Fiji and the Franchise: A History of Political Representation, 1900-1937

Fiji by the year 1900 after a generation as a British Crown Colony was a multi-racial nation with a combined indentured and free Indian component, which was about to expand on a large scale, and contest political predominance with indigenous Fijians and a small but dominant European minority among other ethnic groups. Drawn from primary sources, with original quotations and statistics, Fiji and the Franchise illuminates the history of the struggle that followed. This book introduces readers to life in the Fiji islands from 1900 to 1937, when the ultimate question for its inhabitants was how political representation should be achieved, and on what basis.

Fiji and the Franchise was Ahmed Ali’s eminently readable and well-grounded Australian National University doctoral thesis. It was presented in 1973 but still remained unpublished when he passed away in 2005. Now, Fiji and the Franchise, with a foreword by Dr. Deryck Scarr, Fiji’s most renowned historian, adds to the growing number of publications on the history of Fiji.