Return to reason

Khalidoscope mourns the war of words between the media in India and Australia and wishes for a...

Just when it seemed that reason was prevailing and the essential reality behind the perceived 'racist' attacks on Indian students in Australia logically understood, an unfortunate war of words has erupted between sections of the media in the two countries.

If not nipped in the bud expeditiously, the fracas, which has perilous chauvinistic potential, could aggravate the already fractured relations between the two democratic countries, which have worked extremely hard in the recent past to build mutually beneficial bridges inu00a0 commerce and industry, as well as in education, culture and diverse other fields.

When reports of the frequent attacks on hapless Indian students in Melbourne and Sydney first appeared in the media, there was understandable concern and consternation in both countries.

With Australian politicians and police initially coming across as dilatory, if not downright insouciant, concern turned to outrage in the form of protest rallies by migrant Indians which, according to impartial reports from Australia, were handled in ham-handed fashion by the country's police force.

With a section of the Indian, especially electronic, media getting increasingly shrill, if not frenzied, the impression rapidly gained ground in India that the Australian authorities, if not downright complicit in the attacks, were not doing enough to come to terms with the galloping cancer of 'racism' in their country.

Thanks to the unflagging efforts of Indian diplomats Down Under, as well as well-meaning votaries of Indo-Australian friendship in both nationalities, the nuances of the problem were painstakingly explained to the many hotheads in Australia and India.

People gradually came to understand the problem in its essence: That the widely-reported attacks were not necessarily directed towards Indians per se, but were part of a deeper economic malaise of unemployment caused by the global economic crisis. Studies were quoted to establish that diverse ethnic communities had been targeted by lumpen elements.

It was explained that the attacks were the doings not of racists but, often, of alcoholics and drug addicts who found passive Indians, often residing in crime-infested suburbs, who worked late hours and walked back home from work for reasons of economy, "soft" targets.

It was also explained that many of the unfortunate, unsuspecting Indian victims are in Australia because of the nexus between unscrupulous, money-grabbing immigration agentsu00a0 in India and shady Australian educational institutions, that award worthless degrees and diplomas which, professedly, enable them to stay back in Australia as migrants.

An attack on a woman Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) undercover television reporter of Indian origin in Sydney last Saturday by an Indian (KHALIDOSCOPE, July 28),u00a0 has, unfortunately, stoked the dying embers.

The undercover reporter has said her attacker "looked like an Indian person" and "I was threatened in Hindi".

The reporter, who had previously received two threatening telephone calls, was attacked in a Sydney street last Saturday when a man, said to be wearing a turban, came at her with an "almighty elbow to the right shoulder".

The reporter, a 28-year old long-time resident of Australia who covertly exposed the scams for ABC TV's Four Corners programme was quoted yesterday as saying: "I'm just very appalled with the Indian media assuming that this was a racist attack."

She is reported by The Australian newspaper as saying Indian commentators had "no right to speak because their own country was classist and racist".
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The nationally-circulated daily described the Indian media's response, especially that ofu00a0 English-language television channel Times Now, as "reaching a new level of hysteria with (Prime Minister) Kevin Rudd called a 'racist'".

The female reporter had gone undercover for the television programme during an investigation that was
telecast on Monday night and exposed widespread corruption within the international student and migration sectors.

Angrily denying the attack on her was racially motivated, the reporter said: "I know it was not a racially motivated attack. Most sane Indian students in Sydney and Melbourne don't think these are racist-motivated attacks at all.

"Every country has a bit of racism here and there. And really with the classist system in India, we have no right to speak. Certainly we have way more racism in our country than here in Australia."

Displaying the story on top of page one, The Australian newspaper lashed out at 24-hour Times Now's "Racism Beyond Shame" banner, behind programmes called "Yes, it's Racism"u00a0 and "Take This Mr Rudd" saying it had launched a "bizarre attack on the Australian prime minister."

The report lambasted the show's host Arnab Goswami for his comment that Rudd's earlier comments on
the attacks were 'shocking' and for accusing the PM of 'trivialising' racist attacks on Indian students."

The Telegraph newspaper has also criticised the Indian Express website and ridiculed a segment of the Times Now programme which opened with the lines: "Racism so brutal, so horrific, so undiluted in its venom that it's shocked the country once we began reporting it."

It said: "The latest case has been deliberately shorn of one key fact so the white clique running this country can be held to account for an Indian bloke beating up an Indian woman journalist."

Very sad, indeed, especially since the rupture in relations comes in the wake of the unfortunate, emotion-charged cricketing brouhaha of 2007, which did immeasurable harm to relations between the two countries.

It's time for a return to sweet reasonableness on both sides. Yes, it's time a start was madeu00a0pronto!