While vibrant and successful, the Indian diaspora in Australia is also fractured and fearful. Is the country paying attention?
Australia’s political class has struggled to grasp the complexities and differences of the Indian diaspora. Illustration: Siddhesh Gautam/The GuardianWhat the crowd heard, and what the world saw, was the prime minister of Australia genuflecting before a foreign prime minister on Australian soil: a foreign prime minister – India’s Narendra Modi – whose government was suspected to be running a network of spies in Australia, whose agents had been accused of stealing state secrets.
The Hindu caste system, which is assigned at birth and determines occupations and social status, is made up of four tiers, with Brahmins or priests and teachers at the top and Dalits at the bottom. Dalits are often tasked with scavenging and street cleaning, are considered “untouchable” and are outcast from Indian society.
“Kids , when they go to other kids birthday parties, and they follow Hinduism and their own rituals, so sometimes what happens is that they are not allowed to enter that time when they follow the ritual. So, the children say why we are only going for the cake cutting time. . With a sad face, our children are prohibited from joining at the same time as other children and are made to wait outside of the place where the ritual is undertaking. Our children are not able to do the same ceremonies.
“Additionally, it poses significant threats to the societal ideals of equality and social inclusion that countries like Australia claim to have been adherent to.”Other divisions in Australia’s Indian diaspora echo the political schisms that grip India. The BJP’s conception is India as Hindustan, a country for the subcontinent’s Hindus. The corollary, critics fear, is that the country’s significant Muslim population , and other minorities, such as Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and the “hill tribes” of the north-east, are marginalised, even disfranchised or oppressed.
“It seems to be a policy, and it seems to me there’s evidence of this happening in Australia,” Chacko says.“People know that they’re being surveilled … and it’s a form of intimidation. And so it leads to self-censorship, which is an infringement of people’s civil liberties. I wouldn’t say there is fear. I would say there’s cautiousness. I would say one part is relief that, “OK, finally, people are seeing what we’ve been saying for so long”.
“It’s coming straight from India,” she says. “Any agenda that’s active in India flows into these WhatsApp groups. Hearing calls for violence against those who slaughter and consume beef, used as a thinly veiled threat against Muslims, fills me with profound vulnerability. It’s not just about the words; it’s about the terrifying reality they represent for Muslims who live in constant fear of being targeted. We find ourselves increasingly alienated and marginalised, caught in the crosshairs of this growing extremism.
“India’s recent obsession with a homogenised cultural heritage – One Bharat – as well as the recent shifts in the country’s political landscape, plays a key role in pressuring the groups to subscribe to ‘one India; one identity and one sense’ about India. “Heedless” politicians, Mamalipurath argues, find themselves co-opted by political interests within the diaspora, largely because they haven’t done their homework.
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