Punjab to Aotearoa documentary ‘a preservation of our legacy’

A new documentary titled Punjab to Aotearoa aims to trace the history of Indian migration to New Zealand over the past 100 years.

The featurette was screened in the East Auckland suburb of Botany on 18 June, attended by descendants of early migrants from India - families who have been in New Zealand for more than a century.

The official premier took place at the Indian High Commission in Wellington in mid-May.

Presented by Harjot Singh, the 48-minute documentary is directed by Gagan Sandhu.

It is co-produced by Parminder Singh, host at Punjabi radio station Radio Spice, and Navtej Randhawa, a trustee at NZ Punjabi Multimedia Trust, which backed the documentary.

"Today, we showcase the first part of a series we will be producing ... documenting the proud history of Indian migration to Aotearoa New Zealand, especially from the villages of Punjab," Randhawa said.

Randhawa is great-grandson of Inder Singh Randhawa - one of the early Indian migrants to New Zealand and a founding member of pioneering Indian associations such as the Country Section New Zealand Indian Association and New Zealand Indian Central Association (both established in 1926).

"This documentary is a preservation of our legacy, a gift for generations to come," Randhawa said.

"We have detailed the Indian migration experience - highlighting the story of four families using rare archival footage and personal accounts," he said.

"It's fascinating to learn how the earliest Indian arrivals here worked in agriculture first and went on to enrich New Zealand's economy and culture."

Early history

Indians were living in New Zealand as early as the 19th century, according to Indian-origin academic Sekhar Bandyopadhyay and historian Jane Buckingham, as noted in a book titled Indians and the Antipodes.

In fact, the 1881 Census counted six Indians living in New Zealand at the time.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon highlighted the century-old ties between New Zealand and India during his trip to the South Asian nation in March.

"At the beginning of the 19th century - well before we became a nation - Indian sailors jumped ship in New Zealand, with some meeting locals and marrying into our indigenous Māori tribes. A few years later, Māori traders began travelling to Kolkata to sell tree trunks used in sailing ships," Luxon said at the time.

The Indian sailors, seafarers and soldiers that arrived on British East India Company ships stayed to engage in activities such as mining, trench-digging and bottle-collecting.

Many of the earliest Indian settlers travelled from regions in the modern Indian states of Gujarat and Punjab.

"The ongoing development of rural areas in the North Island provided many Punjabi settlers with opportunities, firstly in hawking and then in flax-cutting in the swamps of the Hauraki Plains and Waikato," according to a book titled Mokaa: The Land of Opportunity, published by the New Zealand Indian Central Association.

These Punjabi Sikhs, many of whom had farming experience, subsequently settled in the Waikato district and embraced dairy farming.

Audio-visual tribute

The history of Punjabi migration has been documented in a book titled Punjabis in New Zealand: A History of Punjabi Migration 1890-1940, written by historian W.H. McLeod.

"McLeod's work is seminal in the sense it provided the first recorded history of our migration to New Zealand," said Harjot Singh, who is also listed as researcher of Punjab to Aotearoa. "Our audio-visual production is a tribute to his efforts."

Harjot Singh's research took him to Te Awamutu in Waikato, which is just north of Kihikihi - an important town for Indian history in New Zealand, according to McLeod.

"The first definite example of a Punjabi dairy farm appears to be a small 50-acre (20-hectare) property near the Waikato township of Kihikihi, purchased by Harnam Singh ... during the rates period 1918/19," McLeod writes in his book. "This purchase evidently preceded that of the celebrated 'Hindu farm', which was acquired soon after by Inder Singh Mahasha."

In Te Awamutu, Harjot found the grandstand at the Te Awamutu Rugby Stadium named after the son of an early migrant Phuman Singh who came to New Zealand in 1920.

"[Phuman's] son, Gurdyal Singh (1935-2018), who was fondly called Guru Singh, contributed to the local rugby scene so much that the community decided to honour him by naming the grandstand as Guru Singh Grandstand," Harjot Singh said.

In the documentary, Joginder Singh, Gurdyal's son, shared the story of his great-aunt's marriage in 1933, with a local band leading the wedding procession and the entire town shutting down.

The family still has in its possession a 100-year-old copy of Sikh holy book Guru Granth Sahib that was shipped from India in the early 1920s.

As Indians were settling in the Waikato region, it was important for them to have harmonious relations with the local Māori population.

"While researching this, we made some important discoveries," Harjot Singh said.

"Located 15 kms to the southeast of Te Awamutu is the Paaraawera Marae, where we find the graves of Madhav Chunilal and his wife, Bhikhi Chunilal, who died in the 1940s and '50s. These graves have been lovingly maintained by the local whenua for the past 75 years.

"Madhav's father arrived in 1919 from Surat (Gujarat) in India."

In the same vein is the story of Sheru Singh Lagah, an early Indian migrant who married the daughter of Tuhoe prophet Rua Kenana - a well-known historical Maori figure.

The documentary features Sheru's daughter, Shardee Singh Lagah, based in Auckland and his grandson, Tane Singh Lagah, who lives in Rotorua.

Another section is dedicated to the families of Juwala Singh, who migrated to Pukekohe from India in 1920, as well as his son-in-law Ganges Singh, whose parents migrated to Fiji.

Passing away in 2016, Ganges came to New Zealand in the 1950s and has the distinction of being the first Punjabi Sikh to be awarded a Queen's Service Medal in 1990.

"Juwala Singh was the first Indian immigrant to own a commercial property on King Street in Pukekohe. In recognition of this, the Franklin District Council as part of Franklin's first Heritage Week celebrations in 2010, resolved to name a pedestrian walkway on King Street as Juwala Singh Lane," Harjot Singh said.

For documentary director Sandhu, who has been living in New Zealand for the past 14 years, what stood out in the early Indian settlement stories was the isolation of women who came with their husbands.

"How they coped up with the entirely new environment, with no one to talk to, is beyond comprehension," Sandhu said. "They didn't know the language, the food was alien and there was no family support. Still, they persevered."

Sophie Dhaliwal Sidhu, who lives in Cambridge and is the great-granddaughter of Gina Singh, who migrated from Sultanpur in Punjab, shared memories of what the women of that era faced.

"My great-grandmother, Karam Kaur, was shocked to learn when she visited India 34 years for the first time after arriving in New Zealand that her parents had passed away long back," Sidhu said.

Early racism

Careful not to underplay the struggles of early Indian migrants, the documentary discusses the discrimination they faced for decades, something documented by Jacqueline Leckie in a book titled Invisible: New Zealand's History of Excluding Kiwi-Indians.

"[In] the 1930s, Indians faced exclusion from whites-only spaces in Pukekohe," Leckie wrote.

"Barbers refused to cut the hair of Chinese, Māori or Indians. These groups were also banned from the better-quality dress circle within a Pukekohe cinema.

"White racism at Pukekohe, while localised and extreme, nonetheless had widespread support throughout the country."

"This is the reason we started thinking about this documentary project almost five years back, in 2020, when Navtej's family completed their 100 years in New Zealand after having arrived here in 1920," co-producer Parminder Singh said.

"As we proudly say in our community, we are standing on the shoulders of these giants," Singh said.

"They come here, struggled with isolation and discrimination, and then established themselves over time with hard work and perseverance. In turn, they made it easy for the next generations of Indians."