Cirrus@Austlit

'Perhaps the most iconic figure that has come to epitomise the earliest interactions between colonial Australia and South Asia is that of the male "Afghan" cameleer. However, the catch-all term "Afghan" (or "Ghan") is a partial misnomer since the cameleers who started making their way to Australia from the mid-1860s onwards were, in addition to Afghan, from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds, including Punjabi, Balochi, Kashmiri and Sindhi. Many of these men came from areas that straddle present-day north India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and, therefore, at least some of them were "from British India and were British subjects, originating from east of the Durant line that separated British India from Afghanistan" (Ganter 487). Designating this diverse group of camel-drivers collectively as "Afghans," rather than recognizing their status as British subjects where applicable, was not merely a case of sloppy record-keeping, but was also politically expedient since, as Regina Ganter points out, it "served the purpose of classifying them as Alien or ‘Asiatics' under various restrictive laws curtailing their rights to own property, land, or engage in independent business" (487). This variety of immigration reached its height in the 1880s and the political climate during the 1890s became increasingly hostile towards immigrants from Asia. Though the Chinese "bore the brunt" (Jones 11) of the growing anti-Asian sentiment which culminated in the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901 (or the White Australia policy), the cameleers too were inevitably affected by it and, of course, by "the invention of the modern engine" which diminished their "utility" significantly (Abdalla 39).'  (Introduction)