By Rishpal Singh Sidhu | Opinion |
Sikhism is the fifth largest and fastest growing religion in Australia after Christianity (43.9%), Islam (3.2%), Hinduism (2.7%), and Buddhism (2.4%), with 38.9 % of the Australian population professing to have no religion according to the 2021 Census. From its small number of 12,000 in 1996, the Sikh population in Australia recorded significant growth from 72,000 to 210,400 between 2011 and 2021, an average growth of 14.8% per annum, and today constitute 0.81% of the 25.8 million Australian population. Notwithstanding their relatively small numbers and not unlike their Singapore brethren, they are today well represented in all the major professions and have made a significant contribution to Australia’s development.
Given their agrarian background in the Punjab, the first Sikhs came to Australia in the 1830s as indentured labourers working on farms, in the cane fields, and as shepherds on sheep stations. The 1861 Census recorded around 200 Indians in the State of Victoria, including some in the gold rush town of Ballarat. Later Sikh migrants worked as itinerant hawkers travelling vast distances in town and country areas, peddling a variety of goods on credit to farming families and farmhands. Some of the cameleers who arrived in Australia in the 1860s included a small number of Sikhs from Punjab. Baba Ram Singh was one of the more successful hawkers, and according to historical records, is credited with bringing the first Guru Granth Sahib to Australia sometime in the 1920s. It was also during this time that Indians in Australia were given limited licence to own property, including being given the right to vote and allowed a pension.
The enactment and implementation of the White Australia Policy during the 1901-1973 period had a restrictive effect on Sikh immigration to Australia, and the 1911 Census recorded less than 4,000 Sikhs living in Australia. The labour shortage arising from the conscription of Australian menfolk to fight overseas in World War II opened migration opportunities for Sikhs to work in the banana growing areas of Woolgoolga. Some Sikh migrants prospered, bought land, and became successful plantation owners, including getting their womenfolk to join them in Australia to form households, resulting in the first born naturalised Australian Sikh children. The first Sikh gurdwara was established in Woolgoolga in 1968, and this seaside town 550kms north of Sydney today boasts a 1,300 strong Sikh community where Sikhs own 90% of the banana plantations and have now also diversified to owning raspberry and blueberry farms.
In recent times, the Sikhs have also been involved in farming in other parts of Australia. Renmark is the largest town in South Australia’s farm rich Riverland area, and it is today home to a vibrant and thriving Sikh community many of whom are involved in producing fruits and vegetables, both as farmers and farmhands. In Mildura, the largest city in northwest Victoria, the Grewal brothers are a success story, running a wheat and flour milling business supplying atta to Indian stores and restaurants all over Australia. They arrived in Australia via New Zealand 20 years ago, and in their Mallee region farmlands today grow wheat, almonds, grapes, citrus and berries. Other Sikh success stories also include Paramdeep Ghumman and his doctor wife Nirmal, owners of the award winning Nazaaray Estate vineyard in Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula.
Notwithstanding the restrictions of the White Australia Policy, a limited number of Sikh doctors, academics, engineers, agriculture experts, and IT workers started arriving in the 1960s. The abolition of the White Australia Policy and the passing of the Whitlam Government’s Racial Discrimination Act in 1975 heralded an increase in Sikh migration, including well qualified professionals from a number of countries including India, Malaysia, Singapore, Fiji, Kenya, Uganda, and the United Kingdom.
The period from early 2000 to the present has seen a steady increase in Sikh students studying in Australia with many staying on in Australia on completion of their studies. Some of these students were initially enrolled in short courses in hairdressing and cookery where there was a skills shortage in these areas, and they were then able to secure employment and permanent residence on completion of these short courses. International students on a student visa are currently permitted to work a little over 20 hours a week and mainly work in hospitality, retail, cleaning, and transport because their labour is essential to these industries.
“A recent study by IDP Connect revealed how the prime motivation for Indian students to study in Australia is to gain permanent residency and work rights”1, a finding confirmed by Professor Steven Schwartz formerly Vice Chancellor of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, who admitted that many international students only study in Australia to gain working rights and permanent residency. If work rights and residency were scaled back, the number of students arriving would collapse.2 Two years of Covid-19 border closures also led to a national staffing crisis, particularly in hospitality, retail, aged care, and nursing, and there are indications that the Federal Government plans to increase the skilled migrant intake to nearly 200,000 from its current annual rate of 160,000, and this probably augurs well for the steady flow of Sikh students coming to Australia to study and work in these areas, eventually gaining permanent residency.
People of Indian ancestry in Australia currently number 783,000 of which 210,400 or 26.9% are Sikhs. It is interesting to note that as migrant groups, the Indians have leapfrogged the Chinese and now sit second only to the British.3 More than half of the Indian migrants are Hindus, followed by 18% professing the Christian faith, 12% are Sikhs, and 7% are Muslims. In the five years to 2021, the number of children born in Australia with Indian ancestry was more 63,000.4
Though comparatively small in demographic terms, the Sikhs in Australia have generally assimilated well and will doubtless continue to influence the cultural mix of Australian society in multifarious ways including cuisine, fashion, and music. Following the 9/11siege in the United States and the more recent 2014 Sydney Lindt Café siege, some Australian Sikhs have borne the brunt of anti-Islamic sentiment in some parts of the community conflating Sikh turbans and beards with terrorism. Like their American counterparts, Sikh associations and community groups have been active in diverse ways in educating the Australian community about the beliefs and values of Sikhism. There are currently 32 gurdwaras in Australia, including one in the Australian Capital Territory, 12 in New South Wales, 6 in Queensland, 7 in Victoria, 4 in South Australia, and 2 in Western Australia.5
“The growth of the Australian Sikh community presents an example of the value of civil society groups, and important lessons about how we should approach our relations to one another.” 6 In addition to the contributions they continue to make in Australia in their professional lives, “their dedication to volunteerism provides the country with an additional social service that identifies areas where both the State and the market are failing to produce adequate outcomes and contribute basic human necessities to those most in need.”7 Sikh volunteer groups in Australia have frequently made headline news for their charitable work in providing thousands of free meals and basic necessities to those whose lives and livelihoods have been affected by bushfires, floods, and Covid-19 lockdown measures in 2020 and 2021.
At a national level, Harinder Sidhu is currently serving as the Australian High Commissioner to New Zealand. She has previously served overseas as Australia’s High Commissioner to India and in Moscow and Damascus. At State Government level, Lisa Maria Singh who is of Fijian Indian parentage, was elected to the Tasmanian House of Assembly in 2006 and served as Minister for Corrections and Consumer Protection, Minister for Workplace Relations, and Minister assisting the Premier on Climate Change from 2006 to 2008. She subsequently served as Tasmanian Senator in the Australian Parliament from 2011 to 2019. She is currently the Director and CEO of the Australia India Institute, the University of Melbourne Centre dedicated to promoting support for and understanding of the bilateral relations between these two countries. She also serves as Deputy Chair of the Australia India Council.
In the recent Federal election politicians were actively wooing the Sikh vote at the ballot box. Members of the Sikh community have also been making headway in local government. John Jorahvar Singh Arkan made history through being the first Sikh to be elected to the local government Coffs Harbour City Council in 2008. He was followed not long after by Moninder Singh who moved from India to Australia in 2001 and was elected to the Blacktown City Council in 2016. He also serves as Chair of the Punjabi Council of Australia. Within a decade of arriving in Australia in 2014, educationist Khushpinder Kaur was elected to the Blacktown City Council in 2021. Blacktown is the largest Council in New South Wales with a population of 430,000 out of which 18,134 (4.2%) are Sikh residents, and Punjabi ranks among the top five of the 182 languages spoken in this multicultural district. Tony Bleasdale, the Mayor of Blacktown was recently reported as learning to speak Punjabi.
Though currently small in number as compared to the Sikh communities in the United States, Canada, and Britain, the Sikh community in Australia is in chardi kala and already making its presence felt, and is poised to grow and make even greater and more significant contributions to the Australian economy and society in the years ahead.
References
- Van Onselen, L. Indian students come to Australia to work, not education. https://www.macrobusiness.com.au 12 August 2022
- Ibid.
- Marshall, K. Educated, ambitious, ever more powerful; How Indian migration is changing the nation. Good Weekend, Sydney Morning Herald, 13 August 2022.
- Ibid.
- List compiled by Devpaal Singh, Sikh Youth Australia. https://sikhyouthaustralia.com resource-centre
- Wyeth, G. What we can learn from Australia’s Sikh community. https://www.thediplomat.com 7 June 2021
- Ibid.
Rishpal Singh Sidhu is a semi-retired casual academic at the School of Information and Communication Studies, Charles Sturt University, Australia. He has a passion for research, writing, and teaching. He is the compiler and editor of the book, Singapore’s early Sikh pioneers; Origins, Settlement, Contributions and Institutions, published by the Central Sikh Gurdwara Board in Singapore in 2017. He is currently based in Sydney, Australia.
* This is the opinion of the writer, organisation or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Asia Samachar.
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