Till a few days ago, Australia was one of my favourite places in the world. I’ve always found the country beautiful and the people warm and friendly – and a shared passion for sports certainly helps. But I guess a tourist, or even a person travelling on work, experiences a country very differently from people who actually live there.

Ever since reports of recent attacks on Indians in Australia began coming in, I’ve been in touch with friends and relatives who have lived there or continue to do so. I asked the same question to each one, "Have you ever personally encountered racism in Australia?" They all shared their experiences readily enough, but requested that I not identify them.

The first person I spoke to is a journalist whose husband did a PhD in Australia. "No, we never encountered any kind of racism personally, though we did find a lot of ignorance about India. And, of course, there are cultural differences you need to be aware of," she said. That’s for sure. I’ve always found it ironic that the Australians were apparently OK with Harbhajan Singh insulting the mother of Andrew Symonds, but regarded ‘monkey’ as a deadly insult. In India, of course, it would be exactly the other way around.

However, she then added, "I worked with the online arm of a leading Australian paper, and I used to moderate chats. And I was shaken by the kind of ugly comments that used to come in about Asians, especially when the Mohd Haneef controversy was on. I always used to think Indians were oversensitive, but seeing those comments made me realise the depth of antipathy that so many Australians have towards us". The couple are now back in India, though they say racism had nothing to do with it.

I spoke to three other people, who have absolutely no intention of returning to India. "What are you making such a fuss about," demanded one. "Didn’t the Shiv Sena target South Indians? Isn’t the MNS targeting North Indians? Don’t we treat people from the north-east and Blacks abominably? If you say those are isolated incidents, well, so are these. Why doesn’t India fix its own problems before lecturing others? This is all just media hype." His girlfriend was equally blunt: "As a woman, I feel much safer in Australia than I ever did in India."

The fifth person was just as categorical. "I attended one gathering of Indians here and I was appalled. I found them rude, narrow-minded and completely unwilling to integrate with the mainstream. This country has offered them its hospitality and resources, and in return they were cribbing about it non-stop. If they’re so bloody unhappy, let them go back to India."

Frankly, I tend to disagree with these arguments. At least 100 cases of ‘curry bashing’ have been reported in the last one year in Australia –- four deadly ones in the past month alone — and many more probably weren’t reported out of fear. That goes well beyond being “isolated incidents". The fact that thousands of Indian students came out to stage a peaceful rally in Melbourne on Sunday also surely indicates that these concerns aren’t just ‘media hype’.

The very fact that so many attacks could go on for so long seems to indicate a certain lack of sensitivity on the part of Australian authorities — who were quick to initially dismiss these crimes as "opportunistic rather than racist". Finally, Australian foreign minister Stephen Smith had to acknowledge that there was a problem and Indian students were being specifically targeted. One can only hope that this awareness speedily percolates down the ranks of the Australian police and local authorities.

I think India is fully within its rights to be worried about the welfare of its citizens in a foreign country. Having said that, we certainly need to be as sensitive about how we treat other people — including our own countrymen — as we are about the way we are treated by others. And there’s no question that we need to develop a zero-tolerance attitude towards louts who molest women, or assault them just because they happen to be in a pub.

What about the charge that most Indians living abroad form exclusionist groups? Even if that’s true, I think that’s probably a defensive reaction to perceived hostility from the local population. Of course, it turns into a vicious spiral. The more Indians cut themselves off from the mainstream, the more unpopular they become, and the more they retreat into their shell… and so on. But even then, I don’t think there can be any justification for the kind of murderous attacks that we’ve seen on Indians. Even if you don’t like someone, that doesn’t give you the licence to beat them into a coma.

So, should Indians still go to Australia to study? I think they need to ask themselves whether they intend to return to India or not. If they intend to work in India, it’s probably worth bearing in mind that most recruiters here have long since outgrown the foreign fixation. A Harvard or Oxford degree still makes your resume look good, but most recruiters are now much more impressed by a good Indian university than by a B-grade foreign one. So, students should make sure that the university they intend to go to will carry weight back in India. Otherwise, they’ll just have wasted a lot of time, effort and money for nothing.

If the answer is that they want to migrate for good, then my next question is, "Have you considered that India’s GDP is growing at 6.7% at a time when most of the developed world is undergoing recession?"

If they still want to go abroad, then I think they should be able to do so without fearing xenophobic attacks. And it’s the responsibility of both the Indian and the relevant Australian government to ensure their safety and well-being.

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