The Hindu Business Line : Putting an end to hate attacks

Although we may be loath to admit it, and pretend to the contrary, there is a little of intolerance in us against what we consider foreign to our way of life. Within the memory of old timers, ferocious disputes, including sometimes physical assaults, raged between different sects of the same religion. There was the case of the battle over the caste-mark to be applied to the temple elephant which went up to the Privy Council and had an ironical ending with the warring sects meekly submitting to the decision of the British judges!

Incidents of harassment and humiliation of members of the Brahmin community by forcibly cutting the tufts and sacred threads were rampant at one time in Tamil Nadu. The riots against the Bengalis in Assam in the 1960s, the violence unleashed in Maharashtra against South Indians some years ago, and against North Indians last year, and the embers of animosity of a section of the Kannadigas against the Tamils, are all manifestations of chauvinism within India itself.

The same kind of antagonism could be said to be at the root of the Sinhalese-Tamil problem in Sri Lanka contributing to the emergence of LTTE and all its tragic aftermath. Racist gangs have gone on a rampage from time to time in various parts of the world spurred by an undercurrent of hostility to immigrants. Not too long ago, Indians were thrown out of Kenya and Uganda in Africa. There have been recurrent attacks on Indians and Pakistanis by ‘skinheads’ in the UK and Indian women by ‘dotbusters’ in the US (the reference being to the bindi on the foreheads of Indian women).

This brief survey should help us view in perspective the current spurt of violence against Indians in Australia. The incubus has already spread to Canada, and there is a danger of copycats causing a flare-up elsewhere as well. The worst that Indian victims of hate campaigns can do is to indulge in counter-attacks. They should not think that they can get away with violations of law in Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany or the US the same way in which they can in India.

Minority of madcaps

They are all hard States, strict in the enforcement of law, dealing severely and swiftly with persons taking law into their own hands. Further, retaliation can only trigger a chain-reaction at the end of which Indians will be far worse off than before. They would have forfeited whatever sympathy that those governments and the sober elements of the native population had for them. In the bargain, they would have blackened the name of India and Indians.

I have been to Australia twice, including some parts of the outback. To dub a whole country or the people racist is indefensible at all times, and in the light of my own experience, I certainly would not call Australia racist. The same thing applies to other countries as well. However, in every country, as in our own, there is a minority of madcaps given to a jaundiced view of the immigrant population, working themselves into a rage at its presence in their midst.

Countries, especially pluralist societies, where such eruptions occur should immediately think of setting up a standing mechanism such as India’s National Integration Council to foster harmony and goodwill, by specially focusing on youth and those with distinct ethnic identities. Prominent citizens in every major city should take the lead in establishing a forum to create awareness of the value of unity in diversity by organising regular programmes aimed at bringing about a better understanding of the precious assets that various cultures and heritages represent.

B. S. RAGHAVAN

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