The Rise of the Indian Diaspora in Downunder

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) 2021 census 783,958 persons declared their ancestry as Indian constituting 3.1% of the Australian population. They constitute the second largest taxpayers and easily outnumber their Australian counterparts in stadiums during the Border-Gavaskar series.

A data-rich report prepared by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade entitled — “Australia’s Indian Diaspora: A National Asset: Mapping the Community’s Reach into the Australia-India Economic Relationship”— quite timely encapsulates the rise of the diaspora, especially when bilateral relations have hit a historic high.

Australia’s rapidly transforming demography wherein one in four Australian has been born overseas, Indian diaspora is now turning heads. Calling the diaspora ‘aspirational’, the report shows that a comparatively younger diaspora is vital for meeting Australia’s skills shortage, technological development and exports. Citing the 2016 ABS Census the report observes, “The median age of Indian-born residents in Australia in 2016 was just 33 years, compared to 44 years for overseas-born migrants generally, with 87 per cent under the age of 50. Compared to the general population, there is a larger share among Indian-born people aged 25 to 39 as well as a larger percentage of children under the age of nine”.

Largely concentrated (70%) in the states of Victoria and New South Wales, the diaspora has moved interstate into Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia. In any developing suburb, an Indian family is a common sight. The DFAT report indicates that the cumulative effect of a generally highly educated youthful, linguistically diverse and growing community, plugged into networks of innovation, and well represented in business, across services and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) sectors with a strong export potential. It is a key contributor to not only bilateral trade and investment but Australia’s international competitiveness.

According to the 2021 Orbisdatabaseof companyinformation collated by Bureau van Dijk,a Moody’s Analytics Company — people of Indian heritage are employed in at least 996 Australian organizations of which an estimated 2,840 (13%) as directors and managers (12.5% women), constituting 3% of the Australian population. The report says that 964 of these 2,840 could potentially drive bilateral business and trade engagements in health, tourism, ICT and resources, across companies with a gross $250 billion annual turnover.

Surprisingly, in the flagship sector of education, and in agribusiness their role remains below par. But that may change rapidly as international education and student migration drive bilateral relationship. Indians were the largest source of skilled migrants in 2019-20 and second largest source of international students in 2019-20 to Australia. The DFAT report estimates that the diaspora’s role in senior academic positions roles at lecturer level and above has increased from 1.75 per cent in 2016 to 1.92 per cent in 2020. Of the 721,000 Indians (2016 census) approximately 88% are of the working age and 61% are in full-time and 27% in a parttime employment making them the second highest tax-paying migrant community after the UK-born migrants, contributing over $12 billion to the Australian economy.

As of 2021, numbering over 780,000 Indian migrants have overtaken Chinese and New Zealand born immigrants. Their numbers doubled between 1996- 2006, and quadrupled between 2006-2020, and were Australia’s fastest growing large diaspora community in 2020. As per the ABS projections the Indian-born diaspora will reach 1.07 million by 2035 and 1.4 million by 2045. Australia’s Department of Home Affairs has even established a Global Talent Officer for South Asia eying India as a source of global talent and business and expediting their migration.

According to 2016 ABS census Hindi (159,653 speakers) is the largest spoken language in the Indian households, followed by Punjabi (92,591 speakers), Malayalam (displacing Gujarati as the third most spoken Indian language), Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Marathi, Kannada and Bengali. Of these Hindi speaking Indians, 135,443 are Fijian-Indians.

As India rises as a Vishwa Guru, Indians assume their long due place in the Australian society.