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Girmityas
Girmitiyas, (Kaithi: ) also known as Jahajis, were indentured labourers from British India transported to work on plantations in Fiji, South Africa, Mauritius, and the Caribbean (namely Trinidad and Tobago, British Guiana, Suriname and Jamaica) as part of the Indian indenture system. Etymology The word ''girmit'' represented an Indian pronunciation of the English word "agreement" - from the indenture "agreement" of the British Government with labourers from the Indian subcontinent. The agreements specified the workers' length of stay in foreign parts and the conditions attached to their return to the British Raj. The word ''Jahāj'' refers to 'ship' in Indic languages (from the Arabic/Persian ''Jahāz/''جهاز), with ''Jahaji'' implying 'people of ship' or 'people coming via ship'. In Fiji, Governor Arthur Hamilton-Gordon discouraged Melanesian Fijians from working on the plantations in an attempt to preserve their culture. Activist Shaneel Lal argues that Girmitiya w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indo-Fijians
Indo-Fijians () are Fijians of South Asian descent whose ancestors were Girmitiyas, indentured labourers. Indo-Fijians trace their ancestry to various regions of the Indian subcontinent. Although Indo-Fijians constituted a majority of Fiji's population from 1956 through to the late 1980s, discrimination triggered immigration, resulted in them numbering 313,798 (37.6%) (2007 census) out of a total of 827,900 people living in Fiji . Although they hailed from various regions in the subcontinent, just about half of Indo-Fijians trace their origins to the Awadh and Bhojpuri region, Bhojpur regions of the Hindi Belt in northern India. Indo-Fijians speak Fiji Hindi in Fiji also known as 'Fiji Baat' which is based on the Awadhi language, Awadhi dialect with influence from Bhojpuri language, Bhojpuri. It is a koiné language with its own grammatical features, distinct to the Modern Standard Hindi and Urdu, Modern Standard Urdu spoken in South Asia. The major home districts of Fiji's Nor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kaithi
Kaithi (), also called Kayathi (), Kayasthi (), or Kayastani, is a Brahmic script historically used across parts of Northern and Eastern India. It was prevalent in regions corresponding to modern-day Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Jharkhand. The script was primarily utilized for legal, administrative, and private records and was adapted for a variety of Indo-Aryan languages, including Angika, Awadhi language, Awadhi, Bhojpuri language, Bhojpuri, Hindustani language, Hindustani, Maithili language, Maithili, Magahi language, Magahi, and Nagpuri language, Nagpuri. Etymology The name Kaithi script is derived from the term Chitraguptavanshi Kayastha, Kayastha, a social group, socio-professional group historically linked to writing, record-keeping and administration. This community served in royal courts and later in British colonial administration, maintaining revenue records, legal documents, title deeds, and general correspondence. The script they utilized was thus named Kaithi, r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indian Subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent is a physiographic region of Asia below the Himalayas which projects into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. It is now divided between Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. (subscription required) Although the terms "Indian subcontinent" and "South Asia" are often also used interchangeably to denote a wider region which includes, in addition, Bhutan, the Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka, the "Indian subcontinent" is more of a geophysical term, whereas "South Asia" is more geopolitical. "South Asia" frequently also includes Afghanistan, which is not considered part of the subcontinent even in extended usage.Jim Norwine & Alfonso González, ''The Third World: states of mind and being'', pages 209, Taylor & Francis, 1988, Quote: ""The term "South Asia" also signifies the Indian Subcontinent""Raj S. Bhopal, ''Ethnicity, race, and health in multicultural societies'', pages 33, Oxford University Press, 2007, ; Q ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brij Lal (historian)
Brij Vilash Lal , OF (21 August 1952 – 25 December 2021) was an Indo-Fijian historian who wrote about the Pacific region and the Indian indenture system. A harsh critic of the Bainimarama government, which originated in the military coup of 2006 and retained power in the 2014 elections, he lived in exile in Australia. Early life Lal was born in 1952 in Tabia, Labasa on the northern island of Vanua Levu, Fiji to illiterate parents. His paternal grandfather was a North Indian indentured sugar cane farmer in Fiji, known as a ' girmitya', - the focus of Lal's early academic research. He completed an undergraduate degree in history at the University of the South Pacific. He went on to do an MA (1976) at the University of British Columbia and a PhD (1980) at the Australian National University. Academic career Lal was professor of Pacific and Asian History at the School of Culture, History and Language at Australian National University from 1990 until his retirement i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of Hawai'i Press
A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. The first universities in Europe were established by Catholic monks. The University of Bologna (), Italy, which was founded in 1088, is the first university in the sense of: *being a high degree-awarding institute. *using the word (which was coined at its foundation). *having independence from the ecclesiastic schools and issuing secular as well as non-secular degrees (with teaching conducted by both clergy and non-clergy): grammar, rhetoric, logic, theology, canon law and notarial law.Hunt Janin: "The university in medieval life, 1179–1499", McFarland, 2008, , p. 55f.de Ridder-Symoens, Hilde''A History of the University in Europe: Volume 1, Universities in the Midd ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Global Girmit Museum
The Global Girmit Institute (GGI) Museum is co-located with the GGI Library at its headquarters in Saweni, Lautoka, Fiji. ''Girmit'' is a corruption of the English word, “agreement” from the indenture agreement the British government made with Indian labourers that consisted of specifics such as the length of stay in Fiji. The labourers came to be known as ''Girmityas''. Background Under thGGI Organisation the Museum records ''Girmitiya'' history in Fiji from 1879 to 1916 when some 60,500 labourers came to Fiji. One of the outcomes of the first conference organised by the GGI in 2017 was the establishment of a ''girmit'' museum. History The museum has been in the current location in Lautoka since the opening in May 2018 with the introduction of a library. Collections The museum will hold a collection of Fiji Indian artefacts as well as recordings of oral history of peoples from different linguistic backgrounds and cultures. Objects relating to farming and the sugar indu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fiji Hindi
Fiji Hindi (Devanagari: ; Kaithi: ; Perso-Arabic: ) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by Indo-Fijians. It is considered to be a ''koiné'' language based on Awadhi that has also been subject to considerable influence by other Eastern Hindi and Bihari dialects like Bhojpuri, and standard Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu). It has also borrowed some vocabulary from English, iTaukei, Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, Punjabi, Arabic, Marathi and Malayalam. Many words unique to Fiji Hindi have been created to cater for the new environment that Indo-Fijians now live in. First-generation Indo-Fijians in Fiji, who used the language as a ''lingua franca'' in Fiji, referred to it as ''Fiji Baat'', "Fiji talk". It is closely related to and intelligible with Caribbean Hindustani (including Sarnami) and the Bhojpuri-Hindustani spoken in Mauritius and South Africa. It can be interpreted as Hindi or Urdu but it differs in phonetics and vocabulary with Modern Standard Hindi and Modern Standard Urdu. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indo-Caribbean People
Indo-Caribbean or Indian-Caribbean people are people from the Caribbean who trace their ancestry to the Indian subcontinent. They are descendants of the Jahaji indentured laborers from British India, who were brought by the British, Dutch, and French during the colonial era from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century. Indo-Caribbean people largely trace their ancestry back to the Bhojpur and Awadh regions of the Hindi Belt and the Bengal region in North India, in the present-day states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Bengal and Jharkhand, with a significant minority coming from the Madras Presidency in South India, especially present-day Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Other notable regions of origin include Western Uttar Pradesh, Mithila, Magadh, Chota Nagpur, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Pashtunistan, Punjab, Sindh, Kutch, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Kashmir. Most Indians in the French West Indies are of South Indian origin and Indians in Barbados are mostly of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coolie
Coolie (also spelled koelie, kouli, khuli, khulie, kuli, cooli, cooly, or quli) is a pejorative term used for low-wage labourers, typically those of Indian people, Indian or Chinese descent. The word ''coolie'' was first used in the 16th century by European traders across Asia. In the 18th century, the term more commonly referred to migrant Indian indenture system, Indian indentured labourers. In the 19th century, during the Colonial India, British colonial era, the term was adopted for the transportation and employment of Asian labourers via employment contracts on Sugar plantations in the Caribbean, sugar plantations formerly worked by enslaved Africans. The word has had a variety of negative implications. In modern-day English, it is usually regarded as offensive. In the 21st century, ''coolie'' is generally considered a racial slur for Asians in Oceania, Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Americas (particularly in the Caribbean). The word originated in the 17th-century India ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The New Zealand Herald
''The New Zealand Herald'' is a daily newspaper published in Auckland, New Zealand, owned by New Zealand Media and Entertainment, and considered a newspaper of record for New Zealand. It has the largest newspaper circulation in New Zealand, peaking at over 200,000 copies in 2006, although circulation of the daily ''Herald'' had declined to 100,073 copies on average by September 2019. The ''Herald''s publications include a daily paper; the ''Weekend Herald'', a weekly Saturday paper; and the ''Herald on Sunday'', which has 365,000 readers nationwide. The ''Herald on Sunday'' is the most widely read Sunday paper in New Zealand. The paper's website, nzherald.co.nz, is viewed 2.2 million times a week and was named Voyager Media Awards' News Website of the Year in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023. In 2023, the ''Weekend Herald'' was awarded Weekly Newspaper of the Year and the publication's mobile application was the News App of the Year. Its main circulation area is the Auckland R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shaneel Lal
Shaneel Shavneel Lal (born 22 January 2000) is a Fijian-New Zealand LGBT rights activist, columnist and political commentator. Lal is best known for advocating for the ban of conversion therapy in New Zealand. Early life Lal was born in Nausori, Fiji to a mixed iTaukei and Girmitiya family on 22 January 2000. Lal comes from a Hindu family and was raised in a Hindu and Muslim community. After attending a Christian primary and high school in Fiji, Lal states that they "grew out of" religion and subscribes to indigenous spirituality. In Fiji, Lal was put into conversion therapy in an attempt to change their sexuality and gender identity. The elders of the village prayed over Lal to free them of spirits that supposedly made Lal queer. Lal experienced conversion therapy as a challenge to their indigeneity and relationships with their ancestors. Lal claims that precolonial indigenous queerness is distinct from colonial attitudes to and terms for queerness. Lal argues that prior ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indigenous Fijians
Fijians () are a nation and ethnic group native to Fiji, who speak Fijian and English and share a common history and culture. Fijians, or ''iTaukei'', are the major indigenous people of the Fiji Islands of Melanesia. Indigenous Fijians are believed to have arrived in Fiji from western Melanesia approximately 3,500 years ago and are the descendants of the Lapita people. Later they would move onward to other surrounding islands, including Rotuma, as well as settling in other nearby islands such as Tonga and Samoa. They are indigenous to all parts of Fiji except the island of Rotuma. The original settlers are now called "Lapita people" after a distinctive pottery produced locally. Lapita pottery was found in the area from 800 BCE onward. As of 2005, indigenous Fijians constituted slightly more than half of the total population of Fiji. Indigenous Fijians are predominantly of Melanesian extraction, with some Polynesian admixture. Australia has the largest Fijian expatriate p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
