Even as Australian Ministers, politicians and officials were taking the position in public that there was no racial motivation behind the spate of attacks on Indian students in Australia, chiefly in and around Melbourne in the State of Victoria, Australian diplomats were quietly acknowledging to their U.S. counterparts that it was indeed a likely factor. Also, the Australian government's efforts, in their opinion, had only a limited impact on cooling tempers (230335: confidential, October 20, 2009).
The cables were accessed by The Hindu through WikiLeaks.
The number of Indian students enrolling in Australian universities had steadily grown over the past decade. In 2009, according to international student enrolment data in Australia, about 120,000 Indians had enrolled as full fee-paying international students, making Australia the second most popular educational destination for them after the United States. However, the situation abruptly changed in 2010, when incidents of attacks on Indian students, which had rapidly increased since 2008, reached a crisis point.
A cable sent from the U.S. Embassy in Canberra on January 7, 2010 (242815: confidential), five days after Nitin Garg, a 21-year-old Indian student, was stabbed to death in Melbourne, observed that Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard (she is now the Prime Minister), while condemning the murder, “stopped short of apologizing or referring to racial motivations.” Opposition leader Tony Abbott, the same cable pointed out, had also rejected any such suggestion. However, Peter Varghese, the Indian-origin Australian High Commissioner to New Delhi, seemed to think otherwise. He acknowledged that race “was likely a motivating factor is some attacks.”
The fallout of these attacks was not limited to the student community. “Former Australian Consul General to Mumbai and prominent Melbourne businessman, Shabbir Wahid, noted that concern over the issue was beginning to reach Melbourne's older and better established Indian communities, with some saying that they are reevaluating their long term plans to stay in Australia.”
To Anita Nayyar, the Indian Consul General in Melbourne, the fear of an attack was a personal one.
She confessed that she now “looks over (her) shoulder” while walking around Melbourne's central business district” (248490: confidential, February 12, 2010).
To the Australian government, the worry was two-fold. It had to redeem its battered reputation and image. The loss of revenue on account of fewer international students choosing the country as their destination was the other concern.
Higher education was then Australia's third largest export-earner, behind coal and iron ore, and for the State of Victoria it was the single largest item. In 2010, a U.S. Embassy cable from Canberra (242815: confidential, January 7) noted that Australia's Tourism Forecasting Committee had estimated that the number of students enrolling in Australian universities would come down by 20 per cent compared to the 2009 figures. And this would amount to a loss of $70 million in revenue.
A U.S. Embassy cable (248490: confidential, February 12, 2010), in an interestingly titled section “Press Wranglers Wanted,” noted, citing observers, that the “Victorian government has completely failed to manage the press on this issue” and that “sensationalist press accounts are exacerbating what would have otherwise been a very manageable issue.”
Ms. Nayyar was more candid with her views on the Indian media and the coverage of the issue. She told U.S. diplomats that “a visiting contingent of Indian journalists had already written their headline story, ‘why they hate us,' even before landing in Melbourne for a week-long tour. She went on to say that the Indian press was still enamoured with this story and has paid interviewees well for their stories of woe.”
The cable noted that matters were only made worse by unfortunate public comments including one by Victoria's police chief, Simon Overlander, that “the streets of Melbourne are safer than those in India.”
(This article is a part of the series "The India Cables" based on the US diplomatic cables accessed by The Hindu via Wikileaks.)
Keywords: cable230335, cable242815, cable248490, cable242815, cable248490, The India Cables, cablegate, WikiLeaks, U.S. embassy cables, Australia, students attack, racial attacks, Indian students
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I would like to add one thing in this discussion, have anyone of you
ever visited “Indian Occupied Kashmir”, All the Indians that are
crying for Racism in Australia should first consider the Racism in
“Jammu Kashmir” whatever you guys are doing there you are getting a
response in return from Australia.
Before Blaming Australians for Racisms go and stop this issue in India
as well as in “Indian Occupied Kashmir”
Just like charity begins at home we can think this as Good deeds can
also start from our own home beside this you people start crying when
the same thing happens with you in Australia.
@Hari Thakur - Perhaps you should learn a little more about Australia. Don't make comments about Aborigines when you don't understand either their history or Australia's. And don't be so elitist about whites coming to Australia... Do some research and you will see how diverse it is and has been.
@Kashmira - I understand that students coming to Australia is a business, which universities and institutions make a profit from. But we're not talking about a quick sale, these students will live and breathe in Australia for however long their degree takes, and then if they choose to stay. You can't walk into a Chinese restaurant and demand pasta.
As an Australian girl who has lived in Melbourne, I've heard the comments made and lived the experience. We are all humans but race can define us. And with this comes the stereotype. Stereotypes are for the lazy or uniformed but that's all the information we're given until we learn otherwise. We group people because it's easier. Both Indians and Australians do this. Melbourne has lots of different races, that's what makes it so special. I know there are lots of Indian students in Melbourne, but there are also lots of Asians, and Germans, and Italians.. And they are all crammed into this little city. So it is a greater chance that the person involved is going to be foreign, that doesn't make it racist, it makes it a higher probability.
I have a brother who is blonde haired and blue eyed, and I worry for him every weekend in the city. Not because of race. Because the city at night is full of drunk grumpy people who really just want to go home but are lingering around the city waiting for the public transport to start again. Most fights happen outside McDonalds on Swanston Street because that's where the main train station is and the only buses that run at night. If the public transport was 24/7 and these drunken tired idiots were able to go home there would be less fights. I have seen fights that make you sick outside that very McDonalds and I can tell you, the guy throwing the punch (or carrying the knife) doesn't care where you were born.
@Paul R: Your astute observation about Indians could have little relevance to justify enough hatred to kill (or wish to kill) someone. Here we transition from rules of society ( how loud a person is, dressing sense, cleanliness) to a domain which no human can justify, or even attempt to ( desire to kill someone who is different ).
Could you believe apartheid was still accepted in the major part of 20th century ? ( and the reason then could have looked as convincing as yours, they were different and not cultured enough )
@Paul R: You don't see us bashing in the heads of visiting Englishmen because of the excesses of Imperial England, do you?
This mature Australian is a highly stereotyped person and I can assure you he hasn't traveled much and all his knowledge comes from SBS .What do you expect of this mature Australian, if he meets an Indian..a blank condescending stare.
Paul R: I am surprised and pained to see a so called 'mature Australian' appear to condone these attacks on Indian students. It seems their being 'loud, elitist and misogynistic' allows for them to be physically harmed and killed. This is nonsense. Students of any race and culture are more likely to be loud and boisterous. This does not mean any of them deserve any kind of harm. This is clearly a racist attitude to adopt.
For those of you who suggest that India should look into its own back yard. Are you justifying Racist, cowardly and opportunistic attacks?What ever happens in India is a different issue, we are talking about mental instability of Aussie goons here. These students are customers of Australian education system and they don't deserve to be murdered on streets. @Paul R, How many drunk, rowdy and rude Aussies get killed by say an airline staff when Aussies misbehave in aeroplanes? Do they deserve to be killed the same way as Indian students? Australia sells its degrees to international students and earns big dollars, they have to put up with different cultures and behaviours ( as long as they are not criminal behaviours) to keep their business running and selling their garbage to us.
We are not simply discussing biases (which Indian culture suffers from such caste, etc). This is actual violence happening on people, who happen to be Indians. Australians have a racial issue on their hand and they have not handled it well.
@Paul R: I respect your stance and maybe not all Indians are living up to the standards etiquette demands, but by implying that they invite racial attacks is uncalled for. The 'he-asked-for-it' approach doesn't hold good at this point. Whatever may be the reason, racism is not the answer. There will always be people from any country who may stay aloof from the general crowd, but does that call for attacks? To attack them would be simply horrendous. The issue is much deeper than just the problem of Indians being labelled the 'misfits'. The only answer to this would be education, on our part to make sure we integrate ourselves better into Australian society and to learn your customs and respect them and on your part to learn some hospitality and not put up with racism and help Indians integrate better and not just be 'tolerant' of those who wish to see your land as their future home. Etiquette from both sides. :)
@Paul R:What about Australians been noisy and raudy. I live in london and there are lot of Aussi Pubs hear. Aren't they very noisy, they come and take jobs which belong to Brits so does that mean that they should be stabbed to death as reported in this article. Just because they come from India they are not allowed to be rowdy. The question is not of Indians been rowdy or not. The question is that they have been racially targeted and killed. How many Aussies in India are racially targeted and killed. Do you see the police commissioner of the Indian state saying that are safer in India then Australia. Is going to Australia as a student or tourist of Indian Origin a death penalty? Australians are arrogant. They live among Asians countries, occupy Aborigine land and make Aborigine a minority by inviting white only immigrants in the 40's 50's and 60's and then have the audacity to call Indians rowdy.
You are 100% correct Nimmy. First ask the author if he will allow any dalit in his house will he treat him as equal. First we have to correct ourselves. Rasicm in india comparatively more than from other part of world.
As an Australian citizen and a Public Servant who has seen various facets of society in this country, and others, I can safely say that as a nation, Australia is not racist in policies or governance. However, it is true that the attacks were racially motivated. There ARE people in Oz who are racist and full of hatred. This includes a tiny but powerful Lebanese community, several communities of Eastern European origin, various factions of white-South African and British expatriates and a minority fuelled by Islam. The Chief of Police, at a Uni campus in a Melbourne suburb, when queried by worried international (mostly Indian) students about additional measures to protect them, suggested that they take up self-defense classes. Sounds familiar? That's right. Here in Australia, or in the antipode, Canada, or any so-called developed country, there are political and bureaucratic pockets of cosmic stupidity. The Australian government has always been famous for denial. The Canadian government has always been famous for charlatanism. Isn't it time we, as Indians, stopped presuming that these 'developed' countries actually have developed societies? I'm a true multinational. I am South African, Australian, Canadian, Iranian AND of course, a Bharatha. How? It's complicated, but suffice to say that I am a of pure Bhaarathic lineage - but have seen and lived in various 'developed' societies with a perspective to compare. I hence feel that I can claim that my opinion is not biased culturally or politically, but rather - factually.
It was obvious that a racist element was behind the attacks. If we question ourselves, why are we thinking of fleeing India to Australia for higher education and then suffering the wrath? We know the answers! We are responsible to the situation more than the attacker is.
Sorry to see the condition of Indians Australia. But before that what about the racism in India. These are all the after effects our own actions. We have to correct ourselves first!!!
I am a mature Australian and yes there are racists here, but there is more toleration than you would appreciate. An illustration : if you only associate with medical professionals, it is probable that one develops a heightened awareness of disease. I feel if you focus on negative stories, it is similar to my simple illustration.Having said that, in Melbourne where I live close to the city and many Asian students. I observe young Indian men being distinctly loud, elitist and misogynistic, when I compare them to Singaporean, Thai, Japanese, and Chinese students. As your country's representatives not all of them are well behaved. Whether you believe my observations will be totally up to your cognitive bias.
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