Highlights:
- Nadesalingam Murugappan and Priya Nadesalingam fled persecution from Sri Lanka.
- After spending more than four years in detention, the Tamil couple and their two children were granted permanent residency last August.
- With the release of her new book, Priya urges Australian society to fight for other refugees in similar situations.
It was difficult for Priya Nadesalingam to remain upbeat through numerous deportation attempts.
Whenever she felt particularly defeated, she would grab a notepad and spill her thoughts onto paper.
For more than four years, Priya and her family were confined to immigration and community detention centres as they faced a series of deportation attempts. The pages of notes piled up.
“I never anticipated becoming an author,” she told SBS Tamil.
“However, when I was kept in detention in Perth, I wanted to write in detail what my family had to go through to stay in this country. I wrote it in Tamil, my mother tongue. I thought that one day I may be able to tell my story to someone.”
When the Tamil refugee family's plight gained public attention, eagerly sought to chronicle Priya’s battle to remain in Australia.
Those jottings have now seen the light of day in “Home to Biloela: The Tale of the Tamil Family Who Touched Our Hearts”, a memoir recently published by Allen & Unwin.
Since I was seven years old, I haven’t had a permanent home. My entire life, I have moved from city to city, country to country, so many times that I’ve lost count. Now, after a long battle, I can call Biloela my home.Priya Nadesalingam in 'Home to Biloela'
As a first-time author, Priya collaborated with Rebekah Holt, a journalist and writer who gained regular access to Australian onshore detention centres, to tell her family’s story of resilience and the battle waged by a tight-knit rural community to secure their freedom.
“Rebekah wrote her side of the story, whilst (writer) Niromi de Soyza helped me get my thoughts and words into a readable form in English,” she said.
Priya Nadesalingam is seen thanking supporters while attending the Flourish Multicultural Festival in Biloela, Queensland, Saturday, June 11, 2022. Source: AAP
The Nadesalingam family's journey
The book charts Priya’s childhood experiences in war-torn Sri Lanka and her harrowing journey across the Indian Ocean aboard a crowded fishing vessel in 2013.
In 2014, Priya met and married Nadesalingam Murugappan, who had arrived in Australia by boat in 2012. Their daughters, Kopika and Tharnicaa, were born in 2015 and 2017, respectively.
After a dawn raid of their Biloela home in March 2018, the family would spend the subsequent four-plus years in various immigration detention facilities.
For Priya, it was difficult reliving how Australian Defence personnel descended on her home and took her husband, two infant children and her in separate vehicles.
"I felt like I had to water it down to make it palatable to average readers,” she said.
There were many incidents of our experiences with the detention centre staff that I wanted to bring out, but the publishers felt that we should not burden the readers with the gory details. The editors made a decision to edit out certain events and incidents that involved the guards at the detention centres.Priya Nadesalingam
When previously questioned by SBS Tamil about the family's claims, the Department of Home Affairs declined to comment on individual cases but denied any allegations of mistreatment towards people in their care.
Priya said she felt the Australian Border Force treated the family as "an example" to deter others from arriving by boat, which was reflected in their treatment.
She said they also had to deal with public mistruths.
In September 2019, the then Home Affairs Minister, Peter Dutton, said in a 2GB radio interview that Nades had travelled from Australia while his immigration case was before the courts - a claim fact-checkers found to be .
Nades was on a bridging visa, which prohibited him and others like him on the same visa, from leaving and returning to Australia.
Sending a message
With the book release, Priya has two sets of messages - one for anyone thinking of taking a boat to Australia and another for the Australia government.
Her message to those contemplating a boat journey to Australian shores to seek refuge is very simple: “Don’t.”
“No one should go through the ordeal my family went through for such a long time,” she said.
“The children were put through a lot of trauma; their health and their studies deteriorated. There was no privacy for a married couple; I felt that our marriage was going to fall apart.”
Just because we are refugees, we are not without feelings and needs.Priya Nadesalingam
She also calls on Australia to treat other refugees with the same “kindness” extended to her family.
“I plead with the government to show the same kindness they have shown us and to give a permanent solution to the 19,000-plus asylum seekers whose futures are still in a limbo.”
Demonstrators in Biloela show their support for the family. Source: SBS
In a recent landmark Australian High Court decision, indefinite immigration detention has been ruled unlawful. The High Court ruled on 8 November, upending a controversial decision that has guided Australian asylum seeker policy for the last two decades.
With a majority of justices in agreement, the court overturned a 2004 determination that ruled unsuccessful asylum seekers who could not be removed to another country could lawfully be held in indefinite immigration detention.
Priya's family may not have been held in detention for such a long time if the ruling had come a few years earlier.
What the future holds
Priya said her story highlights that refugees who are allowed to assimilate in the Australian community can contribute to the economic and social development of this country.
“I read that (in 2000) were people whose families had come here as refugees. Refugees have positively contributed to regional and rural Australia through providing labour and stimulate economic growth and service delivery, like Nades.”
Today, Priya said she is focusing her energy on bringing up her girls - and her vegetable garden.
She’d like the girls - Kopika, now aged eight, and Tharnicaa, aged six - to eventually pursue medical careers. The girls, who are thankful to the medical practitioners who got Tharnicaa out of danger, feel that it is the best way to give back to the Australian community.
Nades, meanwhile, is pursuing a passion of his own – the food industry.
“We have started a small catering business and attend trade shows and fairs where we serve freshly made Tamil dishes,” she said.
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