Girmit songs should be introduced in the school curriculum – Chand

Girmit songs should be introduced in the primary and secondary school curriculum, or there will come a day that it will be forgotten.

This has been highlighted by FNU Music Lecturer Naresh Chand who was one of the many performers during a music show at Albert Part as part of the Girmit Day celebrations.

Chand who is doing his PhD on the significance of girmit songs performed songs that he composed on girmit history, their pain and their struggles.

He says there were no instruments in those days so they used anything they could find to use as instruments such as pots and pans and tins.

Chand says when the girmityas came home after working in the field, they would sing folk songs called bedisyas and lok geet from wherever they were from in India and would entertain themselves.

He adds the songs of their ancestors is their heritage and we should keep it alive and teach our children so that it stays alive.

While opening the show, Minister for Multi Ethnic Affairs, Charan Jeath Singh says it is important that we share our history and make sure that events such as these are culturally inclusive with a special emphasis on sharing an important aspect of Fiji’s shared history and the heritage which the iTaukei and the wider Fijian community has with us.

He says it is noteworthy that we recognise and live with the reality the Girmitya and their descendants would have had to live with and formed relationships with the iTaukei for nation building.

He says the indignity suffered by the girmityas have been documented by historians and the girmityas oral accounts and perhaps their plight and suffering are best to be expressed in the songs they have composed during this period.

He further says the songs and music brought from diverse parts of India helped make the dark days a bit lighter in the evenings when they gathered to recite from the holy books or sing folk songs from the regions.

Singh says the girmit era also saw the composing and songs that captured the hardship of their experience in Fiji.

He adds from next year, the Ministry of Multi Ethnic Affairs will take full charge of the Girmit Celebrations and spread it across many towns and cities in the country.

Meanwhile, Kushma Devi, who came to see the Girmit Exhibition at Albert Park says it is important for people to come and see how people lived and the struggles they went through where many also died.

She says we have it so easy now but she remembers her grandparents telling her about all they went through and that they were even whipped.

Devi adds girmit history should be taught in great detail in our schools.

70-year-old Bhan Wati says she remembers her grandfather telling her that they were lied to and brought to Fiji.

She says it is important to remember all their pain and realise that it is through their struggles that we are prospering now.