I am resident of India, came Australia three months ago.With the first month only I have faced the racism.I was in my apartment when some one banged the door , the banging got louder and louder, some one was abusing behind the door loudly.I thought It will be better not to open the door, but the person smashed the door and broke it completely.I rush to another room and locked my self from inside and called the police.Police arrived after some time ,but they even do not asked him a single question and I was being told directly that no case can be registered against him.Being new to country I was left helpless.what worst could had happened, the landlord deducted my $500/- from security amount for the broken doorNext day I again went to to police for my money and I was being told that I should go ti court.
Next day the same person came and asked for apology and said that he was drunk last night.My other experience is when I walk on the road every one says my "HI" It refreshes my mood
This is the scenario.You have to save your self, no one will come for your help.Precaution is better

Hiya
it is not about the sudden rise in racism. Racism remains a time bomb, i agree with doolite that India needs to clean Its house too. Australia too should do something. There should be serious and stringent purnishments for racist in either countries

In the area where I live in Delhi, I witness daily the kind of racism to which 'mainstream' Indians subject not only black people but also those Indians from the North East. It is truly shameful. The reasons for racism against black people is intriguing - probably due in part to internalising colonial norms and also to the casteism which privileges 'fair' skin (see daily ads for fairness creams and matrimonial ads for fair brides).Indian police is notoriously insensitive to complaints of discrimination, abuse or even violence and killings of ethnic minorities in India - students from the NE have protested many times, and our student organisation AISA has raised this issue in protest often. Interestingly the AUssie police's 'advice' to Indians is mirrored almost exactly by what North East students in Delhi are told by Delhi police:
They issued a booklet telling girls from Manipur, Nagaland, etc...not
to wear western clothing, not to talk in their own language, not to
cook 'smelly' food, and so on - all this to avoid rape, racial abuse
and harassment!
Some encouraging events -
A Sudanese student Khaled Abdullah Abdelwahab was elected as Councillor in the JNU students' union from the platform of CPI(ML)'s studen wing AISA - see http://www.telegraphindia.com/1071105/asp/nation/story_8511345.asp

*ML Update Vol. 13 No. 03 12 - 18 JAN 2010*

http://www.cpiml.org
AISA Activists Arrested While Protesting at Australian HC against Racist Attacks *

Activists of the All India Students' Association (AISA) were arrested for organizing a protest demonstration at the Australian High Commission on 12 January against the recent spate of racist attacks on Indian students and workers in Australia.

In the past two weeks, racist attacks on Indians in Australia have claimed two lives (Ranjodh Singh and Nitin Garg) while 29-year old Jaspreet Singh is now recovering from burns to 15 per cent of his body on his hands, face and legs.

The protestors were arrested as soon as they began raising slogans outside the High Commission, demanding that the Australian Government stop denying the racist overtones in the series of attacks. Protestors also condemned India’s Minister for External Affairs, S M Krishna, for toeing the Australian Government’s line of denying that the spate of attacks reflected racism.

The arrest made it clear that the Indian Government is willing to suppress even a peaceful, democratic students’ protest in order to keep the Australian HC in India from facing the slightest heat of the outrage against the attacks.

The students were detained for several hours at the Chanakyapuri Police Station. Students from DU, Jamia and JNU gathered outside the station and continued with the protest.

In Melbourne an Indian man rang up a radio station and said that when he went to a shopping centre with his car and in the car park he approached a spot, at the same time as another man in another car the driver of the other car was white the white man racially abused him saying the car spot was for Australians and not for Indians. Although there is no penalty for this kind of racist behaviour it is still racism it can be even worse with physical abuse at non-whites such as Indians as can be seen with racial abuse against Indian taxi drivers recently.

Seeing the punches being exchanged in the name of race, I would not have bothered to post a comment here, had the discussion not drifted from the immediate topic of discussion, which is,the current state of racial problems in the two countries being discussed, namely, Australia and India. Being an Indian I know India has many religious and social problems, including racism. And I also believe that no country can be branded racist just because some of its citizens have malicious intent. But since we have chosen to open up a broader discussion of comparing the history and progress of the two nations and some of us have so brazenly potrayed only the dark side of India, I would rather point out a few things.

Talking of history...we cannot compare the two countries...Australian history is at best at its infancy when compared to that of India. We really need to go back 4000 years to study and comment about India; Australia, as we know it today, is hardly 400 years old. Oh yes, Australia had civilization since thousands of years, the aborigines, who can be compared to the many tribes of India...not to the glorious past of the Indian civilization. But again, we know that even the aborigines had achieved a high standard of living, very unlike the the way the European immigrants used to think about them at that time. If we talk about the European history of Australia, honestly it did not start on a very good note. The immigrants, more aptly, second-grade citizens and convicted criminals from Europe massacred and wiped out the indigenous people. European disease (small pox) and continuous racial massacres of the aborigines decimated their population by 50%.

Be it a developed or a devloping nation, racial tensions still occur regularly everywhere in some form or other. As correctly pointed out by many, India is still plagued by many kinds of racial problems. But as we see that through the many religious riots, oppression of lower castes and prejudices in India, so do we see racism in Australian policy making. Correcting one of the commentors (Bluey) here, the last riot in Australia was not '150 years ago' but as late as in 1928 at Coniston against the aborigines. Of course, the culmination of racial discrimination in Australia is the 'White Australia policy', which lasted till as late as 1970s, and is probably still there in the minds of some whites...who knows. And the policy was supported by the architect by arguements like - 'it is their inexhaustible energy and power of applying themselves in new tasks that make Asian people so dangerous to us(whites)' - how straight. I doubt if India will ever pass such openly racist legislations.

Talking of immigrants, both the countries has seen a lot of them. India is probably the most diverse nation accepting and assimilating immigrants from all parts of the world since time immemorial. The Indians learnt a long time ago that acceptance of other cultures is the only way of keeping a civilization alive. Although I would refrain from commenting on the intentions of the current government, going by its short history, Australian immigration and racial equality policies were made mostly based on the prejudices and needs of the whites, as experienced by the Chinese, the aborigines and the other non-white immigrants. Depending on the needs of labour and war, Australian governments have opened or restricted entry of Asians and other non-white immigrants from time to time.

Talking of the last 100 years track record, being a developed country Australia has definitely done better in terms of industrialization. India, on the other hand, has fallen back in the mean time. But Australia has just one language, six states and no neighbours to deal with. India is an unbelievable mix of a hundred different languages that are as distinct from each other as French and Mandarin, fifty state cultures and all sorts of religions. It is inevitable that we will have instances of clashes when we are living in such a cocktail family. Countries with long histories often go through cycles of good and bad eras. India is definitely not at its best now. But while Australia has gone much ahead, I would still say India has managed quite well, even after suffering partition under pressure from a colonial regime fifty years back. In recent years India has developed quite rapidly and the world is taking note of it. India's real problem now is inadequate education; religion, caste and community prejudices are only the symptoms. We are slowly overcoming this problem and we are going to catch up very soon.

By the way, education now ranks as Australia's third largest export with biggest contributions from students from China and India. So I think Australian politicians and officials should be careful about their remarks and covert support of racist incidents. Narrow mindsets and closed doors would only harm their own economy and progress in the long run.

We cannot say that there is racism nowhere.. Racism is definitely reducing in all the countries but it definitely needs time. Its peoples mentality that should be changed.. their thinking.... now if you are not a racist that is well and good... lets make sure its the same with our family and friends.. try to educate people around us about the issue. There is no country that do not have at least a minimum set of people who are racists. All we have to learn is to ignore...people who are racists are just insecure and agitated people who are narrow minded...

Please let me share my thoughts on what racialism is. I feel very pained and disappointed by the commutation of sentence of the perpetrators in the Khairanji case(India). Why is everybody silent on this heinous crime? Is it because the victims were dalits (lowest caste in India comprising predominantly black people)? The entire India and government machinery is bent upon saving the culprits giving lame excuses? What else is called racialism?

For what reason were the dalits given this punishment? A small woman dared to raise her voice to prevent her property from being usurped. Was it so insulting for the upper casts that a whole village took the liberty to rape the woman and her daughter through the night? The whole village tortured them along with her two sons, cut their genitals and threw their bodies in a canal. The brutality and depravity shown by these village khaps surpasses any act of violence by Taliban. And why did they do this? Is it due to hatred against dalits and their confidence that no authority would care a bit or take any action on the same?

http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items06/priyanka12.JPG
http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items06/Bhuddistvictim.JPG
http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items06/Buddhistmassacre.JPG
http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items06/priyanka_bhotmange.JPG

Samefully the police did not register an FIR till the news reached the media? Imagine a father trying to convince police that his family has been slaughtered, and the police and panchayat laughing at him saying that nobody by these names ever lived in that village. Subsequently the police did not request the doctors to test for rape in the autopsy. Please have a look at the images available on internet of the bodies of the victims and you will know. The images display a harrowing tale of apathy and depravity. Why were the perpetrators not charged under prevention of atrocities act and how very conveniently this was made to be a non-racial attack? What else is racialism?

I appreciate the media for the fact that they brought this incidence to our notice. But another thing is noticeable. The prominent news on the TV channels was the vehicles being burned by protesting dalits. The plight of the victims was of much less or no concern. Even now there is no coverage of why the sentence was commuted; everything is shown to be nice and just. The whole nation and the entire government machinery seem to be working towards saving the culprits? What is the benefit of having sheer money, education and power if it is used to serve the evil?

A few years on we may see all the culprits acquitted, perhaps one of then with a bharat ratna and another sitting in the parliament. Why has the government been so helpless? Is there a separate set of rules for dalits? How many platoons would the government have sent in had the children resisted or taken up arms? Were the school lessons on the equality and justice, explained in the preamble, a myth and only meant to impress the western countries? What can the constitution do if there is no will to enforce it?

Another disappointment has been the women rights activists. It is very surprising that the women organizations did not notice that two of the victims were women. Do they need to be told how it feels when subject to such brutality? Was the fact that the victims were dalit, the reason for their insensitivity? Is it true that for the same reason none of the women in the village came forward to their help? Is the entire nation against dalits? What else is called racialism?

It is not too hard to realize why this crime was committed. Dalits are accused of being of low skill, knowledge and ability. I believe this is the opinion of most Indians, if not all. In essence it recognizes that capability is linked to race. Then how does the Indian race compare to the whites? That dalit family was struggling to get out of this vicious circle by education their children. This was not liked by the upper casts who have a tradition of ruling by oppression. They were the rulers not because of their capability but because of their cast. They took the liberty to usurp their property and brutally murdered them when they protested. How many of you elites protested against this apartjied, please tell me?

Seems equality is only desirable when the upper caste Indian’s visit Australia. Racialism is not a rural only concept; it is much more prevalent and noticeable in the cities and an inspiration to the rural khaps. Remember the protests by IIT/AIIMS students. Why were they protesting; to prevent dalits and other oppressed from acquiring knowledge? It is a fact that even if a dalit enters these institutions the students and faculty will do their best to send them off. Remember the suicides by dalits. The educated arrogant elite will deny food, education, and security to the poor and then boast of their knowledge acquired through years of cramming, which has not produced a single scientific achievement to our credit. Please note that the only reason for other countries outsourcing here is our copycat skills. If you call this to be merit, you are fooling yourself? And copycats do not become superpowers? Sorry, if I have offended anybody but I hope you would understand how disappointed I am at your silence.

I do not believe that dalit or any community lacks capability. Given an equal opportunity all with perform to the same level. But if the Indian elites still have any doubt then why did we throw out the British? Wouldn’t they be much better masters, much more just and capable?