2009: The highs and lows of the year for Indians living overseas.

[pampango]

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5377473.cms

From an article in the India Times. The article doesn't even mention Indian nationals in the US, just in the UK and Australia. Not sure if that is because there are more Indians living there or that the emphasis on them was for some other reason.

"From suffering a surge in racist violence to being conferred the honour of a science Nobel, the Indian diaspora in 2009 lived out the highs and lows that come with being linked to a country that is rising on the world stage. Many of the thousands of Indians who moved to Australia for higher studies - a product of India's quest to become a 21st century knowledge centre - became the bewildered victims of sudden unprovoked racist violence. As the number of Indian students in Australia swelled from around 30,000 in 2004 to nearly 100,000 in 2009, scores of them were subjected to racist attacks in the summer, prompting Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to express regret and assure his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh that Indian students are welcome in his country."

"By contrast, 2009 was also the year when an Indian origin scientist, working away quietly in Cambridge University on the structure and function of the ribosome, was named for the Nobel prize in chemistry along with an American and an Israeli. ... But the winner, Venkataraman Ramakrishnan, waved away the plaudits, telling reporters his Nobel was a "much bigger deal" in India than in his institute - the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. "In India I'm seen as the first in my field. In my institute, I'm just the 15th Nobel laureate," he said."

"Violent racism swept parts of Britain too. Clashes broke out as far-right groups such as the English Defence League and Stop Islamisation of Europe took out marches in towns and cities with large South Asian populations. The most prominent rise was that of the British National Party (BNP), which reserves membership for whites only and campaigns to remove non-whites from Britain."

"During a controversial appearance on a BBC television panel show, BNP leader Nick Griffin was taken on by an Indian-origin member of the audience, whose comments hit the headlines around the world. Khush Klare, whose parents migrated from India in the 1960s, left Griffin speechless after telling him: "This is my country, I love this country, I'm part of this country. You would be surprised how many people would have a whip-round to buy you a ticket - and your supporters - to go to the South Pole. It's a colourless landscape that will suit you fine.""

[thunder rising]

1. unprovoked racist violence. It ain't racial, it's economics. Living like rats they drive down wage

As usual the poor Indian is a victim. Couldn't possibly be that they have wedged themselves into the employment market specifically displacing CITIZENS.

Indian-origin is a front for the non-immigrant labor.

[pampango]

2. If the attacks are "economic" not racial they are acceptable? Students were the victims in Australia

not immigrant workers.

People who live in the Third World are not "rats" who "drive down wages". (Isn't looking at people of a different ethnicity as "rats" more of a right-wing viewpoint than a progressive one?) They are people just like you and me who had the "misfortune" to be born in the "wrong" place. When Europeans immigrated to the US in centuries past, they too "wedged themselves into the employment market specifically displacing CITIZENS", too.

Having people descended from immigrants from all over the world didn't work out so bad in the long run, did it? If the Pilgrims had just stopped immigration (and still successfully killed all the Native Americans in the long run, driven Mexico from the SouthWest, and kept the Canadians where they are), we would have a nice white English-speaking country, wouldn't we?

It was not specified whether the attacks in the UK were against immigrants or UK citizens of Indian ancestry. I doubt the attackers took the time to check passports or ID's. There's no indication that any of those attacked were in the UK illegally. They were attacked because they look different and it's easier to blame people who are "them" not "us". The English Defence League, Stop Islamisation of Europe and the British National Party are hardly progressive groups and not big on inclusion and assimilation. A monolithically white Christian UK would be their dream come true.