Who is Over-Reacting: India or Australia?
The Government of India’s advisory for ethnic Indians in Australia has offended more people in Australia than the number pleased in India. Referring to someone as ‘racist’ is considered to be the greatest insult in contemporary times; India is seen as accusing Australia for being tolerating racist attacks against Indians, especially students. This is bound to upset the Australian Government. So which side is over-reacting?
Contrary to popular notion, the Government of India has not issued a travel advisory for Australia, i.e. the government has not asked Indians to avoid travelling to Australia. The Ministry of External Affairs has simply issued Guidelines for Indian Students wishing to Study in Australia. The guidelines cover a wide range of issues from admission process, living costs and safety tips for Indians aspiring to study in Australia. The Government of India has advised its citizens on how to live more safely in Australia rather than avoiding the country. The guidelines can be accessed in full at the Press Release section of the MEA’s website.
External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna’s appeal to the Australian government for ensuring the safety the Indian students is not a sign of deteriorating Indo-Australian ties. It is normal for national governments to voice concerns of its overseas population with the host country.
The Australian Government has taken this reaction of Indian Government as maligning Australia’s global image as an unsafe destination. Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard insisted that Australia was a safe country for all international students. According to Gillard, “In big cities around the world we do see acts of violence from time to time; that happens in Melbourne, it happens in Mumbai, it happens in New York, it happens in London.”
Australian acting Foreign Minister Simon Crean has asked New Delhi not to whip up “hysteria” over such incidents. “It so happens that one of the victims is Indian … Melbourne is not the only city in the world where this happens. It also happens in Delhi and in Mumbai,” Crean said.
I fail to understand this constant comparison between Indian and Australian cities. By this comparison, citizens of Pakistan and Afghanistan cannot complain if they are killed any country simply because their own countries are unsafe!
Tim Colebatch, Economic Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald, has presented a strange case. Here is an excerpt from his article in the January 7, 2010 edition of the paper:
India, of course, is a very big country. But the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimates that relative to population, its homicide rate is more than twice that of Australia. It is a country in which violent crime is commonplace - so commonplace that every day more than 100 Indians are murdered by other Indians, yet their TV news channels treat this as humdrum unless it involves some celebrity or unusual features. Yet when an Indian is murdered overseas, these news channels whip themselves and their viewers into a froth of indignation at the country concerned. How can this happen?, they thunder. How can any civilised nation fail to protect its residents? What kind of racist country is this? How does this happen? Well, it happens because human beings are imperfect creatures. They can be selfish, they can be hateful, they can enjoy hurting, even killing, other humans. It happens here, it happens in India, it happens everywhere.
According to Colebatch, Australians instinctively know that their parks are not safe places at night, and avoid using them as short cuts. Tragically, Nitin Garg did not know that. For Mr. Colebatch information diplomats also instinctively realize that diplomacy is not about statistics; tragically Australian economists don’t know that. If Mr. Colebatch is so interested in statistics here is something he should consider: figures by Australian police show that 1,447 people of Indian descent were victims of a crime in Victoria in the 12 months to July 2008.
Rather than saying that Australia is not safe, the Government of India has simply advised its citizens on how to be safe in Australia. Should Australia feel offended by this? It is advisable for the Government of India to approach the issue as one of national concern rather than racial discrimination. At the same time, the Australian Government should also not completely over-look the fact that acts of violence against ethnic Indians have increased in the recent past. Establishing the racist or non-racist intent of a crime may not be possible at all times. After all, India’s £1.5 billion contribution to the Australia’s international education industry should influence Australia’s future diplomacy on the issue.
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[...] at The Trajectory comments on the Government of India’s advisory for ethnic Indians in Australia and questions - who is [...]
I guess Mr. Colebatch has not seen the correct stats. Here are the crime stats from UN:
Australia has 35 times assault rate than India. Agreed, many of the assault cases are not reported in India, but still India has lower assaults per capita than most nations.
India also has lower murder rate than United states and other nations(but twice than Australia). Indian crime per capita is rather low, just that we have a billion people and any stat shows up big. Take a look at the numbers.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_ass_percap-crime-assaults-per-capita
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita
In burglaries and car thefts, Australia leads the World (200 times than India)
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_bur_percap-crime-burglaries-per-capita
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_car_the_percap-crime-car-thefts-per-capita
The Bulk of Indian students in Melbourne are in vocational education and training (VET) sector not University courses.
The VET sector grew by 45% between 2006 and 2007 and by 46% between 2007 and 2008. Indian enrolments grew by 160% and 90% in those two years.
Why? Because the Federal government allowed students who completed a VET course to apply onshore for permanent residency. Not that long ago international students had to spend up to six years studying for an undergraduate degree, now there is an option of getting a VET certificate in two years, while holding down a job and applying onshore for the residency visa.
Thankfully the Federal government has recast the permanent residency visa system in 2008 to give priority back to university graduates and the professions.
Also many of the Indian students that have entered the VET sector have done so using fraudulent documents with the vast majority of these applications from the Indian states of Gujarat and Punjab. Most of these VET students never had the financial resources or the educational standard to obtain their student visa without using fraudulent documents.
Much too late the Federal and respective state governments are now scrambling to recasting their policies to put in place a new regime to improve the standard of VET courses and cut out the high instance of fraud in the sector.
I agree Indians who are prospective University students are likely to shift to another country because of the media attention given to attacks on Indian students. While this is unfortunate, It is much more important to get the system right to ensure that Australia continues to provide high quality education and attached well qualified immigrants.
This has been a horrible experience all round. Hopefully some good will come out of it.
Safety of Indian Students- Do you think Indian students are safe in their own country. Have you forget, Raj Thakery & his followers.
Just go back, to the events of 2008, how Raj and his followers beat students like animal in Mumbai. They justified there action in the name of outsider V/s local in the same country but different state.
So, there are people like Raj & his followers in Australia also. They are also justifying their action in same logic like Raj (outsider V/s local) where students have different nationality.
In my opinion, both, people who are in Australia & India who has this type of mentality should be treated as alike, (racism) and action should be taken against them.
But if our central government cannot take action against Raj & his people , does our Government has moral right to ask Australian government for firm action for people like Raj & followers in Australia.
Prabhat, I completely understand the point that you are making…safety of all Indians, within and beyond our borders is the responsibility of the governemnt of India. But you are following Colebatch’s line of reasoning. nationals of every country face injustices within their countries, which does not make the respective Govts. unfit for ensuring protection of its nationals overseas. Its like saying that a father who scolds his child over a mistake has no right to defend his child from public admonishment! Its important to set one’s house in order, but you can’t allow others to play havoc while you are in the process of doing so.
A massive petition is underway in the US to register our discontent with such actions in Australia.
Students at Harvard, University of Michigan, Yale, Stanford, MIT and other top schools have gathered this effort.
You can join the petition and get a much wider range of opinions on this facebook link:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=276797144939
I think that the Indian government is really blowing this whole ordeal out of proportion. The only reason indian attacks are on the rise, is because attacks on whole are on the rise. So who is to blame for all this hype, well it is obviously india.