Diplomatist Magazine Diplomatist March 2019 | Page 28

The Indian Diaspora in Australia
A Living Bridge
By Sanjay Bhosale*
P
resident Ram Nath Kovind has
described the Indian diaspora in
Australia as a “living bridge” between
the two countries. It is an apt description that
the President used during his historic and
successful visit to Australia in November
2018 – the fi rst by an Indian President.
Such is the strength of the diaspora that
during a recent Australia-India Twenty20
cricket match at the Sydney Cricket Ground,
a placard carried by an Indian fan succinctly
captured the atmosphere at the iconic venue.
It simply said: ‘Aussie Aussie Aussie, where
where where’. Fewer than 10 percent of
the fans would have been of non-Indian
background. The rest were overwhelmingly
desi – festive, noisy, colourful, exuberant,
even boisterous. You could be forgiven for
thinking it was a home game for the Indian
side. In fact, visiting Indian cricket teams
have been saying for some time now that
playing in Australia feels like playing at
home.
According to the 2016 Census conducted
by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, people
with Indian ancestry number almost 700,000,
or around 2.8 percent of the Australian
population. India-born Australians number
28 • Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Diplomatist • Vol 7 • Issue 3 • March 2019, Noida
over 455,000. In 2011–12, India became the
No. 1 source country for permanent skilled
migrants to Australia, eclipsing the United
Kingdom and China. This trend continued in
2016–17 and 2017–18. According to fi gures
from Australia’s Department of Homeland
Security, the total permanent migration intake
for 2017–18 was 162,417: Of these, 33,310
or 20.5 were granted to Indian citizens.
In comparison, China accounted for 15.5
percent and the United Kingdom contributed
8.4 percent of migrants.
Corresponding with the increase in
the number of Indian migrants living
in Australia, Indian languages are also
fl ourishing here. In the 2016 Census, Hindi
(7th) and Punjabi (9th) have made it to the
top 10 languages spoken in Australia with
approximately 159,662 and 132,496 speakers
respectively.
Other languages which have seen a big
jump are Tamil (73,161), Bengali (54,566),
Malayalam (53,206), Gujarati (52,888),
Telugu (34,435), Marathi (13,055) and
Kannada (9,701).
Other smaller languages also made an
appearance in the 2016 Census. Konkani
has 2,416 speakers, Kashmiri registered