Today is May 14th. A day that still carries deep meaning in Fiji: Girmit Day. While we are anchored near Castaway Island, and Jeroen is enthusiastically testing his new wingfoil setup over the bright blue water nearby, I find myself drifting into a completely different world.
A world of old ships, sugarcane fields, colonial history, and people who once arrived here from thousands of miles away without truly knowing what awaited them.
The longer we stay in Fiji, the more we realise this country has many more layers than most tourists will ever see.
Behind the resorts, swaying palm trees, and postcard-perfect white beaches lives a history that is still visible today in the villages, temples, families, and faces of the country itself.
A history that does not begin with luxury holidays or tropical postcards, but with colonial trade, sugar plantations, and ships full of indentured labourers arriving far from home.
The story of Girmit.
When you travel through Fiji today, you see traces of India everywhere. Hindu temples between the palm trees. Hindi music playing from car radios. Small curry restaurants along dusty roads. Families who have lived in Fiji for generations, even though their history began on the other side of the world.
Most visitors hardly stop to think about it.
Yet between 1879 and 1916, more than 60,000 Indians were brought to Fiji by the British colonial empire as indentured labourers for the sugar plantations. What began as an economic experiment of the British Empire eventually became one of the most defining chapters in Fiji’s modern history.
From slavery to indentured labour
To understand the story of Girmit, you first need to look at the world after the abolition of slavery within the British Empire.
In 1833, Great Britain officially abolished slavery. For colonial economies that depended heavily on cheap plantation labour, this created a major problem. Sugar colonies especially required enormous numbers of workers.
The British found an alternative in indentured labour.
From India, which at the time was also part of the British Empire, hundreds of thousands of workers were shipped to colonies around the world, including Mauritius, Trinidad, Guyana, Suriname, South Africa, and Fiji.
On paper, the system appeared legal and voluntary. Workers signed a contract, an “agreement,” describing wages, working periods, and conditions.
But for many, the reality was very different.
Many workers could neither read nor write. Recruiters promised golden opportunities, while people often barely understood where they were going. Some even believed they would remain working somewhere within India.
The English word “agreement” slowly transformed through pronunciation and dialect into girmit. The labourers themselves became known as girmityas.
The more I dive into the story of Girmit, the more you realize this is not just history, but the story of real families, real people, and lives that changed forever.
On GIRMIT.org you can read many personal stories from descendants of girmityas, view old documents, and learn much more about the history behind Girmit Day and today’s Indo-Fijian community.
It is especially those personal stories that leave an impression. Because suddenly it is no longer about numbers or colonial systems, but about people who once stepped onto a ship without knowing if they would ever see home again.
The first arrival in Fiji
On May 14th, 1879, the ship Leonidas arrived in Fiji carrying the first group of indentured labourers.
463 men, women, and children stepped ashore after a long sea voyage into a world that must have felt completely foreign to them.
Most workers came from poor farming regions in northern India, such as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Others came from southern India. Many were escaping poverty, debt, or famine. Some were actively misled by recruiters.
The crossing often lasted more than ten weeks.
Conditions aboard the ships were harsh. Diseases spread quickly, food was limited, and hygiene was poor. Ironically, the Leonidas arrived during a smallpox outbreak, after which the passengers were immediately placed in quarantine on a small island near Levuka.
It was a brutal introduction to their new reality.
Fiji as a colonial sugar society
Fiji had officially become a British colony only a few years earlier, in 1874.
The first British governor, Sir Arthur Gordon, wanted to transform Fiji into a profitable agricultural colony, with sugar as its primary export.
At the same time, Gordon wanted to prevent the indigenous iTaukei population from being widely used as cheap plantation labour. He believed traditional Fijian society should remain protected.
This created a unique colonial system.
Indigenous Fijians largely remained connected to their villages, chiefs, and communal land ownership, while the sugar industry depended mainly on imported Indian contract workers.
That historical separation would later have enormous influence on Fiji’s social and political development.
Life on the plantations
Life for the girmityas was harsh.
Workers spent long days in the sugarcane fields under tropical conditions. Working days were strictly regulated, and overseers could impose severe punishments for disobedience or breach of contract.
Housing was primitive. Medical care was limited. Illness, exhaustion, and abuse were common.
But perhaps even heavier was the psychological loss.
Many labourers left India believing they would eventually return. In reality, returning became financially impossible for many. The distance was enormous, the costs high, and contracts were frequently extended.
Families were separated forever.
For many girmityas, a deep feeling of uprootedness emerged:
no longer fully connected to India, but not yet truly part of Fiji either.
Women within girmit
The position of women within the Girmit system was even more vulnerable.
Far fewer women than men were intentionally sent to Fiji. This led to major social tensions on the plantations.
Women regularly faced violence, exploitation, and abuse of power. Yet under these extreme circumstances, new social structures and relationships also emerged, gradually weakening traditional Indian caste divisions.
Historians often point to Fiji as a place where Girmit ultimately helped create an entirely new Indo-Fijian identity.
The end of girmit
Under increasing international criticism, the British Empire slowly began dismantling the system.
In 1916, the official recruitment of new indentured labourers stopped.
By 1920, the system had officially ended.
At that point, thousands of former labourers faced a difficult decision:
return to India, or remain in Fiji.
Many chose to stay.
Some had built families. Others no longer had the means to return. For many, after decades away, India no longer truly felt like home.
And so the Indo-Fijian community we know today slowly emerged.
A history that changed Fiji forever
Today, the influence of Girmit is visible everywhere in Fiji.
In roadside temples. In markets. In the food. In the languages spoken. In families who have been part of Fiji for generations, even though their ancestors once arrived as contract labourers.
Fiji Hindi evolved into a unique language, shaped by Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Hindustani, English, and Fijian influences.
The Indo-Fijian community played a huge role in agriculture, trade, education, and the economy.
At the same time, the colonial division between land, identity, and economic roles also left tensions behind that continued to influence Fiji’s politics for decades.
The history that is still felt today
The longer we stay in Fiji, the more we notice that girmit is not just history here, but still very much part of everyday life.
You sometimes hear it carefully reflected in conversations.
Not always openly or directly spoken about, but more between the lines.
Original iTaukei Fijians sometimes describe Indo-Fijians as especially hardworking and business-minded. Indo-Fijians, in turn, sometimes say that many indigenous Fijians approach life differently, placing more value on community, family, and village life than on money or entrepreneurship.
And somehow, you can feel that these differences did not simply appear out of nowhere.
During our time in the Yasawa Islands, we spoke with the general manager of a large resort. Originally from New Zealand, he explained how different managing people in Fiji can be. Leadership here, he said, is often more about patience, calmness, and relationships than about pressure or strict management.
Because many employees always have their village to fall back on. Family land. Community. A home where people take care of one another.
And that system has deep historical roots.
When the British colonized Fiji, they deliberately chose to keep the indigenous iTaukei population largely outside the harsh plantation labor system. Their traditional village structures and communal land ownership remained intact, while the sugar industry relied heavily on imported Indian contract laborers.
That colonial division between land, labor, and identity still shapes Fiji today.
Even now, you can see it in everyday life.
Many small shops, taxi businesses, restaurants, and trading companies are run by Indo-Fijians, while many iTaukei Fijians remain deeply connected to their villages, family land, and community life.
Of course, these are generalizations, and reality is far more nuanced than that. At the same time, the different communities have also lived alongside each other for generations, working together, laughing together, and building Fiji together.
But especially during Girmit Day, you can still feel how history quietly lingers beneath the surface.
Not as a closed chapter in a history book, but as something that still shapes identity, culture, and the way people view each other and themselves.
The story behind the postcard
What remains perhaps most striking is how few people outside Fiji know this story.
Most tourists come here for the Pacific paradise image. And in a way, that is understandable.
But the longer you stay here, the more you feel that Fiji is far more complex than the perfect holiday image.
Behind the beaches lives a history of migration, loss, colonialism, cultural survival, and the search for a new home on the other side of the world.
Perhaps that is exactly what makes Fiji so special.
Not only the beauty of the country itself, but also the stories hidden beneath it.
MESSAGES ON BOARD
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