Kanan Kharbanda and his friend were Indian students in Australia. Late one night in March 2008 they were in Sunshine, a western suburb of Melbourne, waiting for his wife to arrive on the last local train. Then 15 to 20 Australians came up to them and asked for a dollar. When they showed their empty pockets they were beat up.
When the police arrived Kharbanda asked for an ambulance or first aid, The police said, “Take a taxi. We know what our job is, you bloody overseas.” After he got to the hospital he waited eight and a half hours, bleeding and in pain, before a doctor saw him. He is now blind in one eye.
Indians are hardly the only ones who are beat up and robbed, but in the western suburbs of Melbourne they account for 30% of those who are. The police see nothing racist in that. They blame the Indians, saying they come home late at night from work. Or carry laptops. Or speak in a foreign language. Like they deserved it or something.
There were at least 70 such cases reported over the past 12 months, though many probably go unreported, given how it might affect their education and given how the police are.
The number of Indian students in Australia has tripled over the past five years to nearly 100,000. It is cheaper than Britain or America. Half live in or near Melbourne.
Australia makes billions from its foreign students, more than it does from sheep. Only coal and iron ore bring in more money. Yet somehow it could not see fit to protect them.
Not, that is, till India made a big deal out of it after stories like this one kept appearing in its newspapers.
The Indian press called the violence “racist”. Australians did not like that: Australia is a tolerant and multicultural nation that respects and embraces diversity, as the (white) prime minister put it. Yes, a place where Indians are called racist names not just by the roughnecks who beat and rob them but even by the police and ten-year-olds.
When the Indian students complained, the police were slow to take them seriously and do something about it. They were slower still to admit that racism might have anything to do with it.
On May 30th 2009 Indian students staged a protest, about 4,000 strong, in the middle of Melbourne. It met its share of police violence. A week later smaller protests were held in Sydney, which has its troubles too.
Amitabh Bachchan, a famous Bollywood actor, refused an honorary degree from an Australian university, saying, “I did not feel like accepting the honour when so much dishonour against my countrymen was taking place.”
A Bollywood union refuses to film in Australia till things get better. Two hit films in 2008 were shot there.
Australia has agreed to increase police in places which have had trouble and is thinking of passing a hate crime law.
New Zealand now courts Indian students saying that it is different than Australia – in a good way.
Abagond 
Yeah that stuff is horrible. The government should get off its fat behind and protect the students and everyone else!
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Unfortunately what people say about australia is true, my white best buddie came back from there after a month using foul racial language ( that she had never used before) about Indians and pakistanis, reasoning that
” they use it in austrailia and nobody complains, whats so wrong with the word P***, britain has lost it’s nerve and is toothless, it’s political correctness gone mad!”
BTW i started going off her real fast, she never used those words before but she reasoned it was ok afterwards, if they were always ok, why hadn’t she used them all along?
she married some jingoistic madman in the army and now travels the world like some colonial bride.
we have not talked really since the turn of the century when she said these things!
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Australia’s is a thuggish, backward society with a long history of brute behavior, including but not limited to racism and racist violence. When I was in college, back in the late 1970’s, a professor of Czeck origin reported similar treatement during his stint at an Australian university: “Go back to your own bloody country, you bloody overseas.”
Keep in mind that its early European population came from outcasts and misfits — many of whom were criminals and sociopaths. Then, for several generations, they inbred. This I think explains a lot about their backwards attitudes and behavior.
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I’m not even gonna start on Australia…
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Blanc2 said:
“Go back to your own bloody country, you bloody overseas.”
That is just the sort of thing they to the Indians too, though they have more specific epithets than just “overseas”.
Based on the press reports they seem to be pretty blind to their own racism, just like Lifeisannoying’s friend.
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That’s terrible…no one should be treated like that.
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*shakes head* I have no words.
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This can be good. Well written.
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That’s terrible. I’m glad this post is written regarding hate crimes against Indian students in Australia. Just like white Americans, white Australians are blind to their racism.
My heart goes out to the Indian students in Australia. May God give them strength.
La Reyna
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To Whom It May Concern…
Wow…
I am flabbergasted..
I didn’t even know that there were so many Indians in Australia, coming there for their education.
I always seem to think Latinos and blacks have it hard all the time…and that Asians aren’t THAT discriminated.
Now…I always seem to forget that Indians also suffer just as much as any other minority.
I am very sad to hear how racist people still are.
I never understood…why people hate each other based on skin or religion..
I really don’t get it.
I remember when I was little, I asked my mother why Jewish ppl were killed because most of them looked white…0_0
So why would they be persecuted…
I know how naive was I back then…
Heavens, it’s horrible. He had to wait that long and now he’s blind in one eye..???
Thank, the Lord he still has the other.
As a human being I am disgusted in ourselves…it’s incredibly sad.
Sincerely,
***Marie-Francoise**
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BLINDE!! this is just awfull..
i remember once reading a repoert stating that only 1% of the aboriginal australians are employed, they have a high unemployment and crime rates,and most of them are kept in prisons. all of this is being intentionally done by the government. if this happens to the original inhabitants of the land, then such racist behaviours are so likely to happen with the so called “overseas”.
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The Indian press called the violence “racist”
I had heard about this since I work with quite a few Asian Indians.. what is not said in this article but what you can find if you read enough articles is the main culprits are Lebanese (but not exclusively) immigrants (or more likely the children of Lebanese immigrants…) that doesn’t let Australia off the hook but it makes it more complex.
“Indians in Australia say Lebanese youths behind attacks.”
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Indians-Abroad/Indians-in-Australia-say-Lebanese-youths-behind-attacks/articleshow/4646950.cms
“Indian students on Thursday alleged that Lebanese youths were behind the racially-motivated attacks on them in Australia [ Images ] as they took to the streets for the third consecutive night protesting against racial attacks.
The spate of racial attacks against Indians spread to Sydney [ Images ] after members of the community were targeted in Melbourne [ Images ]. Scores of Indian students on Wednesday night took to the streets of Harris Park in Sydney for the third consecutive night to protest racially-motivated against them by Lebanese youths. ”
http://world1.rediff.com/news/report/2009/jun/11/indian-students-allege-lebanese-attack-them.htm
“Indian students demand protection from Lebanese youth near Harris Park in Sydney on June 10. They’re getting regular beatings and, they say, the police don’t care. For many Indians, it wasn’t what they were expecting in Australia.”
http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Sydney/photo//090614/photos_wl_sa_afp/c6403004eb0fb530df2aee234006eb43//s:/afp/20090614/wl_sthasia_afp/australiaindiaeducationcrime
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More:
‘Lebanese’ angle to Australia attacks
Melbourne, June 11 (PTI): Indian students held protests for the third consecutive night in Sydney yesterday and accused Lebanese youths of being behind several of the recent racist attacks.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090612/jsp/nation/story_11098794.jsp
http://www.zeenews.com/news538647.html
Sydney, June 12: Indian students on Thursday alleged that Lebanese youths were behind the attacks on them here as they took to streets for the third consecutive night protesting against racial attacks.
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The attackers have come in all races, even black and Pacific Islander. I have yet to read a breakdown by race or even a statement like “most attackers are Lebanese” or even “most attackers are white”. If you know of one I would be interested to see it. The stories you gave were about Harris Park, a suburb of Sydney, just a part of the picture and not even the biggest part.
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Uncle Milton said:
I had heard about this since I work with quite a few Asian Indians..
I was surprised that blogs like Racialicious (American) or Restructure! (Canadian) have not been covering this, but then when I went back and did some searches it seems to be covered mainly by the press in Australia, India and the Middle East. I first heard about it through AFP (French) and Al Jazeera (Arab).
The British and American press have said next to nothing about it. Not even the Global Post (American), despite its name. In a search on the Times of London all I could find were complaints about them not covering it, but no article. With the New York Times it seems that people do not even know to complain.
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The attackers have come in all races, even black and Pacific Islander. I have yet to read a breakdown by race or even a statement like “most attackers are Lebanese” or even “most attackers are white”.
True… although one of the stories references attacks in Melbourne. I looked a little further after I posted the above and found two Wikipedia entries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_attacks_on_Indian_students_in_Australia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Australian
Which affirms you comments that the attackers come in all colors.
I may have been influenced by the comment section of some India newspapers or from my work colleagues in regards to connections to Lebanese attackers. Mind you I grew up hearing more than once from my father, who emigrated from Mexico, many positive statements about Lebanese immigrants in Latin America (Such as President Lula and Carlos Ghosn of Brazil) so I was surprised about these allegations in Australia.
The British and American press have said next to nothing about it.
Yep, it seems most of the coverage is Indian or Australian.
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I think this article is a little too bias. I know Australia is a racist country but seriously this article takes the racist minority of white Australians way too seriously.
This entire happening has been blown completely out of proportion by the media and people such as Abagond. Yes I do admit that Australia has a violent past of racism but if people cannot see that we have come past that then they are truly trapped in the past.
If people really want to look at a prejudiced nation look at India itself. Their religion and caste system have separated people for centuries just because of which class they are born to. I ask you is this really any better than racism.
I think until the world can accept people for who they are and fix problems within their own nation and within themselves that we will be doomed to a violent globe.
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Yes I’m sure India has its own set of issues as well as any other nation, but how does it change what is happening to these students in Australia?
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How does the caste system in India have anything to do with racial violence against Indian students in Australia?
I hate when people do that. Try to shift the focus of discussion to some irrelevant matter. “Hey racial violence doesn’t matter because look at their own society!”
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#3. Blanc2 Says:
Thu 18 Jun 2009 at 13:25:53
“Australia’s is a thuggish, backward society with a long history of brute behavior, including but not limited to racism and racist violence… Then, for several generations, they inbred. This I think explains a lot about their backwards attitudes and behavior.”
er yeah… *rolls eyes*
we also ride kangaroos to work, drop bears attack you from above and um… we throw A LOT of SHRIMPS on the BARBIE too!!!
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Rhys:
I tried to stick to facts. If Austrlia comes off seeming racist, well maybe that is something you should seriously think about rather than quickly deny it and shift blame.
India, from what I understand, is far more racist than Australia would ever dream of being. But Australia, if it is anything like America and Britain, has certain ideas about what is right and wrong. And one of those ideas is that everyone, regardless of race or religion or even wealth, has a right to equal protection under the law. The Indian students were not getting that.
America where I live is racist too, but you do not see me denying it and trying to point fingers away from it. That does not help anyone.
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Thank you for your comment Abagond, and please I apologize if it seemed if that I was to anti-Indian which I am definetly not.
All I was saying was that nations should focus on their own problems first, instead of focusing on critisizing other nations.
Also uninformed and bias comments from people such as Blanc2 simply make me angry and this is racism exclty how the horrible actions of the Cronnula riots and the muggings and bashings of these Indian students started.
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I completely agree with Rhys’ comment. The views expressed in this blog as well as some of the comments (I’m looking at you Blanc2)are extremely biased. Does it matter that our PM’s white, what are you trying to say? That electling a western PM in a western nation indicates racism?
Please go spend some time out in the real world, and experience how privilidged we are to live in Australia where people of all races can live together in harmony.
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The British and American press have said next to nothing about it.
There’s an article in Time magazine about it. What’s notable about the articles out there is the lack of details of the perpetrators and how these attacks different from regular muggings and thuggery and attacks on the even larger Chinese student population.
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Please go spend some time out in the real world, and experience how privilidged we are to live in Australia where people of all races can live together in harmony.
***************
Harmony????? Classic case on How to derail an important issue 101…deny… deny… then… upon last resort…shift blame.
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Hi, I know I’m a bit late to this discussion, but I read your blog with interest, as well as the responses.
I am an Australian, I study at Swinburne University in Melbourne with a large overseas contingent (including many Indian students) and I play cricket with a team that also has many Indian, Pakistani and Sri Lankan cricketers.
LIKE MOST AUSTRALIANS, and indeed most Melburnians, I have been deeply dismayed by the reports of violence against Indian students in my city. I am not here to deny that they were racially motivated, but I would like to posit some kind of explanation for the reaction to these terrible crimes.
Australia is an incredibly racially diverse country, and Melbourne is the most diverse of all Australian cities. We are a country built on immigration and it is our great strength that, I believe, we are the greatest multicultural country on earth. Even though I am a student once again, I am old enough (40) to have seen many waves of immigration to this city. In the 50s and 60s, racism was directed at the Italian and Greek immigrants who came here after World War 2, in the 70s it was the Vietnamese who came here after the war in Vietnam, since then it has been Croats, Serbs, Iraqis, Afghans, Sudanaese, Ethiopians. Do you detect a trend here? Australia is a refuge, one of the most generous in the history of humanity. We have welcomed immigrants from war-torn countries throughout the 20th century. Ask yourself the question, which are the least racist countries on earth? I think you will find they are the ones with the least racial diversity. Do we have racists here? You bet we do. Doesn’t everywhere? There has been a massive influx of Indian students to my city in the last five years, and I have been very fortunate to call a good number of them my friends. Some of them have received phone calls from home in recent months asking if they are OK. All of them have laughed “of course I’m OK dad!”. These are isolated incidents, and they will pass too. When I was on holidays in New York in the 1980s, I was warned never to travel alone on the train after dark, don’t carry a bag with your passport or display your camera, and don’t look up at the buildings when you are sightseeing, as it gives away the fact that you are not local. Are Americans racist against Australians? I don’t think so. But criminals will seek out easy targets and exploit those weaknesses wherever they can. I believe that is what has happened in some cases here that have been labelled ‘racist’ attacks.
Anyway, thanks for your time and good luck. I welcome you to my city, Melbourne, any time. You will be very unlucky if you do not have a great time here.
Cheers, Seymour.
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I believe, we are the greatest multicultural country on earth.
I beg to differ, Canada has already staked their claim on this title!
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I’ve just come to this thread really late… but I’ve studied this issue more than most.
There’s spin and exaggeration on both sides. Plenty of Australians are in a hurry to deny that it is a problem, and deny that racism is a factor; when it clearly is in many cases. On the other side, some in the Indian media are guilty of exaggerating the nature of the problem.
It’s not as simplistic as a lot of people would make out.
We are talking about a wide range of incidents, some of which were definitely racially motivated, and some of which were muggings or random drunken acts in which the victim just happened to be Indian. And in the middle are some incidents which were not primarily about race, but racism probably had an effect on how they turned out.
This is an article that I wrote that addresses some of the misconceptions on the issue.
http://eurasian-sensation.blogspot.com/2010/02/addressing-myths-and-misconceptions.html
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Blanc2
The criminals and sociopaths as you describe Australia’s first whites did not commit anywhere near the crime that the immigrant gangs of today have committed
Australians have been very tolerant of immigrants for decades now. Sadly they aren’t as tolerant of us and it’s our country
If no one likes it, LEAVE!
It’s simple
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quote Eurasian sensation from his blog
” I do not have all the information available to the police,”
exactly. So until you know the facts, be quiet!
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@ Alan:
In contrast to you who speak as if you know everything, based on your comments on another post.
The difference is that I admit I don’t know everything, but I base my opinions on rigorously compiling all the information available in the media.
I wonder if you see the irony in proclaiming the tolerance of Australia, then in the same breath announcing “If you don’t like it, leave!”
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You are foolish to believe the media. They cover up the multicultural nature of the crimes. Knowing this ,I waited, and sure enough, it emerged the offenders were themselves foreign. I say foreign, as a citizenship ceremony, does not make an Australian by itself. Their behaviour was very un Australian
I am tolerant. I repeat, if you don’t like it, leave. The choice I leave for the individual
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And yet when it comes to blacks your faith in the media is childlike.
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how do you mean?
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@ Alan:
There are also plenty in the media who have an interest in playing up the “ethnic” identity of offenders – Andrew Bolt, for example. The media is not one big monolithic entity.
Also, by offenders, which ones are you talking about? There are a hundred or so examples of street violence against Indians in Australia in the last couple of years. You appear to be selectively quoting a handful that suit your argument.
They just caught a couple of the teenagers who stabbed Nitin Garg to death, btw. Ethnicity described as Caucasian.
See? I can selectively quote too.
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The criminals and sociopaths as you describe Australia’s first whites did not commit anywhere near the crime that the immigrant gangs of today have committed.
Tell it to the judge.
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No selective quoting here. The attacks on indians has been by ethnics gangs, not Aussies
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@ Alan:
Until you have data to show what race all the attackers were in all the incidents, then you are selectively quoting.
Some of the violence has been due to “ethnic” gangs. Much of it hasn’t. You can easily find examples of Anglo-Australians involved, just as you can find examples of Africans, Lebanese, Pacific Islanders and Asians.
I waited, and sure enough, it emerged the offenders were themselves foreign.
What incident are you talking about?
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Do not speak bad about my country until you have been here yourself, yeah we may potentially have a racism problem, but that is by the vast minority who have given us this ‘bad name’ I am an 18 year old white/Lebanese student, I do not engage in any racial behaviour nor do I deem it appropriate at any time to participate in such behaviour, however I believe all countries have their problems, yes we are doing things about ours.
I believe Indian attacks in my city of Melbourne have been significantly reduced as a direct result of government attempts to stop these actions.
Do not abuse or talk bad about us when you don’t really understand the situation, you are in the wrong with your ability to cast the entire majority of us to one side (who are doing the right thing) and allow a tiny minority to persuade your views about us.
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