Last year Library staff travelled around the country in search of stories from Sikh Australians as part of the Indian diaspora in Australia collecting project. In sunny Tartanya/Adelaide, myself and others joined the large crowds at the 36th annual Australian Sikh Games, the major sporting and cultural event for the Australian Sikh community.

The Games offer immersion in Punjabi history, language, and culture. Organisers kindly showed us around the main venue, Ellis Park. Community and business stallholders shared flyers, stickers, and other printed materials which were added to the Library's collection and safeguarded for the future. Get a sense of the range of flyers added to the collection.

We were captivated by the drama of kabaddi - a team contact sport with roots in ancient India - and sat in the shade with many others to enjoy langar, the communal meal prepared by volunteers. While we met and chatted with attendees and invited participation in the project, a local photographer captured the action for the Library’s collection. These photographs can be explored in Trove.

At the Sikh Forum, a one-day event held alongside the sporting fixtures, we heard eleven community members speak to the topic of inspiring core Sikh values in the next generation. An integral part of the Games, each year the Sikh Forum provides an essential opportunity to explore the most urgent and enduring issues faced by Sikhs in Australia and to communicate the work of the Australian Sikh community. 

We had the opportunity to share details of the collecting project and seek community expertise to help us reflect the richness of Sikh Australian social, cultural, and intellectual life in the Library’s collection. 

It was a pleasure to experience the warm welcome of the Sikh community. Visiting events like the Games helps the Library to get to know diverse Australian communities and to build the collection for all Australians. 

We’re delighted to develop the relationships and connections that enable us to add to the Sikh Australian materials the Library holds, including records relating to the Woolgoolga Sikh Temple, 1967-1969, oral history interviews such as that with Rashmere Bhatti, and the archived snapshots of the Australian Sikh Games website.

To reflect the diversity of the Indian Diaspora, the Library invites all Australians with Indian heritage to contribute to the project. This could take the form of donating material – be it newsletters, personal papers, posters, photographs, and more – to the Library. We’d love to hear from you!