Approximately 12,000 km away from India, if there is one factor that unites Fijians of Indian descent, it is Fiji Hindi, also known as ‘Fiji Baat’, says Rajendra Prasad, who researches linguistics at The University of the South Pacific in the country’s capital, Suva. Experts interviewed for this report say that this is perhaps why it should not come as a surprise that the Indian government, in collaboration with the Government of Fiji, has put together the 12th edition of the World Hindi Conference, which first started in 1975. This international conference, which has been hosted in various cities around the world over the years, focuses on various aspects of the Hindi language and its global usage and propagation. This year’s conference, held between February 15-17, is ongoing in Fiji’s third-largest city, Nadi, which has a considerably large population of Fijian-Indians and was inaugurated by Fiji’s President Ratu Wiliame Maivalili Katonivere and India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar. “Today, the presence of so many Hindi speakers across geographies is a testimony to the effectiveness of globalisation. Migration and mobility are not new phenomena and Fiji itself is a telling example in that regard,” Jaishankar said during his address. Under the country’s Constitution of 1997, Fiji has three official languages, English, iTaukei and Hindi, a provision that was not changed when the country’s fourth Constitution was signed into law in 2013. According to the country’s 2007 census, 37 per cent of the population is Indian, the second largest group after indigenous Fijians. Fijian-Indians are the descendants of approximately 60,000 indentured labourers or ‘girmitiya’, who were brought to Fiji between 1879 and 1916 to work on sugar plantations in the islands during the British colonial rule. From Calcutta to Fiji In Fiji today, two dialects of Hindi are in use: one is Fiji Hindi and the other is Standard Hindi, but Hindustani also finds mention in the country’s linguistic map. In the early years of colonial rule, the terms for the Hindi and Hindustani languages were interchangeably used by British colonial officials who did not understand the difference between the two. “Standard Hindi, which is used in formal settings, is different from Hindustani and of course, Fiji Hindi. Hindustani was the language of conversation that many girmitiya picked up when they were brought to Calcutta before they were dispatched to the colonies,” explains Prasad. Approximately three-quarters of the girmitiya who were brought to Fiji came from northern India and spoke different regional varieties of Hindi. Hindustani, Prasad explains, was a mix of Hindi, Awadhi and Urdu, and was a language most frequently used during everyday conversation and was a language of the working class. “For many years in Fiji, Hindustani was represented as ‘Hindi’,” Prasad says, because the British had little understanding that the languages were different. It is the reason why the 1970 Constitution of Fiji, which was drafted by the British, states that Hindustani was a language that could be used in Parliament. Between 1879 and 1916, although Indians came from several different provinces across the subcontinent, a new, unique dialect of Hindi became a dominant language for the community because when the girmitiya first arrived in Fiji, many came from the regions that form the modern Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. “They brought several languages like Hindustani, Awadhi, Braj, Maithili, Bhojpuri with them. All of these came together to create a new language which we call ‘Fiji baat’ or Fiji Hindi,” explains Prasad. Over the decades, Fiji Hindi has evolved and now also incorporates components of English and iTaukei. The language is spoken not just in Fiji, but also in countries like Australia, New Zealand and the United States, which have large populations of Fiji Indians. (The below video, published in 2013 by the Fiji Women's Rights Movement for Indo-Fijian women to urge them to vote in the country’s 2014 elections, demonstrates the use of Fiji Hindi today. Video credit: Fiji Women's Rights Movement) Fiji Hindi, the mother tongue Standard Hindi or what is known as pure Hindi, mostly heard in formal spaces, for instance, in government, was never used on the ships that brought the girmitiya to Fiji. “The second generation of Fiji Indians who were born to the girmitiya considered Fiji Hindi to be their mother tongue. It was the language that they were surrounded by, but to ensure that the children were connected to their Indian heritage, the community began teaching Standard Hindi in these small informal schools that were set up beneath trees, out in the open, across the country,” Prasad says. By the 1920s, when Fiji’s Education Commission began considering languages that were to be used as the mediums of instruction in schools, it was recommended that Standard Hindi be the selected vernacular for Indian schools across the country and not the informal ‘Fiji Baat’ that had grown and developed on the country’s plantations and passed down to the children. The growing number of Fiji Indians in the country and amendments made to education policies resulted in a demand for teachers who could provide instruction in the Hindi language. “Teachers were brought in from India to teach our children Standard Hindi and to keep them connected to their faith. The conversational language was Fiji Hindi, but what was taught in school was Standard Hindi. It was learning a new language,” says Prasad. Although Standard Hindi is taught as a compulsory subject in primary school, between classes 1 to 8, Prasad says that many students choose to stop learning Hindi in high school. In 2013, Fiji’s new Constitution included a provision to make the teaching of the iTaukei language and Fiji Hindi compulsory at the primary school level, in addition to English. The government’s aim was to reduce language barriers in the country. But the subject of the implementation and use of Hindi in Fiji is a complex one and over the past decade, there has been some debate regarding the teaching of Standard Hindi and the use of the colloquial Fiji Hindi. In 2019, the Fijian Broadcasting Corporation’s radio station Mirchi FM started airing programs in Fiji Hindi, a decision it attributed to its desire to engage more listeners. Several local Hindi-speaking groups that promote the language and the Hindu faith in the country had criticised the move, saying it would impact the community’s culture, language and religion. “I guess the reason why Mirchi FM was pushing for Fiji Hindi was because in our iTaukei community, there are people who also speak Fiji Hindi to some extent and they don’t speak Standard Hindi,” says Shreya Kumar, a 23-year-old resident of Suva. Language, religion and immigrant identity “There are different polarised views regarding Hindi in Fiji. The older generation, the ones who probably have had these conversations with their great grandfathers who did come from India, they think of Hindi more as a medium to connect with their religion—Hinduism,” adds Kumar. “Personally, I don’t think my faith or religion is dependent on the language I speak. I could speak English or iTaukei but be a Hindu at the end of the day. But some groups in Fiji are trying to link it with religion. There is a lot of conflict within our communities about whether religion depends on language or vice versa,” says Kumar. The India Sanmarga Ikya Sangam, one of the oldest organisations formed by Indians in Fiji, did not respond to requests for comment. It is usually the older generation that associates language with religion, says Kumar. “The younger generation is aware of the fact that these are two different things; that our scriptures are not necessarily written in Standard Hindi,” she says. There is another reason why some groups place so much emphasis on their community being able to read Standard Hindi: the religious texts in Fiji are all written in this language, unlike some other countries like Mauritius, where the girmitiya used Roman script to preserve religious texts. Prasad understands the pushback over the use of Fiji Hindi among some groups in the country. “Our ancestors wanted to promote Standard Hindi for two reasons: to be connected to India and for the propagation of their religion. In Fiji, on a Tuesday, you will find villages and zilas where groups of people will organise Ramayana mandali (informal gatherings) and read the Ramayana. So people always want their children to learn Standard Hindi so that they can read these religious texts,” he says. For these groups, fewer people in the community adept at Standard Hindi language skills would be akin to losing an integral part of their faith. He believes that in 2019, when the controversy arose concerning the radio station’s decision to switch to Fiji Hindi, it was really about the fears that some people in the community held. “People were afraid that if the language was lost, they would lose their religion. In every home, you will find at least one person who can read Hindi. So primary school education ensures that they can at least read the religious texts,” says Prasad. The government’s aim to introduce Fiji Hindi in schools to reduce language barriers may have helped. In Fiji today, because of the colloquial use of Fiji Hindi, most people in the country can understand even when a person speaks pure Standard Hindi. Over the past few decades, the immense popularity of Bollywood film and music and Hindi television shows across communities in Fiji have also ensured some degree of familiarity with the Bombay Hindi dialect, predominantly used in the entertainment industry based in Mumbai, India. The association of faith and culture have made discussions surrounding language complex and to some extent, controversial. Several sources in Fiji’s government and religious organisations did not respond to requests for comment for this report. “I guess having this conference would give us a common identity through shared history that we have shared as girmitiya. It is not a question about whether we identify ourselves as Fijians or Indians. It is about celebrating the union of these two identities and this conference is a good way to go about it,” says Kumar.
