“Recent incidents, including the neo-Nazi anti-immigration march and attacks on our temples and community members, have heightened fear within our community, which is already facing unwarranted hate.”
The number of Indian-born people living in Australia more than doubled between 2013 and 2023, according to the Department of Home Affairs, and the Hindu and Sikh faiths were two of the fastest growing religious groups in the most recent census.
Amar Singh, founder of Turbans 4 Australia. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
There were 684,000 Hindus counted in Australia at the 2021 census, a 55 per cent increase from 2016. The 2021 census showed there were 210,400 Sikhs, a 67 per cent increase over the same period. Hindus make up about 2.7 per cent of the Australian population, with Sikhs accounting for 0.8 per cent.
Amar Singh, founder of the Turbans 4 Australia charity, said he welcomed an envoy focused on anti-Indian and South Asian racism, but was concerned that a belief all Indians were Hindu could “set it up for failure”.
“The hate hasn’t been against Hindus, it’s been against Indians … if you look at the overall Indian community, Sikhs are the most visibly identifiable, and Sikhs need to have a voice in this. We cop the anti-Muslim sentiment, the anti-Indian sentiment. We’re stuck in the middle of all of it,” Singh said.
He said multiple Sikh temples had been broken into, and donation boxes stolen this year.
Livingston Chettipally, who once sat on Sydney’s Blacktown Council and was the Liberal candidate for Chifley in 2019, also called for a broad envoy to examine attacks against the Indian community. As an Indian Orthodox Christian, he also felt his community was sidelined by a belief that all Indians were Hindu.
“[Racism] is a broad Indian issue, not specific to Hindus. India is a multicultural community: we have Christians, Muslims, Sikhs and Buddhists,” he said.
Chettipally said many Catholic Indians had faced racism recently. “People are constantly being abused since this issue comes up, they call us ‘blackies’, name labelling … they call us with some kind of words I can’t repeat.”
Hindus for Human Rights said in a statement that care was needed to ensure recent anti-Indian rhetoric was not “hijacked by divisive forces”. Board member Shanti Raman argued that religion was not a defining factor in recent tensions, but rather the broad targeting of migrants and people of colour.
“The narrative that there is widespread Hinduphobia, and that the community needs a special envoy in Australia, is disingenuous at best. The dangers of this narrative far outweigh any benefit this will bring to the Hindu community,” the organisation said in a statement in April.
The group offered in-principle support for an envoy but questioned whether another investigation and report into discrimination, this time focused on Indians and South Asians, would foster change.
Shadow attorney-general Julian Leeser – who attended the Sydney roundtable – said he was open to the Hindu Council’s proposal, but acknowledged calls from other faith groups that “such a role should serve the whole Indian-Australian community”.
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“The principle is simple. All law-abiding Australians, no matter their faith, deserve full protection under the law,” Leeser said.
Minister for Multicultural Affairs Anne Aly said: “All Australians should be able to feel safe and at home in any community … [the] government continues to stand with Australia’s multicultural communities against any type of hatred.”
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