Adrian C. Mayer - Peasants In the Pacific

The International Library of Sociology

PEASANTS IN THE PACIFIC

THE SOCIOLOGY OF DEVELOPMENT
In 18 Volumes

A Study of Fiji Indian Rural Society

by

ADRIAN C. MAYER

First published in 1961 by
Routledge

Reprinted in 1998 by
Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Transferred to Digital Printing 2007

1961, 1973 Adrian C. Mayer

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Peasants in the Pacific
ISBN 0-415-17577-1
The Sociology of Development: 18 Volumes
ISBN 0-415-17822-3
The International Library of Sociology: 274 Volumes
ISBN 0-415-17838-X

Publishers Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent

CONTENTS

V. CONTEXTS OF POLITICAL ACTIVITY

PLATES

INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION

T wenty years after the stay in Fiji on which the first edition of this book was based, I attended the XXVII International Congress of Orientalists in Canberra and stopped in Fiji on my way back to England, to renew old acquaintances and to see in what ways the settlements I had described had changed.

I spent from mid-January to mid-March 1971 in Fiji, and I was able to visit both Vunioki and Delanikoro for a fortnight, and Namboulima for a couple of days. There had indeed been changes. The main trends that first struck me were towards an increased economic importance of sugar cane in one case, and towards part-time farming coupled with urban employment in the other. Each change had its social concomitants, and my short stays enabled me at least to discuss these with residents, if not to document or explore them fully. My return to Fiji was not in any sense a research project, nor could it be compared to the study carried out in 1951; but sufficient interest was shown in my impressions, however hasty, by colleagues and others in Fiji and elsewhere, to embolden me to add them to the 1951 account as a concluding chapter.

In doing so, I am happy to acknowledge with thanks the aid of a great many people who gave me their views on changes in the decades since my first visit. To Messrs K. P. Mishra and Moti Lal my thanks are again due, as well as to Messrs Siv Prasad, Rajaram and Parmanand Singh, and to the officials of the South Pacific Sugar Mills, of all grades of seniority, who were helpful with information and generous with their time. Individuals are too numerous to mention; but I especially want to thank the residents of Vunioki, Delanikoro and Namboulima. Our meetings, after almost a generation, were a continuous pleasure for me, clouded only by the inevitable gaps left by those no longer living. I hope, and think, that people were also pleased to renew our links and to think back to earlier days of youth and childhood. Lastly, I acknowledge with thanks the comments of R. G. Crocombe and Peter Stone on a draft of this chapter.

London, 1972

INTRODUCTION

I NDIAN settlement overseas has a history of many centuries. One of its most notable features is the recruiting in the nineteenth century of Indian labourers under indenture. These people were sent to such British colonies as Trinidad, Natal, Mauritius, Guiana and Fiji. There they started permanent communities, most of whose members were farmers, in contrast to the mainly mercantile character of traditional settlement which was later followed in such places as East Africa.

The first aim of this book is to provide an account of the rural section of the Fiji Indian community, for people either living in Fiji or interested in the Colony. Such an object should need no justification in a country where populations with such varied interests and customs live side by side. The ignorance of people of one community about the ways of life of another can be a hindrance, if not a danger, in the days of rapid social change into which Fiji is now entering. This account should help to broaden the knowledge held of Fiji Indian society, by describing the rural part of it.

The book will also, it is hoped, aid comparative study when more data on other overseas Indian communities are available. One of the objects of such study would be to examine the social structure of these immigrant communities, seeing the degree to which economic, religious, political and other social behaviour is institutionalized. Hence, an analysis of Fiji Indian rural social structure forms the theme on which the descriptive material of this book is based. Such a theme was, in fact, suggested by a first view of the Fiji countryside, and by initial enquiries into the Indian backgrounds of immigrants. For Indians coming to Fiji were usually unrelated and from many castes, and had come from widely separated districts. They were allowed to settle wherever they could lease land, and formed settlements of scattered homesteads instead of villages. What interests bound such a potentially heterogeneous community? What groups were formed, and how did they operate under physical conditions which favoured an individualistic way of life?