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:
Perhaps no premier since World War II has done more to damage the Australian national interest … Brumby’s reaction of indolent denial, and the incompetent lack of response from his government and police force, have contributed hugely to a vast anti-Australian backlash in India. But this is happening throughout Asia and more broadly internationally. The BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera — all are covering the attacks in a way that would constitute hundreds of billions of dollars worth of negative publicity for Australia.
There is now a raging, anti-Australian fury in India that cuts across any party or political or even communal divides. Australia has never been so hated in India and in much of Asia … It is now moving into the stage where it will do serious damage to the bilateral relationship and to business. In the last couple of weeks two Australian companies which had expected to sign contracts in India were told their commercial partners no longer wanted to deal with Australian companies.
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.
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.