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Anti-Māori racism and Indian migration into Aotearoa New Zealand


For a large cross-section of the Indian diaspora bred on caste privilege, colonial tropes of Indigenous communities on dole hold a great deal of appeal. 

These colonial tropes are layered over a deep-seated anti-Indigenous attitude embedded in the ideological infrastructure of caste. 

One needs to closely look at the historic and systemic abuse of Adivasi (Indigenous) communities in India to understand the threads of historic racism toward Indigenous communities that flows through the Indian diaspora. 

The casteist underbelly of racism turns into hate and is often mobilized as violence.

Consider the historic uses of sexual, physical and material violence by upper castes to hold power and control over Adivasis across India. 

Consider similarly the number of incidences of caste atrocities directed toward Dalits and Adivasis reported in India and across the diaspora.

It is no surprise therefore that one sees the preponderance of racist tropes of the "lazy Māori" and the "Māori on dole" that flow across the threads of the Indian diaspora in Aotearoa New Zealand. 

These racist tropes reflect casteist frames of deservedness and merit, working hand-in-hand with white supremacist narratives that rely on the trope of "Māori on benefits" to legitimize the deployment of structural and material violence. 

Deeply casteist ideas of merit shape the constructions of the model minority in the Indian diaspora and mobilize the organizing of the diaspora toward historically disenfranchised minorities in the West. 

It is worth noting here the widespread appeal among Indians of the white supremacist campaign that communicatively inverts the concept of equality to target policies seeking to uphold Te Tiriti. The racist construction that "Māori are leeching off the system" and "Māori undeservedly get too many benefits from the system" at "the cost of the taxes we pay" mobilizes the sense of victimhood performed by upper caste Indians in the diaspora, mobilizing around racist policy proposals such as the Treaty Principles Bill. 

Note here how easily a large section of the Indian diaspora in Aotearoa was seduced into the divisive "We belong Aotearoa" campaign, sponsored by the racist Hobson's Pledge, and targeting co-governance.

With Indians constituting the third largest community in Aotearoa New Zealand, and with the likelihood of increased migration from India in the backdrop of the recent conversations on the free trade agreement with India, it is worth closely interrogating the ways in which uncritical immigration from India is likely to fuel anti-Indigenous, anti-Māori attitudes in Aotearoa. 

The place of Te Tiriti as the foundational document of Aotearoa means that such uncritical immigration from India is likely to be at odds with the legal core that underpins the democratic fabric of Aotearoa. Balancing immigration and migrant rights with Indigenous rights lies at the heart of how migration from India is managed.

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