Let's Go "Curry Bashing"

When Saurav Ganguly took off his shirt and waved it at the Nat West finals, maybe unknowingly he was flashing the color-to-be  for the 21st century, which was neither to be black, nor to be white, (or even yellow,for that matter !). Yes, Ladies and gentlemen BROWN had started arriving… from all directions…

Brown women winning international pageants; Brown engineers spearheading NASA projects; Brown doctors, Brown corporations, Brown M&As by Brown billionaires. And finally, even the Brown Prime Minister, who bullishly predicted an 8% GDP growth for Brown-Land in 2009 just when the world economy was slumping to its lowest sub zero abyss. Somehow the non-violent, passive underdogs of the last century had found a voice, a breezy confidence and had started teaching the world hitherto new methods to do the old work (and also some new ones) in a smarter way. Clearly the world’s perception of Indians has turned for the better, not just in India but also (more so,maybe)  of the affluent NRI communities abroad. (Even brown bread started scoring brownie points over it's white counterpart !)

This rise in affluence and influence has been welcomed with mixed tones. While the great and fair nations like America, Canada, New Zealand, and to some extent England (in spite of their colonial past) embraced it, Australia seems to be having trouble breaking out of their “whites only” racist past. More than 70 incidents of racial violence including robbery and serious battery have been targeted towards Indian students have been reported in Melbourne alone in the past year. This number could be actually in the excess of a hundred since the victims, the Indian students are wary of reporting such crimes. Primarily because they try to stay out of trouble and keep their records clean in order to avoid future immigration issues.
This has exacerbated the situation and is feeding fuel to the fire and making the Indian students soft and easy targets of such crimes while the guilty go scot free. Aussie (spelt as OZ) Police are curiously soft to these young adult and youth perpetrators letting them go after warning them. As a result, they are encouraging such “Curry Bashing” as this type of violence has been coined. “Let’s go curry bashing” is the new "High" for the under educated youth of Australia when they find time after doing drugs, alcohol, and mugging.

S Chakravarthy PhD, an Australian of Indian origin and an ex professor of an Australian University said “My class in final years usually had 30% of local students and 70% of foreign students. “ and he sites the reason “most local students drop off after the first year and it causes this imbalance.”  He also adds “Besides most foreign students work hard for earning their grades resulting in their getting significant honors. This social imbalance is likely to get out of hand.” Chakravarthy discourages Indian parents to send their kids to Australia as he thinks the standards are no better than that of India. If such violence continues the 15.5 Billion dollars coming from foreign students to the Aussie Universities is at serious risk especially since 1 out of 4 foreign students is Indian. Dr. Singh a Sydney based cardiologist shows his concern over the violence which has been growing in the last four years and referring to the petrol bomb hurled at 25 year old Rajesh Kumar thinks "it is a clear case of racial attack as there is no other angle we can apply to this."

Australia’s new spate of hate crimes on Indian students has been attributed to various reasons. Some as whacky as the reminder of their convict past (British convicts, and prostitutes where shipped to Australia in the late seventeen hundreds as a way to get rid of them). Others think it is the legacy of “Whites only” immigration legislation (1901-1973). The most convincing seems to be envy towards the wealthy Brown community in addition to the facts that they are soft targets avoiding trouble and tacit encouragement of the OZ Police.

It remains to be seen if the Australian Premier, Kevin Rudd, lives up to his words “90,000 Indian students in Australia are welcome guests in our country...and the more than 200,000 Australians of Indian descent are welcome members of the Australian family” and “The Australian government is committed to developing a stronger, closer relationship with India…”
India is a nation which can no longer be dismissed as a land of pear shaped,hideous peasants,and a land of snake charmers,cheats and illitrate folks. Any country ignoring,or abusing India should do a quick re-think .

And to think, that all these years we thought that Browns and Blacks had a law and order problem!
(And on a lighter note finally,the so called invincible Aussie Cricket team have become the favourite thrashing bag for every other cricketing nation.The latest being,Ponting and his punters are out of the WC T20 after two straight defeats in round one itself !! Tsk Tsk.....!)