Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Simon Overland recently revealed that robberies and assaults on people of Indian backgrounds were up by almost 34 per cent last year, to 1147. Initially, the police denied racism was a motive, instead suggesting the crimes were opportunistic raids on lone, late-night travellers or individuals outnumbered by roaming gangs. But Overland conceded that some of the crimes were "racially motivated". But he added: "I also believe that many of the robberies and other crimes of violence are simply opportunistic." Monash University's Professor Chris Nyland and Melbourne University's Professor Simon Marginson have conducted studies into the security and vulnerability of international students. "There's a lot of stereotypical views (about the attackers) based on the fact that many of the attacks are in the western suburbs and Dandenong," Nyland says. "There is simply no research being done. I know what is being said is that the people undertaking the attacks (comprise) a range of individuals, not just white hoons  that the people doing the attacks come from a number of different backgrounds and are not necessarily from the western suburbs." Of the attack victims, Nyland says: "A good deal of them are Indian students, but other students are being attacked as well. One of my PhD students was held up at knife-point last year at Glen Waverley. This has been going on long enough that we should have good, solid data on who is doing this and why, and that's not being done."

Amit Menghani, president of the Federation of Indian Students of Australia, says attacks have been under-reported because students who have made complaints have been met with what they see as inaction. Menghani says one Indian student filed a complaint with police after he was robbed but heard nothing and so did not bother to report two subsequent robberies. But two recent incidents brought the issue into sharp relief. Shravan Kumar, 25, was stabbed in the head with a screwdriver after two apparently intoxicated young men intruded on a birthday party. Both were described as white and aged about 20. Two weeks after he was attacked, Kumar's recovery remains uncertain. Another student, Baljinder Singh, was discharged from The Alfred hospital this week. He had been stabbed in the stomach with a screwdriver by two men as they robbed him of his wallet. Security camera footage of an attack by youths on a Werribee-bound train on May 9 appears to show teenagers of mixed origins, none particularly white, beating a defenceless traveller. It is routinely said that gangs of Anglo-Australian, Asian and European youths engage in attacks. Some travel from outer suburbs such as Melton and from northern and eastern suburbs to western suburbs such as Sunshine. Menghani, who felt safe when he arrived in Australia five years ago, says his sense of security has diminished over the past three years. He believes that official figures significantly understate the extent of the problem.

Images of Kumar and Singh, in hospital, variously stitched and intubated, were broadcast widely through India, prompting protests and calls to Australia from parents alarmed about the safety of their offspring. India's economic resurgence, with its booming software and IT industries and annual growth rates of 8 per cent, has boosted the middle class and given the country self-confidence. Before the recent economic boom, Indians used to chafe at their country's portrayal abroad as either a place of grotesque poverty or an exotic land of snake charmers and elephants. What the images of the injured students conveyed was India once again reduced to the status of Western whipping boy, this time in the form of "curry-bashing". Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan this week responded by rejecting an honorary degree from a Brisbane university.

The same sentiment has permeated television studio debates, in which participants ask why Indian students, decent and law-abiding, are being victimised and what is being done about it. Some Indians feel that the billions of dollars pumped into the Australian economy by Indian students should be used as a weapon by Delhi. "Let's suspend Australian universities from recruiting Indians. That will teach them to stab Indians with screwdrivers," says 18-year-old student Anjali Gupta. But the enmity evident in parts of India is not shared by everyone in Melbourne's Indian community. Federation of Indian Associations of Victoria president Vasan Srinivasan, an education consultant who recruits students to Australia, says: "Those of us living here 15 or 20 years, we are very happy in this country. Unfortunately, the media in India has really pushed it too high. The reaction is at boiling point. Parents are very unhappy, they are calling me asking if their son is all right."

Srinivasan dismisses claims that Australia is racist. A Liberal candidate for the seat of Forest Hill in the 2002 state election, he says he experienced nothing  in visiting thousands of homes during the campaign  to suggest racism was an issue. Safety, however, is a concern. Melbourne University's Simon Marginson says the Victorian Government has appeared oblivious to security issues worrying those living in the western suburbs. "The thing that is surprising is the State Government held a review of the situation of international students last year," he says. "It came out with a report that did not see a pattern of attacks. It did not get to grips with it at all." That report, by the Overseas Student Education Experience Taskforce, was dated December. It said that overseas students might lack local knowledge that would help them minimise risks, but showed no recognition of the rising crime rate involving foreign students. Significantly, it did note that "students are often reluctant to report incidents of crime to authorities". It also pointed out that students might be working and travelling at times that increased their risk. As one observer noted, those employed in casual shift work such as stacking supermarket shelves at night were often vulnerable when travelling home, often on public transport. Western suburbs police commander Trevor Carter objects to the term "attacks". He says robberies  armed or otherwise  are, by definition, crimes in which property is stolen. They are not strictly attacks against the person.

Nonetheless, there has been a worrying trend of gratuitous violence accompanying some thefts, with victims stabbed after handing over their property. "We do occasionally see this extra violence. Whether it's violence for violence's sake, or to finish off the crime, I would not like to speculate," Carter says. "It is something that's of great concern to us." But while race may play a part in some attacks, "by and large, we are not seeing that the incidents are racially motivated", he says. Carter says the increase in crime against people of Indian background has accompanied an eightfold increase in the number of Indian students in Melbourne, from 5200 in 2002 to more than 46,000 last year. This is a reflection in part of increasing wealth in India, but also of India's failure to provide educational opportunities for its own. Tertiary education in India is reserved for the academic elite. FOR the merely smart teenager, the choice is often between a second-rank university in India or a good university in countries such as Australia.

"What makes studying in Australia even more appealing is that students can get a permanent resident's visa. For Indians who want international exposure, who want to live abroad and get a taste of a different life, this is an unbeatable combination," says educational consultant Deepak Singh. Perhaps this helps explain why many of the young Indians who have accepted a place at Australian universities this year intend to go ahead with their studies. Having weighed up the pros and cons, most of them appear to have concluded that while the situation is worrying it is not quite as grave as the Indian media would like them to think. Many have relatives or friends in Australia. In panic, they have called them in the past fortnight to ask for advice and been surprised to hear calm voices of reassurance. "My uncle in Melbourne told me that such attacks can happen anywhere and that Australia is as racist as any other country and no more. He told me to relax, go there and just concentrate on my studies," says Mir Mohammed, 23, from Chennai, South India. An equally powerful point was made by film star Aamir Khan in his blog. While calling the attacks "most disturbing", he urged Indians to remember the crimes against foreigners in India.

There have been several cases of foreign women being raped in the past two years. In 1999, Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two young boys, aged seven and nine, were burnt to death by a Hindu nationalist gang while sleeping in their car in Orissa, eastern India. "Indians would have been furious if Australians had painted all Indians as devils and child murderers after the horrific murder of Staines and his poor boys. Likewise, we shouldn't brand the whole of Australia as racist," says commentator Parsa Venkateshwar Rao. Nevertheless, what has fuelled the angry media coverage, according to Delhi advertising executive and commentator Suhel Seth, has been Kevin Rudd's failure to demonstrate his determination to act. Words, evidently, are not enough. "You have to send out the signal that you won't tolerate this kind of behaviour  and Rudd didn't," Seth says. What could Rudd have done differently? He could have shown statesmanship, Seth says, by visiting injured student Shravan Kumar in hospital. Ian Munro is an Age senior writer. Amrit Dhillon is an Age correspondent.