Another ride and more ramblings

The morning seems to have invaded the day. It feels a bit like the way a drop of water gradually seeps into a carpet growing more than one might anticipate before coming to rest. It's been a long time since I went for an early morning cycling ride on a working day. But it was just superb. The mind felt quite supple, as if it had shaken off a few of those imaginary bindings. We didn't have the luxury of time and rode swiftly. Just one stop for a couple of shots and that's it. I tried shooting a few more while riding but none of them were executed as I would have liked. I might try that again sometime.


There has been a lot of reporting in every newspaper and news channels here about the attacks on Indians in Australia. And the questions raised are whether Australia is largely racist and if it is indeed a safe location for Indian students to go study. One of the reasons contributing to the growing number of those attacks, as mentioned by the Australian High Commissioner to India, Mr. Peter Varghese (Is his Indian origin a coincidence?) in an interview last night is that unlike a couple of decades ago when the Indian students travelling to Australia for higher education were either from very wealthy backgrounds or had got admissions purely through merit and were studying on scholarships, a lot of recent students are from the rural areas, who, lured by certain organizations with baits of high paying jobs abroad take up large loans to go study. What it subsequently implies is that these students find it challenging to save money and end up working late-night shifts to pay through the living expenses and end up living very cheap, and as is the case in a lot of places, these cheap neighbourhoods are the ones where crime thrives. Though this is no justification, it is an important factor that has been contributing to the attacks.

An important piece of information he failed to provide when the audience asked why Indians were "singled out" were the statistics on the attacks in terms of nationality. Were outsiders in general and Asians in particular the major victims? Was it only aimed at "South Asians?" In the absence of numbers, it is left to mere conjecture. It will be ignorant for Indians to conclude that they are specially chosen to be victimized! There are equally large number of stories about Indians settling in Australia who've been treated as equals and found the nation largely welcoming. One of my very close relatives has been settled there for over two decades now and we get to hear only good things from him and my cousins.

In the audience were a lot of enraged students who had access to only half-cooked facts and their questions - attempts at rhetoric - ended up being more of an attack than a desire to seek out answers. But Mr. Varghese answered them all with patience, rationality, clarity and exceptionally good humour. Most of the time, it was great listening to him.

But the most real and pertinent question was asked by an African-American man in the audience. The High Commissioner had been reiterating all through the talk that Australia is a "pluralist" society and if one takes a random snapshot of its people, unlike two decades ago Australian society will reveal a vast variety of faces. What this man essentially asked him is how racial equality and tolerance was built into the society from within. Surely it had to be enforced as early as schooling, in jobs, in all avenues of life, so that we as a society learn to accept various races and treat them equally. Otherwise this idea of pluralism becomes a mere blanket on the outside belying racist leanings within. The answer to this question was devoid of facts and measures or even examples to support the claim, but surely this is a question very pertinent to almost every nation.

Within India alone one observes a lot of racial prejudice not just among the common man but even among some of the country's politicians. The man who asked the question was absolutely direct when he said Indians were as racist as Americans or even Australians and the idea of racial equality is one only a few people understand. I fear, he might have been quite accurate there, but I think globalization can have a large role to play in this. Nothing can substitute direct interaction and experience. The more people we meet from all over the world, the more we realize how much we all have in common and how much we can learn from our differences. That is the starting point where we can begin shedding our prejudices and misconceptions. A tit-for-tat attitude is simply a step in the backward direction!