Population migration and its consequences

The curry bashing of Indian immigrants has consumed thousands of column inches in various newspapers already with no end in sight to the travails of our citizen-students in Australia. I have already written in an earlier post what I think of the Aussies – I have painted them with one brush – which may not be fair to do so, but in the heat of the moment that is what I thought. Since then I have had time to ponder over a whole spectrum of issues which these episodes have thrown up. Let us start with why do Indians have to go to Australia to study and the profile of those going to study there.

It is a known fact that Australia has waived the necessity of foreign students undergoing the mandatory English language proficiency test (TOEFL, etc) required to be taken for students going to say UK or USA. The Australians have done this so that they can compete unequally in the education market to woo students from the US & UK markets to Australia – one less exam to clear you see! The Aussies want the money but not the students – quite a paradox don’t you think? In which case they could have run correspondence courses for the same university degrees on offer – they could then have got the money as well as avoided the race violence taking place today! It is very sad to see the Aussies making a business of education, inviting people who cannot speak their language and then have their citizens violating their paying guests civil rights again and again – with the local authorities doing nothing about it!

This leads us to the question why and which of are our citizens are going to Australia to study? I have answered a part of this question above – English proficiency having been waived, one less exam to pass! The type of people who are going to Australia are those with money, whose parents do not mind spending that money to avoid the cut throat competition for engineering/medical seats in India. These are the people who are choosing the easy way out! They do not want to compete in India, do not want to go to the US/UK because proficiency in written/spoken English is a must, hence Australia with its quality of life promise and slightly cheaper education is a no-brainer choice for our no-brainers! If money could buy you an education and a way of life with peace of mind thrown in, then I guess our students in Australia would have been it! Unfortunately that is not how the system works!

The waiver of proficiency in English has resulted in our students reaching an English speaking nation without the basic tool to communicate effectively, as a result these students end up sticking to their own kind and not mixing with the locals. The Aussies by nature are garrulous and out-going and find the Indian behavior a bit stand offish – how can one be surprised by that. With global recession thrown in and the popular myth that the Indians are grabbing all available jobs because of their skill and low cost – we have a recipe for racial violence.

The best part of all this was when a right wing politician in Maharashtra recently protested to the Prime Minister, requesting him to take up cudgels on behalf of our citizens with his counterpart in Australia. This was a bit too much for me to digest – as this same politician was going hammer and tongs at north Indian migration into Mumbai for jobs – farcical! comical! I leave it to you to decide! What is the difference? - the Aussies are protesting the fact that they fear Indians may take away their jobs and do not know the language to boot – same goes for people migrating into Mumbai, these people do cheap labor and do not know the local language. The only stark difference is that people who go to Australia pay good money and contribute to the economy for just going there, but in the case of north Indians they come with the intention of finding jobs as their own state cannot provide them the jobs, and end up proliferating slums with the active connivance of our politicians.