University of Lucknow, India.
The author is highly grateful to her Ph.D. Supervisor Dr. Pramod kumar Srivastava, Reader Department of Western History, University of Lucknow, for his invaluable help, constant encouragement and guidance.
In total 87 voyages around 60553 Indian indentured labourers emigrated to Fiji islands. Majority of them had emigrated temporarily to Fiji with the objective of returning back to India after earning sufficient money. After abolition of indenture system in 1920 the deadline of ten years was no more existant and number of them applied for repatriation. However, a number of indentured Indian labourers had already repatriated during indenture period but were disappointed because of the treatment meted to them in their villages. It was alleged that they had lost their castes in the sea voyages and were not allowed back in their traditional societies unless investing major part of their earnings in ceremonial rites performed for the purpose of returning back to their original castes. The repatriated Indians after 1920 also found themselves in the similar situation after coming back to India. It is not surprising that number of them were now interested in coming back to Fiji for ever and not to return back to India. The author has studied in this paper the circumstances under which the repatriated Indians decided to become Indo-Fijians in place of Indians.
