Editors’ Introduction: Brij V. Lal and the Contemporary Politics of Fiji

ABSTRACTThis special issue of the Journal of Pacific History brings together several scholars, who were close to Professor Brij Lal, to write on the contemporary politics of Fiji. Brij died on 25 December 2021.Key words: Brij V. LalFiji politicsconstitution-makingforeign policyelections AcknowledgementWe thank Satyendra Peerthum for his assistance.Notes1 Brij V. Lal, Girmitiyas: The Origins of the Fiji Indians (Canberra: The Journal of Pacific History, 1983); Clem Seecharan, ‘Foreword: Girmitiyas and my Discovery of India’, in Lal, ed., Girmitiyas: The Origins of the Fiji Indians, 2nd ed. (Lautoka: Fiji Institute of Applied Studies, 2004), 1–26; Lance Brennan and Ralph Shlomowitz, ‘Reflections on Brij Lal’s Girmitiyas: The Origins of the Fiji Indians’, in Bearing Witness: Essays in Honour of Brij V. Lal, ed. Doug Munro and Jack Corbett (Canberra: ANU Press, 2017), 117–26; Goolam Vahed, ‘Rooting for History’, in Munro and Corbett, eds, Bearing Witness, 65–85; Ashutosh Kumar, Coolies of the Empire: Indentured Indians in the Sugar Colonies, 1830–1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 6–8.2 Doug Munro, ‘Bibliography of Brij V. Lal’s Academic Writings’, in Bearing Witness, ed. Munro and Corbett, 307–30. Eighteen of Brij’s books were written for or reissued by ANU Press and are available as free downloads: https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/authors-editors/brij-v-lal.3 E.g., History Professor Brij Lal: His Life and Legacies, 16 Jan. 2022, https://indocaribbeanpublications.com/2022/01/29/video-recording-history-professor-brij-lal-his-life-and-legacies-by-staff-reporter/ (accessed 21 Aug. 2023); Indo-Caribbean Cultural Centre, ‘Celebrating Early Indian Intellectuals of the Diaspora’, YouTube video, 2:35:59, 1 May 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU-ydkDHCVs&ab_channel=Indo-CaribbeanCulturalCentre (accessed 21 Aug. 2023). Both Zoom public meetings were jointly hosted by the Indo-Caribbean Cultural Centre, Trinidad and Tobago; Ameena Gafoor Institute, London; and 1860 Heritage Centre, Greyville, KwaZulu-Natal. There were also keynote lectures and tribute sessions on Brij at ‘Celebrating Girmitiya Lives’ (Fourth Global Girmit Institute Conference, University of the South Pacific, Suva, 12–13 May 2023); ‘Legacy of Slavery and Indentured Labour 3 Conference’ (Anton de Korn University of Suriname, 6–10 June 2023); ‘Colloque: Dire l’engagisme dans l’ocean Indien: histoire, circulations, pluralitès’ (Le Centre des arts et de culture, Saint-Denis, Réunion, 2–4 Aug. 2023).4 For a biographical study of Brij, see Doug Munro, The Ivory Tower and Beyond: Participant Historians of the Pacific (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009), 243–309.5 Most of this corpus is gathered together in Brij V. Lal, Chalo Jahaji: On a Journey through Indenture in Fiji (Canberra: Division of Pacific and Asian History, Australian National University; Suva: Fiji Museum, 2000).6 Brij V. Lal, ed., Politics in Fiji: Studies in Contemporary History (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1968).7 Brij V. Lal, Power and Prejudice: The Making of the Fiji Crisis (Wellington: New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, 1988), 7.8 Brij V. Lal, Broken Waves: A History of the Fiji Islands in the Twentieth Century (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1992), xvi–xvii.9 Robert C. Kiste, ‘Editor’s Notes’, in Lal, Broken Waves, viii.10 E.g., Brij V. Lal, Intersections: History, Memory, Discipline (Lautoka: Fiji Institute of Applied Studies; Sydney: Asia Pacific Publications, 2011), 2, 5, 138, 305–6.11 Brij V. Lal, ‘“End of a Phase of History”: Writing the Life of a Reluctant Fiji Politician’, in Political Life Writing in the Pacific: Reflections on Practice, ed. Jack Corbett and Brij V. Lal (Canberra: ANU Press, 2015), 73.12 Ibid., 73–4.13 Brij V. Lal, ‘Fiji: Troubled Journey of a Beleaguered Nation’, Round Table 110, no. 6 (2021): 645–62.14 Stefan Collini, Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 52.15 Lal, Intersections, 4.16 Quoted in Mary-Rose Abraham and Gayathri Vaidyanathan, ‘“Obsession with Religious Identity Leaves me Cold”: Remembering Indo-Fijian Historian Brij Lal’, The Wire, 27 Dec. 2021, https://thewire.in/history/obsession-with-religious-identity-leaves-me-cold-remembering-indo-fijian-historian-brij-lal (accessed 21 Aug. 2023).17 Brij’s account the process is in his Another Way: The Politics of Constitutional Reform in Post-Coup Fiji (Canberra: Asia Pacific Press, 1998). Vakatora’s autobiography is From the Mangrove Swamps (Suva: Institution of Pacific Studies and Fiji Extension Centre, University of the South Pacific, 1988).18 See, also, Coel Kirkby, ‘The Commonwealth Constitution-Maker’, in Commonwealth History in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Saul Dubow and Richard Drayton (Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2020), 61–80.19 Brij V. Lal, ‘The Fiji General Elections of 1982: The Tidal Wave that Never Came’, Journal of Pacific History (hereinafter JPH) 18, no. 2 (1983): 134–57.20 Brij V. Lal, ‘A Change of Seasons’, in Brij V. Lal, Turnings: Fiji Factions (Lautoka: Fiji Institute of Applied Studies, 2008), 151–72; Brij V. Lal, ‘Bula Dredre’, in Brij V. Lal, Road from Mr Tulsi's Store: Stories from Fiji (Canberra: ANU Press, 2019), 139–60. The latter was republished under the title ‘Wailea’, in Nicholas Halter, ed., Suva Stories: A History of the Capital of Fiji (Suva: USP Press, 2022), 425–42.21 Chris Gregory, ‘History as Concealed Autobiography? Brij Lal’s Historical Dictionary of Fiji’, JPH 52, no. 1 (2017): 110; also ABC News, ‘Expelled Academic Prepares to Depart Fiji’, 5 Nov. 2009, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-11-05/expelled-academic-prepares-to-depart-fiji/1129910 (accessed 21 Aug. 2023).22 Gregory, ‘History as Concealed Autobiography?’, 109–10. Independent confirmation of Brij’s anthropological credentials is provided by Robert Norton. On 4 Nov. 2009, Norton was having coffee with Brij at Garden City in Suva, and he joked about their reversal in roles – that while his (Norton’s) academic interests were turning from anthropology to history, Brij’s research into squatter settlements meant that he was trending from history to anthropology (information from Robert Norton, 19 Aug. 2023). Norton clearly remembers the time and place because, later that day, Brij was taken to Queen Victoria Barracks where he was ‘interviewed’, roughed up, and told to leave the country within 24 hours, or else. See also ABC News, ‘Expelled Academic Prepares to Depart Fiji’.23 Brij V. Lal, ‘While the Gun is Still Smoking: Witnessing Participant History’, in Pacific Lives, Pacific Places: Bursting Boundaries in Pacific History, ed. Brij V. Lal and Peter Hempenstall (Canberra: The Journal of Pacific History, 2001), 85 (republished in Lal, Intersections, 39–57).24 ANU TV, ‘Prof Brij Lal of ANU: Media Conference to Discuss Being Expelled from Fiji – 5 November, 2009’, YouTube video, 9:59, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkUbiZ2q1FM&ab_channel=ANUTV (accessed 21 Aug. 2023); Lal, Intersections, 303–6.25 Fiji Parliament, Proceedings, 18 Mar. 2015, 967. The Official Report of Proceedings of the Parliament of the Republic of Fiji (hereinafter Fiji Parliament, Proceedings), dating from mid-2014, are available online: https://www.parliament.gov.fj/Hansard,/#1491436481174-c3be1038-ea3f.RNZ, ‘NFP Pushes Fiji Govt to Let Academic Back Home’, 24 Mar. 2015, https://amp.rnz.co.nz/article/7e503221-e64c-40fb-992c-aabe64775c83 (accessed 21 Aug. 2023); also Fiji Parliament, Proceedings, 15 May 2019, 1427–9; RNZ, ‘Brij Lal Ban Subject of Furore in Fiji Parliament’, 16 May 2019, https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/389326/brij-lal-ban-subject-of-furore-in-fiji-parliament (accessed 21 Aug. 2023).26 Filipe Naikaso, ‘He is Still With Me and he is Finally Home: Dr Padma Lal’, FBC News, 23 Feb. 2022, https://www.fbcnews.com.fj/news/hes-still-with-me-and-he-is-finally-home-dr-padma-lal/ (accessed 21 Aug. 2023).27 See the video recording of the occasion: ‘Tabia’, YouTube video, 2:17:37, 7 Mar. 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkErwl9hkpw&ab_channel=ProfBrijLal (accessed 21 Aug. 2023).Additional informationNotes on contributorsDoug MunroDoug Munro - University of Queensland, Australia. munro47@yahoo.comJon FraenkelJon Fraenkel - Victoria University of Wellington, NZ. jon.fraenkel@vuw.ac.nz