Maha Sangh - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Akhil Fiji Krishak Maha Sangh (All Fiji Farmers’ Grand Union) was a sugar cane farmers' union

Trade union

A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...

formed on 15 June 1941 in opposition to the existing union, the Kisan Sangh

Kisan Sangh

Kisan Sangh was the first farmers' union formed in Fiji on 27 November 1937. This was the result of one man's determination to improve the plight of Fiji's Indian cane farmers...

. Supporters of Kisan Sangh tried to stop the formation of the Maha Sangh but were unsuccessful. The people responsible for the formation of a second sugar cane farmers' union were A.D. Patel

A.D. Patel

Ambalal Dahyabhai Patel, better known as A.D. Patel, was a Fiji Indian politician, farmers' leader and founder and leader of the National Federation Party. Patel was uncompromisingly committed to a vision of an independent Fiji, with full racial integration...

and Swami Rudrananda

Swami Rudrananda

Swami Rudrananda was born in Tamil Nadu, India in March 1901. He was sent to Fiji by the Ramakrishna Mission, in 1939, to assist the Then India Sanmarga Ikya Sangam in its religious and cultural activities. Swami Rudrananda consolidated and expanded the activities of T.I.S.I. Sangam based at...

. The union was supported by the South Indian

South Indians in Fiji

The South Indians in Fiji are mainly descendents of the 15,132 indentured labourers who arrived in Fiji between 1903 to 1916. This represents about 25% out of a total of 60,965 indentured labourers who arrived in Fiji between 1879 and 1916...

sugar cane farmers in Fiji

Fiji

Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...

The 1943 Strike

The Maha Sangh claimed that the 1940 sugar cane contract was not fair to cane farmers, and in 1943 its members went on strike supported by dissident members of the Kisan Sangh, led by Padri Mehar Singh

Mehar Singh

Padri Mehar Singh was one of the founding members of Fiji's Kisan Sangh when it was established in 1937. He remained a prominent member of the union until 1943, when he and Ramcharan Singh led a faction that supported the strike instigated by the rival union, Maha Sangh, led by A.D. Patel...

and Ramcharan Singh. The farmers did not gain anything from the strike, but A.D. Patel emerged as a new leader for Fiji Indians and in the 1944 Legislative Council

Legislative Council (Fiji)

The Fijian Legislative Council was the colonial precursor to the present-day Parliament, which came into existence when Fiji became independent on 10 October 1970.-The first Legislative Council:...

election won the North West Indian seat. The strike action in the middle of the second world war, caused the native Fijians

Fijian people

Fijian people are the major indigenous people of the Fiji Islands, and live in an area informally called Melanesia. The Fijian people are believed to have arrived in Fiji from western Melanesia approximately 3,500 years ago, though the exact origins of the Fijian people are unknown...

to view the Fiji Indians with suspicion and drove a wedge between the two major races in Fiji.

Maha Sangh splits into two Factions

The Maha Sangh continued to compete with the Kisan Sangh for the support of farmers in the 1940s and 1950s but had its own share of internal divisions. When K.S. Reddy was nominated into the Legislative Council, the leader of the Maha Sangh, A.D. Patel, was for the first time faced with a possible challenge to his leadership, as Reddy was also based in Nadi, was a South Indian like most Maha Sangh supporters and held the powerful position of General Secretary of the union. Competition between the two reached a crisis on 31 March 1956, when at a meeting in Nadi, Reddy asked non-financial members to leave. Their refusal to leave led to police being called and tear gas used. K.S. Reddy later joined the Alliance

Fijian Alliance

The Alliance Party, was the ruling political party in Fiji from 1966 to 1987. Founded in the early 1960s, its leader was Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, the founding father of the modern Fijian nation...

Party while A.D. Patel had formed the Federation Party

National Federation Party (Fiji)

The National Federation Party is a Fijian political party founded by A.D. Patel in November 1968, as a merger of the Federation Party and the National Democratic Party...

Negotiations for 1960 Contract

In 1959, the Maha Sangh and four other cane farmers' unions formed an umbrella organisation known as the Federation of Cane Growers to negotiate with the Colonial Sugar Refining Company

Colonial Sugar Refining Company (Fiji)

The Colonial Sugar Refining Company began operations in Fiji in 1880 and until it ceased operations in 1973, had a considerable influence on the political and economic life of Fiji. Prior to its expansion to Fiji, the CSR was operating Sugar Refineries in Melbourne and Auckland...

for the new cane contract. While negotiations were still in progress, the Kisan Sangh withdrew from the Federation and signed the contract offered by the sugar company, leaving the Maha Sangh as the dominant group within the Federation of Cane Growers

Federation of Cane Growers (Fiji)

The Federation of Cane Growers was formed as an umbrella organisation to negotiate the new cane contract due to take effect from 1960 with the Colonial Sugar Refining Company.- Negotiations for 1960 cane contract :...

The 1943 Strike

Maha Sangh splits into two Factions

Negotiations for 1960 Contract

See also