In Australia, a Sikh community thrives where racial animosities are cast aside

Descendants of indentured Punjabi labourers have turned a small pocket of rural New South Wales into a wealthy farming community

Traditions of northern India carry on in Woolgoolga, where Sikh temples, fruit plantations and a deep attachment to the land reflect generations of heritage

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Paramjeet Bhatti at his raspberry farm in Woolgoolga. “Our ancestors never left. We stayed farmers,” he said. Photo: Kalinga Seneviratne

Published: 8:00am, 6 Dec 2020Updated: 4:28pm, 17 Mar 2021

The 1,300-strong community of Sikhs in the Australian seaside town of Woolgoolga may seem like an aberration, existing amid a largely white population in this rural outpost of the country. But if it is an anomaly, it is at least a wealthy one, and also proves that a touch of Punjab can coexist with Anglo-Australian culture even at a time when some members of the Australian government have whipped up racial fears about non-white Australian citizens.

Situated about 550km north of Sydney and just 25km from the popular seaside resort town of Coffs Harbour on the northern New South Wales (NSW) coast, Woolgoolga “is a unique cultural village”, said John Arkan, whose great grandfather came to the region to work on the sugar cane farms from a village in Punjab that carried the same family name. “I call it a village because it is like India ,” he said.

The Sikhs of Woolgoolga are mainly descendants of labourers from Punjab state in northern India who were brought by the British to work on sugar cane plantations in the 19th century. Several generations later, the Australian offspring of these labourers – and of later waves of Punjabi farmers who came to the region to set up businesses selling various wares – are landowners and wealthy farmers.

The Guru Nanak temple in Woolgoolga. Photo: Kalinga Seneviratne

Arkan, a third-generation Australian-Sikh, is a councillor on the Coffs Harbour City Council, the governance area of which includes Woolgoolga. He has been re-elected three times since 2008 – once missing out on becoming mayor by just 331 votes.

When he is not attending to his duties as a council member, Arkan runs an Indian spice shop in Woolgoolga and a mobile kitchen, which he takes to Sunday markets in the region to sell his trademark Indian naan with butter chicken and dal curry – foods he says are popular with rural Australians.

In Australia, a Sikh community thrives where racial animosities are cast aside

Descendants of indentured Punjabi labourers have turned a small pocket of rural New South Wales into a wealthy farming community Traditions of northern India carry on in Woolgoolga, where Sikh temples, fruit plantations and a deep attachment to the land reflect generations of heritage

Descendants of indentured Punjabi labourers have turned a small pocket of rural New South Wales into a wealthy farming community

Traditions of northern India carry on in Woolgoolga, where Sikh temples, fruit plantations and a deep attachment to the land reflect generations of heritage