In May 1879, a ship with 463 Indian indentured labourers docked in Fiji.

Over the next 37 years, more than 60,500 workers – who came to be known as the Girmitiyas – were sent from India to work in Fiji’s sugarcane and tobacco plantations under inhumane conditions.

Banjara, the literary debut by Shana Chandra, is two women’s reckoning of their Indo–Fijian history, told over 100 years apart.

Krish Naidu is the president of the Fiji Girmit Foundation New Zealand, founded to honour the journey, struggles and achievements of Fiji Indians from their Girmit roots to life in contemporary Aotearoa.

Kiran Dass joins them in the same week as Girmit Remembrance Day to discuss this dark period of Pacific history not widely known.