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The rally, which saw the participation of nearly 1,000 students, was organised by the Federation of Indian Students Association, Sydney Chapter, along with the National Union of Students.
The protesters, shouting anti-racism slogans, marched from Townhall to High Park in Sydney. The chants of 'Vande Matram' and 'Baharat Mata Ki Jai' also reverberated the air during the rally.
Apart from Indians, there were students from other countries at the rally, who voiced their concerns about the racial violence and demanded police to be alert to prevent such incidents from happening again, witnesses said. The rally, which demanded justice for the victims of racial attacks, came hours after yet another incident targeting Indian students in Australia came to light here in which a car belonging to a 22-year-old youth from the community was torched.
Vikrant Rajesh Ratan, who had used all his savings to buy the car, said the vehicle was burnt last night outside his home. Ratan, who hails from Ludhiana, said that two other cars, also belonging to Indians, that were parked next to his vehicle, were also damaged during the incident.
"We were sleeping when it all happened. We heard the fire alarm of the car. When we went out to see what happened we saw the car on fire," he said.
He suspected that it could have been done by a group of drug addicts who used to sit near the premises. "I believe they (addicts) probably first tried to open the car. Then they may have used a petrol can to set it ablaze." Ratan, who came here a month ago to pursue a certificate course in Automotive Engineering, said that there was no chance of a short circuit that could have burnt the car in this cold weather. He said he had bought the vehicle a few days ago for 2500 dollars and the car was not even insured.
Meanwhile, the students, angry over such attacks, also proposed to organise another rally in Brisbane, according to sources. However, prominent Indian community leaders in Sydney had earlier said the students were engaging in "entirely futile" exercise as their concerns had already been raised with the Australian authorities, who were trying to address them. On Sunday last as well, thousands of Indian students had rallied here demanding justice for victims of recent attacks, including 25-year-old Shravan Kumar who was seriously injured after being stabbed with a screwdriver by a group of teenagers.
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North Indians (punjabis)are out going and enterprising.Any where they go they do not kiss any body's behind.Any white race as long as you bow down they are fine,the minute you stay tall in competion they gotta problems.Bro gang members in U.S has nothing to do with the race.They always have problem with their rival gangs.They dont spare any body who ever comes in their ways.east and west coast of USA there is no problems,whites are in minority,yes is some southern stateyes you do feel the heat.
Indian and pakistani students and especially north indian students are the worst behaved in the US,UK and Canada,if they do not mend their ways they will be facing more overt attacks,they are hated by blacks,hispanics and white.The gentleman who is advocating use of knives needs to be asked to pick up a fight with a white supermacist,he would be beaten to pulp.I am a judoka for 15 years and feel that you cannot win a street fight with knives,if your opponent is technically superior or has other mates to back up.It is because of some ill behaved indians all of us proud indians are having a hard time,it is sheer chance that things are not as bad in the US,because with the amount of latino gangs,black street gangs and KKK offshoots we would be shot like piegons.
How did Ratan know they were drug addicts? How did he know they did it? It seems that classing people into stereotypical groups is more common than we think.
THIS CAR BURNING HAPPENS ALL OVER THE WORLD IN SHANTIES WHICH INDIAN LOVES TO LIVE,BUT THIS CAR IS WORTH OF FEW HUNDRED DOLLARS PROBABLY THIRD HAND .WHY MAKE NOISE.GO TO ITALY LAND OF MOTHER INDIA.YOUR CAR WILL BE SAFE WHEN YOU PARK IN PUBLIC PLACES BUT THERE WONT BE ANY TYTES,LIGHTS,AND ENGINES.
Refusing to integrate with the locals and refusing to learn the local language is a fairly common thing amongst North Indian migrants. You can experience that within India before observing their behaviors in the west. Workers from Hindi can be seen in ghettos in the south of India. They engage in brutal fights and bicker and argue amongst themselves. They are usually exploited by their own predecessors who arrive before them to the South.On the flip side, rich North Indian students also land in the South in order to pursue academic degrees. They then involve in every possible anti-social activity from drug peddling to mayhem partying instead of studying and school.Their brunt is heavily borne by the rest of the Indian community in North America for exactly the same reasons. It’s perceived that every brown man is Hindi and he/she is an Indian chauvinist who refuses to acknowledge and show gratitude to the privileges provided in the west.
I migrated from India to Australia 37 years ago and in this time experienced no racism.I agree the streets of Melbourne need cleaning up for everyone - Indian students included. Indian students are not the only ones targetted, the elderly and vulnerable are targetted. Do not brand Aussie's racist in general they are the most friendly, hospitable and fun loving people. The Indian media has got this Totally Wrong! Don't make judgement from afar come and enjoy the Australian hospitality
Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard. John Brumby, and other australian officials are not doing anything practical to save indians from attacks, even aussie media is showing racism by not giving space to attacks on indians other than one newspaper, its criminally silent , what melbourne needs badly is atleast 2000 more policemen or guards urgently,attacks are continuing, and indian community is suffering, there is great fear here, pressure must be put on aussie government and media so that police can wake up and start protecting indians. They lie shamelessly when they say racism doesnt exist here, its rampant here. Indian government, media and people must keep the pressure on them so that the indian community here can get some safety. If aussie govtcant get new policemen soon, it should allow indians to carry knives and weapons for self protection, indian media has done a great job so far to highlight our plight, please keep it up,
Passivity is no answer to the Aussie aggression. The points by the Indian need to be addressed and solved. These youngsters have done nothing to deserve this sort of treatment. All they want to do is to persevere and study. They work hard
Some of the points made in comments above are laughable. 1)"Do you expect the Australian government to keep a sentry guarding each of you and each of your cars" - Is Australia a country with no law
The Indian Students exploiting the attacks to try and pressure the Government into changing Student Visa restrictions that limit students to working 20 hours per week. If not why raise it as an issue at today's protest march?
Racist attacks in Australia has become the norm of day I do condemn it,I anticipate that Australian Govt. might show its some remaining hospitality and would take certain hard
In colonial times Britain used to banish its incorrigible criminals to Australia. The current hooligans are their heirs. The fruit doesn't fall far from the tree.
You are not in India. You are a small group of people. When isolated incidents take place, go to the authorities individually and collectively. Remain organized and develop leadership. Demonstration in the streets alienates the entire society against you. Organize demonstrations in the Universities. Let the Indian embassy handle the case. Australia is a sovereign nation. Demonstrations carrying Indian flags, shouting Indian political and ethnic slogans create the impression of your being unpatriotic. Do you expect the Australian government to keep a sentry guarding each of you and each of your cars, wherever you go? You have a right to legal protection, but only the kind of protection all other residents get. You have taken this issue to such a length, that a solution will be very difficult to arrive at.
Your line " youth's car burnt" after the headline is clearly provocative.You do not mention what kind of car costs just $2,500.You also do not find out why the car is not insured even for third party damage.The truth is most Indian students work at ungodly hours to work beyond legally permitted 20 hours per week to meet living,tuition expenses; and to accumulate savings they stay in the most unsafe suburbs with low rents.And most employers of these students DO NOT pay superannuation of 9% of pay and the students accept it as they work illegally beyond 20 hours per week.Why don't they complain about that ? Does Government of India allow foreign students to work in India ? Indian students should strictly follow local laws.They may be getting attention from Indian media that has no clues about living conditions here but most fellow Indians who settled here DO NOT support them in ANY WAY WHATSOEVER.Your slogans are meaningless here and you are NOT being held by any imperialist here.
My appeal to Indian students is as follows :Do not work beyond legally permitted 20 hours per week.Do not work late at night.Every one knows which are the safe suburbs : stay in those suburbs even if the rent is a bit higher.We are from India and live here since 1997 with no racism of ANY kind faced by us or our two sons working here.Same is the experience of many of our Indian friends settled here.Do not try to meet ALL your living and tuition expenses from working beyond 20 hours.Nobody likes if you steal their jobs by working beyond 20 hours.What is your point by raising slogans like Vande Mataram in Australia unless your purpose is something else ?By shouting about racism when it is NOT pervasive,your agitation will bAll residents face opportunistic crimes of the kind you face everywhere after 10 PM.So why do you call it racist ?No Indian politician bothers by visiting him in hospital,if a foreigner is attacked.So why do you think Australian politician be different ?
i am from Melbourne in Australia. Melbourne is a city of 4 million people with a lot of suburbs. 35% of the population of Melbourne is not born in Australia, many many people come from all different places. It is by no means a white city, there is a mixture of everything.Like all cities Melbourne has its nice areas and areas you don't go walking at night. The cheapest suburbs are in the Western suburbs and these suburbs are rough, and common for drug addicts low lifes of society types. Alot of Indian students live in these suburbs because they're cheap and understandably students are always broke! So where as I agree some of the attacks may be racially motivated, I think alot of the attacks are because of the dangerous suburbs they live in, and me as a white Australian would not catch a train there at night etc. A drug addict will attack whoever he can for money etc. I hope you don't think all Australians are racist. They need to be told before they come here where to live and not to
We Indians have a tendency to think that we are better than everybody else. We are the most racist people in the world. We practice it at micro level. That's caste system. Isn't casteism worse than racism? I can say for sure that all these so called Indian victims in Australia believe in their caste. Aren't these people racists themselves in the first place?.
Dear students,please stop diffusing the situation in Aus.your protests,rallies,slogans not only spread more hate and racial then what you think,misguided by a few.So largethe indian community, owning businesses,U students,justonly for not even for more than 3-4 hours,creating a hellYOUR VOICED NO MORE HEARD BY THE AUSTRALIAN.BETTER BOARDNIGHT BOUND FLIGHT,JOIN YOUR PARENTS IN PUNJAB ELSEWHERE.U were gone for greenaries,to earn dollars,U were not thatmuch elite,creamers in educations,to be admitted into Indian universaties,wasting your youthful energy,wastingmoney,instigating others in USA,HATE,RACIAL,DISCRIMINATIONdays not far off other countries,follow and disrupt thepeaceful leaving of Indian in USA.YOU DOABIAN LOW CASTECHUMARS dalits,only diffusing the situation.STOP STOP STOP
Indian is a great country,we should not go abroad to study. Here is a numbers of brilliant teachers in our country why should we go out side.
This is such a load of rubbish - there is no issue in Australia except the Indians themselves and their attitude and the Indian media getting hysterical. If you don't like it go home. Violence occurs in all societies - rather be here than in Indian.
Burning of cars and vandalising house is nothing new. This happens in UK where Asian are been targetted there is no regrets. If you looks most of the european countries do not like to see Asian skin to progress and are Jealous because most of this people do not like to go to school or college and want easy money to come in their pocket. The place where I live are always tragetted burning cars or damaging cars are very common in UK.
I just cannot understand why our Govt. cannot amke any progress towards the issue of Indian students in Australia? Its a shame to see everyday we hear different stories and atrocities only against Indian students? Why so? I just wonder what our MEA doing to stop this meance on Indian students. Very, very sad.
Australia has major law and order problems. I do not want to study there. I am a German citizen and was thinking of studying 2 semesters in Australia. But now I won't. I'll prefer to get my foreign study experience elsewhere. Maybe I'll even learn another language.
The best way to get respect abroad is by behaving properly as Indians.Agrressive protests will not help.If Indians behave properly abroad,i.e being honest,well-mannered, clean and hard-working etc, there is a better chance to be respected by foreigners and well-treated by foreigners.Unfortunately this is not always the case.We have to try understand our faults too and correct them.Everything is not because of racism.Many Indians are not behaving as expected.And it causes also negative feelings towars Indians.Our feeling of greatness is not enough, rather it is destructive.There are many indians who do not know the basic manners, the basics of life,the basic hygienic principles.Look at the dirty public toalets in India.A foreign tourist who has seen the dirty ways in India would not respect the Indians, although many Indians believe we are the cleanest in the world.Let us learn to understand the reasons behind the deep-rooted negative feelings towards the Indians and correct ourselves.
Aussie cops have always mentioned that these attacks on the Indian are not racially motivated and there are Aussies who keep complaining that the Indian media keep reporting every "petty crimes". For me it is racism or law and order problem where the Aussies have failed.....There are enough reasons for the Indian student to study in Europe, where, apart from excellent education for less money you get excellent contacts for the future business. What does Australia have to offer that you do not get in Europe or even America?