Prof. Brij Lal BA (USP), MA (UBC), PhD (ANU), AM, OF, FAHA
The National Federation Party will hold a condolence gathering in memory of Professor Brij V. Lal on Thursday from 10am to 3pm at Jai Narayan College Hall in Suva. The Funeral Service will be live-streamed from Brisbane, Australia on a big screen from 1pm-3pm on Thursday.
Dear Friends,
It is with a heavy heart that I share with you the passing away of Professor Brij V Lal. He died this morning in Brisbane having been unwell for some time.
I have known Brij since 1971 when we were Prelim/Foundation students at USP. Besides being a diligent student, he actively engaged in student activism. He obtained his MA degree from UBC and his PhD from ANU.
He became the preeminent historian of Fiji, the Indenture Labour System, Indo-Fijian history and of the Indian diaspora. He published widely including several history books, and more recently, very readable short stories. A month ago, his last book was published in Delhi.
He was briefly a colleague at USP, and did trailblazing scholarly work at the University of Hawaii and at the Australian National University where he was recognised as Emeritus Professor. He was honoured by the Government of Australia as a Member of the Order of Australia.
Brij came from a sugar cane farming family in Tabia Labasa, Vanua Levu. He and his wife, Dr Padma Narsey Lal traveled regularly to Fiji. They wrote scholarly books and articles on contemporary Fiji. In the mid-1990s Brij served in the three-person Constitutional Review Commission with Sir Paul Reeves as Chair and Mr Tomasi Vakatora as the other member. Their review of the 1990 RoF Constitution based on widespread national and international consultations resulted in a report and recommendations that eventually led to the 1997 Republic of Fiji Constitution. This Constitution was endorsed by the Great Council of Chiefs, the House of Representatives and the Senate.
For reasons best known to Fijian Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama (the 2006 military coup leader) and the Attorney General Aiyaz Saiyad Khaiyum both Brij and Padma were banned from the country of their birth in 2009. Since then Bainimarama and Khaiyum have ignored the many calls by academics, community leaders, letter writers in the Fiji Times, as well as political leaders to lift the ban.
The current Commissioner of Police Sitiveni Qiliho, then a senior military officer in the Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) had detained Professor Brij Lal in 2009, slapped him and spat on him. A soldier also stepped on and smashed his spectacles without which he could barely see. He was told to catch the next flight out of Fiji or his family would have to retrieve his dead body from the mortuary.
This gross violation of his human rights and his involuntary exile took their toll on the good professor's health.
Personally, I am deeply saddened by the loss of Brij Lal as he was a close friend. We have lost an iconic and exemplary scholar who came from a very humble sugar cane farming family. He has left a huge and rich legacy of books and articles that will be indispensable for readers and students of Fiji history, the Girmit, and late 20th and early 21st centuries' Fiji politics.
My heartfelt condolences to Padma, Yogi, Niraj, the Lal and Narsey families.
May Brij Rest in Peace.
Vijay Naidu
A note by Yogi, "Dad love Fiji", reported by the Fiji Times
Tribute by Biman Prasad on Fiji Village
https://www.fijivillage.com/news/Sudden-and-shocking-death-of-Professor-Brij-Lal-should-create-a-moment-for-all-to-pause-and-reflect--NFP-Leader-x85fr4/
Sudden and shocking death of Professor Brij Lal should create a moment for all to pause and reflect – NFP Leader
By Dhanjay Deo
Sunday 26/12/2021
National Federation Party Leader, Professor Biman Prasad says the sudden and shocking death of Professor Brij Lal at the age of 69 should create a moment for all Fiji citizens to pause and reflect, even while they are distracted by many personal challenges brought on by the pandemic and other deep national problems.
Professor Lal passed away in Brisbane yesterday morning.
He and his wife, Doctor Padma Lal were expelled from Fiji in 2009.
Prasad says Lal was a giant on the international academic stage, but for the last 12 years of his life, he was banned from returning to the place of his birth for championing democracy.
The NFP Leader says some of Fiji’s most outstanding people with international reputations are sporting figures, business people or international diplomats but among historians and scholars, Professor Lal stood tall around the world.
Prasad says from a poor farming family in Tabia, Vanua Levu, Professor Lal rose to be an emeritus professor of Pacific and Asian History at the Australian National University, one of the world’s highest-ranked places of learning.
Prasad adds Lal was an acknowledged expert on the Indian diaspora around the world and was recognised as the pre-eminent historian on the history of Indenture and Girmitiya.
He says Professor Lal will be remembered as one of the architects of the 1997 Fiji Constitution.
The National Federation Party will be organising a condolence gathering to remember Professor Lal.
Tribute on RNZ Pacific
Renowned Fijian academic dies in exile
25 December 2021
Renowned Fijian academic Brij Lal, emeritus professor of Pacific and Asian History at the Australian National University, has died at his home in Australia.
Australian National University academic Prof Brij Lal who was deported from Fiji in 2009Australian National University academic Prof Brij Lal Photo: Supplied
Described as a distinguished son of Fiji, Professor Lal was expelled from his homeland in 2009 after speaking out against the interim regime after the 2006 coup.
He was particularly critical of the regime's decision to expel New Zealand and Australian diplomats.
Professor Lal helped draft the 1997 constitution and witnessed its abrogation by the Bainimarama-led government in 2009.
In 2015, he told RNZ Pacific that he had reapplied to return to Fiji.
However, his return was barred by the Government, on the grounds that he opposed Fiji's return to democracy: an allegation he denied.
The Fijian Government confirmed, in 2015 that Professor Lal's ban would remain in place indefinitely.
In 2019, the leader of the National Federation Party Biman Prasad attacked the Fiji government for exiling the Professor and continually denying him reentry to Fiji.
Tributes have been pouring in from across the Pacific.
Article by the Fiji Broadcasting Commission
Fijian academic Professor Brij Lal, emeritus professor of Pacific and Asian History at the Australian National University passed away yesterday at his home in Australia.
Professor Brij Lal died at the age of 69.
Professor Lal was declared a prohibited immigrant in 2009 for opposing the then Bainimarama government’s moves towards democracy after the events of 2006.
The Professor has since denied the allegation.
Lal had lectured at the University of the South Pacific as well as several other Universities in the region including the University of Papua New Guinea and the University of Hawaii.
Lal was married to fellow-academic Padma Lal.
Wikipedia
Brij Lal (historian)
Brij Vilash Lal, FAHA, AM, FAHA (21 August 1952 – 25 December 2021) was an Indo-Fijian historian who wrote about the Pacific region and the Indian indenture system. A harsh critic of the Bainimarama government, which originated in the military coup of 2006 and retained power in the 2014 elections, he lived in exile in Australia.
Early life
Lal was born in 1952 in Tabia, Labasa on the northern island of Vanua Levu, Fiji. He completed an undergraduate degree in history at the University of the South Pacific. He went on to do an MA (1976) at the University of British Columbia and a PhD (1980) at the Australian National University.
Academic career
Lal was emeritus professor of Pacific and Asian History at the School of Culture, History and Language at Australian National University. He also lectured at University of the South Pacific in Suva, the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and at the University of Papua New Guinea. He was also a visiting professor at University of the South Pacific and, simultaneously, head of the Centre for Diasporic Studies at the University of Fiji.
Among his many books are an autobiography, Mr Tulsi's Store: A Fijian Journey (2001), which was named a "Notable" book by the San Francisco-based Kiriyama Prize in 2002.[6] He was also the author of Chalo Jahaji: On a journey through indenture in Fiji (2000) and editor of Bittersweet: The Indo-Fijian Experience (2004),[7] the latter two recounting the history of the trials and triumphs of the Indo-Fijian community. He was the Editor of the Journal of Pacific History and the Founding Editor of the literary journal, Conversations.
Honours
Lal was elected a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities (FAHA) in 1996.[8][9] On 1 January 2001 he was awarded a Centenary Medal "for service to Australian society and the humanities in the study of Pacific history".
On 3 November 2005, it was announced that Lal had been awarded the inaugural Distinguished Pacific Scholar Award by the UNESCO-sponsored International Council for the Study of the Pacific Islands, in recognition of his research into Fijian and Pacific history. He has also written widely about the Indian Diaspora, including the history of indentured service.
Lal was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the 2015 Queen's Birthday Honours (Australia) "for significant service to education, through the preservation and teaching of Pacific history, as a scholar, author and commentator".
He was honoured by the Fiji Millennium Committee for distinguished scholarship, and was also named as one of the seventy people who helped shape Fiji's history in the 20th century.
Political engagement
In the 1990s, Lal served as the nominee of the Leader of the opposition, Jai Ram Reddy on the three-member Constitutional Review Commission, whose work culminated in the adoption of the present constitution in 1997-1998.
Lal condemned the Military coup d'état which deposed the government of Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase on 5 December 2006. Fiji Live quoted him as saying on 7 December that the coup was not different in essence from the two coups staged by Sitiveni Rabuka in 1987, or George Speight's coup of 2000. This time, however, race was not seen to be a factor, he said, unlike the previous occasions when ethnic issues were used, he claimed, as a scapegoat for other interests.
In November 2009, Lal discussed the ongoing political situation in Fiji after the expulsion of the Australian and New Zealand high commissioners, in an interview with Radio New Zealand. Shortly afterwards he was taken into custody and questioned about his comments. During the questioning, Lal reported that he was subjected to foul language and advised to leave the country within 24 hours, which he did. Lal has subsequently clarified that he was expelled rather than being deported.
Forced exile
In March 2015, Defence Minister Timoci Natuva announced that Lal was prohibited indefinitely from returning to Fiji because his actions were "prejudicial to the peace, defence, public safety, public order and security of Government of Fiji". This decision was reiterated in late June or early July 2015. Lal reacted angrily to the ban on his return:
The original decision was based on the false premise that I opposed Fiji's return to democracy after the coup of 2006," he said.
"That is a travesty of the truth and of the historical record. I did nothing of the sort. And it is ludicrous to assert that my wife and I are a threat to the security of Fiji. The decision is nothing short of petty vindictiveness. We are disappointed but the Government is diminished by it. For our part, we will continue to stand up for the principles and values we believe in,"
he told the Fiji Times by e-mail on 2 July 2015.
* References and their numeral links have been omitted. For the complete article, click here.
My blog's earlier comment on Brij and Padma's expulsion
Go to https://crosbiew.blogspot.com Write 'Brij Lal' in "Search the Blog" in the right sidebar to read many other postings on Brij; then press "Search".
Tuesday, 14 April 2015
Government Does Not Understand What Makes Good Academics Tick: Permanent Banns on Brij and Padma Lal
Every person's upbringing, training and life experience leads them to behave in different ways from other people. Military people value discipline and obedience. Academics favour independent thought. The Lals were not opposing democracy. They are in a far more principled position than the likes of Michael Field who also is permanently banned from entering Fiji.
They were expressing a view shared by many about the legality of the Bainimarama takeover in 2006. It was not a position with which I agreed but as an academic my training and experience demands that I respect their opinion.
Government's decision shows a regrettable shortcoming in its post-election leadership and a total ignorance of the intellectual qualities required of those filling academic positions in a democratic society.
It also deprives universities in Fiji of the assistance the Lal's could offer to their staff and students in Fiji and in Australia. Six months on when the issue has cooled, I would hope and expect academics in Fiji to work for a reversal of this regrettable decision. -- Croz
The expectation happened but was unsuccessful. The rest is history.
-- ACW
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
STOP PRESS
ANOTHER SAD LOSS: Archbishop Desmond Tutu (click to read)
No comments:
Post a Comment