Bhangra beats Down Under

Rohit Mahajan

Not long after landing in Australia in 1999, Inder Dua found himself crying bitterly as he washed dishes in a Sydney restaurant. The ‘indignity’ of being a kitchen hand was mingled with personal loss — his father, an affluent businessman in Gujarat, had passed away a few days ago. Dua had come down to Australia to test the waters, joining his brother-in-law, Mandeep Singh Rana. Rana, who moved to Australia in 1985, had started working at a restaurant at age 16 — four years later, he owned it. Dua was amazed by how hard Rana worked, doing a lot of hard physical labour, despite his great wealth.

Dua soon learnt to work hard himself, worked in the hospitality industry for several years, and is now a partner with Rana and Dimpy Singh, another Punjabi who moved to Australia in 2000, at the acclaimed Urban Tadka restaurant in Sydney.

Puneet Pal Singh Mahal remembers a time when it was easy to find parking space at the Caning Vale gurdwara in Perth, capital of Western Australia. “Eight years ago, it wasn’t a busy place,” he says. “Now, it’s very busy, especially on festivals… You need volunteers to manage the traffic, the parking is full and the gurdwara hall is packed.”

Mahal, a Sikh with cropped hair, estimates that since 2008, Perth’s Punjabi/Sikh community has grown 10-fold. “Punjabi-speaking people have migrated from India, of course, but they’ve also migrated from the other states of Australia, because Western Australia offers great opportunities.”

Mahal considers himself the typical tireless, industrious Punjabi, thirsting for opportunities. In Australia for close to 20 years, Mahal first made his fortune in Melbourne while running a factory manufacturing Indian food. He lost most of it when he was unable to focus on business when his father was fighting cancer. After his father died, he moved to Perth with A$15,000 and his car. He started driving a cab, found another job, got into the transport business, and then bought a restaurant. “This is a country that keeps giving you opportunities,” says Mahal. “If this were any other country, I would have found it hard to get off my feet. But here, the opportunities are endless if you’re willing to work hard.”

Great opportunities 

The opportunities in Australia, coupled with favourable immigration policies of the Liberal Party, fuelled the migration Down Under. Over the past 15 years, the number of Punjabis making Australia their new home increased dramatically. The growth of Punjabis in Perth, the most isolated big city of Australia, mirrors the growth in their numbers all over Australia. In the 10 years from 2001 to 2011, the Punjabi language grew by 300 percent in Australia — a sign of the boom in migration. Eighty per cent of the Punjabi speakers in the 2011 census were Sikhs and 13.3 per cent were Hindus. 

In the 1990s, 6,020 Punjabi speakers migrated to Australia; but in the new millennium, there was a sudden spurt in the numbers. In 2001, 783 Punjabi speakers moved to Australia; in 2007, the number topped 1,000 for the first time in 2003, and peaked at 11,304 in 2009. 

The numbers weren’t always high. In 1985, only 264 Punjabi speakers migrated to Australia. One of them would have been Pawan Luthra, editor and publisher of Indian Link, the biggest Indian-interest newspaper in the country. “When I came here, there were not too many Indians in Sydney,” he says. “If we saw a woman in a saree, we’d cross the street for a chat!”

They desperately worked to stay in touch with the ‘mother’ country. They’d seek Indian food and movies, and follow and support the Indian cricket teams when they toured. There were only three Indian restaurants in Sydney, Australia’s largest city. Only one place served dosas, but they had to be ordered two days in advance, so that the restaurant would have the time to prepare the fermented rice-dal batter for it. 

The ‘Anglos’

The number of Punjabis in Australia was minuscule until the 1970s, for the country maintained a rigid ‘White Australia’ policy. The first Indian immigrants were, thus, Anglo Indians, who began the movement to England, Canada and Australia in the few years preceding India’s Independence. The origin of ‘White Australia’ policy lay in the 1850s, when there was bitter resentment among the White miners against Chinese miners. The policy was slowly dismantled after 1966, when “well-qualified people, suitable as settlers”, began to be accepted. The first wave of Indian settlers consisted doctors, for Australia needed them desperately. In the 1980s and early 1990s, educated, well-spoken professional people joined the wave. They were followed by the IT professionals in the mid-1990s —this group continues to trickle in. 

In the 2000s, there was a student boom — they were welcomed because they brought in huge revenues. A lot of them came from Punjab, to study subjects ranging from business administration to hairdressing. The country was going through a mining boom, and Australia needed a larger workforce; the Liberal Party, which ruled from 1996 to 2007, favoured immigration as an economy-booster.

Bubble burst

It all blew up in 2009-10, when there were incidents of violence against Indian students. There was outrage in India, but the Indian migrants who live in Australia see it very differently. “The Indian media had a despicable part to play in flaming the racial issue, when in fact most of the crimes were either done by Indians living here, or were cases of random crime,” says Luthra.

This is affirmed by a wide range of Indian migrants. “There were a few allegations of racist attacks which were traced right back to the alleged victim, and this caused anger against the Indian migrants,” says Vishal Sharma, who works as a security professional in Perth. 

“There was an image problem, too. Some of us would work non-stop for 18 hours, and thus appear at work in a dishevelled state, without a bath,” says Ravi Singh, who drives a cab in Melbourne. “Indian students would play loud music on their cellphones on the trains and buses, causing resentment. 

A few students were seen urinating in the street corners. All this added to the backlash.” It’s not that there’s no racism in Australia, most migrants say, but then they immediately ask: “But isn’t there racism and discrimination in India?”

After 2010, the government cracked down on some of the dubious colleges, and the gateway to people coming in became smaller. Educational options are available for quality education at well-known institutes, and IT professionals continue to stream in. “The Punjabi migration to this country has dropped,” says Luthra. “But there’s still some growth, because of marriages.”

The Intergenerational Report, published by the Treasury Department in March, said that immigration is a rather lazy way to grow economy. “Over the last few years, we’ve seen a readjustment of the immigration programme towards working visas and working-age immigration, rather than family reunion,” Joe Hockey, the Treasurer, noted. He forecast a drop in immigration as “a percentage of the total population”.

The Migration Council of Australia (MCA), an independent non-profit body, estimates that Australia desperately needs migrants - it says the migrants are younger and fitter, pay taxes, and do not seek state benefits. These factors are crucial for Australia’s economic growth, says MCA.

“Migrants make a very significant contribution,” says Carla Wilshire, CEO of MCA. “Every nine migrants produce around the same amount of economic activity as 10 existing residents... That’s about 10 per cent premium there, and the economy benefits from it.”

The Punjabis have benefitted the society, and they’re themselves thriving. “They’re very hardworking, they’ve put their problems behind and are maturing,” says Luthra. “A few years ago, they were mostly driving cabs or were security professionals. But now they’re getting into different businesses, working with the government departments, they’re becoming a good backbone to the society.”