if he did not like them. He could increase the daily task, reduce the daily wage or harass the family. Everyone was afraid of overseers.
Once Totaram was working in the field. The overseer came to him and hit him hard without a preceding reason or excuse. Totaram became angry and knocked him in return. He felt certain that the overseer would kill him if he stopped punching his attacker. In the end, the overseer begged him to stop. Totaram agreed to his request after he promised not to take any action against him. The overseer became friendly towards him afterwards.
After five years of bonded labour, Totaram became a free man. He was in debt at completion of his tenure. Only a few could save money during their indenture.
He borrowed money from free Indians and leased land to become a farmer. He learnt the Fijian language, which helped him communicate with the local inhabitants. He acquired skills in carpentry, metalwork and photography. With photography, he intended to take photos of atrocities against labourers, and publish.
He educated himself in religious matters and became a Pandit, Hindu priest. He started performing religious ceremonies at homes of free Indians. He devoted his time and money to help bonded labourers. Considering him a troublemaker, the plantation owners barred his entry to their lands.
He used to sit at the boundaries and sing devotional songs. Passing Indians used to stop to listen to his Bhajans and then talked about their hardships.
Totaram started Ramlila in Fiji. The story of Ram’s gave the Girmits hope for a better future.
Totaram married Gangadevi. They had no children. They adopted a Fijian girl. Her biological parents maintained regular contact with the girl.
Totaram came into contact with Mr Burton, a Christian missionary. Burton realised that to convert Indians to Christianity, he needed to convert Totaram. He approached him with this intent.
Totaram argued with him on religious codes. He highlighted the suffering of Indians, inflicted by Christians in position of power. He enumerated the crimes committed by Christian perpetrators. Despite such arguments, they became friends and respected each other’s opinions.
In March 1914, Totaram left Fiji for India. In India, he toured many regions, spreading the news of gruelling conditions that Indian men and women were subjected to endure in Fiji.
With the help of a journalist named Banarasidas Chaturvedi, he published a book in Hindi titled ‘My Twenty One Years in the Fiji Islands’. Soon it was translated into other Indian languages. He also wrote ‘The Story of The Haunted Line’ that described desperations of the bonded labourers.
Totaram described many events of outrage against Indians that were committed by authorities working under the indenture system. One example is that of Kunti.
Arkatis had deceived Kunti and her husband and sent them to Fiji as Girmitiya. Both were assigned to a banana plantation. The overseer assigned Kunti alone in a secluded area to cut grass. Then he approached and tried to rape her. Kunti fled from him and jumped into the nearby river. She was saved from drowning by an Indian boatman.
Another atrocity related to Narayani. She gave birth to a baby who died after birth. According to the law, she was entitled to abstain from work for three months. However, only a couple of days after giving birth, the overseer ordered her to return to work. She refused to abide by his order. He beat her so hard that she became unconscious. She was taken to the hospital. The case reached the Supreme Court in Fiji. In spite of all evidence proving the overseer’s crime, he was found not guilty.
Overseers were ruthless. Very few Indians could afford to take their case to court for justice. If a case was presented in the court, the ruling was always in favour of white wrongdoers.
Totaram noted the outrage committed against Pathans. Arkatis sent a group of them to Fiji. Like others, they were not provided adequate food. When they protested, they were beaten and forcibly transported to different plantations.
He also mentioned the case of Laliya and Ismail, a husband and wife duo. They were cheated by Arkatis and sent to Fiji at different times. Laliya met Totaram and asked for help finding her husband. He located Ismail but the authorities repatriated him to India without permitting the pair to meet.
In another case, a labourer named Ramdas went to hospital for treatment of his arm’s pain. The hospital sardar assigned him tasks, which he could not perform due to his symptoms. On his refusal, the sardar and doctor beat him. Finally, the case reached the court but the decision was made in favour of the doctor.
In one incident, a group of Sikhs came to Fiji. They planned to go to Argentina from there. A solicitor took money from them promising to arrange their trip to Argentina. But after receiving the funds, he declined to fulfil the promise. The Sikhs went to the court. After a long court case, they recovered only a fraction of money that the solicitor had taken from them.
Totaram wrote to Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa about the appalling condition of Indians. On his request, Gandhi sent Manilal Doctor, a barrister, to fight cases in Fijian courts for Indians.
There were deeply entrenched and unsurmountable biases against Indians. With connivance of colonial administration, plantation owners inflicted inhumane treatment and the judiciary validated all criminal activities against Indian workers. The whole mechanism of the indenture system was against Indians. Totaram requested Gandhi to work on abolishing the indenture system.
Many of the events described by Totaram helped change public opinion in India against the indenture system. It was finally abolished in 1916.
Totaram joined Sabarmati Ashram in 1922. He lived there with his wife Gangadevi. He died at the Ashram in 1947. Gandhi wrote a eulogy for him on his death describing Totaram as an ornament to the Sabarmati Ashram.