Here in Shinagawa, amidst the neon precision of Tokyo and the winter chill of Japan, the distance to India feels measurable not just in miles, but in centuries of silence. As January 26 approaches and India prepares to unfurl the Tricolor to the sound of marching bands and patriotic anthems, a familiar, hollow ache settles in my chest. It is a ghost ache, one I inherited long before I was born.
For the diaspora, particularly those of us from Fiji, Republic Day is a moment of profound dissonance. We watch the grandeur on our screens — the tanks rolling down Kartavya Path, the tableaus of culture, the celebration of sovereignty. But beneath the pageantry lies a bitter truth that history has chosen to ignore, an unhealed wound buried beneath the flower petals and speeches.
Growing up in Fiji, the television screen was a window into a home that didn’t know we existed. I remember sitting there as a boy, watching faces that looked like mine, hearing a language that sounded like the one my grandmother spoke, celebrating a freedom that we were never part of.
It took a heavy toll on my soul. There is a specific trauma in looking at a motherland that looks right through you. To see a nation celebrate its independence while ignoring the millions of its children who were stolen to build the empires of others is a unique kind of heartbreak. We were Indian enough to be exploited, but not Indian enough to be remembered.
The indentured era was not, as the colonial history books might suggest, a migration of opportunity. It was a calculated economic strategy by the British Raj to replace lost slave labour. They devised the “Girmit” — a corruption of the word “agreement” — and in doing so, created a system that stripped our ancestors of their agency.
Lured by false promises or driven by the crushing weight of famine manufactured by colonial policy, they boarded ships like the Leonidas and the Syria. They were not passengers, they were cargo. They endured the “Kala Pani” (black waters), watching kin slip into watery graves, only to arrive in a land they did not know, to work under the whip of overseers who saw them as machinery rather than men.
They were promised a return to the motherland. But for most, that promise was a lie written in disappearing ink.
And yet, where the motherland turned its back, the Pacific opened its arms. This is the nuance that is often lost in our sorrow. The story of how Fiji, and the iTaukei (indigenous) people became our salvation.
While India was busy forgetting us, the vanua — the land and people of Fiji — eventually absorbed us. It was not always a smooth journey; history records the political friction and the struggles of integration. But beneath the headlines, a deeper, more profound synthesis occurred. The iTaukei, with their immense generosity of spirit, allowed us to plant our roots in their sacred Earth.
When India refused to acknowledge us as their own, Fiji gave us a name. We ceased to be just “Indians” lost at sea; we became Fiji Islanders. We shared the bowl of kava (yaqona), we learned the rhythms of the Pacific, and our languages and cultures began to weave together. The indigenous people of Fiji shared their land, their ocean, and their identity with us.
In the villages and towns of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu, we found a belonging that the subcontinent denied us. We forged a new identity, one that is resilient, distinct, and proud. We are not just the leftovers of the Raj; we are the sons and daughters of Fiji, embraced by a people who understood the sanctity of land and community far better than the empire ever did.
So, as I sit here in Tokyo, a Fiji-born New Zealand citizen navigating a global life, I look back at Republic Day not with envy, but with a demand for dignity.
We must demand reparations from the United Kingdom. The wealth of the British Empire was built on the broken backs of the indentured. The sugar that sweetened the tea in London was harvested with the blood of my ancestors. It is a debt that remains unpaid.
Simultaneously, we ask for acknowledgement from India. It is not enough to wave at us during Pravasi Bharatiya Divas. India must look into the eyes of the Girmitiya descendants and admit that while they moved on, we were left behind. They must acknowledge that while they fought for their freedom, our ancestors were fighting for survival in the canefields, keeping the flame of culture alive without any support from the motherland.
But let us be clear, we do not beg for identity. Fiji has given us that. The iTaukei have given us that. We stand tall, not as abandoned orphans of India, but as proud children of the Pacific.
If you have food on your plate, or the privilege of a passport that defines you, know this you stand on the shoulders of those who endured the unthinkable.
Never forget the dreams that died in the fields, but also never forget the new dreams that were born in the villages of Fiji. We are the legacy of resilience, the fusion of two worlds, and the living proof that even when history tries to erase you, you can write your own story.
ASHNEEL JAYNESH PRASAD is a Fiji-born New Zealand citizen who teaches in Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo, Japan. The views expressed herein are his alone.
