Why are Indian students being attacked in Australia?
Soutik Biswas | 10:13 UK time, Tuesday, 12 January 2010
What is happening to Indian students in Australia? Why have they been mugged, knifed, set alight, and murdered, mostly, in Melbourne, Australia's proud multi-racial melting pot city where, according to my colleague
Nick Bryant, people from 140 nations live side-by-side?
Nearly a year after the attacks began, nobody is quite sure. Already, in the new year, two Indians have been attacked - one
murdered; and the other
allegedly set on fire in Melbourne. What we know for sure is that the number of Indian students wanting to study in Australia has
slumped by almost 50%, diplomatic relations between the two countries have soured and grim travel advisories have been issued by the Indian government to students in Australia.
People here say they still don't know why Indians are being targeted. Have the attacks followed a pattern? Do the victims have some kind of a common profile or background? How do the number of attacks on Indians compare with attacks on other expatriate groups? Are the attacks concentrated in a specific area? How many of these attacks could have had a racist motive?
Australian police have said the attacks appear to be random with no evidence they were racially motivated.
In the absence of any clarity - I have not read a single major investigation into these attacks in the Australian media, or the outcome of any official probe - the shrill sections of the Indian media, especially TV news networks, have gone ballistic.
Every other night, we have news presenters telling us over on-screen captions like 'Indian Burnt In Australia' that Australia is a racist country, and that Melbourne is the most racist city of all. An Indian newspaper cartoon even portrayed the Australian police as the
Ku Klux Klan.
Nobody contests the fact that Indians have the right to feel worried, very worried, about the spate of attacks. More than 70,000 Indians are studying in Australia; nearly a fifth of the international enrolments are from the subcontinent. There have been reports that a number of the victims have enrolled in vocational courses, and live in poorer neighbourhoods to save money.
Australia has reason to worry about the attacks too. Education is the country's biggest export - after coal and iron ore - and international students contribute $13bn to the Australian economy every year. Australia, by one estimate, could easily lose $70m because of the attacks.
It's a no-brainer that Australian authorities need to investigate each of these attacks thoroughly to come to a considered and precise explanation as to why they happened and quell the growing mistrust between the two countries.
If Australians believe that sections of the Indian media are hyperventilating over the attacks and behaving irresponsibly, Indians believe that there is not enough information coming out from the Australian authorities over the attacks. They - and Indian student groups in Australia - feel the Australian media isn't doing enough to highlight the issue.
Many Indians I have spoken to find the discourse in the Australian media on the spate of attacks superficial. Tim Colebatch, an editor at Melbourne Age,
writes that such incidents happen "because human beings are imperfect creatures. They can be selfish, they can be hateful, they can enjoying hurting, even killing, other humans. It happens here, it happens in India, it happens everywhere."
Mr Colebatch then tries to offer some clues to why Indians may have been attacked. One of the victims, Nitin Garg, was taking a short cut through a park when he was murdered, while Australians "instinctively know that their parks are not safe at night, and avoid using them as short cuts". And so, he writes, Mr Garg has "become another victim of our epidemic of alcohol abuse, our tolerance of extreme violence in films and screen games - and yes, of the
Romper Stomper racism that seems to live on among teenagers in the western suburbs, now directed against Indians instead of Vietnamese."
Alcohol abuse and exposure to violent films can hardly be a problem with Australian youth alone. And fringe racism exists in many countries in the world. Mr Colebatch's interesting observations notwithstanding, Indians feel that they are in the dark about the spate of attacks.
BBC - Soutik Biswas's India: Why are Indian students being attacked in Australia?
One of the interesting comment there
7. At
02:36am on 13 Jan 2010,
GNS wrote:
I am 62,live in Sydney since 1997 with my 2 sons working here.I also work with 9 white Australians in a banking franchise.We never faced ANY discrimination all these years.So why do the Indian students face attacks now which are deadly,brutal and sometimes life-threatening ? What about others,including white Australians ? Indian media has no reporters actually working here and mostly rely on agency reports or Indian student associations.Facts are as follows :
Indian student population went up by 400% in 5 years !
Most of the arrivals since 2005,the majority,chose vocational colleges for getting PR; these colleges are basically one-two room affairs in city centres with little practical training given in the courses chosen : hair-styling,cafe,hospitality etc.
Australia allows foreign students to work 20 hours per week and a vast majority of Indian vocational students work far in excess of 20 hours,late at night ( to get better wages ) knocking the jobs from local teenagers leading to widespread resentment.Australia has no manpower to check these violations as employers ( some of them Indian restaurants ) conveniently don't keep employee records by paying contractors who pay lower than statutory minimum wage.These students depend on these wages to live,pay fees and even to send money home.
Also to save money,they stay in far-off unsafe suburbs where drugs and alcohol abuse is rampant.
Most use public transport to reach home late at night and easily become a target for criminals who come out at night like cockroaches.
Very few of the Indian university students get hurt as they stay closer to University and are here for studies,not work.
Till 2004 99% of Indian students used to come to Australia for university studies and there were practically no attacks of the kind we see now.
Yes,Chinese students were also attacked many times.But as a proportion they are far less as most of them come for studies,not work.Though they are the largest student contingent,you rarely see a Chinese student working.In contrast,almost petrol pumps,convenience stores,pizza chains and similar outfits are manned by Indian students.
Violent incidents are a daily event in the Metros of Sydney & Melbourne on account of binge drinking,drugs etc.Majority of the victims are Australian citizens,mostly white.
Violent attacks on Indian students will be greatly reduced if they stay in safer suburbs,don't work at night and beyond 20 hours per week and bring sufficient cash to meet tuition and living expenses.
Indian media only highlights only attacks on Indian students as if there are no other attacks on others.Just yesterday there were 3 stabbings in Sydney involving all white Australians but that goes unreported.They repeatedly show the same video causing distress to our relatives and friends.When Indians commit crimes,they don't get reported.This upsets us, local media and local people.Just 10 days ago one 23 year old Indian student brutally murdered his 29 year old wife by slitting her throat and it was not as sensationally reported as Nitin Garg's murder.Indian media does not realise how difficult it is to police vast areas of these cities with so few policemen.
Indian students must be bluntly told to follow local laws and don't stay in Australia if they don't have the means to meet a part of living expenses and tuition fees.
Australia too must close those fly-by-night type colleges and compensate those students cheated by these operators.Local police in Sydney too must be given powers to check train passengers for weapons as they did in Melbourne.