The GCC’s official entitlements have accorded with a widely held view that, in embodying a concept of indigenous paramountcy, the chiefs are an essential source of legitimacy for a national government. The status afforded the chiefs signifies both the appeasement of a powerful vested interest group and the preservation of an institutional mechanism that has helped to constrain Fijian nationalism. The chiefs’ collective authority has been grounded not only in the part they have played in asserting indigenous solidarity in opposition to other groups, especially the Indians, but also, paradoxically, in their capacity to mitigate ethnic conflict. Ethnocentric opinions are often aggressively voiced. Yet in enhancing Fijian convictions of political and cultural strength, the GCC meetings have sometimes been conducive to inter-ethnic accommodation.

Fiji developed under colonial rule as a deeply bifurcated society. The majority of Fijians were compelled to remain predominantly subsistence farmers almost until the end of British rule. In contrast, the Indians entered various sectors of the money-based economy. The importance that the GCC acquired in the national political arena was based on the depth of this ethnic divide and on the need to bridge it. Through the GCC, the colonial governor and Fijian political leaders periodically sought to persuade Fijians – who viewed non-Fijian strengths in the modern economy as reflecting their own economic weakness – to agree to inter-ethnic compromises on both land and the political system.

The GCC could be persuaded to play this bridging role because it securely embodied Fijian identity and strength, and because a readiness to agree to concessions in support of interests in the wider society and of Fiji’s economic development came to be seen as part of the chiefs’ role in their privileged relationship with the British Crown. There was a perception in the GCC that the British officials’ primary concern was indigenous security, and that the chiefs had a reciprocal duty to support the officials in their government of the colony. The most notable early instance of the GCC’s bridging role was Ratu Sukuna’s success in 1936, on behalf of the colonial governor, in persuading his fellow chiefs to agree to a proposal to give control of the leasing of Fijian land to a central statutory authority in order to overcome problems in personal negotiations between land-owning clans and their sugar cane farmer tenants.^[7] British officials hailed Sukuna’s achievement as a breakthrough for economic development and praised the chiefs for their ‘statesmanlike attitude towards the general affairs of the colony’.^[8]

As preparations to end colonial rule raised ethnic tension, the GCC took on a strengthened political role as the major voice of conservative Fijian opinion on constitutional change. The Council continued to enjoy privileged representation in the parliament after Fijians were given the vote for choosing most of their representatives, and it was regularly consulted by the Governor and elected Fijian leaders (principally chiefs who had begun their political careers as GCC nominees).

The GCC continued also to be important in facilitating legislative reforms benefiting Indian tenants on Fijian land. In the 1960s the GCC was persuaded by the paramount chiefs, now leaders of the Alliance Party, to agree to the Agricultural Landlord and Tenant Ordinance (ALTO). During a short phase of heightened ethnic tension near the end of colonial rule, which almost erupted in widespread violence, the GCC called for the withdrawal of this concession. Yet, after anti-Indian rhetoric in the Council’s meeting, this and other proposals against Indians were not pushed, and several years after independence, Fijian political leaders persuaded the GCC to consent to another land reform primarily of benefit to tenants, the 1976 Agricultural Landlord and Tenant Act (ALTA). Lest an impression be given that Fijian leaders have easily persuaded GCC assent to such proposals, it should be emphasised that argument at Council meetings has often been heated, with suspicion and anger sometimes directed against leaders seen to be compromising Fijian interests.

The independence constitution strengthened the political power of the GCC by giving it reserved seats and a limited veto power in the Senate, a privilege proposed by Indian leaders as a concession to the Fijian claim to political pre-eminence. Soon after independence, the GCC came under the influence of the Fijian Nationalist Party (FNP), which called for a constitutional change to permanently secure Fijian control of government. At their 1982 meeting, following an acrimonious election campaign in which Ratu Mara and other chiefs were denigrated by some Indian leaders, GCC members almost unanimously called for implementation of the FNP demand – despite counter arguments by Prime Minister Ratu Mara, and the Governor General Ratu Penaia Ganilau. The GCC did not pursue this demand until 1987, when the Fijian nationalist mood surged aggressively in the street marches and threats of the Taukei Movement after the defeat of Mara’s Alliance Party government by a mainly Indian-based coalition.