In 2019, while taking a hiatus from my regular profession as a lecturer at USP, I embarked on research that I tentatively titled a “People’s History Project”.
The study was driven by my desire to uncover and resuscitate little know narratives from Fiji’s past. Mainstream historiography usually focuses on the major events and big players, ignoring or relegating to the margins the minor narratives and actions and deeds of the subaltern or common person, and confining minutiae to the dustbin of history.
However, there is so much more to Fiji’s history than the coups, ancient battles, accounts of ethnic strife, and partisan politics, and my objective was to bring these narratives to the centre.
Any historian worth his salt needs to think deeply about his philosophy of history, and so driven by my own, I began work at the National Archives of Fiji.
I began uncovering and writing these accounts of the “little voices” of Fijian history. The editor of The Fiji Times read some of the pieces and decided to publish them as part of a Sunday column.
One day, the editor called me up and said the publisher, Hank Arts wanted to meet me. I imagined this would be a casual meeting where he would express his appreciation for my column. Instead, the first thing Arts said to me when we met at his office was, “I have a challenge for you.”
His statement piqued my interest, and I asked him to go on. He explained that September 4th of that year was the 150th anniversary of the newspaper, and the management was interested in commissioning a book to mark the occasion. He said they were delighted with my Sunday column and wondered if I’d be interested in writing the book.
Naturally, I was ecstatic, for it is not every day one is asked to write the history of what is not just a national newspaper but a Fijian institution.
I embarked on the project in earnest by reading every issue of the paper since its inception in 1869, turned over every document I could find on The Fiji Times at the National Archives of Fiji and interviewed many former journalists and production staff, some of who worked at the paper in the 1960s.
It was a monumental undertaking, but after one year and ten months of research and writing, I finally delivered the book – The Fiji Times at 150: Imagining the Fijian Nation (Or, A Scrapbook of Fiji’s History) – in March of this year. What was supposed to be a 250-page book turned into a 550-page behemoth.
Rather than being a purely academic work, the book makes history accessible to the masses. It is a coffee-table book complemented by photographs, which are important repositories of history. The book covers a period of 150-years and weaves two strands to deliver a comprehensive history of the establishment and development of The Fiji Times and a history of Fiji as told by the newspaper.
The first chapter begins by describing the growth of Levuka as the centre of Fiji and how its growth led to the necessity for a newspaper for the white settlers to stay connected with other plantation families around Fiji and the home countries.
The chapter also charts the genealogy of George Littleton Griffi ths, the founder of The Fiji Times and looks at the early days of the paper at Levuka.
The chapters dealing with the 1870s to the 1890s give an account of the establishment of other newspapers at Levuka and their rivalry with The Fiji Times.
All sixteen chapters also present brief biographies of the editors of The Fiji Times – many of these individuals led very colourful and unconventional lives. As mentioned previously, I tried to avoid rehashing familiar themes and giving just a political history of Fiji in the fashion of historians such as Deryck Scarr, R. A. Derrick and Brij Lal.
Instead, I presented stories from popular culture, including the arrival of circus companies and picture shows, the development of sports (the book describes the popularity of wrestling and polo and charts the history of the bowling club) and the bourgeoning of the music scene at Suva.
One of the areas I’ve always been fascinated with is the history of the cinema business in Fiji. The book gives an account of how the first picture show – the Lumière Cinématographe Exhibition – arrived in Suva in 1898 to a resounding reception. It describes the arrival of picture companies from abroad putting on shows at Suva’s Town Hall and other parts of Fiji. It also discusses the involvement of locals – John Francis Grant, the Bayly sisters and the Noerr brothers – in developing the cinema business by setting up permanent picture halls or theatres in Suva and other parts of Fiji.
There are also accounts of visits by prominent writers such as Mark Twain, Rupert Brooke, Jack London, Beatrice Grimshaw and George Lewis Becke.
The 1920 strike is covered extensively in chapter eight, but the focus is on putting the spotlight on lesserknown aspects of the event, including the involvement of female protagonists such as Jaikumar Devi (the wife of Manilal Maganlal Doctor), Rahiman, and Elizabeth Phulkuar, known more affectionately as “the Bible woman”.
And then there are the minutiae, sure to delight the readers: an account of an Indo- Fijian gang – the “Tom Mix” gang – raiding shops and homes in Suva in the 1920s; the visit to Suva by Jolly Trixie, considered at that time to be the “world’s fattest girl”; a Samoan man named Polo, “who had an eye for a pretty damsel” and loved “running after the girls”; the story of Billy Sadro, an “amiable little old man,” who had a penchant for hop-beer and frequently found himself on the dock; and an account of Kharodar Singh, who had a remarkable resemblance to the Russian Marxist revolutionary and politician Leon Trotsky.
Like everything else, the pandemic has affected the publication and launch of the book. September was supposed to be the big unveiling, but although that won’t happen, we are all keen to see it available to the public before the end of this year.
It has been an incredible journey, and I thank the owners and management of the newspaper for giving me the opportunity to write the history of The Fiji Times.
