GROWING up in Kashmir, Lautoka, I remember walking home on roads so hot the tarmac seemed to breathe.
My friends and I would pool our coins for futaa barfi from Suresh Sweets on Sukanaivalu Rd, then argue over who got the biggest piece. Some of us were Hindu, others Muslim or Christian; perhaps some had no faith at all. I never thought to ask. We were busy being children.
The Fiji beyond those afternoons was hardly innocent of prejudice. But as I read the proposed Constitution, I keep returning to that sticky sweetness and an uncomfortable question: when did we decide that the country we shared needed to favour someone’s God?
The Constitution (Amendment) Bill 2026 lists “Christianity and family values” first among Fiji’s founding values. It also says religion and the State are separate, and explicitly prohibits public officials from favouring any religion over another or over nonreligious belief. Both promises cannot sit comfortably together.
If every citizen is equal, why elevate one faith in the description of our republic?
Constitutional language is not decoration. It is what we hand to judges, governments and schoolchildren when we tell them what Fiji stands for.
I ask this as a Hindu who respects Christianity. Faith shaped my childhood: prayers, havan, Sanskrit verses, the rituals my grandparents kept alive through migration and hardship. Churches, temples and mosques have educated, fed and comforted Fijians when public institutions could not.
Recognise that contribution, certainly. But do not confuse devotion with democratic legitimacy. Ministers should be judged by honesty, competence and what they deliver, not whether they pray or how they address the divine.
A State can protect religion without taking religious sides. Indeed, that is how it best protects religion itself.
There is a deeper historical irony. If a constitution insists on naming a spiritual foundation, why start with a religion that arrived after indigenous beliefs? Long before Christianity, Hinduism or Islam took root in Fiji, iTaukei traditions spoke of Degei; a powerful serpent figure, and Dakuwaqa, the shark guardian of the sea. Indigenous spirituality is diverse; no two names can stand in for every village’s beliefs.
I am not demanding that Parliament replace Christ with Degei. The absurdity of that proposal is precisely my point. Why should a modern republic select any deity as its constitutional patron?
For Fiji Indians, this argument is personal. My ancestors came through girmit, not privilege. They worked, raised families and buried their dead in land they learned to call home.
I was born in Lautoka; Fiji Hindi, cane fields and the smell of afternoon rain are not borrowed memories.
The Bill preserves “Fijian” as the common name for citizens and recognises indigenous Fijians as itaukei ni vanua o Viti. Both matter. Acknowledging indigenous custodianship does not diminish my belonging.
Equally, my citizenship should never be treated as a favour granted by somebody with a longer family tree.
The Bill strengthens protections for customary land and for the rights of lessees and tenants. That balance deserves support.
Yet legal assurances will mean little if landowning communities feel cheated or farming families still face uncertainty when leases near expiry. Justice cannot be reduced to choosing which community deserves sympathy.
It requires fair returns to landowners, secure and reasonable terms for tenants, and institutions people trust to resolve disputes without racial bargaining. In Fiji, the land beneath our feet has too often become an excuse to pull the country apart.
Then there is the proposed Senate. Fourteen of its twenty-three members would be appointed on the advice of the Bose Levu Vakaturaga. The Prime Minister and Opposition Leader would advise on other appointments, with diversity expressly recognised.
The Great Council of Chiefs deserves respect as an institution of indigenous leadership. But respect is not immunity from scrutiny.
Why should any single body shape a majority of an unelected chamber? Whose voice becomes difficult to hear? Protecting the vanua and protecting equal citizenship must be complementary obligations, not rival political campaigns.
And what, after everything we have endured, should our military be permitted to do?
Fiji has lived through the upheavals of 1987, 2000 and 2006. I was a child in 2000, old enough to sense adult anxiety without understanding every argument behind it.
Coups do not remain in Parliament or barracks. They enter kitchens, businesses, schools and the quiet calculations families make about leaving. No child should grow up wondering whether tomorrow’s government will survive the week.
The draft appropriately narrows the military’s responsibility to external defence, permits assistance to civilian authorities on defined terms and subjects military command to civilian direction.
Those are necessary boundaries. But the Bill also carries forward and extends sweeping protections from prosecution and liability connected with past political upheavals.
The commission’s draft had proposed removing constitutional immunity; the Government’s Bill does not. How do we teach constitutional supremacy while making parts of our political history untouchable in court? Reconciliation matters. Permanent protection from accountability is not the same thing.
As a teacher, I am especially conscious of the children this document claims to serve. The Bill guarantees free early childhood, primary and secondary education and requires conversational iTaukei, Rotuman and Hindi in primary schools. Those are worthy promises. Yet what good is a right to schooling if a child finishes primary education unable to read critically, question misinformation or understand a neighbour’s history? What of rural schools, children with disabilities, teacher development and the freedom to disagree respectfully? A constitution can guarantee a place in a classroom. A serious nation must ensure that learning actually happens there.
Our children also face threats their grandparents could scarcely imagine. Artificial intelligence can mimic voices, fabricate political statements and spread lies before journalists have time to verify them. Cyberattacks can compromise hospitals, utilities and citizens’ information.
The Bill recognises privacy and confidentiality of personal data, but says little expressly about automated decisions, AI surveillance or the right to challenge algorithmic harm. It establishes a National Security Council while leaving its composition and powers to legislation.
I would want independent technical expertise, parliamentary scrutiny and civilian oversight written into the system.
Security must protect people from abuses of power, not merely protect those wielding it.
And there is the question of who gets to change the rules. The current proposal is intended to go to a referendum, yet the replacement Constitution would allow later amendments through parliamentary supermajorities without requiring another public vote. Some provisions would be specially entrenched.
That is a consequential choice, not fine print. Fiji needs time for citizens to understand the Bill, argue about it and dissent without being accused of disloyalty. Our election timetable must not become collateral damage.
A constitution is supposed to restrain today’s government and tomorrow’s opposition alike, especially when they find restraints inconvenient.
I write from overseas, but leaving Fiji did not end my obligations to it. When I speak to my nephews, I notice how easily English slips into conversations where Fiji Hindi once came naturally.
I wonder what else their children might inherit less of: our languages, our trust in neighbours, our belief that this place belongs to us all.
I think of those walks in Kashmir, the barfi divided among friends, and how little we cared about the gods in one another’s homes. We were not practising constitutional law. We were practising belonging.
Fiji’s Constitution should make that ordinary generosity easier, not ask our grandchildren to fight for it again.
