|
The
increasing insecurity felt by Indian students in the
wake of a series of attacks on them by jobless young
Australians, a few of them drug and alcohol addicts is
naturally causing concern. We are told there are around
90,000 Indian students pursuing their academic career in
various universities.
Indian students travel mostly by public transport and
they travel late in the night exposing themselves to
anti-social elements on the prowl. The Australians call
these opportunistic crimes. Initially Australian
authorities did not suspect a racial element , but later
admitted such a possibility.
The incidents have not affected tourist traffic we are
told. The inflow of Indian students also brings in
valuable revenue—according tone calculation about Rs
8677 a year. Australian authorities were prompt to
assure their Indian counterparts that all measures would
be taken to ensure Indian students security and bring
the culprits to book.
The concern expressed over the attacks from various
quarters prompted the country to salvage its battered
image. Deputy Prime minister of Australia ,Julia Gillard
said: “We want to send a message loud and clear that the
Australian government have no tolerance for any actions
based on racial intolerance.”
What is more interesting is the media war that started
while airing the injustice meted out and the cruelty
shown to the Indian students. Australian papers were not
happy with what they described the over reaction of the
Indian press. Even one India student leader reportedly
commented that the Indian media had exaggerated the
racial problem.
There is some truth in the allegations. In their
patriotic as well as competitive fervour, Indian media
often throw caution and objectivity to the winds while
reporting issues. Instead of striving to calm the
nerves, media stories only tended to inflame passions.
One newspaper, giving a first person account, quoted a
victim as advising fellow students not to go to
Australia in view of the hostilities based on race.
Some letters to newspaper editors, and blog writers came
out with very interesting observations responding to the
reports of racialist attacks on Indian students. Through
internet also, a few people pointed out to the hypocrisy
of the media and the government in condemning the
racialism in distant Australia unmindful of the
intolerance witnessed back home now and then.
They pointed to the attack on North Indians in Mumbai in
recent times and the helplessness of the government
against the trouble makers. Racism is only intolerance
of differences based on trivia like the colour of the
skin. Melanin in our skin (the source of colour) or
other considerations like the shape of the nose or eyes
are not determinants of man’s worth and let us not think
God made a mistake in making peoples in different shapes
and colours. The words of Martin Luther King Jr who left
a mark in the fight against racism said: “ Our only hope
today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary
spirit and go into a sometimes hostile world declaring
eternal hostility to poverty, racism and militarism”
Great democracies are built on the foundation of human
equality. “We hold these truths to be self- evident that
all men are created equal, that they are endowed by
their creator with certain unalienable Rights that among
these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
We have enshrined the spirit of these opening words of
the Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson
while all along we had violated this principle denying
to people basic freedoms.
The way the Dalits, tribes and backward classes have
been treated for centuries and their existence of the
masses as cattle herds – in poverty, disease and
ignorance—must shame all of us who feel indignant over
the Australian incidents of hostility.
The hatred or intolerance based on religion, language or
caste are no worse than that caused by difference in
race. If the Maharashtrian can not tolerate the Bihari
or the Tamilian can not accept a Malayali who do not
differ much from one another how could they preach to
the distant Australian to be tolerant? Recall the
countrywide opposition to Mrs Sonia Gandhi becoming
prime minister just because she was born in Italy? She
had the mandate of the people and yet racial prejudices
and false patriotic spirit denied her the right to hold
to power. Our parochial tendencies have not disappeared
with time but had only increased causing divisions and
hindering unity and progress and peace.
The way Christians were hounded out from their homes,
beaten and burnt in Orissa have not faded from memory.
It was just a rehearsal of the same intolerance shown to
Muslims in Gujarat or the Sikhs of Delhi at different
times. If this country has to be made safe for all
people, the civil society must be vigilant against the
ways of politicians, wayward communalists and other
divisive forces. It is still unthinkable how in a
developed nation like ours marauding crowds could freely
go around killing and destroying whatever they did not
like. And all that happened while honorable men and law
enforcing agencies of a whole state kept watching as
bystanders for months together!
Only in the last week of May, a religious leader was
shot dead in a gurudwara in Vienna by his rivals. There
was rioting, burning and looting in the whole of Punjab
for a couple of days and life came to a standstill. It
is estimated that public property worth Rs 7000 crores
were destroyed by unruly mobs in a couple of days. Where
is tolerance? Where is respect for the rule of law?
We still have to go a long way before we can even dream
like the late Martin Luther King Jr that our children
will live in a nation where they will not be judged by
the language they speak, the religion they follow or by
the caste they belong to but by the ‘content of their
character.’
The Australian events should be eye opener, especially
to the intolerant of this land of the pain and anxiety
caused to the innocents when those drunk with power and
confident of their physical strength seek to ignore the
basic human rights of others just because they differ in
some way like worshipping a different God!
Racial prejudices prevail all over the world. Racism,
racial discrimination, xenophobia and related
intolerance are problems that occur on a daily basis in
every part of the world hindering progress in millions
of lives all over. The ‘Outcome Document’ of the 2001
world conference, “the Durban Declaration and Programme
of Action which was adopted by consensus is the most
comprehensive and valuable framework for addressing the
racial issue and related intolerance the world over.
It encompasses far reaching measures to combat racism
with all its manifestations calling for tougher anti-
discrimination legislation and administrative measures,
for better education, access to health and
administration of justice, for greater efforts to fight
poverty and secure development, for improved remedies
and resources available to victims of recession and for
greater multiculturalism and respect for rule of law and
human rights. Also the Durban Review Conference took
place in Geneva from April 20 to 24, 2009. It evaluated
the progress made towards goals set at the world
conference in 2001.
It was amusing to recall that on the question of
participating in the anti-racism conference by India in
2001, the government then in power ruled that casteism
is not the same as racism. Those who know the role that
caste plays in the life, politics and economics of this
nation will only know too well that it is far worse!
The fierce Gandhi-Ambedkar debates over the evils of
casteism ended with the demise of both and the
oppressive rule of caste continues to confine masses of
this land to a life of misery. Today a score of
politicians like Mayawati have appeared on the scene as
saviors of the depressed and the oppressed but their
conduct only shows a craze for political power and not
any desire to uplift the poor and the toiling masses. We
can be said to be really free only when the shackles of
the scourge of caste are removed from Indian society.
Human right groups, civil society and the well meaning
conscience keepers of this nation should continue the
struggle to usher in that era of freedom which Tagore
dreamt of.
|
