British India, White Australia Overseas Indians, intercolonial relations and the Empire

‘ Commonwealth, curry and cricket’ has become the belaboured phrase by which Australia seeks to emphasise its shared colonial heritage with India and improve bilateral relations in the process. Yet it is misleading because the legacy of empire differs in profound ways in both countries. Indians may be the fastest-growing group of migrants to Australia, but they have long been present. British India, White Australia explores connections between Australia and India through the lens of the British Empire, by tracing the lives of people of Indian descent in Australia, from Australian Federation to Indian independence. The White Australia Policy was firmly in place while both countries were part of the British Empire. Australia was nominally self-governing but still attached very strongly to Britain; India was driven by the desire for independence. The racist immigration policies of dominions like Australia, and Britain’ s inability to reform them, further animated nationalist sentiments in India.

Kama Maclean is Associate Professor of South Asian and World History at the University of New South Wales, and editor of South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies. She is the author of Pilgrimage and Power: The Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, (Oxford University Press, 2008) and A Revolutionary History of Interwar India: Violence, image, voice and text (Oxford University Press, 2015). Kama is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities and the Australia India Institute.

1. British Indian Subject and the White Australia Policy, 1901– 1915 2. A Visual History of Indians in Australia, 1890– 1930 3. Sovereignty, Race and Inequality within the Empire, 1897– 1915 4. Imperial Loyalty, War and the Question of Rights, 1915– 1922 5. Dominions, Delegations and India’ s Claim for Equal Status, 1919– 1930 6. Indian Nationalism in Australia, 1928– 1943 7. Fault lines in Diplomatic Relations, 1944– 1947 Conclusion: Whiteness, Britishness and the Commonwealth