Our relationship with India: a nasty problem and it could get worse
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How bad is Australia’s relationship with India? How damaging to Australia’s global reputation is the controversy over attacks on Indians in Melbourne? Is this a beat-up by the over-zealous Indian media, or is it a genuine foreign policy dilemma? If you believe The Australian’s foreign editor, Greg Sheridan — not always the calmest commentator on the foreign beat — Australia is “enduring a catastrophe in its foreign policy and its standing in the world generally”. He sheets the blame for this situation to one man — Victorian Premier John Brumby:
Sheridan’s commentary may be colourful, but its underlying message is hard to dispute. There is, at the minimum, a perception issue. The perception that some Australians are racist and that Australia’s political leaders are full of hot air but little action when it comes to addressing the problem confronting Indians on the streets of Melbourne. If this situation was reversed — if Australians were being attacked on the streets of India — there’s no doubt that sections of our media would be hysterical in taking the egg-beater to the story and demanding action from Indian authorities. Which, when you think about it that way, is why Brumby and Rudd, at the start of an election year for each, have a nasty problem that could get a lot worse. |
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19 Comments
Goodness, Sheridan likes a bit of colourful language doesn’t he?
How long ago was it when some Australian missionaries were incinerated in India? Don’t recall any wholesale labelling of Indians or Hindus back here in Australia. Rather the victims’ family turned the other cheek rather than placing blame. And I suppose the Indian media, looking for a trigger for outrage closer to home, wouldn’t want to cast an eye around the aching misery of their poverty striken populations, some held in thrall by the caste system and the cultural practices that oppress women, especially widows? No one would support for a moment the mindless violence visited on Indian students - violence which we see randomly re-focused in the week-end festivals of glassings in Australian night spots. Violence is part of Melbourne - from the razor gangs of earlier last century, right up to the present day. Lygon Street anyone? And when it comes to who might cop some blame for provoking reactions among the morons who attack people (some of whom are Indian), where would those regular tub thumping crusades in the tabloid press against “foreign cabbies who can’t find their way to the end of the street” fit? They wouldn’t be Murdoch papers, would they?
What I find interesting is that these Indians are seemingly being singled out for mugging by young men ‘of no appearance’ — the impression created in the Australian media and hence Indian Press being that these muggers are all Skips & therefore ‘racists’. If Greg Sheridan and the like did a bit of digging, they would surely be amazed at the rainbow ‘multicultural’ make-up of our Melbourne muggers.
The other curiosity is that apparently it is only Indians who are the target. Not the just as numerous Chinese. Not Malaysians. Etc. Doesn’t that point to a motivating factor to do with something other than (or as well as) ‘race’?
Sheridan should get mind into gear, first.
Interesting situation. My wife is in Calcutta at present, working in an NGO, and is getting plenty of comment from taxi drivers etc re how racist Australia is. She observed an interesting discussion when a driver tackled this topic with another person of Indian ethnic heritage & Aust passport and resident, who clearly pointed out that there are many Australians working in India to alleviate the lives of those in the slums / street people etc, at their own and with others voluntarily given monies, so how is it so that Australia is so racist? We treat our pets and in some regards, farm livestock better than the street people.
Difficult issue. At no time have the Vic police stated that Indian students have been excessively picked on. However, it would appear that the level of policing is not good enough. We are not managing the violent elements sufficiently, look at the number of one punch deaths. Bring back the 6 o’clock closing? Is the level of violence recorded satisfactory for any citizen? Another case of arrogent refusal to admit a problem as it is politicaly unceptable? To much cut taxes & saved monies as well as destructions of the social contract. What the point if you need to hire guards to keep the locals from pinching the wheels off the car if you park it down town?
A good topic for a PhD re the attitudes and interactions of the two post colonial societies and the development of rapid nationalism and the politcal use of that. However the elephant in the room is the Caste system as well as gender issues. Just ask any Australian woman re the gender attitudes she picks up from men in the street/shops / public service etc when travelling / working in that society.
In private, we need to respectively but firmly reject this propoganda and and ask ‘why are beating this up’. Kiplings “white mans burden?”, we are an easy target.
A short response is “let who is without sin throw the first stone…”, yet we also need to remember that the other half of that story was the injunction to the accused to , “to go and sin no more”.
Best thing we can do is live it down.
We will not be able to change the perceptions of people in India , no matter how much we scream and shout, or present statistics, as petty personal prejudices are not rational things. No amount of pointing out Indian hypocrisy will help either, because that will not win anybody over (anywhere in the world).
All we can do is be more conscious of racism, do more to counter it (e.g. racial villification laws, affirmative action), and eventually people’s pre conceived notions might change.
The comments above itself shows the racist nature of Australians .Being an Indian from Chennai,India i have to educate the Aussies of some facts.
1) Indian economy is the fourth largest economy in the world by PPP
2) 3rd largest Army in the world
3) One among 4 nations to have built a nuclear submarine
4) One among 4 nations to have sent an indegenous built rocket to space (bet you dimwit aussies dont know how to build a pen)
5) With regard to the so called caste system which got abolished once we got independence,the govt had enacted quota reservations in 1947(year of independence)for people affected by Caste when america still had not allowed black people equal rights and Australia had the “White Only” policy,I also belong to the backward caste and i have more rights than White people (not to mention Aborigines) in Australia.
6)Your wife will be much safer in India than in Australia because India has the lowest crime rates in the world(look at the World Crime rates Website [Edit]).
Besides you guys are begging for business with India to take a share in this huge economy of India, you should do more than to live in a state of denial.
More please on this vexed topic.
We need a better handle on what exactly is at issue. This will help cut down further attacks. Even one would have been one too many. That attacks have resulted in death and severe injury is insupportable.
However winning the statistical argument will get us nowhere. Where violence is concerned there is no such thing as ‘statistical death’ — just the violent loss of a loved one.
The greatest continuing problem for Australia is that it shows how institutionally unprepared we are to present ourselves to very different populations in Asia. The statements of the Indian government in Hindi as well as English have been very restrained. However even when attacks on Indians are down to zero I suggest that the hangover will be real and long.
Rudd indeed may have a problem with this particular issue, however it appears this is but one of many issues the PM is going to have to face up to in the coming months. Not the least is the Oppositions obvious planned attack on Rudd’s personal integrity and truthfulness. Whatever oddities there are about Abbott, his economical abilities, his physical appearance, his odd way of expressing himself, he is scoring points, plenty of them. Quite frankly he scored several well aimed hits on the PM in question time and Rudds only defence was to harp on again about the Govts climate change policy and how the Libs had supported it and then dumped it. Same old song, same old singer. As Abbott pointed out, along with the absurd notion that everything Rudd wants to do must be discussed with the States, the public are getting sick of hearing it. The clock is ticking and I dont believe Rudd and therefore the Govt can hear it.
I think Sheridan is right. Only last week Sky News (UK) had a 10 minute ‘speacial’ on Australia’s poor relations, racially speaking, with India. Very damning. Doing work in India, the anti-vibe is definitelythere.
Still moderating my previous comment?
Here it is again in case you missed it.
If you haven’t already, please read the article in Outlook India and the wide-ranging comments (502, with the converstion ongoing, even though it’s no longer front page). There’s been a great deal of common sense and goodwill on both sides, some “like it or leave it stuff” from Aussies (both Anglo and Indian descent) and some really vile racist filth from some Indians, which I found exceptional and was quite shocked by.
http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?264016
I’m deeply disappointed and saddened that no-one in the mainstream media in Austalia defended our country and multi-cultural society except Gerard Henderson, who was pilloried for his efforts. It was left to the private commenters from Australia and India to do so. The Australian media’s glee that there might be a Romper Stomper in the re-make here was disgusting. You should have gone afte the facts about crime comitted by immigrants on immigrants instead of shouting that every white person in the country is a racist, which we all know is patently untrue. After the Indian media, the Australian media is most culpable in causing the damage to the relationship between the countries. You could have really helped here, but you pissed away the opportunity to score cheap points.
Thank you.
The next step is to identify the boofheads in the Departments of Immigration and Education who came up with the scheme that caused this mess, along with the education / immigration agents who exploited it, and garnishees their salaries to pay for the work that now need to be done to repair the damage.
This recent controversy commenced after the murder of a student in Melbourne..whether it was racially motivated or not has yet to be determined,however the Indian press jumped all over it. It was inflamed (pardon the pun) by another Indian supposedly being assaulted and set on fire..this caused greater outrage in the Indian press. The second incident now appears to be a case of self infliction..I understand,but could be wrong,that very little of this second case is now being reported over there. The Indian media is no better or worse than anywhere else…sensationalise,sensationalise..Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Hey, nice one Karna India, thanks for that reminder of reality.
I hope as a result of this discussion that is an examination is the whole student visa system. After the experience in sponsoring a student and have been a public servant for a long time, my opinion is that the system seems to be very open for corruption. Some of the questions asked, should be questioned by the Ombudsman and I contemplated putting a case to the Director of the Department and the relevant Minister re invasion of privacy and the unofficial costs to the applicant. I agree with Ian on the need for a review.
RE caste – from my observations, there is yet considerable progress to be made. As there is regarding the well being of the bottom 5% of Australian society which has a disproportionate number of persons of Aboriginal heritage. Eg 16 year olds in Perth not able to read. In one case I am aware of, they had refused to go to school from age 11-12 and that no one had effectively chased them up.
Karna maybe you should put that nationalism back in your pants? Or perhaps save it for china, Pakistan or Nepal, all of whom seem to have it in for you (couldn’t possibly be your foreign policy; it’s probably the west’s fault!).
Good luck with that climate change by the way. You shouldn’t have an issue because you wouldn’t have any coastal cities, or arid zones, or flood zones. If anything happens you could always just pretend to be ‘undeveloped’ again and put your hand out to the wicked, imperial westerners.
I can not recall what Greg Sheridan said when the previous government presided over a couple of nasty incidents with refugee boats but I doubt he was as strident as this piece. I can recall however the comments I received from people in Afghanistan where I was at the time about our racist tendencies and how Australians “used to be nice people”. For a while there, there were also negative comments on most of the international broadcasters cited by Sheridan. But we seem to have got over that (if not got rid of the unpleasant undertone of racism so successfully mined by the dreadful Ms Hanson and later adopted by Mr Howard as Liberal party policy.
I have also read a few comment pages in Indian press recently and noted that the screamers in the editorial offices do not seem to reflect the comments in the Letters to Editors of those and even some of the better Indian papers.
Either way, the so called storm will pass and Sheridan will also probably move on.
Karna,
Pride in your country is a blessing. Aggressive nationalism is a curse.
No we don’t make pens much anymore. Instead, we dimwit Aussies build scramjets that actually work and cost a tenth of every other nation’s.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12075-scramjet-hits-mach-10-over-australia.html
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/indepth/woomera-hosts-first-hifire-hypersonic-test-flight/story-e6frewsr-1225715365056
Inida’s scramjet is still on the ground I believe.
Robert Smith,
How is it possible to get attacks on Indians down to zero? There’s around 450-500 assaults per day in our country.
This means that unless we can wrap our 300 000+ in cotton wool, they’re bound by sheer probably to be subject to at least 5-8 assaults per day. This is unfortunate, because every time there is any kind of crime against an Indian, of whatever sort, it is plastered across the front page of most of India’s major publications as “yet another racist attack down under!”
I’m afraid we’re just going to have to face the fact that our relations with India are completely borked. The only thing we can do, is not be the mindless bigots they seem to so desperately want to think we are.