There has been an angry reaction in India to the assault of four Indian men outside a bar in Melbourne this week, with calls for the Indian community to "stand up" and take "some form of retaliation".

The victims say they were bashed by up to 70 people in a car park in High Street at Epping on Saturday night.

But police say there were only four or five offenders, although there were another 15 people making racist comments.

The latest incident has further damaged Australia's reputation in India and the Indian government wants Australian officials to take more action to protect Indians working and studying in this country.

Media editor and author Farrukh Dhondy has urged Indians in Australia to take matters into their own hands.

"There really has to be some form of retaliation from the Indian community as a whole. India has to stand up," he said.

"The Indians in Australia have to stand up and demonstrate that they are not there in a victim culture, simply complaining to the police."

A spokesman for the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, Vishnu Prakash, has called on the Australian Government to take more action.

"We hope the latest incident is investigated with care and the culprits are dealt with, as per the laws of the land," he said.

"It would also help if various measures being contemplated by the Australian side, in addition to those that have already been announced, are put in place at the earliest to prevent the recurrence of such incidents in future."

Things had been going well for Australian Government officials in India.Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Trade Minister Simon Crean and Treasurer Wayne Swan all made visits to Delhi, promising zero tolerance for racism in Australia.

Victorian Premier John Brumby will arrive in India next week.

Australia's deputy high commissioner to India Lachlan Strahan says the latest attack is deeply regrettable, but he cannot guarantee it will be the last.

"We've seen an appreciable decline in the number of incidents, but again, I must stress we cannot give a categorical guarantee that no such incidents will happen again," he said.

Market down

Education agents in India are reeling from the latest incident.

The vice-president of the Association of Australian Education Representatives in India, Bubbly Johar, says many Indian parents are too frightened to send their children to Australia.

"These type of attacks are very, very dangerous. What happens is that they are so scared of sending their students to Australia," he said.

"The market is going down. We have no inquiries now. We are 80 per cent down."

Mr Johar has also accused the Australian High Commission of being too slow to process visa applications from those students who do want to go to Australia.

The extra checks were ordered by the Immigration Minister Senator Chris Evans to stop fraudulent visa applications in an already overheated student market.