Seventy-five percent of Fiji Indians are of North Indian Descent. When the Indenture System started, in 1833, after the end of slavery in the British Empire, labourers were recruited mainly from Bihar and shipped out through Calcutta. Bengalis did not join the indenture system because they could find employment closer, in the tea plantations of Darjeeling and Assam. As Biharis began to realise that employment could be found closer at home, in the tea plantations and the tea, jute and other industries of Calcutta, they were reluctant to travel to far off places. As a result recruiters turned their attention to the eastern parts of United Provinces (Uttar Pradesh). As a result of this colonies to which labourers were sent earlier in the indenture period, like Trinidad and Mauritius, had a higher proportion of Biharis than colonies to which labourers were sent later, like Fiji and Surinam.
From 1879-1890, Biharis made up 34% of the indentured labourers coming to Fiji. This proportion had dropped to 10% in the next five years and declined to 5.4% in the years after that. Overall, only10.5% of Girmityas (indentured labourers) who embarked from Calcutta, and bound for Fiji, where of Bihari origin.
Ref: Brij V. Lal, Girmityas - the origin of the Fiji Indians, Fiji Institute of Applied Studies, 2004
Ref: Brij V. Lal, Girmityas - the origin of the Fiji Indians, Fiji Institute of Applied Studies, 2004
