Indian student migrants in Australia: Issues of community sustainability

The established Indian Australian community mainly consists of people with professional occupations who came to Australia after 1970, and their Australian-born children. They came from the educated urban middle class in India, speak English fluently, and are doing well in Australia. In contrast, the wave of lndian students who arrived mainly after 2001 are more likely to come from rural backgrounds. Even though they may have bachelor degrees from India, they oflen have poor English. Many have enrolled in vocational courses in cookery and hairdressing in the hope, often realised, of gaining permanenl residence, As is now well known a number of them have been subjected to robbery and violence, often racist, and some have died. This article explores this recent history and also draws on interview data, It uses this to outline some of the differences between the established community and the growing number of students, and to describe the efforts made by the two groups to bridge these differences.