But he’s not desi: articulating ‘Indianness’ through partnership preference in the Indian-Australian diaspora

ABSTRACT

This article examines young Indian-Australians’ understandings of identity expressed through their preferences in an intimate partnership. Studies in comparable contexts have indicated that diasporic Indians may identify as generically ‘Indian’, and express a desire for partners who are the same. This is no less true for many of Australia’s Indians. Based on fieldwork with members of the diaspora in Sydney, this paper looks at the extent to which the social hierarchies of regional/linguistic identity, religion, caste and class are reproduced through this group’s marriage and partnership practices. I find that their varying relationships with these hierarchies are often unconsciously shaped, and find expression in a sense of ‘Indianness’ and adherence to ‘Indian’ values. This paper further disrupts essentialising conceptions of inherent, intransient diasporic identity by highlighting that the diasporic negotiation of self is deeply personal and prone to differentiation.

KEYWORDS:

• South Asian diaspora
• caste
• race and ethnicity
• gender
• regional identity
• socioeconomic status
• marriage
• intimacy

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Dr. Tanya Jakimow and Professor Duncan McDuie-Ra for their invaluable guidance from this project’s inception. Further thanks to AS, JA and SS for their assistance with recruitment, and to my research participants for their time and generosity. A final thank you to attendees at the 2017 Global Conference on Indian Diaspora Studies for their helpful commentary.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Vidya Ramachandran graduated from the University of New South Wales with a Bachelor of Arts (Hons I) and Bachelor of Laws. During her honours year, she developed an interest in caste, race and ethnicity with respect to the South Asian diaspora in Australia. She currently works for a South Asian women’s organisation in London while qualifying as a solicitor. She hopes to eventually combine her interests in caste, race, gender and law.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. The ‘White Australia’ policy refers to various laws that restricted immigration to Australia to people of European descent.

2. ‘less likely to be Hindu or Muslim’ is a reference to Anglo-Indians, whose experiences of migration and settlement are distinct and are not included in this study.

3. Higher education: 51,959; Vocational education: 19,774; Schools: 231; English-language education: 2811; Non-award: 325.

4. Pauline Hanson is a provocative Australian politician and founder of the ‘One Nation’ party, notorious for its xenophobic rhetoric.

5. Children who migrate under the age of 12 may be labelled the ‘1.5’ generation (Bartley and Spoonley 2008). Singh (2016) considers the Australian-born and those who migrated before the age of 12 together as the group which had their formative experiences in Australia.

6. Participants have been given pseudonyms taken from the work of Jhumpa Lahiri.

7. Hindutva is the ideology of Hindu nationalism. The Hindu right is notorious for its ‘Othering’ of other religious groups, opposition to conversion and fear of interreligious marriage (Mohammad-Arif 2007).

8. The understanding of ‘caste’ used here encompasses both varna (four-tier system of occupational stratification)and jati (a system of endogamous sub-groups within each varna category). This definition is informed by research participants’ understandings of their own caste identities, i.e. no distinction was made between the two.

9. Gothra is a Brahmanical system of exogamous kinship that has been adopted by other castes (Sharda 1990, 26).

10. A manglik is a person born under the astrological influence of Mars (Anand 1965, 69) explains that ‘Hindus have a superstitution that the marriage between a person born under the influence of Mars (Mangal) and a person who is not, end in disaster’.

11. Figueira (2002) writes on the construction of an Aryan racial identity through the articulation of Vedic authority in the Brahmanical tradition. This glorified Aryan past is a core element of the Hindutva ideology.

12. Indian vegetarianism is not always caste-based, though is often associated with higher-castes (Jaffrelot 2000).

13. Australian vocational education institutions.