It’s really laughable the way Indians have been going bonkers over racism in Australia lately. Come on! Take it easy on Australia. Before passing judgment on others, lets first look at our own backyard.
Australians are much better than majority of us Indians who yell “O bhayiya! Come here” to someone from Bihar and UP so condescendingly that it makes even a stray dog feel better in comparison. If that’s not racism, tell me what is. What we do to those from Nepal, or African countries doesn’t need elaboration. We divide human race into low caste, upper caste. Is that not racism? We are Indians. We are racists by definition. We’ve got no business calling others racists.
But besides Indian hypocrisy, what really gets my goat is the utter lack of gratitude in Indians. They gave us the best jobs and an excellent standard of living in Australia, for crying out loud! How many Africans and Nepalese, who migrate to India for better life, have we given good jobs to? How would it make you feel if some African is the head of department and you are just a clerk under him?
Five years of studying and working down under and no one shot more than a passing remark at me that could well have been the result of temper on a hot Australian day anyway. Now, all of a sudden, I hear this Australian racism crap. I don’t buy this any more than I would something like, “That woman just turned into a snake.” I mean, seriously, such amiable and courteous people cannot, all of a sudden, turn into remorseless racists. Australians are much more tolerant of other cultures than we are. We, I reckon, are so wrongly known for our tolerance. M.K. Gandhi may have contributed to this image of India being a tolerant nation but after he passed away, it’s just been downhill.
Anyway, lemme give you my take on these recent “racist” attacks on Indian students in Australia for what it’s worth. I reckon it was most probably just a small group of youngsters who don’t know any better. They were on drugs, and they got bored. Usually they pick on each other but this time a few Indians came on their radar for a change.
Violence is a part of life there. Australians are much more violent towards each other. With punches flying all around, what if a few Indians got hit a bit? Like an Aussie would say, “If you can’t handle the heat, stay out of kitchen.” Why go there? And if you’ve gone, why not come back? Otherwise just shut your beak and stop being such a hypocrite.
And even if Australians are a little critical of us Indians, come to think of it, don’t we deserve the criticism? Don’t we deserve it when everyone else is being polite and quite and we shout out loud? Every society has its own parameters of acceptable behavior. Smooching and cuddling in public, so deplorable in India, is absolutely acceptable in Australia. When in Rome, you gotta do the Roman thing. Otherwise you leave yourself open to criticism.
Australians value cleanliness, personal hygiene, and decent behavior much more than we Indians do. Conversely, they abhor disgusting manners. There’s a discreet and decent way of doing everything disgusting that humans do. When you eat, you don’t eat like an animal. The way some of us eat our meals down south will make even a monkey cringe. When you burp or fart or clean your nose, you do it discretely. You don’t pick your nose publicly; you clean it in the morning while bathing. And most of all, when you have to pee, you look for a public urinal, not a tree or a wall. And don’t even get me started on how we all (excluding me, of course) haven’t yet woken up to deodorant.
Despite racism being rampant in our own country, and despite all our despicable habits, we cry blue murder when others put us down a bit. That Indians are a hypocritical race will be putting it mildly.
If you raise an objection to all that I had to say, I’ll understand your point of view. Truth hurts.
By Harpreet Bhagrath
The writer is the editor at livepunjab.com and can be contacted at editor@trustsquare.net Or harpreet10jan@hotmail.com
