 The departure of productive, low cost Indian labor became a serious labor shortage problem for the British plantations.In 1929, the British colonial government granted Indo-Fijian Hindus electoral and some civil rights, in most part to stabilize exports and profits from its Fijian sugar plantations and to prevent Indian laborers from leaving from the labor-intensive plantations.But the electoral rights granted were limited, not proportional but racial quota based, and the government segregated Indo-Fijians in a manner similar to South Africa, that is on communal and racial basis from Europeans and native Fijians.