If Australians show on the whole goodwill towards people from India, the Indian media and some Indian politicians appear to be doing their best to change that

In conversations with friends about the different national groups migrating to Australia I have made the comment that people from India seem among those most suited to the Australian way of life. There appears to be a cultural fit that enables them to integrate well. This is in sharp contrast with people from Islamic countries where the culture is in many respects in conflict with Western ways and ideas of democracy.

Anyone who has been paying close attention to the problem of male violence in Australia knows that race has little to do with the choice of victims. The victims are usually random and opportunistic, soft targets being the preference for these cowardly young men. Indian students are victims because they appear soft, rather than because they come from India. The fact that most bashing victims are ordinary Australians makes this clear. The issue is about the violence of young men and the reasons for it, and not about racism or students from India.

None of these considerations appear to have made any impression on most of the Indian media who with an astonishing hysteria went about working up the population with lurid stories of deliberate violence in Australia against Indian students simply because they were Indian students. One Indian television network kept a check on Kevin Rudd during his recent visit to see how long it would take him to apologise for the violence. Kevin Rudd is now in Indian for...and he still has not apologised, stayed on the screen in a red banner. This is childish and objectionable.

Just as objectionable was a survey on indianexpress.com asking, 'Is Kevin Rudd sincere about stopping attacks on Indians in Australia?' A majority of respondents said no. Who's racist, one may ask? Whatever your political allegiance you could not justifiably claim that Prime Minister Rudd is in any way racist, neither against Indians or anyone else. The Indian media appears bent on stoking xenophobia in a country that is not all that pure when it comes to tolerance among the ethnic groups that make up that country. And what about the caste system? And the women who are burnt alive because of an insufficient dowry? This is not rare. And the eighty Christians who were murdered after being blamed for the death of a Hindu leader?

The Indian media should concentrate on cleaning up their own backyard before ignorantly slandering one of the most tolerant countries in the world. The numbers of Indian citizens breaking their necks to come and live here would seem to agree with me.

Attack on Indians harming Australia's image

Comment: gerard@gerardcharleswilson.com