Ballarat's north Indian community pushes for Punjabi language to be taught more widely in schools

For Lucas resident, Raman Marupur, a Punjabi teacher who forms part of Ballarat's burgeoning Indian community, she hopes her calls to have the Punjabi language taught more widely across regional schools will aid Australian-born Indians bridge the disconnect between their western upbringing and eastern roots.

Ms Marupur, who made the move from Melbourne to Ballarat in 2018 after being attracted to the region due to its "peaceful" nature, said she witnessed a need for Punjabi cultural activities immediately upon arrival.

"I began observing how many Punjabis there were in Ballarat and I found many would go to Melbourne to go to the temple or to buy Indian groceries," she said.

Motivated by what she heard and saw, coupled with a desire to serve the region's north Indian community, Ms Marupur launched the Ballarat Mela event in June 2018.

The festival, which featured traditional Punjabi music, folk dancing and food, saw a whooping turnout of more than 300 people.

Ms Marupur said the Mela gave her valuable insight into Ballarat's Punjabi community.

"I got to meet so many Indians and Punjabis and I began asking parents there what they wanted for their children and many said they'd like to show their children more about Punjabi culture but didn't have the time," she said.

Upon hearing such comments, Ms Marupur knew she had to start teaching Punjabi classes but opted to start offering Punjabi cultural classes instead first.

Kicking off in 2019, Ms Marupur said there was a sizeable interest for her lessons in bhangra, a folk dance traditionally performed by Punjabi farmers during harvest season and giddha, an art form similar to bhangra, however, usually presented by girls and women.

Fast forward two years later, Ms Marupur began offering harmonium tuition.

In Sikhism, the religion practised by many Punjabis, the harmonium is a vital instrument in prayer and one Ms Marupur used to teach the ancient faith to Ballarat's Indian community.

Finally, in August of 2021, she started offering Punjabi language lessons through her group, Virasat E Punjab - Ballarat at Invermay Hall.

She said her rationale behind delaying teaching the age-old tongue was to engage with Ballarat's Indian youth through common themes such as music and dance.

Ms Marupur said this approach was worthwhile, recounting many children she had taught music to being captivated by the sounds of Punjabi words, which then led them to inquire about what these words meant.

Punjabi classes, although having been offered in the region at Ballarat High School through the Victorian School of Languages in 2019, was stopped for two years due to a lack student uptake.

However, lessons have since resumed this year in term 1.

Ms Marupur said while it was encouraging to see classes back, more should be done to implement Punjabi into mainstream schooling across all year levels similar to German and Japanese lessons.

"Having Punjabi in schools will not only help children like my daughter who struggles to communicate with her grandmother but it will also be helpful to other children who want to learn another language," she said.

"My daughter is learning Japanese in school at the moment so if she goes to Japan she'll be able to speak with the locals there.

"It's the same with Punjabi, if someone wants to learn the language, and learning any new language is always good, it will help them lots if they go to Punjab (a state in India)," she said.

Since 2016, the amount of people who spoke Punjabi in Ballarat more than tripled up from 246 speakers to 764 in 2021.

The state government is investing $3.5 million to create three beacon schools to teach Hindi and Punjabi at VCE level, and $150,000 to deliver scholarships to support Victorians who want to train and teach Hindi and Punjabi in Victoria.

While the exact destination of where these schools will be placed is unclear, it is known at least one will be located in the state's west, one in the north and one in the south east.

At present, nationally, Punjabi is the fastest growing language and is the fifth most spoken language at home aside from English.

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Punjabi was first introduced to the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) system in 2005.

To learn more about Punjabi culture in Ballarat visit https://www.facebook.com/VirasatEPunjabBallarat/

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