Brij V. Lal 

Professor Brij Vilash Lal OF, AM, FAHA (1952-2021) was a renowned historian, who was an authority on the history of Fiji Indians. He was a brilliant academic and his views were sought Fiji's history, as well as, the current social and political situation. He spent his last 12 years exiled in Australia for giving his frank assessment of the political situation in Fiji.

Lal was born on 21 August 1952 into a farming family in Tabia in Vanua Levu, the second largest island in the Fiji Islands. He was the grandson of  indentured labourer who had arrived in Fiji in 1908. After obtained his primary school education at Tabia Sanatan Dharam Primary School and secondary school education at Labasa Secondary School (now Labasa College). He enrolled at the University of the South Pacific on a Government scholarship to train as a high school teacher. He graduated at the top of his class with Bachelor of Arts and joined the University of the South Pacific as an assistant lecturer. 

He obtained his Master of Arts from the University of British Columbia for which he wrote a thesis on East Indians in British Columbia 1904-1914. He returned to teach at USP but was offered a scholarship to study at ANU. He obtained his Doctor of Philosophy from the Australian National University for which he produced thesis on the origins and background of Fiji's north Indian indentured migrants, 1879-1916. He returned to Fiji in 1980 and lectured at USP until 1983 when he was appointed Assistant Professor of World and Pacific History at the University of Hawaii. He was Professor of Pacific and Asian History at the Australian National University from 1990 to 2016.

In 1995, Brij Lal was appointed as one of the three members of the constitutional review committee. The committee's recommendation was unanimously accepted by parliament in 1997 and for the first time since 1987, Fiji returned to democracy. For his work in the committee he was made an Officer of the Order of Fiji (OF) in 1997.

In November 2009, Lal was expelled from Fiji for taking part in a discussion on the expulsion of the Australian and New Zealand high commissioners from Fiji.

He died in Brisbane on 25 December 2021. He is survived by his wife Padma, who is an accomplished academic in her own right , two children and five grand children.

I have personally known Brij from our days as students at the University of the South Pacific. He was an extremely dedicated student and a perfectionist. Sports and parties were not his forte but he always stood up for the rights of his fellow Indian students.

Extracts from an interview with Brij Lal published in “Fiji Times” in 2007

You become conscious of your unique identity when you step outside your own cultural world. You realise how Fijian you really are when you live in another culture, among other people. Your language, your sense of humour, your food, as well as, habits are different, unique. As the years advance, you suddenly realise how important your place is in your life, how deep childhood memories are. I cannot make sense of my life without my Fijian identity.

In this country, we are called Indians, but when you meet the real Indians, you suddenly realise how un-Indian you really are in your habits of thought and behavior. The Indian world of horoscope, and hierarchy, the obsession with protocol and ritual, of one’s proper place in the order of things , mean very little to you. Self-made that we are, we are impatient with things set in concrete, with restrictive tradition.

 Our attachment to Fiji is a function of generational change. I was born and educated there. I am part of its history and culture. Its landscape moves me: the feel of warm rain on freshly mowed lawn, the smell of burning cane, and the swollen rivers.

 Fiji will always remain my spiritual and emotional home.

Books written by Brij Lal

• Historical Dictionary of Fiji, Rowman & Littlefield, New York, 2016
• Intersections: history, memory, discipline, Fiji Institute of Applied Studies, Lautoka, 2011
• A Vision for Change: A.D. Patel and the Politics of Fiji, ANU  Press, Canberra, 2011
• In the Eye of the Storm: Jai Ram Reddy and the politics of postcolonial Fiji, ANU Press, Canberra, 2010
• Turnings: Fiji Factions, Fiji Institute of Applied Studies, Lautoka, 2008
• A Bomb Lies Buried: Fiji's Road to Independence, 1960-1970, ANU Press, Canberra, 2008
• Islands of Turmoil: Elections and Politics in Fiji, ANU Press, Canberra, 2006
• On the other side of midnight: a Fijian journey, National Book Trust, New Delhi, 2005
• Mr Tulsi's Store: A Fijian Journey, Pandanus Books, Canberra, 2001
• Chalo Jahaji: on a journey through indenture in Fiji, ANU and Fiji Museum, 2000
• Another way: the politics of constitutional reform in post-coup Fiji, Asia Pacific Press, Canberra, 1998
• Broken Waves: A history of the Fiji Islands in the 20th century, University of Hawaii Press, 1992
• Power and prejudice: the making of the Fiji crisis, New Institute of International Affairs, Wellington, 1988
• Girmityas: The Origins of the Fiji Indians, Journal of Pacific History, Canberra, 1983

Awards he has received:

• Fellowship of the Australian Humanities Academy (FAHA), 1996
• Centenary Medal of the Government of Australia for contribution to humanities, 2001
• Pacific Distinguished Scholar Medal
• Officer of the Order of Fiji
• Selection as one of 75 Makers of the 20th Century of Fijian History
• Member of the Order of Australia (AM), 2015