The plight of an Indian woman at peak of White Australia era

SBS Hindi brings you the story of Shams Un Nisa, who was the daughter of a rich cameleer. The White Australia Policy was enacted in 1901 and Shams Un Nisa arrived here in 1906 on a ship packed with camels. Cultural historian and author of Southasianama- The South Asian Odyssey in Australia, Samia Khatoun narrates this interesting story.

Source: State Library of Queensland

More than 7,000 people from the Indian subcontinent had come to live and work in Australia during the early 19^th century.

“An exciting discovery of my research while going through the archives of passenger lists, is the number of South Asian women who crossed the Indian Ocean, their number is mind-boggling,” author Samia Khatoun tells SBS Hindi.

Source: State Library of Queensland

The earliest women who came out here from South Asia were the nursemaids or “Ayahs” who looked after the White kids.

Apart from them, it were the Afghan and Pakistani (Pakistan was then part of India) cameleers who came to Australia.

Most of the time they left their families behind but a little later several women joined these cameleers. The women who came to Australia in the early 19th century were mostly the daughters and wives of prosperous cameleers.

One such woman was Shams Un Nisa who was born in Karachi (in undivided India) in 1890.

She was the daughter of Bibi Ismat and Tagh Mahomet. Her father Tagh and his brother Faiz were extremely prosperous camel merchants in Australia; they alone had imported more than 4,000 camels.

Source: State Library of Queensland

Unfortunately, the fortunes of the family fell, when Tagh Mahomet was shot dead in a mosque in 1896 in Coolgardie by another fellow Afghan.

To add to their woes, in 1901 the White Australia Policy was enacted and the cameleers were not permitted to import animals from South Asia.

The South Australian Government permitted Shams Un Nisa’s uncle Faiz Mahomet to import camels in 1901 but subsequently withdrew the Agreement at the behest of the Commonwealth Government.

At the time, Faiz had a ship loaded with 500 camels arriving from Karachi and it was not permitted to dock.

By a stroke of luck, some ships still kept coming out to Australia from Karachi.

“In 1906, Shams Un Nisa travelled with a cousin to Australia on a renegade shipment packed with 500 camels. She came in search of the man she was engaged to, who was her cousin and her uncle Faiz’s son Ghulam Faiz Mahomet, and it’s an absolutely tragic story that you see play out as she was subjected to the most incredible racism in Australia at the height of the White Australia Policy. You see it unfold in the newspapers,” says Ms Khatoun.

Source: State Library of Queensland

The general consensus was that she should be deported immediately and people like her cannot come to Australia.

Ms Khatoun adds, “Eventually, in 1907 she does leave and we get a briefest glimpse that she was able to meet Ghulam Faiz Mahomet who she was engaged to. We never see her again. She disappeared!”

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