Identifying Sher Mohamad 'a good citizen'

Abstract

In September 1921 Sher Mohamad, a draper of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia wrote to the Collector of Customs about his impending visit to India (NAA PP4/2 1936/801 Sher Mohamad). This was his first shot in his struggle with the Australian government. He was seeking to be excused from some of the identification requirements in relation to the Immigration Restriction Act (IRA) of 1901, which excluded further immigrants from China, India, and other “Asian” countries by means of a dictation text. Sher Mohamad, was one of the approximately two thousand British Indians who lived in Australia in the 1920s, having gained rights of domicile, as a consequence of having entered one of the Australian colonies before the passing of the Immigration Restriction Act. Sher Mohamad, born in Lahore in British India, arrived in Australia in 1897, at the age of thirteen years. Presumably, he was accompanied by an older relative, possibly Malk Mohammed Bux. He spent about eight years in Perth before moving to Kalgoorlie, an important gold-mining centre some distance from Perth. Although he described himself as a draper in his application, others described him as a “travelling salesman in the bush and on the wood lines” (NAA PP4/2 1936/801). He was in fact a hawker, who traded in clothing, haberdashery, and other goods needed by customers living up-country and distant from retail businesses. His situation was quite common for Indians in Australia at the time.