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Table of ContentsPrivileged Hybrids: Examining ‘our own’ in the Indian-Australian diaspora . 2Introduction . 2Data collection and methodology. 3The Indian diaspora in Australia: navigating ‘Indianness’ and ‘Australianness’ . 4Towards ‘Indianness’: the gradual dissolution of regional/linguistic identity . 7‘Hinduness’ and ‘Indianness’ . 8A model minority . 9Unpacking caste: privilege and denial . 10Conclusion. 13Vidya Ramachandran1

Privileged Hybrids: Examining ‘our own’ in the Indian-Australian diasporaIntroductionIn April, the ‘Indian Wedding Race’ hit television screens across Australia (Cousins 2015).The first segment in a three-part series on multicultural Australia distributed by the SBS, thedocumentary follows two young Indian-Australians in their quest to get married before theage of thirty.Twenty-nine year-old Dalvinder Gill-Minhas was born and raised in Melbourne. Dalvinder’sfamily members are practicing Sikhs from the Indian state of Punjab who migrated toAustralia in the 1980s. She describes her childhood as marked by attendance at Punjabischool and the Gurudwara, while at the same time “trying to fit into modern Aussie culture”.Her father is adamant that she marries a fellow Sikh – preferably one with a turban, markinghis religiosity and deference to the founders of his faith. He leans over her shoulder as shecreates an account on a popular Indian matrimonial website, Shaadi.com.“Religion, doesn’t matter”, she says firmly.“What?” her father replies. “You are a Sikh. It has to be a Sikh”.“Okay so it obviously matters to you”, she concedes.The ‘Indian Wedding Race’ is spattered with seemingly innocuous glimpses at religious,caste and cultural background, almost invisible to anyone unfamiliar with marriage in theIndian context. But for many Indians living overseas, it is imperative that we marry one of“our own” (Abraham 2005, p. 433). Our conceptions of ‘our own’ vary, but usually rest on“distinctions of region, class, caste, community, and education [which] serve as boundariesfor identification and mark out self from others” (Gopalkrishnan and Babacan 2007, p. 509).This paper examines young Indian-Australians’ understandings of ‘their own’, exploredthrough their perspectives on marriage and intimate relationships. Drawing upon the theoryof cultural hybridity, I find that diasporans are constantly negotiating their cultural values ‘inbetween’ their Indian roots and their existence as an ethnic minority in Australia. Inconsidering what they want in a spouse, diasporans are forced to choose which of theirboundaries of identity are most valuable, and which they want to retain and reproduce. I2

found that participants in this study had negotiated an essentialised sense of ‘Indianness’, acohesive ethnic consciousness defined by a homogeneous conception of Indian culture and itsdifference from the Australian cultural majority. However, upon further interrogation, I foundthat this sense of ‘Indianness’ was not as cohesive as it initially seemed, and that region,language, caste1, class and religion still play a role in shaping the ‘Indianness’ felt andexpressed by this diasporic community.This paper marks an important intervention into the study of the Indian diaspora in Australia.Few studies have explored identity in relation to the specific diasporic communitydemarcated here. This research holds further value for two reasons. Firstly, I believe thatsimply producing work on the experiences of non-white immigrants helps, in some smallway, to challenge the sometimes-exclusionary cultural framework of the white settler state.Secondly, I am conscious that the mostly privileged young diasporans on whom this studyfocuses may carry tacitly discriminatory or regressive attitudes that may play out in theirmost personal decisions. In a study of young users of Indian matrimonial websites in NorthAmerica, Sharma (2008, p. 137) states, “it is imperative that this group of privileged hybridsbe questioned on their identity production in terms of disruptive or productive possibilitiesand retrogressive practices”. Similarly, I believe that diasporic understandings of religion,caste, class or other divisive boundaries of identity should be publicly articulated, analysedand where necessary, scrutinised. So many of our biases go otherwise unchallenged. I hopethis work contributes in some way to recognising and challenging our ingrained prejudices.Data collection and methodologyData was collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 22 young Australians ofIndian origin, conducted over July-August 2016.2 All participants were either born inAustralia, or had migrated from India to Australia with their parents as very young children. 31This paper takes ‘caste’ to mean both varna and jati. While some scholars distinguish between these twocategories, I adopt a fluid understanding of caste informed by Béteille’s (1964) finding that these concepts areoften conflated, e.g. Tamilians in his fieldwork used the word jati to describe many referents of their identities,including varna, jati and doctrinal identity. My findings in this study were similar. When prompted to identifytheir own caste, some participants only mentioned their varna identity, such as Brahmin or Kshatriya. Somerevealed their jati identities, such as Rajput or Bania. Caste is therefore understood by these participants asmeaning both varna and jati.2Note that this research was originally completed as part of an 8-month honours thesis project and was thussubject to considerable time and resource constraints. Participants were recruited in three main ways: throughadvertisements circulated through Indian community organisations, through social media, and through theresearcher’s own informal personal networks.3

Although these boundaries were not identified in the inclusion criteria, all participantsultimately deemed eligible for the study were, like myself, Hindu, upper middle-class andupper-caste. The majority of Indian migrants within the second-wave are upper-caste andclass (Bilimoria and Voigt-Graf 2001). The demographic of this sample universe hasundoubtedly influenced the findings of this study, which are specific to this privilegedgroup’s experiences.4Of the final 22 interviewees, 15 were female and 7 were male. All participants were agedbetween 18 and 31, and none were married, though some were in long-term relationships andone was undergoing the process of introductions to find a spouse. Like most studies ofmarriage in the Indian context, this study focuses exclusively on heterosexual intimacy.The Indian diaspora in Australia: navigating ‘Indianness’ and ‘Australianness’The subjects of this study are situated within the second major wave of Indian migration, the“new diaspora of late capital”, which emerged from the mid to late 20th century (Mishra1996, p. 422). This movement is mostly composed of skilled professionals seeking economicopportunities in industrialised countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Canadaand Australia (Rangaswamy 2000; Bilimoria and Voigt-Graf 2001; Voigt-Graf 2004; Bhatia2007). In Australia, this movement accelerated with the relaxation of the ‘White Australia’Policy in 1966, and its abolition in 1971.5These migrants:belonged to various religious, linguistic and cultural groups. They were not, however,a typical cross-section of Indian society, being far better educated, more urbanised,more proficient in English and much less likely to be Hindus or Muslims than those inIndia (Bilimoria and Voigt-Graf 2001, p. 428)3In keeping with literature on migration, participants born in Australia are classified as members of the secondgeneration, and those who migrated under the age of 12 are classified as the ‘1.5 generation’ (Bartley andSpoonley 2012).4It is likely that my own background and networks impacted upon my access to participants. Additionally, theoriginal advertisement for this study outlined its focus on caste: it is possible that, even if made aware of thestudy, lower castes, Dalits or Adivasis may not wish to speak about caste, due to past trauma or negativeexperiences.5The ‘White Australia’ policy refers to various policies that comprised Australia’s approach to immigrationuntil the latter-20th century, which restricted immigration to people of European descent.4

Many of these migrants are Anglo-Indians; people of mixed European and Indian descent,whose experiences of migration and settlement are distinct from many other second-waveIndians (Bilimoria and Voigt-Graf 2001).6 Further, many of Australia’s ‘Indians’ are actuallydescended from groups who have migrated again from countries such as Fiji and Malaysia(Voigt-Graf 2004). Smaller migrations from India to Australia that cannot be comfortablyaccommodated within either of these waves have also occurred.7 Each of these groups has adistinct history; and is considered outside the scope of this study (Bilimoria and Voigt-Graf2001; Voigt-Graf 2004).8This group is analytically comparable to diasporic communities in other Western contexts,characterised by the voluntary nature of their migration, contact with kinship networks inIndia and the maintenance of a fluid relationship with their homeland and counterparts inother parts of the world (Mishra 1996; Tölölyan 1996; Bhatia and Ram 2004; Voigt-Graf2004; Rangaswamy 2005). In keeping with the literature on second-wave diasporiccommunities, I found that participants’ experiences were characterised by ‘in-betweenness’.They exhibited a strong sense of being ‘in-between’ two worlds, straddling multiple“hyphenated selves” (Bhatia and Ram 2004, p. 226). Ruma, who attends university inregional Australia, states, “when I’m in India, I feel like I’m too Australian, and when I’m incountry Australia, I feel like I’m too Indian and not Aussie enough”. Aparna’s experience issimilar. She states, “I just feel like I’m constantly in this place where I’m trying to figure outthe place between the two I feel like my views have changed over time, even go back andforth”. Caught in an “ethnographic performance” between two cultural systems, they areconstantly negotiating their own cultural values, which often intensifies through criticalexperiences such as marriage and intimacy (Ibrahim 2008, p. 239).6Anglo-Indians were classified as ‘Eurasians’ and were permitted to migrate to the West before while restrictiveimmigration laws were still in place. As they generally have European names, speak English as their firstlanguage and practice Christianity, their experiences of settlement have been distinct from those of Indians fromother religious and linguistic backgrounds. Anglo-Indians may have a troublesome relationship with their Indianancestry due to experiences of exclusion and discrimination in India and in some cases, have demonstrated adesire for distance from their Indian roots. They have also demonstrated a preference for marrying Christianspouses from various ethnic backgrounds; their conception of ‘their own’ therefore varies significantly from thatof other Indian diasporans (Bilimoria and Voigt-Graf 2001).7Smaller migrations from India to Australia include: small groups of male labourers accompanying Britishsubjects settling in India in 1800-1860; followed by waves of agricultural labourers, hawkers and pedlars,mainly from Punjabi Sikh and Muslim backgrounds, who settled in small towns and rural settlements in NewSouth Wales, Victoria and Queensland in 1860s-1901. This latter wave ended with the passage of theImmigration Restriction Act 1901 (Bilimoria and Voigt-Graf 2001; Voigt-Graf 2004)8Note that one of my participants has one Indo-Fijian parent, and one Indian-born parent (see Appendix A). Ashe had been raised within a second-wave community, I decided that fulfilled the criteria.5