Author: Brij V Lal
Publisher: National Book Trust
Year: 2009
Language: English
Pages: 163
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8123745524
Description
How many generations do a people have to live in a place to be allowed to call it home? Asks Prof Brij Lal in the book which, despite this poignant tone, takes us deep into the sociology, politics and economics of the making of the Indian indentured community in Fiji while also delineating its aspirations and achievements.
More significantly, the study, presented by the author in an autobiographical narrative, seeks to discard the slave theory of forceful migration of the girmitiya to the overseas during the colonial period and analyses it in terms of the overall historical process of large scale migration of labour inside as well as outside India in search of greener pastures during the period.
The book, published under the new series of the Trust on Indian Diaspora Studies, is likely to be quite accessible to the general reader as it steers clear of the disciplinary jargons.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
PROF BRIJ V LAL, grandson of a girmitiya, was born in tibia (Labasa) in Fiji, and is Research Professor of Pacific and Asian History at The Australian National University, Canberra. A co-architect of Fiji’s much acclaimed 1997 multiracial constitution and a pioneering historian from Fiji, he is author and editor of many acclaimed books and recipient of many awards and honours, including the Centenary Medal of Australia and Order of Fiji.
He is the General editor of the forthcoming Encyclopedia of the Indian Diaspora. His publications include Mr Tulsi’s Store-A Fijian Journey, Chalo Jahaji-On a Journey through Indenture in Fiji, Girmitiyas-The Origins of the Fiji Indians, Broken Waves-A History of Fiji Islands in the 20th Century.
Contents
PREFACE
Roots and Routes
Bahraich
Tabia
Marriage
Masterji
Labasa Secondary
Sunrise on the Ganga
Roots and Routes, Again