By Chandramohan – Syndicate Features
Self-flagellation is apparently the favourite tool of many Indian ‘liberals’ who win their spurs by turning a blind eye to the fault of others, especially if they are denizens of the ‘civilised’ world. Look at the way some Indians are debating the controversy over attacks on Indians in Australia.
When even the Australian government has not been able to keep up its assurance of providing adequate safety to the Indian students, the ‘liberals’ are pleading for ‘restraint’. Some have echoed the Australian grouse that the Indian media is exaggerating the attacks on the Indians, as though these were harmless incidents from everyday life.
The Indian parents are expected to keep filling the coffers of Australian universities by sending their wards in droves to the ‘wonderful’ country. It brings to mind an Indian politician’s recent moan that some people are being rewarded for their failure.
The multi-billion dollar education ‘industry’ in Australia receives a hefty contribution from Indians. It can very well collapse if Indians decide to bypass Australia in favour of other lands. There is no dearth of options for Indian students. A few years ago, neighbouring New Zeeland was taught a lesson when the Chinese students became victims of racial attacks and, as a result, they started returning in droves.
A ‘liberal’ Indian in Australia says in a blog that Indians are acting squeamish because the Australians had refused to play Davis Cup matches in Chennai! Of course, it was sheer arrogance on the part of the Kangaroos -they do not hesitate to display it anytime, anywhere. Cricketers who have played against the Australians would know it well.
Strangely, despite the criticism of the Indian media for its allegedly over the top coverage of the Australian incidents, some ‘liberal’ elements in it have taken to preaching Indians, telling them not to throw stones from their glass cages. If these elements are to be believed everything is alright Down Under. This distorted view is being forced on their readers.
A leading English newspaper in Delhi (The Hindustan Times) has been running a series to show how despicably some locals in Delhi treat their compatriots from the North East. That is certainly unpardonable. But is there a silent societal sanction behind it, as seems to be the case in Australia? If the point is to be stretched further, then these ‘enlightened’ media men and women will do well to travel and live in the North East to find out how Indians from other parts are perceived there.
All Australians may not be racists, but the majority of them seem to show a tacit tolerance of the racists among them. To date, one has not heard of any organised attempt by the white Australians, barring some students, to show solidarity with the beleaguered Indians. Don’t we in India see various groups, including NGOs, coming out on the streets to show solidarity with foreign victims of shameful acts of crime? In some cases, including that of an Australian family, political parties even started agitations to speak up against the perpetrators.
The point here is simple: did the Australian society as a whole take any initiative to speak up for the terrorised Indians? It would seem that the Australian police have shown remarkable reluctance to take action on complaints by Indian victims. Are they worst than the Indian cops? (That will surely hurt their pride.) Does it not smack of racialism?
Can there be any doubt that young Indians, mostly students, are being singled out for these cowardly attacks? Equally, there cannot be any doubt that almost all the attacks have been ‘racial’, not ‘opportunistic’—a disgusting appellation used by the Australians to hide their guilt. It is insulting to be told that an Indian carrying ipods and laptops runs the risk of being assaulted on the streets of Melbourne and Sydney.
It is, of course, not unusual or unknown for a foreigner to be attacked, mugged or waylaid on a street, especially late in the evening. Going by accounts heard from friends, it appears that that mugging is quite common in certain districts of New York. But these friends assert that the muggers do not abuse their victim by ridiculing his or her nationality. More importantly, the muggers in New York do not first scan the skin of your colour before attacking you.
Reports from Australia, on the other hand, suggest that the attackers there look out for Indians—maybe all brown coloured people, thinking all of them are Indians. And while they punch them and stab them—sometimes in their homes–they escape after making it plain to their victims that they absolutely detest ‘Indians’ who should ‘go back’. This is a clear indication that there is certainly a racialist motive behind the attacks on Indians in Australia.
The ‘liberals’ gloss over the Australian racial history. South Africa was justly denounced for practising apartheid. It lasted the years it did because there was a lot of covert support for its whites-only’ policy among the former colonial powers. South Africa ultimately renounced apartheid maybe because it could no longer bear pressure from the international community. It has also to be remembered that the majority of South Africans are non-white.
Australia did not have the policy of apartheid but was able to practice it more strictly. Till very recently, it did not accept immigrants from non-white countries, though it did accept Anglo-Indians even when they did not look ‘white’ enough. It was not a reflection of any change in the Australian ‘whites-only’ policy; it probably had more to do with fulfilling the obligations on behalf of the colonial masters.
The Australians kept their sparse ‘coloured’ population of the aborigine hidden from neighbourhoods and offices as most of them lived in squalid and impoverished conditions in their reserves far away from the sights of the whites. The atrocities committed by the white Australian settlers, many of them descendants of British convicts, against the natives, the original inhabitants, are documented. Only about a year ago did the government of Australia sought pardon of the aborigines.
The Australians need some tough talking to.