Hey India, how about saving your own students first?
Last week an Indian newspaper ran a cartoon suggesting that the Victorian Police were members of the Klu Klux Klan.
The motivation behind the cartoon was that the police were taking so long to investigate assaults against Indian students in Melbourne’s west. Because the police hadn’t caught the whiteys responsible thirty seconds after the assaults occurred, the police were therefore racists.
Much to my surprise a few days later I then read about the Indian government clashing with Indian students.
With over 350 students dead since the beginning of the Telangana movement and the body count rising, perhaps Indians should be worrying about students on their own soil first.
The Telangana region was not directly under British control during the British occupation of India. From what I can gather after the British left the Telangana people campaigned to keep their independence but were brought under control of the Indian government by force.
For the greater good the Telangana state was then merged with the neighbouring Andrha state to create Andrha Pradesh. Ever since this happened there’s been an independent movement campaigning for the re-creation of a separate Telangana state.
Like all good separatist movements, the Telangana movement revolves around creating an independent state because the majority of people living there feel they are different to their neighbours.
They like cats whilst everyone else likes dogs, they wear thongs where everyone else wears shoes, they for whatever reason have an inferiority complex and believe that an independent state will somehow fix everything etc.
Initially protests against the creation of Andrha Pradesh revolved around the Telangana people not trusting their neighbours and primarily speaking a different language, Telugu.
Naturally the recreation of a separate state will do nothing but create a divide between the community and serve the interests of those that speak Telugu. Remember it’s ok to create artificial cultural boundaries and campaign for your own state within an established country because you think you are different so long as you’re not white.
After years of two’ing and fro’ing, violent protests and broken promises it seems the government has initiated the process to create an independent Telangana state. In early December 2009 it was announced that the government would begin to take steps to form the independent state. By the end of the month though talks had stalled and the process is in limbo until all involved parties can reach a consensus.
Far be it from me to tell another country how to manage their land but what caught me eye was the involvement in the protests by India’s precious students.
In early December 2009 during protests in favour of creating a separate Telangana state 40 students committed suicide. In response the Indian government deployed troops to break up the protests.
I’m pretty sure by ordering troops to disperse protesters they didn’t mean invite them in for a friendly chat to discuss their differences.
Nothing much then happened for a month and a half until 2 days ago another 2 students committed suicide by setting fire to themselves. In addition to this students and protesters violently clashed with police hurling rocks at police and police having to use batons and tear gas to control the crowds.
Remember though, it’s the Victorian police who have it in for Indian students.
Whatever the hell is going on in Andhra Pradesh it’s clear that for now that India itself has more then it’s fair share of problems with the local student population. How about instead of protesting against a handful of assaults occurring in Australia you guys get your shit together and look out for students on your own soil.
Last time I checked Australia didn’t have massive clashes between police and Indian students and fire suicides are unheard of. Perhaps life in Australia isn’t so bad for Indian students after all.
January 23rd, 2010 at 5:31 am James(Quote)
Something you wont read about in our media(c#nts)
January 23rd, 2010 at 11:41 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
It was picked up in our media (how I found out about it) but I doubt we’ll be seeing any student association rallies here in Australia, naked taxi drivers or effigy burning of the Indian government over the deaths any time soon.
January 23rd, 2010 at 1:17 pm DK(Quote)
Dude, where did you get the news that 350 students are dead? Students are working towards finding a solution for the real backward region of a state.
I am not sure if the austrilian police are part of KKK, but news like this would provocate the people.
January 23rd, 2010 at 1:39 pm Friggin Loon(Quote)
Isn’t the problem in Melbourne linked with the Lebanese community? I hate to say the phrase ït isn’t really Äustralians” involved in the violence against Indians but hello it is a cultural clash not of Australian making.
January 23rd, 2010 at 3:55 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
The 350 number is from when the movement started way back in 1948.
In December 2009 40 people committed suicide over the lack of action, some of which were students.
Isn’t it massively hypocritical to call the Australian Police force racist because they didn’t catch whoever was responsible for the Indian student attacks 10 minutes after it happened, yet India has had Indian students dying needlessly for over 60 years?
January 23rd, 2010 at 3:59 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
I’m not ruling out the Lebanese community in Melbourne but stereotypically it’s the Sydney Lebanese community that run around like terry tough cunts.
For the most part the Melbourne Lebanese community are quite relaxed and integrated (of course there’s always going to be bad apples, just drive past Bell Street Maccas after midnight).
January 30th, 2010 at 6:04 pm Jay(Quote)
Sydney has more Muslim North Lebanese, we have more Christians, it’s chalk and cheese.
Notice that there were no objections to that massive Lebanese Catholic church going up in Thornbury. The other night I took my kids to the park and when we came back to the car two carloads of Lebs had pulled up either side and were milling about, they had their doors open blocking us from getting into our car.
I didn’t even have to ask, one of the younger ones apologised profusely and scurried about to shut the doors and smiled at my kids and said hello.
February 26th, 2010 at 8:39 pm Khyati(Quote)
I am such a fan of your articles here. I have started following you quite recently.
Well but for some reason I don’t agree with your way you put your argument here. You may found a perfect fact about 350 + students dying since 1948 etc. But do you have any clue how many people die in India every year not because or natural death or calamity or hunger but only because of lack of security, management and almost all world problems(not talking about health).
Do you even closely realize how one billion population looks like a country like ours. Frankly most of the Indians don’t care. Its not in our nature. 350+ students in 1948, probably you can count it with your hands how many even know about this. See there is no pride in mentioning this sad incident or all the attacks Indians face in India but the question here is we consider those attackers as wrong guys( terrorist to be precise for outside the border) or something.
Now the issue is what happened in Australia is “NEW” for us. Since Australians have not done much bad to the world its not expected out of you guys by us( Our knowledge, no such history references).
You guys are considered as a western country and most of Indians believe the Law and order works perfectly (Like US, and we believe it works there too). We believe that nobody can escape from system like these countries have. So we are shocked to find that Australian police is incapable.
I believe if you pick any random Indian and ask whom do you believe is more corrupt Indian or Australian government most of them would say Indian. So now you see that when such a capable government in our eyes does something wrong (unable to find some crooks) it leaves us with no other reason.
Another issue could be since we are not able to protect our people is it justified that Australian can take some of our kids and…. Well, no coz the people who are protesting are the ones who suffered. You missed how many such protests we have for our government too. We want people to act.
Okay I know there has been a lot of India bashing but that does not make me less patriotic, this is only one of the million facts most of us know but we are growing in terms of management or security. We don’t know any such history about Australia before these incidents. So its quite shocking why us.
Do you have any clue what kind of advertising Australians universities have in India? There is one state where almost 50 % of graduates have moved to Australia. Since most of them couldn’t make it to US or UK they land there.
Please mind this is no comparision among countries but that is our mindset I guess the language culture and color makes it similar. Its just easier to reach there because of those Universities. These students are not poor back in our country but because of the exchange it makes the student poor I guess. Anyways we can discuss this entire thingy about Indians in Australia some other time.
You need to think when you say mind your people in your country then think about ours I believe you are directly comparing your security to ours, your judiciary and Law to ours. When did you guys do that before? When did you guys compare this with India.
And if Australia wants to answer in a way saying they don’t care then we can make it clear, then we know and we won’t complain. We don’t complain if some Indian is killed in Pakistan and their police is not working with us. Infact we don’t care even if Indians are killed in India because of Pakistan. And we don’t let any Australian be killed in India and we work with everyone to help. I mean the relationship.
One last time Please think about this. So many occurences and Police unable to help them is unbelievable.I guess for you too . You know in your heart that it has been missed out for a reason. Accept it of you want to, but you cannot justify by pointing at someone else. Everyone has a right to complain and expect an apology.
PS : I hope you post this comment since there is loads to share. I am not being offensive to you but just explaining.
Khyati
February 27th, 2010 at 5:36 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
Hey Khyati thanks for contributing, there’s a few things I’d like to address;
No I don’t, and I fail to see how it’s relevant when Indians are complaining about Indian students dying in Australia. On one hand you make a big deal about hwo many people die annually in India to play down the 350 death number, but then on the other hand I can count how many students have died in Australia in the last few years? Less then 10?
I’m not saying we should sweep anything under the carpet but you guys seem to be making a massive deal about a handful of bashings/deaths and seem to only downplay the numbers when comparing your own geographical statistics.
I think it’s time for a wakeup call. Every country in the world has law and order problems. A person, or group of people bash somebody and run. They leave no evidence at the scene of the crime so what exactly are the police supposed to do?!
How do you conduct an investigation and catch someone on a bitterly cold trail?
I’m aware of the large amount of money Indian students bring in to the education sector here in Australia and think the universities themselves should be doing more. If they’re going to gouge Indian students when they come over here they should be at least offering substantially better services.
This started to happen when Indians started comparing our police force with the KKK. If your own police force and government are corrupt/racist/whatever, alleging that ours is on baseless grounds is a bit rich.
What do you mean you ‘don’t let any Australian be killed’? If some random Indian (or tourist) decides to kill or bash an Australian what exactly can you do to prevent it? The police certainly can’t be everywhere all the time.
You talk like there’s some blanket action that can be applied to every situation to prevent bashings/murders from happening country wide.
If we catch the criminals then by all means expect an apology, but if we can’t accept that it’s got nothing to do with racism. Thousands of cases go unsolved every year, this is just one of them.
March 5th, 2010 at 10:26 pm Khyati(Quote)
@OZSOAPBOX I have a feeling that in your replies there is a sense of defensiveness, but whatever you say or do you cannot justify the crime done in your country because it was done to people who are used to experiencing more crime. That’s how your article starts and states and we should complaint only after we resolve ALL our in house problems. Nope.I am sure no on agrees to that. Most of the points you pointed out were mainly metaphor of a situation that could happen and probably how that could be worked out.
“I’m not saying we should sweep anything under the carpet but you guys seem to be making a massive deal about a handful of bashings/deaths and seem to only downplay the numbers when comparing your own geographical statistics”
How can anyone justify like this? So tomorrow, if a Sudanese, comes to study in Australia, do you guys think it’ll be Okay deny him food(by some way) sometimes since they are used to people starving from death. And who defines “Massive deal”, Indian government, never threatened anyone? No one is attacking, but expecting a No-Interference when a series of crime happen only to a certain race is little too much.
“If your own police force and government are corrupt/racist/whatever, alleging that ours is on baseless grounds is a bit rich.”
Similar justification again. Besides, how would a police force conduct an investigation in a scene of crime like this is completely debatable and we know they are smarter than you or me.
“What do you mean you ‘don’t let any Australian be killed’? If some random Indian (or tourist) decides to kill or bash an Australian what exactly can you do to prevent it? The police certainly can’t be everywhere all the time.”
“And we don’t let any Australian be killed in India and we work with everyone to help. I mean the relationship”
Nothing. I didn’t mean that. It’s practically impossible for anyone to do that and expecting out from anyone would be stupid but…
“And we don’t let any Australian be killed in India and we work with everyone to help. I mean the relationship.”
This was again an example. There may be more Australians killed in India, but the idea was to show we would support and accept if there is a series of crime done against one race. Like the previous two attacks which happened in Mumbai and pune in last 3 years, it did have some signs of Westerners and Israelis are targeted. Though extremely small series to form a pattern but Indian govt did point out that as one of the possible reasons.
As every country has law and order and sometimes it fails and everyone agrees to that.
I had put an article flashing you the reason, why someone raised a voice in India against cruelty to students in Australia and how your JUSTIFICATION cannot be applied, so while doing that if I missed out on how safe one actually feels when in India, considering we are one of the main targets of the terror world, then you should find out.
Khyati
March 5th, 2010 at 11:22 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
I never tried to. I massively object to Indians claiming our police force are racist though because they cannot solve a handful of cold lead cases.
Indians jump up and down in defense of their countrymen labelling Australia and it’s authorities as a pack of racists and somehow I’m the defensive one?
Please.
I expect no interference regardless of what happens. India gets the same response as China does when they try to interfere with Australian affairs. Piss off.
Mind you either country is welcome to have an opinion on our affairs (there’s a big difference between having an opinion on internal affairs and actively trying to interfere), but don’t be all surprised when Australians have opinions of their own.
Finally I’ll reiterate again, Indians are not the only people being bashed in Melbourne. Therefore no one certain race is being targeted exclusively for bashings.
That’s just it though. When was the last time you heard Australian’s complaining about racism related crime in other countries. When an Australian is bashed/murdered or whatever we accept it as crime.
Indians on the other hand seem determined to milk any violence as a racism issue for all it’s worth.
A toddler died in Melbourne recently and police have yet to make a statement. I look forward to reading the ‘All Australians are toddler bashing racists’ headlines tommorow in the Indian news.
From what I understand Mumbai was a continuation of the bullshit that goes on between India and Pakistan. Had nothing to do with westerners. Like you mentioned the amount of foreigners there was extremely small.
I never justified anything. I objected to Indians reasoning that our police force was racist because they had failed to solve crime with no leads.
As for India being a terror target. Lol? Apart from the nutjobs in Pakistan and the continuing stupid fued why the hell would anyone target India?
June 19th, 2010 at 6:41 pm Sai(Quote)
Hisince you have raised Telangana issue, i would like to correct you. your source is entirely wrong.
and to all those people who are reacting to the barbaric(:D) Indian media reports, isn’t there anything called SENSATIONALISM in the world media? the same happened there.
and about terror strike in India, yeah, pls pass ur wise comments…
sincerely
sai
July 15th, 2011 at 12:55 am McJules(Quote)
Racism is always pulled out as it is a psychological ploy to put the other side on the back foot.
It is also used by passive controllers usually using “victim” mode. If you don’t want to appear as a cross-burning head kicker you become an apologist. This is how the Muslims operate.
Racism is also thrown on the table to shut down honest debate.