Indians and The Antipodes: Networks, Boundaries, and Circulation

The Indian diaspora in Australia and New Zealand represents a successful ethnic community making significant contributions to their host societies and economies. However, because of their small number—slightly more than half a million— they rarely find mention in the global literature on Indian diaspora. The present volume seeks to remedy this oversight.

Charting the chequered 250-year-old history of both the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ diaspora in the antipodes, the chapters narrate the stories of labourers who journeyed under the pressure of colonial capital and post-war professional migrants who went in search of better opportunities. In the context of the ‘White Australia’ and ‘White New Zealand’ policies designed to stem the arrival of Asians in the early twentieth century, we read of the complex survival stratagems adopted by migrants to circumvent the stringent insular world view of the existing white settlers in these countries. Together with stories of the collective suffering and struggles of the diaspora, we are presented with stories of individual resilience, enterprise, and social mobility.

Contents: Introduction/Sekhar Bandyopadhyay and Jane Buckingham. 1. Identity and Invisibility: Early Indian Presence in Aotearoa New Zealand, 1769–1850/Todd Nachowitz. 2. Circuitous Routes: Journeys from India to Australia by Way of he Sugar Colonies/Margaret Allen. 3. Naming Charlie: Inscribing British Indian Identities in White Australia, 1901–40/Kama Maclean. 4. Indian Migration to New Zealand in the 1920s: Deciphering the Immigration Restriction Amendment Act, 1920/Michael Roche and Sita Venkateswar. 5. Totaram Sanadhya’s Experience of Racism in Early White Australia: A Transcreated Narrative/Purushottama Bilimoria. 6. ‘Not as a Stranger or a Tourist’: Leonora Gmeiner and the First Girls’ School in Delhi/Devleena Ghosh and Heather Goodall. 7. ‘Did You Know Your Great-Grandmother Was an Indian Princess?’ Early Anglo-Indian Arrivals in New Zealand/Robyn Andrews. 8. ‘A Rich Tapestry’: The Life and Heritage of Sir Anand Satyanand/Jacqueline Leckie. 9. Class and Caste Consciousness: The Narratives of Indian Subcontinental Diaspora in Australia/Amit Sarwal. 10. Negotiating Indianness: Auckland’s Shifting Cultural Festivities/Alison Booth. Index.