Gaurav Sharma
Auckland, February 12, 2025
Influential Indo-Fijian politician Harish Sharma believes that the South Pacific nation’s two largest ethnic groups are on a path to reconciliation.
Speaking in Auckland on February 8, 2025, at the launch of a memoir titled Road to Parliament, he said that Fiji was less divided than it had been several decades ago.
Mr Sharma was Deputy Prime Minister of Fiji in 1987 at the time of Sitiveni Rabuka’s first military coup. He said that it was time for Fiji to move on.
“Fiji is now a multiracial country, with educated classes running it. They think very differently from what people thought in 1987. I see a bright future for Fiji, where the two races work together and run the country in the interest of the people,” he said.
In May 2023, leaders from across Fiji’s political spectrum signed the Forward Fiji Declaration, hoping to usher in a new era of understanding between indigenous Fijians (iTaukei) and citizens of Indian descent.
The Colonial Past
Mr Sharma blamed Fiji’s Colonial past for the divide that had plagued his country for decades.
“The Colonial government never allowed the two races to get together. There were different schools and different settlements,” he said.
Fiji was a British colony from 1874 to 1970 when it gained independence.
Indo-Fijians trace their ancestry to India, which was also a British colony until 1947.
Between 1879 and 1916, more than 60,500 Indians were sent to the Pacific from British India to work in sugarcane plantations.
These workers came to be known as Girmityas, as they were bound by a Girmit, the Hindi word for Agreement.
The hardships of plantation life, squalid living conditions, resettlement, displacement, religious restrictions, lack of companionship and the pivotal role the system played in shaping Fiji’s economy is one of the lesser-known chapters of modern Indian and Pacific history.
These days, younger generations of Indo-Fijians are looking to learn more about the Girmit era.
“Modern Fijians and the educated class are indeed interested, and so they should be, in knowing more about the history of Girmityas and the contribution that they made to the economic development of Fiji. I believe that the Girmityas deserve a special place in Fiji’s history,” Mr Sharma said.
Classification as Pacifica
Indo-Fijians have expressed concern about their ethnicity classification in New Zealand.
While Fiji is located in the Pacific, Indo-Fijians are not classified as people of Pacific descent in New Zealand. Statistics NZ lists them as of Indian and Asian heritage.
Mr Sharma, a former Leader of the National Federation Party, which is part of the current coalition government in Fiji, calls the policy ‘very discriminatory.’
“If this is what is happening in New Zealand, it is very discriminatory. Indo-Fijians should always be considered Pacific islanders,” he said.
He called on the Indo-Fijian community in New Zealand to be patient in advocating for their rights in New Zealand.
He recalled how his growing years in poverty.
Education gave him upward social mobility as he first became a lawyer and then a politician, he said.
Mr Sharma thanked former New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange for supporting the deposed leadership under Prime Minister Timoci Bavadra during the 1987 coup.
The former politician concluded with a few simple words of advice for young people today.
“Have a goal in life and work hard towards it. Always be ready to make sacrifices,” Mr Sharma said.
Gaurav Sharma is a Senior Journalist at Radio New Zealand. The above Report has been published under a special agreement with www.rnz.co.nz
