The Significance of Diwali for Indian Australians in the Context of Rising Anti-Immigrant Sentiment

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Sixteen years ago, Snohi Grewal arrived in Melbourne with a suitcase full of her belongings and a heart full of hope.

She was a student at the time — wide-eyed, eager and certain that Australia would become her second home. Now, the 39-year-old mother is raising her two children in Melbourne’s Berwick, in a house where the sounds of Bollywood lullabies and backyard kabaddi (a contact team sport) can often be heard.

For Grewal, who hails from Amritsar in northern India, Diwali has always been the thread connecting her past and present.

“I’ve always loved celebrating Diwali here,” she tells SBS News, as diyas (oil lamps) flicker in her living room, echoing those her mother used to light back home. “It’s how I pass on my culture to my kids.”

Often called the festival of lights, Diwali is a major celebration in Hindu, Sikh, Jain and some Buddhist traditions — symbolising the triumph of light over darkness, good over evil, and hope over despair.

A woman in a bright yellow Indian suit is surrounded by her family, some of whom are embracing her. The six adults and a young boy are posing for the camera in front of a wall with pictures in a living room.

Snohi Grewal, draped in a vibrant yellow traditional Indian outfit, is captured with her family during a 2024 Diwali gathering. Celebrating Diwali in Australia, she explains, is her way of imparting cultural heritage to her children. Source: Supplied

While Grewal adorns her porch with twinkling fairy lights for the upcoming celebration, she senses that Diwali’s brilliance seems slightly subdued this year.

“It’s about demonstrating that we belong here, too,” she shares.

Grewal’s unease isn’t universal, but it’s not isolated either. Across the country, as families prepare for Diwali with joy and anticipation — spring-cleaning homes, buying new clothes, exchanging gifts and planning feasts — there’s a quiet undercurrent.

It’s present in WhatsApp chats and conversations over chai, where some members of the community are asking: how do you celebrate when your sense of belonging is under threat?

It’s a question that weighs on Arun Sharma, who arrived in Australia in the mid-1970s and has since seen Diwali evolve from small family gatherings into large-scale festivals supported by councils and embraced by multicultural communities.

Sharma tells SBS News that Diwali holds deeper significance beyond the lights and sweets: “It embodies community spirit, social unity, and a sense of belonging.”

A man wearing glasses and a black puffer jacket gestures with one hand while holding a bottle of water in the other as he addresses a small group of people standing in a makeshift tent.

Since arriving in Australia in the mid-1970s, Arun Sharma (second from right) says he has watched the Indian diaspora grow from a quiet minority into a vibrant, visible part of the country’s multicultural identity. Source: Supplied

Each year, Sharma, who is the chair of the Celebrate India Inc. group, organises one of the country’s biggest Diwali celebrations at Melbourne’s Federation Square — an event that draws thousands, complete with music, markets and cultural performances. As part of week-long celebrations, the group also hosts similar events at other venues across Victoria.

But this year, Sharma admits, the atmosphere feels a little different.

“The fact is, this sentiment is revisiting us after a couple of years now, when things were not very pleasant,” he says.

“People are scared, and they are a bit worried about it, [asking] ‘What’s going to happen, where’s the future here?’”

Amid community concern, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese publicly reaffirmed the government’s support last month, calling Indian Australians a “vital part of modern Australia”.

Speaking with the ABC’s RN Breakfast show, he said: “I just say to the Indian community: you’re valued, you’re welcome here, you make our country stronger by being here. And thank you for everything that you do to make Australia a better place.”

The prime minister’s words resonated with Sharma, but he believes they must also guide policy.

“It’s time for them [the government] to reflect on their policies because overcrowding is one thing which we have to be careful about … I think they need to control that,” he says.

“They need to balance it out with the genuine migrants here and those who are on the skills needed list, where they can provide beautiful services.”

A newcomer’s Diwali — and first reality check

Proportionally, Australia’s overseas-born population is one of the largest in the world outside of the Gulf states and Singapore.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, as of June 2024, more than 8.6 million people living in Australia were born overseas — making up 31.5 per cent of the population.

James O’Donnell, a demographer from the Australian National University, tells SBS News that sustained migration has brought cultural richness and economic strength — but it has also fuelled rapid population growth, putting pressure on housing, infrastructure and public sentiment.

“After the COVID-19 pandemic, actual immigration levels did spike sharply. While this looks like it was a temporary spike, it did also produce a spike in the proportion of people who think that immigration is too high,” he says.

A man wearing a blue blazer over a grey shirt sits on a pouf stool, smiling at the camera.

James O’Donnell is a demographer focused on understanding and measuring social cohesion within and across neighbourhoods. Credit: Jamie Kidston/ANU

Indian-born migrants have driven much of the growth in immigration. The community has expanded from nearly 80,000 people in 1996 to more than 900,000 today, and is now the second-largest overseas-born group in Australia, after those born in the United Kingdom.

In the past two years alone, the Indian-born population has grown at nearly twice the rate of those born in all other countries.

“Nevertheless, immigration to Australia is incredibly diverse, and by no means dominated by arrivals from India or any other country. Indian-born Australians only make up around 11 per cent of Australia’s overseas-born population,” O’Donnell says.

Among the new arrivals is 20-year-old Krishita Sharma, who is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in cybersecurity from Melbourne’s Swinburne University of Technology.

She describes Diwali as a time of comfort and familiarity, evoking memories of her youth in India.

But as she prepares for her second Australian Diwali, she says it comes with an unexpected dose of reality.

“I came here thinking this was a really multicultural place. And in many ways, it is,” Sharma tells SBS News.

But seeing the recent protests and the way people talk and think about migrants — it was shocking. I wasn’t prepared for that.

Sharma says her colleagues and the people she shares accommodation with have helped her find her footing in Australia. This Diwali, she will be busy working but plans to set aside a few hours to share sweets and exchange gifts with her “borrowed family”.

For a little while at least, it will feel like home, she says.

“It’s not the same, of course. But it still reminds me who I am, and why I came here — to grow, to learn, to be part of something new.”

A young woman in a traditional Indian yellow suit poses for the camera as she stands in a backyard decorated with fairy lights.

Krishita Sharma says community leaders and politicians need to do more to help new migrants integrate into Australia’s social fabric. Source: Supplied

According to O’Donnell, who co-authored the Scanlon Foundation’s Mapping Social Cohesion 2024 study, racism, prejudice and discrimination are continuing problems in Australia.

“More than one-in-three overseas-born Australians from non-English speaking backgrounds in the Mapping Social Cohesion 2024 survey reported experiencing discrimination in the prior 12 months on the basis of skin colour, ethnic origin or religion,” he says.

Sharma says her first experience of racism in Australia came just two months after arriving, while she was at a train station in north Melbourne.

She says the incident left her scarred.

“I was standing at the Donnybrook station and going about my business. It must have been around 9am when a man shouted at me, ‘Go back!’” she recalls.

“I went home and cried so much; it was so traumatic.

“Such experiences scar you, and for someone like me who came here with an intention to stay long-term, it makes me rethink my choices. You start questioning, ‘If people can’t accept me, when I have wholeheartedly accepted them, then what does the future hold for the likes of me?’”

O’Donnell says while the Scanlon Foundation’s study did not have an indicative sample size for Indian-born respondents, many still reported experiencing discrimination.

“We consistently see around 40-45 per cent of Indian-born respondents say they experienced discrimination,” he says.

He says it’s hard to predict the long-term impact of recent anti-immigration sentiment, but research shows discrimination leads to lower levels of social cohesion.

“I would strongly suggest that anti-immigration sentiment, especially when it is personally felt in terms of discrimination and mistreatment, is detrimental to an individual’s sense of belonging and our overall cohesion,” he says.

Preeti Nalavadi, an academic and PhD scholar at the University of Adelaide, who is passionate about community advocacy, says the current debate around immigration cannot be limited to intake caps or housing supply.

“Migration defines Australia’s character,” she tells SBS News.

“Sustainable migration isn’t just about getting the numbers right. It’s about offering migrants their dignity and valuing their partnership.”

A woman lights a flower-shaped lamp placed on a table laden with traditional Indian sweets and earthen lamps in various shapes and sizes. She is surrounded by her family members indoors.

Diwali always falls sometime between the months of October and November, but the exact date varies each year as the Hindu calendar is based on the motion of the moon. Credit: MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images

Nalavadi points to the contributions of the Indian Australian community across a diverse range of industries, such as business, medicine and academia, as well as civic life and cultural leadership. Yet, she says, many still feel unseen.

“We work, contribute, belong and yet are treated as outsiders. Australia must do more to protect and respect those who call it home,” she says.

Australia cannot move ahead without Indian migrants.

For some, Diwali says what words can’t

While some migrants are feeling the weight of recent events, many still experience Australia as a place of genuine opportunity and feel welcomed.

And Diwali, for those in the Indian diaspora, remains a joyful and unifying celebration — a time to reflect on progress, pride and shared identity.

But even among the hopeful, there’s a growing awareness that inclusion must be actively nurtured, not passively assumed.

“Celebrating Diwali is not enough,” Arun Sharma says.

“We need to make a little bit more effort from our side as well.”

“I’d like to see people inviting their neighbours [from non-Indian backgrounds] and getting them aware of our culture and participating in festivities so they can learn more about us, our backgrounds and contribute towards integration.”

A woman wearing a black top works at her laptop, her face set in a serious expression.

Snohi Grewal says this year, Diwali feels a lot more than just a cultural or religious celebration. Source: Supplied

Meanwhile, as diyas flicker across Grewal’s windowsill, she reflects on what Diwali means this year — not just for her young family, but for herself.

“We’re celebrating,” she says, as her children laugh and dance to Indian beats.

It’s also her way of saying: “We’re here, we’re part of this place, and we matter.”

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