Indian Australians

Indian Australians or Indo-Australians are people in Australia who come from India or have Indian ancestry. They are part of the large group of people from India living around the world. In 2021, more than 783,000 people in Australia said they had Indian ancestry, which is about 3.1% of the whole country. If you include all people who say they are related to India in any way, that number goes up to almost 970,000 people, or 3.8% of Australia.

For a long time, it was hard for people from India to move to Australia because of rules that favored people from only one background. But in the 21st century, the number of Indians in Australia grew very fast. Today, Indians are one of the fastest-growing groups in Australia. They are also very well-educated—more than half of Indian Australians have a university degree, which is much higher than the rest of the country.

Many Indian Australians speak languages such as Punjabi and Hindi, which are now among the top languages spoken in Australia. The main religions practiced by many Indian Australians include Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism, and these religions are also followed by some non-Indian people in Australia.

History

Pre-history migration of Indians (2300 BC–2000 BC)

A study of Indigenous Australian DNA has found that Indigenous Australians may have mixed with people of Indian origin about 4,200 years ago. This study also showed that tools and dogs from India may have been introduced to Australia around the same time. In 2012, a paper reported evidence of genetic flow from India to northern Australia over four thousand years ago, when changes in tool technology and food processing appeared in the archaeological record. One genetic study from 2012 suggested that about 4,000 years before the First Fleet landed in Australia in 1788, some Indian explorers may have settled in Australia and joined the local population around 2217 BC. Researchers had two ideas for this: either Indians had contact with people in Indonesia who then passed these genes to Aboriginal Australians, or a group of Indians traveled directly from India to Australia and mixed with the locals.

Indian connection with European exploration of Australia (1627–1787)

Most early explorations of Australia by European powers had some connection to India. Indians had long been employed on European ships trading in Colonial India and the East Indies. Many early voyages to the Pacific either started or ended in India, and many of these ships were wrecked in the uncharted waters of the South Pacific. In 1606, the Dutch East India Company's ship, Duyfken, led by Willem Janszoon, made the first documented European landing in Australia. In 1627, the south coast of Australia was accidentally discovered by the Dutch East India Company explorer François Thijssen and named 't Land van Pieter Nuyts', in honor of the highest-ranking passenger, Pieter Nuyts. In 1628, a squadron of Dutch East India Company ships was sent by the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, Pieter de Carpentier, to explore the northern coast. These ships made extensive examinations, particularly in the Gulf of Carpentaria, named in honor of de Carpentier.

Alexander Dalrymple (1737–1808), the Examiner of Sea Journals for the British East India Company, found Portuguese navigator Luis Váez de Torres's testimony while translating some Spanish documents captured by Indian sepoys during the 1762 CE occupation of the Philippines by British India. This led Dalrymple to discover and publish in 1770–1771 the existence of an unknown continent which he named Terra Australis (or Southern Continent). This sparked widespread interest and prompted the British government in 1769 to order James Cook in HM Bark Endeavour to seek out the Southern Continent, which was discovered in June 1767 by Samuel Wallis in HMS Dolphin and named by him King George Island. The London press reported in June 1768 that two ships would be sent to the newly discovered island and from there to "attempt the Discovery of the Southern Continent". The British East India Trade Committee recommended in 1823 that a settlement be established on the coast of northern Australia to prevent the Dutch from settling there, and Captain J.J.G. Bremer, RN, was commissioned to form a settlement between Bathurst Island and the Cobourg Peninsula.

Colonial era (1788–1900)

Indian immigration from British India to Australia began early in the history of the Australian colony. The first Indians arrived in Australia with the British settlers who had been living in India.

The people of the first British fleet to establish a new colony, which landed on 26 January 1788, included seamen, marines and their families, government officials, and a large number of convicts, including women and children. All had been tried and convicted in Great Britain and almost all of them in England. However, many are known to have come to England from other parts of Great Britain and, especially, from Ireland; at least 12 were identified as black (born in India, Britain, Africa, the West Indies, North America, or a European country or its colony). In 1788, Indian crews from Bay of Bengal came to Australia on trading ships. After the establishment of the first European colony in Sydney in Australia in 1788 by the colonial British Indian Empire under the British East India Company, the company had exclusive control of all trade to and from the penal colony. These colonies multiplied and expanded to include whole Australia, various Islands in Oceania, initially colonies were established under the British Indian Empire including New Zealand which was administered as part of New South Wales until 1841.

Between 1788 and 1868, about 164,000 convicts were transported to the Australian colonies on board 806 ships. About 1% were from the British outposts in India and Canada, Maoris from New Zealand, Chinese from Hong Kong and slaves from the Caribbean. British colonial convict ships from Britain and elsewhere to Australia frequently stopped over in India, many of which were built in India, and among those ships with convicts that started their journey from India include HMS Duchess of York which sailed from Bengal in India and arrived at Port Jackson on 4 April 1807 carrying merchandise and rice and also transported two military convicts, Hunter arrived on 20 August 1810, Indian arrived on 16 December 1810, Amboyna arrived in Australia on 1 January 1822, Cawdry arrived on 1 January 1826 from India and Ceylon, Edward Lombes on 6 January 1833, and Swallow arrived on 23 October 1836. Almorah sailed from Britain and stopped over at Madras and Bengal in 1818.

In the late 1830s, more Indians started to arrive in Australia as indentured laborers when the penal transport of convicts to New South Wales (which at the time also consisted of Queensland and Victoria) was slowing, before being abolished altogether in 1840. The lack of manual laborers from the convict assignment system led to an increase demand for foreign labor, which was partly filled by the arrival of Indians who came from an agrarian background in India, and thus fulfilled their tasks as farm laborers on cane fields and shepherds on sheep stations well. In 1844, P. Friell who had previously lived in India, brought 25 domestic workers from India to Sydney and these included a few women and children. Among the earliest Indians was a Hindu Sindhi merchant, Shri Pammull, who after arrived in 1850s built a family opal trade in Melbourne which still prosperously continues with his fourth-generation descendants. "Initially, the migrants from India were indentured laborers, who worked on sheep stations and farms around Australia. Some adventurers followed during the gold rush of the 1850s. A census from 1861 indicates that there were around 200 Indians in Victoria of whom 20 were in Ballarat, the town which was at the epicenter of the gold rush. Thereafter, many more came and worked as hawkers - going from house to house, town to town, traversing thousands of kilometers, making a living by selling a variety of products."

From the 1860s, Indians, most of them Sikh, worked as merchants, industrialists, and businessmen to operate throughout outback Australia, as 'pioneers of the inland'. The 1881 census records 998 people who were born in India but this had grown to over 1700 by 1891.

Between 1860s to 1900 period when small groups of cameleers were also shipped in and out of Australia at three-year intervals, to service South Australia's inland pastoral industry by carting goods and transporting wool bales by camel trains, who were commonly referred to as "Afghans" or "Ghans", despite their origin often being mainly from British India, and some even from Afghanistan and Egypt and Turkey. Majority of cameleers, including Indian cameleers, were Muslims with a sizeable minority were Sikhs from Punjab region, they set up camel-breeding stations and rest house outposts, known as caravanserai, throughout inland Australia, creating a permanent link between the coastal cities and the remote cattle and sheep grazing stations until about the 1930s, when they were largely replaced by the automobile.

Since Federation (1901–present)

During the White Australia policy

From federation in 1901 until the 1960s, immigration of non-Europeans, including Indians, into Australia was restricted due to the enactment of the White Australia policy. The laws made it impossible for Indians to enter the country unless they were merchants or students, who themselves were only allowed in for short periods of time. Historians place the number of Indians in Australia at federation in 1901 somewhere between 4700 and 7600. According to the 1911 census, there were only 3698 'Indians' signifying a large decrease, with the trend continuing, with only approximately 2200 'Indians' in the country in 1921. After 1901 Immigration Restriction Act was introduced by the Australian Government the migration of non-white migrants from India was curtailed, but following India's independence from Britain in 1947, the number of Indian-born Anglo-western white British citizens emigrating to Australia increased, along with migration of mixed race European-Indians, such as Anglo-Indians, Dutch Anglo-Indians and Portuguese Indians. The 1901 Immigration Restriction Act, one of the first laws passed by the new Australian parliament, which was the centrepiece of the White Australia Policy aimed to restrict immigration from Asia, where the population was vastly greater and the standard of living vastly lower and was similar to measures taken in other settler societies such as the United States, Canada and New Zealand.

During World War I (1914–1918) Indian and Australian troops were deployed together in several sectors, including in Europe, Middle East, Africa, Egypt and Turkey. During Gallipoli Campaign the Australians and New Zealanders troops were deployed to take part in the operation, although they were outnumbered by the British, Indian and French contingents, a fact which is often overlooked today by many Australians and New Zealanders. Australian nurses also staffed 10 British colonial hospitals in India.

During World War II (1939–1945) the hundreds of Australians were posted to British units in Burma and India. Hundreds of Australians also served with RAF units in India and Burma, and in May 1943 330 Australians were serving in forty-one squadrons in India, of which only nine had more than ten Australians. In addition, many of the RAN's corvettes and destroyers served with the British Eastern Fleet where they were normally used to protect convoys in the Indian Ocean from attacks by Japanese and German submarines.

Under multiculturalism

The end of White Australia policy saw a boom in migration of middle-class skilled professionals, by 2016 over 2 in every 3 migrants who arrived were skilled professionals mainly from India, UK, China, South Africa and Philippines, "to work as doctors and nurses, human-resources and marketing professionals, business managers, IT specialists, and engineers...who were not fleeing war or poverty. The Indians in Australia are predominantly male, while the Chinese are majority female." Indians are the largest migrant ethnic group in Melbourne and Adelaide, fourth largest in Brisbane, and likely to jump from third place to second place in Sydney by 2021. In Melbourne, Indian Australians primarily live in the outer western, middle-outer southeastern, and the outer northern areas, with large concentrations in the suburbs of Tarneit, Truganina, Craigieburn, Dandenong (The location of the city's Little India precinct), Clayton, Glen Waverley, Clyde North, and Pakenham, with high numbers in the CBD as well. In Sydney, Parramatta [and neighbouring suburbs such as Harris Park and Westmead, etc.] have higher concentration of migrants. By 2019, the number of Indians grew at nine times the annual national average growth, and number of overseas student visas and post-study work visas also exploded.

In 2017–18 India was the largest source of new permanent annual migrants to Australia since 2016, and overall third largest source nation of cumulative total migrant population behind England and China. 20.5%, or 33,310 out of 162,417 Australian permanent resident visas, went to Indians, who also additionally had 70,000 students were studying in Australian universities and colleges.

Demographics

See also: Demography of Australia

783,958 people said they had Indian ancestry in the 2021 census. This means about 3.1% of Australia’s population has Indian roots. In 2019, about 721,050 people living in Australia were born in India.

The states with the most Indian Australians are New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, and South Australia. In 2009, there were about 90,000 students from India studying in Australian universities.

Historical population trends

This table only shows people born in India. It does not include all people with Indian ancestry, like second-generation Indian Australians or those from other Indian diaspora countries such as Fiji, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Suriname, and Guyana. Before 1947, when India gained independence, what is now Pakistan and Bangladesh were part of British India. So, people from those countries living in Australia before 1947 were counted as Indian Australians.

Indian languages

See also: Languages of Australia and Languages of India

Hindi and Punjabi are two of the top ten languages spoken at home in Australia. Other Indian languages spoken include Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam, Gujarati, Telugu, Marathi, Kannada, Konkani, Sindhi, Kashmiri, and Odia. Most Punjabi speakers are Sikhs, with some being Hindus or Muslims.

Religion

See also: Indian-origin religions in Australia, Hinduism in Australia, and Sikhism in Australia

About 92.6% of Indian Australians practice a religion. This is much higher than the rest of Australia, where about 46.1% of people do not follow a religion. Indian Australians are most often Hindu (45.0%), Sikh (20.8%), Catholic (10.3%), or Muslim (6.6%). There are more Sikhs and Christians and fewer Hindus and Muslims in Australia than in India.

Politics

Socio-economic status

In 2016, it was found that 54.6% of people from India living in Australia had a bachelor's degree or higher, which is much more than the national average in Australia at that time. This made them the group with the most education in Australia.

People from India also help grow the populations of Australia and New Zealand. In 2016, the average weekly earnings for those born in India were $785. This is more than the average for people born in other countries ($615) and more than the average for people born in Australia ($688).

A survey in 2022 showed that 43% of Indian Australians supported the Australian Labor Party, 26% supported the Coalition, 15% supported the Australian Greens, and 5% supported the One Nation Party.

In popular media

A book from 2018, edited by Sekhar Bandyopadhyay and Jane Buckingham, looks at how people from India moved to Australia and New Zealand. It shows both how these groups are similar and different. The book talks about tough times these communities faced, but also their strength and success. It explains rules from the early 1900s that limited who could move to Australia and New Zealand, and how moving has changed since then.

Notable people

Main article: List of Indian Australians

Indian Australians include many successful people in different areas such as sports, entertainment, and business. Some have become well-known for their achievements and contributions to Australian culture and society.