New Delhi, January 08: The war of words intensified on Thursday between India and Australia over the continuing attacks on Indian students in Australia since May 2009. Two Indians have also been killed in recent attacks.
India on Thursday toughened its stand saying Australia must take urgent remedial action to ensure that no such attacks happen again. Australia has been saying that India and the Indian media are drumming up jingoistic hysteria over what are not racist crimes.
Are Indian students in Australia victims of racism?
On the panel of experts to debate the issue were sociologist and former professor of sociology in Deakin University, Sanjay Srivastava; Chief of South Asia Bureau, Der Spiegel, Padma Rao; former diplomat KC Singh who has also served in Australia and Director of Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation Tarun Vijay.
At the beginning of the show, 80 per cent of those who voted in said that Indian students in Australia were victims of racism, while 20 per cent disagreed.
Racism versus urban crime
Sanjay Srivastava started off the discussion by saying that the students studying in Australia thought that the crimes were a mixture of urban crime and racism.
He said, “You can either have a war of words or try and do something concrete. The Indian Government can ask the Australian government to look at the sets of rules and regulations that put Indian students in dangerous job, working late nights, etc. So, I think we need to move beyond simply trading words.”
In order to look at concrete steps, the identification of the disease needs to be made a priority. There are 200,000 immigrant populations in Australia, none of the settlers are being attacked. It’s the new breed of Indian students who are being attacked.
KC Singh agreed and felt that there should be a recognition of the real problem.
“Multiculturalism is recent in Australia. Australia has had a “whites only policy” for a very long time and when things are nice and bright and the economy is looking up, then the tolerance levels are higher. But when the downturn comes, we have seen elsewhere in the west, this is not specific to Australia only, but first the Australian government has to recognise that there is a problem,” said Singh.
“There may be a sociological explanation, but when they (Australia) gave the visas and allowed universities to come to India and recruit student, when money went into their coffers, nobody objected then. When the policy doesn’t work out and there’s a problem which arises, then you can’t turn around,” said Singh.
It happens only is Australia
Should Australia have been much more introspective about its educational programmes holding out to students from India?
Padma Rao came on rather assertively at this point of the discussion and said that India had a long way to go before it could question other people’s educational and racial policies.
“I am not even beginning to go down the road and mention crimes committed in the name of caste and gender in this country,” added Rao.
Tarun Vijay expressed shock at Padma’s Rao’s argument and felt that her argument wasn’t an argument at all.
“I believe that the Aussies are the most atrocious and horrendous racists on this planet. These people should be taught a lesson and they should be banned. Indian students shouldn’t be allowed to go to Australia,” stressed Vijay.
The discussion took an argumentative course between Padma Rao and Tarun Vijay as they started exchanging examples of series of incidents of crimes that had taken place in Australia and India.
“We need to establish what is happening in Australia. Part of it is that fact that you have a large group of newer immigrants who may be seen as a threat but that is not the only thing. So we need to think of concrete steps to increase the security of the students there,” Srivastava said.
Good Indians versus bad Indians?
The argument is that the number of students going to Australia are not like the settler community who have adopted the morals of the Australians and abide by certain urban norms. The new breed of Australian immigrants are rowdy Indian students, coming from rich rural backgrounds. They are engaging in drunken behaviours. They are also being provocative.
To this, Tarun Vijay said, “This is an argument of a racist British sergeant. They are Indians, they are one of us.”
He also said that he had been touch with the Indian settlers in Australia who have been “silently accepting the rowdyism of the Aussie but not retorting back.”
Not just urban crime
An Australian columnist has written that the Indian television is whipping up jingoistic hysteria and all these crimes are a result of the epidemic of violence, alcohol abuse and games of violence that happens in urban centres in Australia. Recession-fueled violence, illegal drinking binges – it’s urban crime at it’s worst and it is the Indian TV which is drumming up this nationalistic hysteria.
“If that is indeed so, then the Australian government instead of saying it is not racist should have come out with evidence. I have not seen any evidence of that. It is very well justified.
Nitin Garg (one of the recent victims of killings in Australia) was not drunk, he was just walking to a job. He was a trained accountant. And then if it is simply mugging, why the killing,” questioned Singh.
Padma Rao went on to argue that cases of foreigners who are attacked in India didn’t cause the kind of media hysteria that the cases in Australia have done.
The final words in the discussion came from Sanjay Srivastava who felt that there was not much use exchanging two white bodies to three brown bodies and arguing about how many bodies were killed there and how many bodies killed here.
“The fact of the matter is that this is a really complex situation. We have no particular moral high ground to stand on. We need to look at concrete measures,” said Srivastava.
—-Agencies