AHC: South Asia as the Other to Australia

[Beatriz]

In American worldviews, East Asia can be seen as a sort of prototypical 'Other' that is also connected, unlike, say Central Africa.
This can be shown through:

• immigration
• food - including Americanized versions
• geopolitics/trade - as rivals at some points (Japan in the 1930s-1940s, Japan in the 1980s, China now) and allies (Taiwan, RoK)
• music/animation etc.

Is there a way for Australia to relate to South Asia in a similar way, perhaps with something like our Cold War setup where say, Bengal and *South Indian states are aligned with Australia against *North India or something like that, and with Tamil chiteeram making inroads into Aussie culture or something?

Of course this requires a less racist Australia, and some reason for Australia to get involved in the Subcontinent.
EDIT: And more extensive and earlier (~1850s-1880s) Indian and Chinese migration to Australia/NZ
EDIT2: This also requires a more developed India or parts of it, as a sort of 'the future' like cyberpunk Japan - industrialized Tamil Nadu?

 

[prani]

In American worldviews, East Asia can be seen as a sort of prototypical 'Other' that is also connected, unlike, say Central Africa.
This can be shown through:

• immigration
• food - including Americanized versions
• geopolitics/trade - as rivals at some points (Japan in the 1930s-1940s, Japan in the 1980s, China now) and allies (Taiwan, RoK)
• music/animation etc.

Is there a way for Australia to relate to South Asia in a similar way, perhaps with something like our Cold War setup where say, Bengal and *South Indian states are aligned with Australia against *North India or something like that, and with Tamil chiteeram making inroads into Aussie culture or something?

Of course this requires a less racist Australia, and some reason for Australia to get involved in the Subcontinent.
EDIT: And more extensive and earlier (~1850s-1880s) Indian and Chinese migration to Australia/NZ
EDIT2: This also requires a more developed India or parts of it, as a sort of 'the future' like cyberpunk Japan - industrialized Tamil Nadu?

Bengal and southern Indian states are pretty socialist and communist in It's social and political outlook, the rest of the country is actually similar to west pakistan in that it's very anti communist. Socialist parties in North India have failed or devolved into caste/clan/family politics unlike in the south where it continues to succeed to this day. South would be firmly be a Soviet ally while the north would be a strong western ally.
Edit: Industrialization during the British rule is pretty hard given the level of corruption and nepotism (mostly the latter less of the former) in the civil service, you can try to industrialize Travancore and Mysore since they had pretty good civil service and Rajas who were pro Development and progressive, Tamil country being the center of Madras presidency is a pretty hard thing to do unfortunately.
As for your first suggestion, that is again a hard sell since white Australia was in response to fears of white British settlers being run over by "Yellow Asiatic" and
" Brown Hindoo and Moslem", ( Yes those words were used in official documents) i know the changes required for that would be lot, I mean Australia and new Zealand don't have cotton and sugar plantations where you can grow huge quantity of those which would need for revision of white Australia policy. not mention the use of pacific islanders as labor for what little sugar plantation there was in Queensland, the need for Indians or east Asian labor felt unnecessary

 

[Beatriz]

Edit: Industrialization during the British rule is pretty hard given the level of corruption and nepotism (mostly the latter less of the former) in the civil service, you can try to industrialize Travancore and Mysore since they had pretty good civil service and Rajas who were pro Development and progressive, Tamil country being the center of Madras presidency is a pretty hard thing to do unfortunately.

I meant _after_ independence, like how South Korea or Taiwan industrialized, although that is harder to pull off with a population of 76 millions (33 millon in 1960) versus South Korea's 51 millions.

 

[prani]

I meant _after_ independence, like how South Korea or Taiwan industrialized, although that is harder to pull off with a population of 76 millions (33 millon in 1960) versus South Korea's 51 millions.

chiteeram i take that you mean a Tamil Movie?
I mean you can have that with a united India, i mean Punjabi Culture is pretty popular in Say the UK and Canada. If you are looking for a way Westerns in general and Australians in particular to relate to South Asia in the same way as East Asian cultures, I mean we can still do it, we have the Movie Industry, probably they could make movies that could be palatable to a western audience may be ? ( Don't answer that question was sarcasm) I mean If Indians decide to make Video games especially survivor horror games it would make any Indian culture so much so relatable to a young western audience. I mean even my city which most Indians probably might never had heard of ( Still a city with a million plus people) has lore, myths and legends that could make you have a sleep less night, we have a tree made of bone, with leaves made of skull to old folklore stories that seems that grave encounter copied. Like we have a rich tradition of scary night time stories that would make German kids story look like Teletubbies. I and several of my colleagues have with our interaction with government proposed tax breaks for Indian made PC games and console games especially those that promote local culture, of course you will always have idiots that will protest the commercialization of the culture or as they would put if the "Bastardization" of our great culture which is why government shy away because commercialization of culture is as controversial as movies which are other means of commercialization. This happens on the both side of the political spectrum, if you remove that i don't see a reason why shouldn't south Asian culture be commercialized and exported.

 

[Lord High Executioner]

EDIT: And more extensive and earlier (~1850s-1880s) Indian and Chinese migration to Australia/NZ

That's not exactly earlier - Melbourne's Chinatown was founded in 1851, during the Victorian gold rush, and
"Afghan"* cameleers where recruited from the 1860s to the 1930s.
Could have been more extensive though - as in "most neither returned home nor were sent back".
Extrapolating from the cameleers could presumably give a closer connection to Pakistan (and Iran and Afghanistan).

*Far from exclusively Afghans, but that's what they were referred to as and lumping them all together as Indian
raises the question of how far west "India" reasonably goes.