A spate of attacks on Indian students in Melbourne and Sydney has seen the Indian media accuse Australia of being a racist nation.
Newspaper articles warning of a culture of “curry bashings” in Australia have sparked off debate and people around the world have spoken out against the attacks in online forums.
Some insist the majority of attacks may have been purely criminal.
As an Indian studying in the U.S. for the past three years, I am yet to come across any instance of Indians being targeted on the basis of their race.
I have never heard my American friends say anything against Indians or students of any other nationality.
Does that mean Indians are safer in New York than in Melbourne?
The attacks on Indians did take place in Australia, but then they could have happened anywhere.
Even in India, there are cases of what some may call racial bias. In fact, there is a debate on whether discrimination on the basis of caste is the same as racial discrimination.
While the attacks in Australia are wrong, unjust and unfair — some say it’s difficult to classify them as racist, others feel the numbers are too high for them to be random acts of violence.
Even those who think the attacks were race-based blame the global economic slowdown.
“Racist outrages are an expression of a deeper malaise,” Sitaram Yechury, a communist party leader, wrote in his party organ — “People’s Democracy” — this month.
“The Australian Prime Minister has declared, for the first time, that the economy has moved into a state of recession,” Yechury said.
In his Business Week blog, Mehul Srivastava agrees that not all of it is “simple racism”.
“It’s anger and resentment tinged by economic envy and by anxiety over their own financial conditions.”
Some 93,000 Indian students study in Australia. Last week, hundreds of them marched through Sydney calling for more action by authorities to protect their rights.
On Wednesday, a public interest petition was filed in the Supreme Court urging the Indian government to engage in pro-active diplomacy to prevent similar incidents.
Now it looks like even Bollywood is taking up cudgels on the students’ behalf. Filmmaker Mohit Suri has announced he’s scripting a movie based on the attacks in Australia.
What do you think? Are Indians in Australia being preyed on by petty criminals? Or are these racist attacks?.
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Being an indian , rather than criticising the issue i would like to look into the matter and see whats causing all this….i dont undrstand the hype that is being given by the media….and the result is indian students are now afraid to go and study in austrlia….how many of them actually know that this is happneing all becuase of the fraud agents tht are running in india and are responsible for ruining their career….there is a regulatory body called AAERI(Association of Australian Education Representatives in India), the self-regulatory body of education agents and an initiative of Australian Education International (AEI).They are working closely with Indian and Australian government to weed out any issues that concern the security of Indian students in Australia.Its high time people are awaare of these kind of important important information and get help taking the right decision through correct information…
- Posted by mayur rollshttp://www.aaero.org
Hi,
I think I know why the Australians are suddenly turning racist against Indians. I think they cant tell the difference between Indians and Lebanese(who were involved in lots of race crimes against them in the recent past). Indians looks similar to Lebanese.
Ron.
- Posted by Ron[...] them, alluding to what is potentially a much larger figure. The attacks are believed to be both “recessionist” and racist in nature. The violence has prompted a patrol of Indian men along Melbourne’s [...]
- Posted by Austalian race attacks: no end in sight « Gleektopia@rajeev
What wrong stats, sir? If you don\’t trust the stats at nationmaster.com, have a look at the stats at the Australian Institute of Criminology.
http://www.aic.gov.au/topics/violence/st ats/assault/
There you will see Australia has around 15000 per month. Against that, you are talking about 17 assaults against Indians over the space of 6 weeks as if it\’s some kind of racial crime wave. How is that not hysteria?
- Posted by Flavian Hardcastle@You people are getting hysterical, because of out of the thousands of people who are assaulted in Australia every month, fifteen of them were Indian.
- Posted by Flavian Hardcastle
–Do you have a point in this post?—-I see none.
I am not sure about hysterical people but I do see some over-defensive (perhaps) Autstralians, who show (wrong) stats to say there is no need to pay attention to ongoing anti-Indian crimes. May it is hunky dory for some, not for others. Isn’t it?
- Posted by rajeevMedia is just giving it too much attention, I;d actully like to see a few indians killed in these attacks…
Then may be it will be an issue…as for now its just a pitty issue
- Posted by Ding dongYou people are getting hysterical, because of out of the thousands of people who are assaulted in Australia every month, fifteen of them were Indian.
- Posted by Flavian HardcastleNairG:
@In a way, I don’t blame Australians. Indians definetly forget to follow the fact that “When in Rome, do as the Romans do”.
—And what is that “specific” that Indians do not follow and you think these goons in Australia get RIGHTLY upset.
@First of all, let’s fight against these atrocities within our country and then think about preaching to the world.
- Posted by rajeev–Really, I am thankful you were not born in MK Gandhi’s times when he was in South Africa and suggest him to keep quiet and suffer at the hands of those racists in South Africa and “stop preaching” because there were related problems back home in India that were unsolved. Get your brain rewired buddy.
Nair G:
With all due respect to you there is difference between racism and cultural diversity. North Indians do not like South Indians, West hates East etc are all crap. Micro level examples exist but at macro level no North Indian hates South Indian. If this was the case then PV Narsimha Rao would have never become Prime Minister of India. There are many examples. Better travel around India, interact with people and clear your mind.
How would you like the cultural diversity of India (which you term as racism) to vanish… Everyone should speak one language, wear a dress code say like white shirt and black pant, Sardars should stop wearing turban and growing beard?
On Casteism vs Racism, readers have commented before so I won’t take another shot on it but would advise you to read some comments that have been posted by readers before.
When in Rome do as Romans do… Are you advocating that if one has to go to US, then, one should
1) Change religion to Christianity
2) Go to a church every Sunday Morning
3) Listen to Jim Morrison, REM, 50 Cents etc every day
4) Go to a gentleman’s club
5) Indulge in live in relationship
6) (Considering that one is vegetarian) Start eating beef, pork etc
7) Undergo some treatment to convert entire color of body to white
And numerous similar activities?
And before this, tell me, will you if you move to W Bengal would you start imitating Bengalis, or would try to live in peace without disturbing them and expecting the same in return. Would you expect a Punjabi who moves to South to live in peace so that he does not disturb natives and is able to live in peace and harmony or you would expect a punjabi to start speaking mallu or kannad or telugu or tamil and start imitating southerners?
God forbid what would you do if you had to move down to place like Iran? Will you ask your wife to wear a burqa and will you go to mosque five times in a day in order to do as Iranians do?
The point I want to drive is that Indians are extremely peaceful and tolerant of each other. All Indians have basic ethos of courtesy and respect for everyone. This is proved by the fact that are living in harmony and peace with each other and also Jews, Parsis, Zoroastrians have lived with us without any problems.
Stray individual events do occur but they do not matter when one takes macro level view.
Casteism, Suttee was a big time problem as India got invaded by muslims, christians but as of now, these problems are dying away. They were more related to development of society and as India has developed, all metros have become melting pot of all people and culture from all parts of India. We have ladies like Mayawati who wield power. What could be better example (for you) than Sonia Maino Gandhi. Do you know that she is undergraduate and was a waitress before she got into the family of one of the most powerful families of India? Have you listened to her Hindi? What do you make out of her Hindi? Did she learn it before she moved to India or learnt it only when she felt the need to learn it? What do you make out from Chiddu who hardly speaks in Hindi? Is he hated by North Indians so much that he has to work out from Tamil Nadu?
- Posted by Rohit