The Centre for Global Migrations and the History Programme are jointly hosting Associate Professor Jacqueline Leckie's talk 'An Uncomfortable History: Kiwi Indians and Exclusion'.

In collaboration with the New Zealand Indian Central Association, I am producing a brief history of Indian exclusion and discrimination in Aotearoa. After the 15 March 2019 Christchurch mosque massacre, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern declared that this 'is not us'. Yet the tragedy pointed to the presence of white extremism and tacit or unintentional support within Aotearoa. 15 March raised manifold questions about what it means to belong to an ethnic and religious minority in a country that has experienced a very long history of underlying prejudice and racism. This is not a history of celebration or integration, but outlines the discrimination Kiwi-Indians have faced, to recognise and address the nation's uncomfortable history. It can be tempting to dismiss past anti-Asian rhetoric as crackpot, but it is too easy to sweep this history under the carpet, and to do the same with contemporary racism directed at Indians. Aotearoa's legacy of exclusion towards Kiwi-Indians — sometimes overt but often in less sensational ways — problematises if the nation is genuinely inclusive.

Associate Professor Jacqueline Leckie is Adjunct Research Fellow, Stout Centre for New Zealand Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, and Conjoint Associate Professor, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Newcastle, Australia