Anguish in Australia
P.S. SURYANARAYANA in Singapore (REUTERS)
Sravan Kumar Theerthala, a student from Andhra Pradesh, in the intensive care unit of a Melbourne hospital. He was attacked in a suburb of the city.
INDIAN students in Australia have made their anguished voice heard as never before. They have also succeeded in placing their plight on the bilateral agenda of the governments of Australia and India.
The crisis, which erupted in the last week of May, centres on a heightened sense of insecurity among the Indians enrolled at Australian campuses. A new wave of anxiety was whipped up by a brutal attack on Sravan Kumar Theerthala in a Melbourne suburb. As this is written, he still remains hospitalised. The hospital itself became a starting point for a rally against alleged racist attacks.
At the other end of the spectrum, it is easy to recognise that multicultural Australia has no state policy of racism. In fact, the very presence of an estimated number of 96,000 Indian students in that country should testify to this. A more conservative estimate is between 70,000 and 80,000. In addition, Indian-origin citizens of Australia number nearly 200,000. And, as some independent observers recount, it is a long time now since Australia gave up its “whites only” policy as an article of political faith.
Within the framework of this indisputable big picture, a number of attacks followed the one on Sravan Kumar. Unofficial estimates placed the total at a minimum of 10 in the course of a month before June 10. According to some long-time observers, the “problem” is nothing new. It has been snowballing during the past few years. Only, the savagery of the assault on Sravan Kumar, whatever the provocation if any at all, outraged Indian students.
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