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| There’s racism Down Under | | | Sunanda K Datta-Ray
An Indian friend in Sydney tells me that the Indian student situation in Australia “is a disaster that was waiting to happen”. He blames factors that go beyond the simplistic charge of racism that inspires our television channels to abandon all rules of objective reporting and embark on their own hysterical hate campaign.
That is not just a crotchety old man’s jaundiced view of the razzmatazz of modern infotainment. Dr Yadu Singh, a Sydney cardiologist, who heads a committee at the Indian Consulate that educates Indian students about avoiding behaviour that places them at risk, describes the reporting here as “irresponsible”. Headlines such as “Australia, land of racists” and burning Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in effigy have provoked street protests in Australia.
He fears it could backfire on Indians who have lived there peacefully for years. “When Australian (missionary) Graham Staines was burnt to death (by Bajrang Dal extremists in 1999), did everyone call India racist?” he asks, and answers himself, “No!”
As Dr Singh rightly says, “Every country has one or two racists.” Prejudice is universal and takes many forms — ethnic, religious, linguistic. Jews in Nazi Germany are always cited but Palestinians in Israel or people from Uttar Pradesh in Mumbai are also victims. Some Malays feel at a disadvantage in Singapore as do some Chinese in Indonesia and some Indian Muslims. The list is endless. But majority communities in all countries are united in denying that the minority suffers any discrimination.
Having said that, certain special conditions must be acknowledged. There are several reasons for an underlying streak of racism in Australian society. We must also admit that the Indian abroad does not always please others. Most of those who go to Australia are not students in the conventional sense but unskilled workers who also attend part-time classes. Many have only a smattering of English, as TV interviews confirm.
If it had not been for the first factor, the egregious Ms Pauline Hanson, a fish-and-chip owner from Brisbane who became an MP in 1997, would not have become a folk heroine. Founder of the One Nation party, she touched a populist chord by complaining that Australia was “being swamped by Asians”. While mainline politicians condemned her, she found supporters on the parliamentary back benches and more in the streets.
To quote her, “Between 1984 and 1995, of all the migrants coming to Australia, 40 per cent were from the Asian area. If you have too many of one race come into Australia it can upset the make-up and the balance of your own culture.” Asians, she said, “have their own culture and religion, form ghettoes and do not assimilate.”
It is tempting to link those remarks with two passages in Australian history. The first is New South Wales’s status as a penal colony from 1788 to 1823. Only a very small percentage of today’s Australians are descended from those convicts but it would be surprising if origin did not leave a strain of residual influence somewhere.
The other historical factor is the White Australia policy from 1901 to 1973 that so outraged Field Marshal KM Cariappa, India’s first High Commissioner to Australia and an Anglophile if ever there was one. As a boy in an Anglo-Indian school, I remember hearing of a boatload of Anglo-Indian emigrants who were not allowed to disembark until the immigration officer came on board. As our geography master told the tale, “He divided them like sheep and goats, ‘Black, White, Black, White …’.”
Alfred Deakin, the policy’s chief architect, conceded that the Japanese and Chinese against whom it was aimed, threatened the new Australian federation not because they were bad but because they were good. “It is their inexhaustible energy, their power of applying themselves to new tasks, their endurance and low standard of living that make them such competitors.”
Both factors come into play at a time when Australia is in economic recession. The attacks reported from the less salubrious parts of urban areas are by and large the handiwork of poorly educated working class youth without jobs. Many are drunk. Others seek money to go to the hotel, Australian for a bar or pub. They are riff-raff looking for a weak target.
Ruchir Punjabi, president of the University of Sydney Union, who was attacked by two 16-year-old boys seeking money as he made his way back from work four weeks ago, says “I don't believe it was racially motivated, and similarly, I suspect most attacks on international students are not. We must be careful not to assume they are, just because the victims are of a different race to their attackers.”
When he first arrived to study in Sydney in 2005, Punjabi had to attend orientation sessions where he was told that the city was not the safest in the world. “I was told that I should take certain precautions when walking in certain parts of the city, or anywhere really late at night. From then on, I always had an inherent and latent fear of being attacked while walking late at night along neighbourhood streets.” Yet he finds the university, city and society “friendly” and the Indian reaction, including Amitabh Bachchan’s gesture, “a bit over the top”.
Several Indians in Australia have commented that the attacks are not exactly new. They have suddenly been sprung on us because of the high degree of competitiveness in the Indian media. If one TV channel gets a story, the others have to better it. “Everyone else jumped on the bandwagon”. The excitement distracts attention from real issues relating to accommodation, teaching standards, employment, security and social integration. Some purpose may be served if Canberra treats the controversy as an opportunity to consult overseas students on their problems and improve enforcement of the Education Services of Overseas Students Act which governs teaching. India’s High Commission and Consulates have an active role to play.
Education being Australia’s third-largest export, it’s in the interest of Mr Rudd and his Education Minister, Ms Julia Gillard, to ensure they get the best return from an increasing number of overseas students. Despite the outbursts, Indians will not stop seeking their fortune in a developed White country.
By exceeding its role and behaving as if it is a Government at war, our media only makes things difficult for both parties.
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