Where do you feel the safest? Most people would reply ‘home’. Indians have spread their wings across the world so home has different connotations for us migrants. When you settle down in a new country, does it mean the one you left behind ceases to be your home? If your new country does not give you a sense of belonging, do you keep feeling like an outsider and fail to relate to those around you? Going by sheer numbers, Indians sure don’t seem to face this problem. What is heartening is in spite of our strong traditional and ethnic roots and background, we have successfully and increasingly merged into the atmosphere of the country we have adopted after migration. Not only are we able to survive but in fact we often thrive in a foreign environment- based on our education, entrepreneurial spirit, a sense of community and the sensibility to blend in with the existing culture of the country we check in to.
As per an article by The Economic Times dated January this year, at 18 million Indians, we ace any other nation as a diaspora population settled abroad (reported by the United Nations). Since my blog post specifically talks about migration to Australia, let’s take a closer look at the stats on the Indian diaspora Down Under. Journalist Aarti Betigeri in The Interpreter in an article in May this year pointed out how Indians are becoming a community that is hard to miss and harder to ignore in the island country today. Not only are we the second largest migrant population here but also the second-largest tax-paying citizens after British migrants. She goes on to enunciate the significance of this number by predicting that the Indian migrant tally that is 7,00,000 in strength in current times is set to outdo the number of Chinese-born Australians over the next decade.
Such is the impact of Indians in Astraya, that the Indian input in bolstering this country’s economy has far-reaching effects- whether it is through the education route that international students take to reach here, through established trade and emerging business enterprises or through the taxes that skilled immigrants to the country bring by virtue of their highly educated backgrounds and jobs. Ironically though, your Indian qualification and job experience may limit you to getting through with a visa without the guarantee of a job in the same field you were assessed for in the first place, once you get here!
“Indian restaurants are in every suburb I go,” observed my Filipino colleague one day at work and that is true of most cities in the country including regions beyond the urban hemisphere. Every Australian has at least heard of if not experienced Indian culture through its food, films (largely Bollywood) or yoga. Every Australian at some point of time has lived in a region here where he is likely to have encountered an Indian in a grocery store, his neighbourhood, his workplace or in the school/university campus. In my first workplace in Canberra, we were a total of eight Indians not counting the casual employees on any given day. “I am baffled by the fact that each of you speaks a different language just because you are from a different state in India and yet you seem to communicate so well in a common language like Hindi or English without those cultural differences coming in the way,” remarked a British colleague born in Australia. While some curiosity about the uniqueness of India is ubiquitous, so is a generally accepted notion that most Indians have very solid educational standards and are easily capable of climbing up the ladder professionally in any given workplace once they make their way in. Now that my Australian friends have figured that there is more to India than just spicy food, curries and bhangra, they have begun to enjoy learning about and appreciating the vastness in geography, the amalgamation of cultures that supersede language and religion in my native country and the resilience that characterises the Indian migrant.
In short, the story of the Indian migrant is largely a happy one in Australia, a complete win-win scenario for the host country and the newly minted resident who sets up base in this lucky country and builds in it his ‘home sweet home’. So what happens when someone invades this space you call your new home and thinks it’s his right to walk right up to you, pass demeaning remarks about you and the country you came from, swear at you and compulsively target you without any provocation merely on the basis of your skin colour?? Do you take it lying down because in India we have things a lot worse with the kind of discrimination we face every day at every level- be it religion, caste, class, language, financial status, family name and your level of education? Does that mean a volley of racial slurs coming your way in a foreign land should be brushed under the carpet because we are thick-skinned enough to bear it all with a pinch of salt? What does this mean for the future generation and your children who are witness to this kind of unfair treatment and abuse- should they swallow it like bitter medicine by pacifying themselves that there are so many more benefits they are getting otherwise?
A higher quality of life is what the Indian migrant signed up for but at what cost- by pretending that racism doesn’t exist or by looking the other way when it happens? No one understands this better than those who started and are fuelling the #BlackLivesMatter movement and hence I quote one of my favourite writers Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Americanah) who says, “The only reason you say that race was not an issue is because you wish it was not. We all wish it was not. But it’s a lie.” So as a self-respecting Indian migrant, my only humble suggestion to fellow migrants, no matter where they come from is: Stand up for yourself. If you are right, speak up and don’t just take unjust practices like racist slurs and prejudice lying down. You were invited to a new country based on your qualification, you paid for that visa that got you here and you continue to prove your worth in your newly adopted land as an able citizen by paying your taxes. Far from your loved ones, if you have a good circle of friends, colleagues and new family here irrespective of what skin colour they are born with, then good on you mate! If you adapt yourself to the new ways, new rules and a new lifestyle and accept change for what it is worth without losing your identity and self-esteem, pat yourself on your back. Long ago, a man wearing a white cloth holding a staff in his hand dared to change the way the world looked at India. He started off as a victim of apartheid in South Africa himself. As I write this post on the occasion of his birth anniversary, his call to win the toughest war using truth and non-violence resonates even today. Do it not only because you deserve respect as a basic right of humanity. Do so because you owe the country of your birth that much.
