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Attacks Highlight Vulnerability of Indian Students in Australia
 While Australian politicians are labelling attacks on Indian students studying in Australia as “opportunistic urban crime” rather than hate crimes, international students in the country, Indian politicians and media around the world are characterizing the Australian government’s stance as denial.
In May and June 2009, the growing number of allegedly racially motivated attacks against Indians and a perceived poor response by authorities sparked protests and rallies in Melbourne and Sydney. The Sydney Morning Herald reported: “In the 12 months to June 2007, 1,082 attacks on Indians in Victoria were reported to police — an assault rate of 1,700 in every 100,000. Victorian Indians are 2½ times more likely than non-Indians to be beaten up or knifed.” According to news reports, police figures in the Australian state of Victoria reveal 1,447 assaults on Indian students from July 2007 to July 2008, an increase from 1,082 the previous year.
The issue made more headlines, particularly in India, following the stabbing death of 21-year-old graduate accounting student Nitin Garg in early January. Garg was walking to his fast-food job in the Melbourne suburb of Footscray when he was attacked.
Many students, as well as observers in the media and politics, saw it as a case of insult being added to injury when police advised Indian students “not to speak loudly in their native language or display signs of wealth such as iPods” in order to avoid being attacked.
In early February, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that new research by Professor Kevin Dunn, an expert in human geography and race and ethnic studies at the University of Western Sydney, indicates that as a group, Indians in Australia perceived themselves to be victims of racism as much as the Aboriginal community. That’s as bad as racism gets in Australia, Dunn said.
‘’It’s been a fairly appalling neglect that the interest that is now being shown was not by our own media and our own leaders but by politicians and media in another country, India,’’ Dunn told the Herald.
‘’Our politicians are fixed in denial,” he added. “Australians want leadership, we want action, but we have bad leadership. Politicians believe there are electoral costs and no benefits to acknowledging racism.’’
In early February, the Indian high commissioner, Sujatha Singh, told Australia’s governor-general, Quentin Bryce, that the government of the state of Victoria was in denial over the issue. She said there would be long-term consequences of the attacks.
Those consequences could include significant financial losses for Australia. Indian students comprise the second largest group, after China, for International students coming to Australia for their education. From 2004 to 2009 the number of Indians studying in Australia rose from 30,000 to 97,000 with 45,000 of these living in Melbourne, 32,000 in Adelaide and the remainder in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth. In 2007-2008, international education contributed AUD 13.7 billion to the Australian economy, measured through all categories of export earnings, including tuition fees, living expenses and tourism associated with visits from relatives.
Amit Dasgupta, the consul-general of India in Sydney, told the Sydney Morning Herald that the issue has put a much-needed spotlight on the entanglement of Australia’s education and immigration policies: ‘’Education and immigration were linked together [by the government] … this has exposed the system’s inadequacy and therefore the need to correct the system.”
Mehfil Magazine spoke to Rashmi Kumar, co-president of Sydney University Postgraduate Representative Association (SUPRA) about her perspective on the issue. Kumar is doing a masters in Development Studies at the University of Sydney, where she also earned an honours undergraduate degree in Economic and Social Science.
“Violence against international students has been occurring for years,” says Kumar, who has lived in Australia since her family settled there 22 years ago and has been involved in activism throughout her years as a university student. “It was only in May last year that it gained a high media profile because Indian media picked up the story. Before that, very little attention had been paid to it by Australian or international authorities.
“It is important to stress that these highly visible, high-profile incidents represent only the tip of the iceberg in terms of abuse and violence experienced by international students . . . International students from all parts of the world have been attacked violently, verbally abused, exploited and vilified. The reasons for this are complex, and individual racist attitudes definitely play a big part, but don’t explain the whole story.”
See Q&A
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