Fixing things down under

Brand Australia has taken a beating

The attacks on Indians, mostly students, in Australia keep hitting news headlines with disturbing regularity. The authorities in Australia don’t seem to either know what to do about it, or don’t seem to care about it. Apart from denying that the attacks are “racist”, there has been little done to reassure Indians seeking to travel to Australia. The problem is no longer just about improving public relations. It is about reversing a disturbing trend. Over the past year, there have been more than 100 incidents involving attacks on Indians. The violence is only escalating, as the killing of Nitin Garg last week and the burning of 29-year-old Jaspreet Singh, who is in a serious condition in a Melbourne hospital, prove. Indeed, the government has been remarkably restrained, advising Indian students to travel in groups and to avoid going to dodgy Australian colleges. In other words, the blame is still being sought to be put on the Indians who are studying in various polytechnics in Australia. Still others talk of how Indians behave in a loutish manner or how they need to assimilate into Australian society — all of which may be true, but it cannot, in any way, justify targeting of Indian citizens, nor the complacency of Australia’s authorities.

Perhaps the Government of India must now exert some more pressure on Australian authorities. When its citizens are under such high-profile attacks, racial or not, the government cannot remain a silent spectator. It is a sorry state of affairs that citizens like Amitabh Bachchan refuse to take Australian awards as a form of protest, but the government itself doesn’t think matters need to be escalated. To be sure, Australia is not the only place where people of Indian origin have been under attack. In 2008, Malaysia saw very high-profile targeting of Indians. There have been complaints about human rights abuse in the Arab-Gulf countries. India needs a policy on protecting the life and livelihood of Indians working or studying abroad. Given global demographics for the foreseeable future, out-migration from India to a range of countries around the world can be expected to only increase. Any democratic government in New Delhi will be expected by its people to stand up and be counted when it comes to the welfare of Indians living abroad, especially those who still retain Indian passports. At around $14 billion annually, education is Australia’s third-largest foreign exchange earning industry, and around a fifth of this comes from the 120,000-odd Indians studying there. These numbers will fall given the current image of Australia. But it is one thing for the market to take corrective action — according to a forecast by the Australian government, there will be a 20 per cent fall based on the number of Indian visa applications — and quite another for the government to take action. An immediate reaction should be a ban on Indian students going to all but a handful of recognised Australian universities. If that doesn’t work, other measures can be contemplated later.