Then India Sanmarga Ikya (TISI) Sangam

Tamil roots, national reach. From a four-day convention in Nadi to a country-wide network of schools and temples, Sangam helped turn culture into opportunity.

Founding & key people

TISI Sangam was formally inaugurated at a national convention in Nadi, 21–24 May 1926. Sadhu Kuppuswami was elected the first (and lifelong) president; early leaders included M.N. Naidu (vice-president) and T.A.J. Pillay (general secretary). Nadi became the headquarters. They moved quickly: travelling across districts to set up temples, committees and schools, and later inviting the Ramakrishna Mission to help professionalise the movement. :contentReference[oaicite:0]{index=0}

Why it mattered

Sangam positioned South-Indian (especially Tamil) families not on the margins but at the centre of Fiji’s civic project — building classrooms, hostels and scholarships that lifted rural children into secondary and tertiary education.

Flashpoints & campaigns

• Annual conventions that doubled as fund-raising engines for schools and welfare.
• Scholarships for high-performing rural students; temple committees that ran food and hardship relief.

Today

Nearly a century on, TISI Sangam remains a national proprietor of schools and social services with active district branches, women’s and youth wings, and an enduring education mission. (See Sangam’s founder/history pages for the original mandate and continuing programmes.) :contentReference[oaicite:1]{index=1}

Legacy

A durable voluntary-education model: culture safeguarded, horizons widened.