Struggles of Indian Indentured Women During the Indenture System in Fiji

AUTHOR(S)
Vandana Vikashni Nath
Development

Indo-Fijian history traces back to the indenture period in Fiji. The literature on indenture in Fiji details the fraudulent recruitment of Indian labourers to work on the sugarcane plantation in the country. Pacific literature, especially those written by Indo-Fijian writers, describes the inhumane working and living conditions, including extreme violence inflicted on the labourers, regardless of their sex. Literary accounts on this subject examine the struggles of the Indian indentured labourers in overcoming their hardships on the plantation and their assimilation into the Fijian society to gradually make Fiji their home. Indo-Fijian literature has predominantly documented the diasporic experiences of the Indian migrants, their longingness for home, culture, identity and their struggle for inclusion in the new country. However, very little has been written about the women of indenture and their struggles during the period and afterwards. The conventional historical narratives by early Indo-Fijian scholars failed to fully explore women’s agency: their contribution during the period, struggle and exploitation as a result of their sexuality. The unrelenting violence and abuse encountered by the female labourers on the plantation and the harsh living conditions in barracks, together with the patriarchal authoritarian structure, made the indentured era doubly hard for women. The historical analysis of the indenture system in Fiji failed to describe this extensively as most documentation was done by male historians, missionaries and descendants of the girmityas. This research attempts to fill in the gap by evaluating studies on female indentured labourers from archival research to feature women’s struggle and resistance during the period, their diasporic consciousness in the new country against the constructions of Indian and colonial patriarchy. This study further attempts to re-evaluate the roles and experiences of Indian indentured women, who bravely fought against the system to claim Fiji as their rightful home.

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Research Type(s)
Journal Article
October 30, 2024
Published in
2024
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