‘Australia has a vexed relationship with its own racism’: Aarti Betigeri on Growing Up Indian in Australia

Aarti Betigeri’s new book reveals common themes of the migrant experience – and some of them make for uncomfortable reading.

Insights: Aarti Betigeri. Picture: Amanda Thorson

You’ve edited Growing Up Indian in Australia, a new book that features many and varied contributions from the Indian-Australian community. How did you approach the project? I decided very early on that it needed to be a book about the migrant experience. Not so much about where you’ve come from in India or where you trace your background, but about the experience of trying to synthesise it with your own Australian identity. But I still wanted to make sure there was representation across geographical groups, social groups and religious groups – and then came some more contemporary identities.

Among those many different perspectives, what did the authors have in common? Absolutely this sense of identity dislocation. So many writers say they’ve always felt a sense of having a foot in each place, but not fully belonging, not fully landing in either. Another theme was family. There were a lot of stories about feeling dutiful and feeling constrained by a sense of duty, but also loving that they were part of something intractable, and having a sense of warmth and community and love around them, like just being in this ocean of love and belonging.

Another common experience, unfortunately, is racism... One of the joys of contributing to a book like this is that it is ultimately for our community, so no one’s varnishing anything. People are telling it how it is.

Do you think Australia is a racist country, as Laura Tingle suggested at this year’s Sydney Writers’ Festival? I think Australia has a very vexed relationship with its own racism. It can’t really face up to it, but it can’t deny it at the same time. I just look at the discourse around Laura Tingle and I think there’s the disconnect. Everyone knows something’s there, but they can’t articulate it.

You were born and raised in Melbourne but moved to Mumbai as an adult to work as a journalist – and stayed for nine years. What did you love about it? Something about it just chimed with us. It felt like being so much more a part of the world. In 2008, on I think my second night in the city, my cousin took me to dinner at Leopold Cafe and Bar, and this was like a week after the Mumbai terrorist attacks. There were bullet holes in the tables. In those first few weeks in Mumbai I learned a lot about the resilience of the people.

While in Mumbai you worked on an exposé into the surrogacy industry in India. How do you look back on that time? This was an industry that commodifies children, the kind of industry that splits up twins. There were just all these ethical issues everywhere, but I was reporting on that while I was pregnant, and my baby was a result of IVF. I felt like I had benefited from this industry, but I’m now the one that’s shut it down, or that’s shut down access for other people. I feel very conflicted about that. I still do.

You talk about the Indian diaspora “having its moment”, helped along by the visibility of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and US Vice President Kamala Harris. Why do you think the diaspora is embracing its “Indianness”? I suppose numbers are one part of it. For example, my dad used to take me to the cricket, and I loved the game but I hated leaving because that’s when we’d get racial slurs from drunk people. When I got older, I’d go in a big group of 30. We’d all be barracking for India and people around us would get into it because our large group had made it more fun and vibrant.

Growing Up Indian in Australia, edited by Aarti Betigeri, is out now through Black Inc publishing ($32.99)