Vishnu Deo
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Vishnu Deo was the leader of the first three Fiji Indians elected into the Legislative Council in 1929. He subsequently served in the Council again from 1937 to 1959; his 22-year tenure (during which he won eight elections and lost none) was a record that was not broken for many years.
[edit] His early life
Pandit Vishnu Deo was born on 17 July 1900. He attended Marist Brothers School and was gifted with a keen intellect and was a fluent debater in both English and Hindi. He joined the immigration department as a clerk in 1918 and started his own importing and exporting agency in 1927. Vishnu Deo was the founder of a number of social and religious organisations. The Governor of Fiji proclaimed 15 May 1929 as a public holiday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the arrival of the first Indians in Fiji but Vishnu Deo wanted this to be a day of mourning and at a meeting in Lautoka on 12 May 1929, it was decided to fast and pray on the day and to form the Fiji Indian National Congress. While there was an official ceremony and floats through Suva, Vishnu Deo and his associates displayed a black flag and burnt the indenture system in an effigy.
[edit] Fight for equal rights
After a sustained campaign by Fiji Indians for equal rights, they were allowed to elect three representatives on a communal roll. In October 1929, Vishnu Deo was elected to the Legislative Council, easily defeating John F. Grant in the Southern Constituency. Vishnu Deo was sworn into the Legislative Council on 25 October 1929 and on 5 November moved a motion calling for common roll franchise. The motion was defeated and the three Fiji Indian members resigned. The unity of the Fiji Indians was demonstrated by no nomination being received when nominations were called later to fill the Legislative Council vacancies. During the Second World War, Vishnu Deo advised Fiji Indians to only enlist in the army if they were paid the same wages as Europeans.
[edit] Religious activities
Vishnu Deo was a leader of Arya Samaj in Fiji. He took a proactive role in propagating the teachings of Swami Dayanand, some of which were the establishment of a castless society, education for girls, an end to child marriage and re-marriage for widows. He soon found himself at loggerheads with other religious groups, who for the first time had to deal with a Hindu society aggressively promoting re-conversion to Hinduism. He participated in public debates and during one of these debates published material for which he was convicted and fined. He was the editor of the Hindi language newspaper, Fiji Samachar, which was regarded as the mouthpiece of the Arya Samaj in Fiji.
[edit] Political leader
He was ineligible to contest the 1932 election for his earlier conviction, but from 1937 to 1959 won the Southern Indian Constituency seven times. During his early political career he worked closely with the other champion of common roll in Fiji, A.D. Patel. They did not have the same view on all issues, for example, Vishnu Deo supported education in Hindi for Fiji Indians whereas A.D. Patel wanted the regional Indian languages taught in schools for Fiji Indians. As Vishnu Deo was based in the Southern Division and A.D. Patel in the Western Division there was no competition between the two until it was decided to nominate an Indian into the Executive Council in 1948. Both Indian leaders believed that they deserved the honour but Patel managed to outmeanouvre Vishnu Deo and gain the support of three out of the five Indian members of the Legislative Council to become the Indian Member of the Executive Council. At the next election, Vishnu Deo had his revenge when a candidate supported by him (Tulsi Ram Sharma) easily defeated A.D. Patel. In fact, A.D. Patel was kept out of the Legislative Council for as long as Vishnu Deo remained politically active.
After the 1950 Legislative Council elections, James Madhavan was chosen as the Indian member in the Executive Council. Vishnu Deo had to wait until 1956 before he finally joined the Ececutive Council. On 14 September 1956 Pundit Vishnu Deo (Senior Indian Member from the Southern Division) was appointed to the Executive Council. In the selection of Vishnu Deo, the Indian members displayed remarkable unity as reported by the Fiji Times (10/10/1956): “The appointment of Mr. Pdt. Vishnu Deo to the Executive Council was unanimously endorsed at a meeting of the five Indian Legislative Council members held at Nausori during the weekend. This is believed to be the first time in Fiji when all Legislative Council members of any race combined together to support the candidature of one of their own members into the Executive Council.”
When Radio Fiji started broadcasting in July 1954 the first Hindi voice heard over the air in Fiji was that of Vishnu Deo, who presented the inaugural address.[1]
[edit] Cane farmers' leader
When negotiations began for the 1950 cane contract and there was a split among the Rewa farmers, Vishnu Deo stepped in to provide a unified voice for these farmers. Ironically, this created a further rift between himself and A.D. Patel, because he supported A.D. Patel's life-long opponent, Ayodhya Prasad, in the ensuing cane dispute.
[edit] His Legacy
Vishnu Deo died on 7 May 1968 but his contribution to the Fiji Indians can be seen by the number of schools and roads named after him. Some of these are:
- Vishnu Deo Road located at Nasinu 9 ½ Miles and is the main trunk road to the newly developed suburb of Nakasi.
- Vishnu Deo Secondary School located between Lautoka and Nadi and is also the site of the University of Fiji.
- Vishnu Deo Primary School, located in Raiwaga, Suva, was one of the first multi-racial schools established in Fiji
[edit] References
- ^ J.S. Kanwal, A Hundred Years of Hindi in Fiji, Fij Teachers' Union, Fiji, 1980
