Indian anger over attacks in Australia continues
Updated
Calls by an Australian state premier for balanced reporting on violence against Indians in Australia has drawn an angry response from sections of the Indian media. Victorian state Premier John Brumby made the comments after police in Melbourne charged Indian man, Jaspreet Singh, for allegedly making a false report, after he set himself on fire, by accident. Mr Singh said he was set on fire by a group of men, but Victorian police say he tried to set fire to his car for insurance purposes.
Presenter: Sally Sara, South Asia correspondent
Speakers: John Brumby, Premier of Victoria; Vinod Mehta, editor, Outlook magazine; Gopalaswami Parthasarathy, former Indian High Commissioner to Australia
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SARA: If John Brumby hoped this incident may calm Indian claims of racism in Victoria he was left disappointed. Mr Brumby has criticised Indian media outlets and some government officials, who labelled the case of Jaspreet Singh as a racist attack.
BRUMBY: So I hope that there is some balance to the debate, some balance to the reporting in India, and certainly to date that balance hasn't been there.
SARA: Mr Brumby highlighted two cases. The first was Jaspreet Singh who says he was set on fire by a group of men, but has now been charged for allegedly setting himself on fire while trying to torch his car for insurance purposes. Mr Singh says he's innocent. The second was the arrest of an Indian couple accused of murdering an Indian man in south western New South Wales. But this is how Mr Brumby's comments were received on India's top rating English news channel, Times Now.
INDIAN REPORTER: When nothing else worked, the Australian Government is now attempting to legitimise the hate campaign in the country. At least that's what it seems like after it seized upon one assault case to virtually dismiss as fake all the other attacks on Indians living 'Down Under'.
SARA: It's a public relations campaign which is difficult for Australia to win in some sections of the Indian media. Vinod Mehta is editor of Outlook. The popular news magazine ran a cover story this week called Why the Aussies Hate Us.
MEHTA: This whole campaign of Australia, this whole campaign, this whole effort on the part of Australia not to concentrate on the actual incidents and the reasons for those incidents and to try and divert attention and say either these things have been hyped up or they don't exist or these are opportunistic crimes.
SARA: The Indian Government has announced that its High Commissioner to Australia, Sujatha Singh, is returning to Delhi for consultations later this month. The visit is being portrayed as an urgent recall by some media outlets, but the Indian Government says the consultations are routine. G. Parthasarathy is a former Indian high commissioner to Australia. He's highly critical of John Brumby's calls for balance in the coverage of alleged attacks against Indians in Australia.
PARTHASARATHY: He is defending the indefensible. Racism is a part of Victoria, it's grown.
SARA: Earlier this week, Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna called for attacks on Indians in Australia to stop. He questioned why the violence only seemed to occur in Australia, when large numbers of Indian students live with few problems in other countries such as the United States.
