Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau was the second highest chief in Fiji at the time of independence, coming after Ratu Sir George Cakobau, the Vunivalu of Bau, who was the highest in the traditional hierarchy. They were two of the four leading paramount chiefs, popularly known as the ‘big four’, after the death in 1958 of Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna who had been the undisputed leader of Fiji from the 1920s. The other two were Ratu Sir Edward Cakobau and Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara.
Ratu Penaia, like Ratu Sukuna, had distinguished himself as a soldier and administrator. In recognition of his abilities the colonial administration had made him the first local to be the Secretary for Fijian Affairs. After independence he became the Deputy Prime Minister and in 1982, on the retirement of Ratu Sir George Cakobau, he became the second local Governor General.
I first met Ratu Penaia in 1986 at a function in Vatukoula where he had been invited to crown the charity queen. After the progremme, we were introduced to Ratu Penaia and we spent a delightful and memorable half an hour with him. When he heard my daughter was studying in Canberra, Ratu Penaia recalled his visit to Canberra and described how the Fijian community there got together and prepared a traditional Fijian welcome for him complete with a yaqona ceremony.
We talked of the weather in Canberra, how cold it gets in winter. Which is when Ratu Penaia reminisced about a time when there was only one overcoat – shared by ‘several of us’. He did not specify who they were who shared the coat and we did not ask him either but took it to mean the high chiefs. He said when it was time for any of them to go abroad they would start looking for the overcoat. Then they would have to work out who it was that went abroad last and get in touch with him to locate the overcoat.
We had a good laugh and wondered how times had changed. We don’t know if it really happened or Ratu Penaia was spinning a yarn to entertain us. Perhaps it was something that happened between a couple of them which he exaggerated to make it sound like something that regularly happened among all (several) of them. His intention was clearly to amuse us and make us feel at home in his company and we thoroughly enjoyed listening to him.
But the very fact that he would mention it even as a joke showed the close relationship among all of them. It was a family affair, something that happens in most families, sharing things, including expensive clothes. Most of the high chiefs were close blood relatives. They also intermarried and were connected in many ways.
In 1987 after the first military coup in Fiji I often remembered that evening with Ratu Penaia. Indian leaders in Fiji were condemning Ratu Mara and praising and trying to rally around Ratu Penaia. If only they knew how close all the paramount chiefs were! There may have been occasional bickering as in any family but they all thought similarly when it came to Fiji and the Fijian rights. The main priority of the paramount chiefs, who became national leaders at independence, had always been making sure that Fiji remained a Fijian country rather than it becoming a ‘little India of the Pacific’ as one writer had predicted.
The chiefly elite of Fiji who were mainly in control of the country after independence, while wanting to ensure that the Fijians were in no way marginalised, were prepared to share power with the other races for the progress of the country. That is why they supported the Alliance government’s policies of multiracialism even though many of them in some ways agreed with the sentiments of the Fijian Nationalist leader, Sakeasi Butadroka. They never condemned him. If they wanted they could have silenced him from the beginning, especially Ratu Sir George Cakobau, the Tui Viti (King of Fiji).
The chiefly leaders, however, knew that Fiji became the leading nation in the Pacific mainly because of the hard work of the immigrant Indians. The chiefs were therefore pragmatic enough to understand the importance of accommodating other ethnic groups, even when they were feeling empathy for the nationalists.
After the 1987 coup the economy of the country went down the drain necessitating the devaluation of the Fiji dollar by almost fifty percent. The SVT government (1992-1999) and the SDL government (2001-2006) led by Fijian commoners followed policies for maintaining Fijian hegemony which affected investor confidence. Unlike the chiefly leaders who looked at what would benefit the country these non-chiefly leaders won the support of the grassroots Fijians by following policies, which discriminated in favour of the Fijians.
The chiefly leadership from the beginning realised that if they followed such discriminatory policies the country would go back more than a hundred years. So even though they did not articulate such concerns openly they followed policies that were progressive. They did not feel the need to explain these policies as the chiefly system was strong and the Fijians accepted the decisions made by their chiefs.
So it would have been in the best interests of the Indians and other ethnic groups to support the chiefly leadership until democracy took firm root in the country. This was something the Indians failed to understand. It was only when Fijians started asserting their rights from 1987 that the Indian community realised the mistake their leaders had made in not co-operating with the chiefly leadership, especially the leadership of Ratu Mara, who was the most moderate among all the high chiefs.
As Peter Thomson noted the Fijians were at a wild and critical crossroads in 1987. “As an indigenous community they had both the power and the will to assert their position in Fiji”. And assert it they did to the shock of the Indian community who had not understood the way the Fijians felt.