Indo-Fijian

Indo-Fijian

Indo-Fijians are people born in Fiji, but are ethnically Indian. The constitution of Fiji defines "Indian" as anybody who can trace, through either the male or the female line, their ancestry back to anywhere on the Indian subcontinent. They are mostly descended by indentured labourers brought by Fiji's British colonial rulers between 1879 and 1916 to work on Fiji's sugar plantations. These were complemented by the later arrival of Gujarati and Sikh immigrants.

Indo-Fijians comprised the majority of the population in the 1970s, but by 2000 this had declined to 43.7 percent, because of a higher ethnic-Fijian birthrate and particularly because of the greater tendency of Indo-Fijians to emigrate. Emigration accelerated following the coups of 1987 (which removed an Indo-Fijian-supported government from power and, for a time, ushered in a constitution that discriminated against them in numerous ways) and 2000 (which removed an Indo-Fijian Prime Minister from office).

The majority of Indo-Fijians are Hindi speakers, with large minorities speaking Tamil, Bihari, and Punjabi, among others. Almost all Indo-Fijians are also fluent in English, and in the younger generation, English appears to be gradually replacing Indian languages.

About 75 percent of Indo-Fijians are Hindus and a further 16 percent are Muslims. Christians comprise about 6 percent of the Indo-Fijian population, while about 1 percent are members of the Sikh faith. The remaining 2 percent are nonreligious.

See also