Independent India’s Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru once said, “History is always written from the viewpoint of victors.”
This is true about Fiji history, especially with reference to the suffering of the indentured labourers (‘Girmitiyas’) followed by the trials and tribulations of their descendants.
Professor Dr Brij Vilash Lal, one of the most notable sons of the Girmitiyas and an architect of the 1997 Fiji Constitution, has just published a book titled, In the Eye of the Storm, paying tributes to Judge Jai Ram Reddy.
An academic and historian, Dr Lal is now Professor of Pacific and Asian History and Deputy Director of School of Culture at the Australian National University in Canberra.
He is known for his well-researched books, articles and essays that ventured to neutralise the deficiency in Fiji’s history. The new book gives a historic perspective from the viewpoint of the victims and not the victors.
In the Eye of the Storm traces Fiji’s postcolonial politics through the life and work of Judge Reddy.
Former New Zealand Governor General Paul Reeves and Former Chairman of the Constitutional Review Commission of Fiji (of which Mr Lal was a member) released the Book at a private ceremony held at the Lynfield College in Auckland on October 30.
Truncated History
Like many other sons of Girmit, Dr Lal feels cheated by the history written by the victors.
“The written history of Fiji, particularly by expatriates like Deryck Scarr, is hugely skewed against all those who fought the entrenched views and attitudes of Fijian and colonial establishments. In their accounts, our people were viewed as interlopers and usurpers of other people’s rights, who should not aspire to dignity and basic human rights.
“In all my writings, I have sought to represent the presence of the unrepresented, led by the conviction that both the vanquished as well as the victors should have a place at the table of history,” he said.
Elaborating on the contents of the Book, Dr Lal revealed that In the Eye of the Storm was essentially about the period since independence (1970).
The Introductory Chapter provides a historical context for the narrative that follows in the other Chapters.
Spates of Turbulence
Post-Independent Fiji experienced turbulence and the Book considers them all, including the battles for leadership in the National Federation Party, the 1977 Constitutional Crisis and the ‘Sakiasi Butadroka’s strident ethno-nationalism.’
It also mentions about the ‘Carroll Report,’ the rumblings in Western Viti Levu led by Ratu Osea Gavidi around the ‘Pine’ issue, the 1987 coups and their aftermath and the tentative steps taken towards parliamentary democracy in the early 1990s.
The constitutional reconciliation process of the late 1990s and the 1999 general elections are also well documented. Apart from discussing the politics of the time, The Eye of the Strom assesses the personalities of the major leaders of the time.
According to Dr Lal, the book was conceived after Mr Reddy lost the 1999 election, while experimenting multiracialism for a more stable Fiji and left politics for good.
It took Dr Lal about ten years of interrupted research to compile this great book.
He said that it contains more than 700 pages.
“The Eye of the Storm is longer than I what I had envisaged but it is important to narrate the full story,” he said.
A Reluctant Politician
He describes Mr Reddy as a “reluctant politician,” a title often misunderstood because Mr Reddy’s focus was not narrow political advantage for himself or his political party, but the larger interests of his people and the country.
Dr Lal’s profound statement on the outcome of the 1999 Election was that while Mr Reddy’s opponent (FLP and the People’s Coalition) won the battle, they unfortunately lost the war, for which Fiji’s history now stands testimony.
It is true that had Fiji accepted the multiracialism granted by the Rabuka-Reddy coalition that Election, Fiji might have been spared the political instability it saw after Mahendra Chaudhry’s Peoples Coalition came to power and the ensuing political instability.
Speaking about Mr Reddy’s life and work, Dr Lal said what he demonstrated was the capacity to appreciate, respect and accept that a different perspective can be just as valid as that of anyone else.
“Reddy’s experiment was an epiphany which is only possible when people of goodwill are prepared to make themselves vulnerable and trust one another. Without mutual trust and understanding, there can be no basis for enduring partnerships in society,” he said.
Eye of the Storm: Jai Ram Reddy and the Politics of Post-Colonial Fiji
By Brij Lal; 720 Pages; At major bookstores
RRP: $25
