The southernmost Indian Diaspora: From Gujarat to Aotearoa*

Abstract

These youths were prepared to engage in senseless violence that brought little material gain. They were Maori while the direct victims were New Zealand Gujaratis; Navin who had emigrated to New Zealand at the age of ten years, Sanjay and Ceilla, his New Zealand born children, and their mother Joshna who had emigrated as a young bride to New Zealand. Many other Indians readily knew they could have been subjected to such a tragedy. Public sympathy fell with the Govind family who typified the image of Indians as hard working and being family centred. Earlier in New Zealand's history, those values, especially of hard work, had evoked condemnation. Indians worked so hard, it was said in 1925, that' ... some sleep standing up ready to start work in the morning.' Family values were also miscast as clinging