The small country town of Henty in southern NSW has honoured the early Indian traders and merchants who lived in their communities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
“The fact that the community of Henty has honoured two of my countrymen is a source of great happiness to me,” Her Excellency the Indian High Commissioner to Australia, Mrs Sujatha Singh said.
Two men far away from their homeland, without wives and children were remembered and honoured at the Henty Cemetery on Saturday.
The Indian traders were Sundah Singh who died December 12 1947, aged 67 years and the last member of the tribe in Henty, Putarb Singh, who died 29 September 1951, aged 82 years.
Unveiling their newly marked graves, Mrs Sujatha Singh said, “Jaman marna hukam hai bbanai avai jae.
“Birth and death are subject to the Command of the Lord’s will - through his will we come and go.”
Saturday’s celebration was Mrs Singh’s first visit to Henty.
At the civic reception held at the Henty Community Centre, Mrs Singh noted how intertwined Australia and India has been in the past and the present.
India and Australia were both part of the colonial empire of Britain and Indians participated in Captain Cook’s first expedition to Australia in the 1700s.
The two countries are democracies with independent judiciaries.
Today, Only 90,000 of the 234,000 Indians living in Australia were born in India, the remainder are Australian born.
Mrs Singh, Captain Jatinder Singh and his wife Mrs Rapinda Kaur were greeted by Member for Albury Greg Aplin, Greater Hume Shire Mayor Denise Osborne and General Manager Steven Pinnuck and the people of Henty.
Honouring the Indian traders had been part of the Henty Tidy Towns Cemetery Project to identify and mark over 250 unnamed graves.
Cr Osborne and Mr Pinnuck commented on the tenaciousness of the Henty community in fighting for and supporting their projects.
Yvonne Booth, Eddie Dale and the Tidy Town volunteers were commended for their dedication and passion.
“The celebration and identification of our past recognises the importance all our community members have had and continue to have in shaping what we are today,” Cr Osborne said.
This project has impacted on the lives of many. Amongst the work was the identification of grave sites of still born babies, their locations unknown to their parents.
“Having experienced a similar loss and many years later identified the resting place of my daughter, I understand the grief and loss they have suffered and the opportunity to visit your child’s grave and mark the place is difficult to measure,” Mrs Osborne said.