Sukuna's exposure to diverse cultures came early. Although Sukuna was an indigenous Fijian, his father enrolled him at the Wairuku Indian School in Ra, founded in 1898 by Pandit Badri Maharaj, who later served from 1917 to 1929 as the first Indo-Fijian member of Fiji's Legislative Council (the forerunner to the present Parliament. One of the teachers at the school was the Rev. Charles Andrew. Andrew was a colourful character, an Oxford-educated Anglican clergyman who had converted to Roman Catholicism and then back again, before sailing for the mission field in Fiji. Determined that Sukuna should receive the best education possible, his father arranged for him to receive private tuition from Andrew. He was a strict teacher, beating Sukuna on occasion.