Rajni A.Luthra asks Mediawallahs to cool it please!
Most Indian homes in Australia have had this phone call from concerned family in India by now. “Are you alright? What are they doing to you guys over there?”
It’s almost as if Australian gangs are roaming the trains seeking out Indians to bash up, or roaming the streets seeking out Indian homes to throw petrol bombs into.
“Stay safe,” the relatives are saying over the phone from across hundreds of miles. “Don’t go out alone at night; don’t take ‘pangas’ with others on the trains …”
The Indian TV channels have put out so much material on the Australian situation that they are actually making Australia out to be an unsafe place to live in, at least for Indians.
I hope overacting…er..overreacting film stars get the message too.
And a reaction from an Aussie blogger, Barry Pittard, that I liked:
Linked by kuffir. Join Blogbharti facebook group.We in Australia cannot forever, and unchallenged, pose ourselves as the great and successful multicultural undertaking on which many of us have felt a pride. Though there is truth and remarkable accomplishment, there is a point at which the resting on laurels, lazy assumptions and government propaganda have to be ground to a halt by our strong effort.
Among other authorities, Australian educators are going to have to address these issues very seriously and imaginatively. No ethnic group, or individual, should have to suffer any slight. A few years ago, I learnt that my former Indian yoga teacher, a woman, one of the most gracious and loved people one could ever meet, had been spat on. The disturbingness of this act dealt to one person is serious, but what to speak when reports of horrible actions are wider spread.
Dear All at Blogbharti,
I thank you for having positively quoted from one of my articles on the attacks on Indian students. Many readers of my blogs are from India as well as Non Resident Indians from various countries, as well as many countries round the world. I lived in India for a number of years, and found myself in both ‘palaces’ and abodes of hundreds of the poorest of the poor, constantly surrounded by loving care for my health and well-being. Whoever encounters the ancient graces inherent in that is changed forever. Therefore, I know that the voices of hatred emitting from India against Australia are from particular sectors typically sunk in a vicious communalism, crying ‘Racism!’ – even while pronouncing it in each syllable. They mistake an effigy bonfire to be the light of their intelligence, which reminds one of mental prowess of the very street hooligans who have attacked Indian students in Australia. Those frenzied shouters who deem the rabid voices of sensationalist media to be alike to wisdom from enlightened sages relate to none of that love and goodness that I found throughout India as I extensively travelled. Of course, I knew that madness was somewhere, as it is anywhere. They heed a dangerously irresponsible section print and television media, and are clearly are not listening to what responsible leaders in the Indian community in Australia have been saying, such as Gautam Gupta, a spokesman for the Federation of Indian Students of Australia (FISA, and Vasan Srinivasan, president of the Federation of Indian Associations of Victoria, what to speak of other respected ethnic leaders in Australia.
I have blogged three articles on the attacks:
- “Attacks By Hooligans Against Foreign Students In Australia”
http://barrypittard.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/attacks-by-hooligans-against-foreign-students-in-australia/
- “Indian Students Attacked In Melbourne Australia: Cricket Star Brett Lee Voices Concerns”
http://barrypittard.wordpress.com/2009/06/04/indian-students-attacked-in-melbourne-australia-cricket-star-brett-lee-voices-concerns/
- “Attacks Against Indian Students in Melbourne, Australia”
http://barrypittard.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/attacks-against-indian-students-in-melbourne-australia/
Barry Pittard, Australia