The Hindu Business Line : Calling a truce Down Under

What is urgently required is an introspection by the Australian society and political leadership which see the attacks on Indians as opportunistic crimes and not racist.

Ravi Bajpai

The trickle has now become a flood inundating almost the entire eastern Australia. The attacks on Indians which were reported earlier as stray incidents have now been reported with alarming frequency sometimes with fatal consequences.

The entire Australian political spectrum is crying hoarse about these attacks being opportunistic crimes. An Indian couple was recently arrested by police in connection with the murder of an Indian in December. When seen in the context of the number of attacks on the Indian population vis-à-vis the percentage of people of Indian origin living in Australia, there can be only two deductions.

One, if such a small percentage of population has suffered so many attacks what about the rest of the population? Statistically, Australia would be the most dangerous place in the entire world.

Two, is it true that only people of Indian origin are at the wrong places at the wrong time? This would mean that the people of Indian origin are either most stupid or most vulnerable.

Multiple identities

Overall Australians may not appear to be overtly racist; however, they profess multiple identities. The white colonisers have declared Australia a very new country, thereby, denying any connection to the pre-colonial history and society. Therefore, Australia has to derive its sense of history and identity from the time the white settlers arrived and the place (UK) from where these migrants came.

This sense of history is not always shared by everyone and many times is at odds with other threads of identity and history. In this context, many Australians proudly claim their ancestry to the convicts who first came to colonise the country.

It is quite important to remember that Australia had been colonised by a handful of convicts by first overpowering and then subjugating the original inhabitants of the land. This subjugation continues even today by the larger community. Even casual observers of Australian society will immediately notice the complete disconnect and disparity between the aborigines and the rest of Australian society.

The white Australians know very well how they have acquired their mastery over the country and are very sensitive about this subject. According to many common white Australians, the aborigines should seek redress and compensation for their loss of life and property from the UK, because Britain colonised them and not the white Australians.

A few years back two Australian cricketers, Shane Warne and Mark Waugh, were found to have accepted money from a bookmaker. The entire Australian media went into overdrive to emphasise the ethnicity of the bookmaker rather than the gravity of the allegations. Incidentally, the fact that the bookmaker was ethnically Indian became a much more important issue than the corruption of the Australian cricketers.

Contrast this to the recent news that the Australian Wheat Board was found to have bribed Saddam Hussein's regime for selling Australian wheat. We did not see the Australian media profiling the ‘white' culprits by their race. Indians have been arriving in Australia in large numbers only in the last 10 years or so. They are mostly professionals who have immigrated to Australia as residents or students who upon completion of their education decided to acquire residency in Australia. The statistics about the number of Indian students registering in Australian universities has been going up quite phenomenally since the 1990s.

Influx of students

The general perception is that most of the Indian students are taking higher degrees from Australian universities only to take Australian jobs and a permanent residency later. However, most of these ‘Australian degree holders' do end up with Australian residency though very often without any white collar employment. These people then survive on whatever jobs they can get and at really low wages. Business Process Outsourcing in India is quite a big industry and had impacted the larger community in Australia. Australians must have viewed Indians as having it both ways. Sending more jobs to India from Australia while simultaneously receiving more people from India to Australia.

The Indian economic surge, however lopsided and corrupt, has also given Indians the self-belief the world over which can sometimes be seen as over-exuberance or abrasive behaviour.

The Indian wants respect for his/her nation's new found economic growth and its ancient civilisation while the common Australian begrudges this economic growth of some Third World country and lampoons what is perceived as decayed cultural practices. The phrase ‘curry bashing' (thrashing person of Indian origin) is so rife that it will enter the Macquarie Dictionary of Australian English' this year. Unlike many other ethnic, national groups, Indians will not retaliate as a group in revenge attacks. Most Australian residents of Indian origin (including many of my friends and family) have demonstrated considerable apathy, cocooned in their comfortable lives, not ever bothering to either extend support to the victims or join the protest against these attacks.

Taking an overt form

The crux of my argument is that the times that we live in have made subtleties irrelevant. Racism of the past evident in hostilities towards any immigrant population, has perhaps taken overt form, more so because the immigrants (Indians) are of a developing nation, seeking their place in the sun.

What might be worth investigating is whether other South Asians (Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans) have also faced such situations and felt physically threatened. The Indian media in its frenzied campaign to paint the darkest picture might want to reflect on this. If other South Asians have been targeted, the racist element is confirmed.

I see the situation worsening further. What is urgently required is an introspection by the Australian society and political leadership which lives in denial; a collective solidarity by all sections of the society and especially Australian Indians, who should make their presence felt and protests count; and also a self-reflection by young Indian students and their parents, considering that the Australian education industry has been left thoroughly exposed.

It is time to take stock, stop frenzied reactions on all sides and encourage a healthy discourse in India and in Australia.

(The author is an IT professional based in Sydney since 1996. blfeedback@thehindu.co.in)

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