ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the changing face of the Indian community in Australia with a particular focus on the city of Melbourne. It does so by examining the spectacular growth of Indian students' enrolments in Australian colleges and universities over the period 2002–2009 and the subsequent decline, from which the country's "education industry" has only recently started recovering. The chapter presents statistics that confirm that the composition of the Indian community has indeed radically changed since the 2000s, the vignettes provide a glimpse into the way newcomers, former Indian students and now Australian citizens, engage with the notion of a community to which they are supposedly assumed to belong. Students are now offered temporary work visas, which allow them to stay on in Australia to gain relevant work experience in their field after graduation. It indicates that a significant rethinking might be in order if we want to continue to address the idea of the Indian community in future research.
