<\/p>\n
Labor MP Andrew Charlton, pictured in Harris Park, says Australia and India have arrived at a \u201cmagic moment\u201d. <\/span>Credit: <\/span>Brook Mitchell<\/cite><\/p>\n As well as plunging India and Canada into a diplomatic feud, the killing has highlighted troubling trends in India\u2019s democracy and the central role of Hindu nationalism in Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s government.<\/p>\n Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, one of the leaders of the Australian movement campaigning to establish an independent state for Sikhs in the northern Indian region of Punjab, has said he fears separatists in Australia could also be in danger.<\/p>\n Asked about the alleged assassination, Charlton says Australia will always stand up for the rule of law, but stresses that \u201cthere is a lot we don\u2019t know\u201d about the shooting.<\/p>\n Charlton\u2019s book is relentlessly upbeat about India\u2019s rise, making only passing references to \u201csuggestions that the [Modi] government\u2019s rhetoric and policies often favour the Hindu majority\u201d and noting that Modi\u2019s tenure has been marked by \u201ccontroversy and criticism\u201d as well as resounding electoral success.<\/p>\n He says Australians should be grateful for the nation\u2019s emergence as an increasingly powerful global force \u2013 one that is set to have a bigger population than China and the United States combined by 2050.<\/p>\n \u201cAt a time when democracy is under threat around the world, we should be applauding and supporting India\u2019s democracy,\u201d Charlton says over a curry lunch in the western Sydney suburb of Harris Park, known as \u201cLittle India\u201d.<\/p>\n Charlton\u2019s electorate of Parramatta, where he relocated from the city\u2019s eastern suburbs before last year\u2019s election, has the highest concentration of Indian-Australians in the country. Seventeen per cent of his constituents were born in India and one-in-five listed Hinduism as their religion on the most recent census.<\/p>\n Parramatta MP Andrew Charlton has written a book on the India-Australia relationship.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Black Inc. Books<\/cite><\/p>\n India\u2019s conception of democracy, Charlton says, \u201cmay not be the same as Australia\u2019s, but we need to respect the fact that India has done something very valuable for the world\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are lucky to have the largest country in the world by population as a democracy; the fastest-growing economy in the world as a democracy,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n An economics adviser to then-prime minister Kevin Rudd, Charlton later became a successful business consultant and is widely regarded within Labor circles as a possible future treasurer and perhaps even prime minister.<\/p>\n All 800 seats at Charlton\u2019s book launch, held at Parramatta\u2019s Riverside Theatres on Wednesday, were sold out, reflecting the high level of political engagement in the Indian diaspora. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who has visited India twice this year, spoke at the event.<\/p>\n Charlton believes India and Australia have entered a \u201cmagic moment\u201d after muddling through an \u201cunusually distant\u201d relationship for most of the period since India\u2019s independence in 1947.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have not had a good trading relationship, we have not had a good investment relationship,\u201d he says, noting India is only Australia\u2019s sixth-largest trading partner despite its huge population.<\/p>\n Asked if he has any concerns for the safety of Sikh activists in his community, Charlton says only that he believes the Indian diaspora is \u201c99 per cent harmonious\u201d.<\/p>\n Griffith University professor Ian Hall, one of the country\u2019s most respected experts on India, is less positive.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got a Sikh community that quite understandably concerned about being targeted by agents of India,\u201d Hall says. \u201cAnd then we\u2019ve also got another part of the community here that\u2019s really agitated about Sikh extremism as well. It\u2019s a tricky situation for us.\u201d<\/p>\n Police deployed pepper spray during a scuffle between rival protesters in Melbourne\u2019s Federation Square in January after thousands of Sikh Victorians voted in a non-binding referendum on the creation of an independent Sikh state known as Khalistan.<\/p>\n This week footage was shared on social media showing a group of young men marching through Harris Park shouting Hindu chants that have been used in vigilante attacks on Muslims in India.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Hindu worshippers were shaken earlier this year by a spate of graffiti attacks on their temples in Melbourne that included slogans such as \u201cDeath to India\u201d and \u201cLong Live the Sikh homeland\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe frequency and impunity with which the vandals appear to be operating are alarming, as are the graffiti which include glorification of anti-Indian terrorists,\u201d the Indian High Commission said at the time.<\/p>\n Hall says he is uncomfortable with politicians who effuse about the shared values of India and Australia, saying they should instead emphasise mutual interests as with other strategic partners such as Singapore and Vietnam.<\/p>\n \u201cI think you\u2019re just storing up problems there because India is a huge, complicated, sometimes problematic, not completely democratic in the way that we would want it to be, country,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Charlton, though, is focused on the upside.<\/p>\n \u201cIndia\u2019s growth is a positive force in the world and will fundamentally shape Australia\u2019s prosperity and security and coming decades,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n