Racist Australians? No, Indians students are blamed
9 Jun 2009, 0811 hrs IST, IANS
ndian students in Australia are to be blamed for getting attacked - this seems to be the belief of many Indians prospering in Australia. In a flurry of e-mails from Down Under, it is made out that the Indian students invite these vicious attacks upon themselves.
The Australia-Indian community leaders and their religious/social welfare organisations have hardly issued any strong statements against these racist attacks.
During the recent Melbourne protest, hardly any older Australian-Indians turned up to show their solidarity with the Indian students even as the students cried themselves hoarse demanding justice. In fact, some white Australians were seen carrying placards to support them. Reports in the Indian media stated that these well-settled Australian-Indians do not want these events to affect their cushy life or tarnish their relations with whites.
These racial attacks have continued for the last two or three years with a growing number of them now directed at Indian students whose numbers have swelled to about 97,000.
Did the local Indians take any individual or community action to prevent these ugly attacks? On the contrary, when the recent spate of brutal assaults by Australian hooligans hit the headlines, they were quick to point out the reasons emanating from the students.
According to e-mails from Australia, Indian students allegedly do not know English, they display their expensive gadgets like mobiles, laptops and iPods; play loud music, talk loudly in their native tongues, live up to 15 in rooms rented for four persons, make their accommodation filthy, come out to their compounds in their underwear to urinate in the open and display innumerable other uncouth habits loathed by Australians. No wonder they are attacked, say the e-mails.
Many students are frustrated when they find that their colleges are run by Australian-Indian 'crooks'. "When they go to their class, they find that all the students are from India, and the teacher teaches them in Hindi/Punjabi. They realise that they could have received a better education at a fraction of the cost and without the problems and pains (in India). Many of our people have opened educational institutions as on-line licensing was so easy here. These people cheated the system by supplying false information. Now many of such colleges face closure, further putting strain on students who have paid so much money to study there," said one such e-mail.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...ow/4634087.cms
Advert.