Facts Down Under

The Australian police have charged an Indian who had claimed to have been burnt in a racist attack,as attempting insurance fraud. This follows the polices claim that Ranjodh Singh,whose body was found in New South Wales last December,was killed by two other Indians. These claims still have to backed by a court of law,but it muddies the all too shrill narrative about racist Australians pummelling Indian victims,a news TV narrative that has grown bigger and louder by feeding on itself. This is not to downplay the incidents of violence being reported in Australias cities. It is to question the knee-jerk categorisation of all urban crime as racism,and allowing a television studio onslaught to determine relations between two countries.

The narrative is not just inaccurate,it is self-defeating. A heavy-handed advisory to Indian students studying or intending to study in Australia has predictably created anxiety for the 100,000-odd Indians already enrolled there. And by ramping up the diplomatic pitch and rebuffing the Australian authorities plea that every attack must be investigated for its unique circumstances,brakes have been put on a key emerging trade and strategic partner. The news TV hysteria also misrepresents what the larger story is. For tens of thousands of Indians,many of them denied the chance of a decent education in this country for lack of opportunities for higher education,the relocation is about aspiration and hope. Magnifying the threat perception is to deny thousands of young Indians the chance of making informed choices. There is already a 46 per cent drop in Indian student visa applications to Australia. It does not signal a battle won for the Indian self-interest. It represents a closing of options based on complete misrepresentation of urban crime as a pattern of ethnic violence.

The prime minister must step in to return rationality to the ministry of external affairs. If the junior and senior foreign ministers are allowed to keep up their competition in jingoism with studio discussants,greater harm could befall this countrys expatriate student population and its diplomatic interests.