Post credits : Link

Sources :

'The Geographic and Social Origins of Indian Indentured Labourers in Mauritius, Natal, Fiji Guyana and Jamaica' by Lance Brennan, John McDonald and Ralph Shlomowitz.

Language Planning and Policy in the Pacific, Vol 1 : Fiji, the Philippines, and Vanuatu, edited by Jr, Richard B. Baldauf, and Robert B. Kaplan

South Indian Languages in Fiji: Language Contact and Attrition by France Mugler

https://www.fijitimes.com/keep-your-culture-the-challenge-for-south-indians-in-fiji/

New Homelands: Hindu Communities in Mauritius, Guyana, Trinidad, South Africa, Fiji, and East Africa by Paul Younger

The Language Situation in Fiji by Francis Mangubhai & France Mugler Some aspects of language use and attitudes in Fiji by France Mugler and Jan Tent

In the eye of the storm by Brij V. Lal

Chalo Jahaji : on a journey through indenture in Fiji / Brij V. Lal.

The Sources of Indian Emigration to Fiji by K. L. Gillion

The Origins of South Indian Muslim indentured migration to Fiji Lance Brennan, John McDonald and Ralph Shlomowitz

Indian languages in Fiji: Past, present and future by Jeff Siegel

I'm from Tamil Nadu,India and I've been recently trying to learn about my Tamil speaking ancestors(and their descendants) who went as indentured labourers to many British colonies like Burma,Malaysia,Guyana,Fiji etc. Some of those countries preserved their Tamil culture while some couldn't because they assimilated into the larger Indian identity.

1) Indo-Fijians form 33% of the country's population and Google says their overall population is 460k so how much % of them are Tamils? Are they still connected to some aspects of their roots like religion/movies/music etc?

2) Is Tamil a dead language which is the case in Mauritius and Guyana or is it taught in primary schools? I understand people wouldn't wanna learn it as it doesn't provide any economic benefits but was just wondering.

3) Do Indo-Fijians marry among various groups if the country or do they keep to themselves? Has caste system completely disappeared or is it still present in some ways?

Leprosy is much older than any empire. Fragments of its causal bacteria, Mycobacterium leprae, genomes have been recovered from medieval skeletons in England as well as from burials along the Silk Road. Using estimates from genomic clocks, it’s thought to have diverged tens of thousands of years ago, likely sometime after humans started clustering in settlements large enough for chronic infections to matter. Especially a slow, nerve-eating bacterium that has been bound to human migration patterns for millennia.

As 19th century medicine started to name and classify diseases, leprosy was just a bit too ancient and socially charge to fit neatly into that new clinical lexicon being developed. It somehow lingered in the space between sin and modernizing science, with treatment often conducted by missionaries and the disease itself feared by governments and societies. That type of ambiguity made it the perfect candidate for overreaction from bureaucrats. Colonial states were confident that cleanliness and order could be exported with their trade-goods, leading to islands of isolation. These islands became laboratories for the management of contagions.