Last month, violence against Indian students in Australia made front-page headlines as two study-abroad Indians were hospitalized after there were stabbed by screwdrivers and one of them robbed in the ghetto-suburb of Sydney known ironically as Harris Park.

This lead to a 2,000-strong protest in Melbourne by other Indian students in the country who demanded more police protection for students and noted accurately that such violence is only the latest directed against Indian students. Many students claimed that racism was the cause of violence as their chant of “Say it louder, Say it clear, Racists are not welcome here” made clear.

[An unjustified insult against the Australian people...in this regard anyway.]

What is the cause of such violence. The Australia Prime Minister Kevin Rudd called it “just a regrettable fact of urban life.” Most of the victims of violence are students walking home at night in a dangerous suburb and thus are easy prey for thieves. Very rarely are any physically harmed. Australians are quick to dismiss the claim that Indians are targeted due to racial factors. Gangs looking for victims, they insist, are uninterested in race but in what the person is carrying and whether theft would be an easy act. Most of those carrying out robbery and attacks against Indians are not even White Australians, but, rather, Lebanese. The demonstrating Indians themselves acknowledge this. Many unemployed Lebanese youth room Harris Park as gangs and find Indian students easy prey.

The argument that this is just “regrettable” gang violence against vulnerable victims with nothing to due with race has not been bought in India. The Indian press has united in criticizing what it labels race-based acts against the country’s study-aboard students; an increasing bunch in Australia. Besides the press labeling the cause of violence racism, the government has jumped in. The tourism minister, Kumari Selji, has canceled a planned July visit to Australia and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has stated that he is “appalled” at the racially motivated violence. Even Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan has refused an honorary degree from a Brisbane university because she also considers the attacks against Indians to be racially motivated and thus an indictment against Australian society.

Of course, the Indian community in Australia and Indians in general have every right to be outraged at the grotesque violence against their compatriots. The Australian police need to do more to make sure the suburbs are safe. But Indian’s claiming that is is race-based are wrong and their self-righteous anger uncalled for.

Indians are being attacked not because they are Indians, but because they are easy prey for criminals whom happen to be Indian. I am sure that the Lebanese gangs could care less about the ethnicity of their victims. They are looking for someone to steal money from and if Indian students are settling in Harris Park, then they are the targets. Race is not an issue here and to imply it is wrong. Indians attacking Australians in general and boycotting the country need to realize that their anger is underpinned by misunderstanding of the situation.

Further, self-righteousness here about Australia being a racist country is incredibly unwarranted when one considers, as Australian PM Rudd pointed out, that 20 Australians have been killed in Indian in the last decade. Is India then racist against Whites? Of course not. It would be wrong to excuse the criminal behavior of a few Indian individuals and blame the entire country. Indians would not take to kindly to that. The killing of 20 Australians on their land should restrain them from making an generalizations about Australians being racists.