Indian students are safe in Australia: Vasan Srinivasan

Indian students in Australia are safe and there have been no attacks on them since mid-2009 according to president, Federation of Indian Association of Victoria (FIAV), Vasan Srinivasan. Vasan attributed the reason to a crackdown on fraudulent vocational training centres and a change in the migration policy by the Australian government as key reason for the same.

Vasan, a Melbourne-based businessman of Indian origin, who is on a one-month tour of India spoke to the local media in the light of the tragic shooting down of Pune youngster Anuj Bidve in United Kingdom on December 26, 2011. Terming Bidve’s death as ‘tragic’, Vasan recounted the many attacks on Indians students in Melbourne in the 2008-09 period.

According to Vasan, the number of Indian students in the state of Victoria had plummeted from 95,000 to a mere 15,000 in the last two years. He attributed the reason to the closure of a majority of private operators, offering vocational courses by the Australian government.

Vasan also blamed the Australian government’s erstwhile policy of allowing students with a two-year vocational course in Australia a chance to apply for permanent residency (PR) status. “This policy was one of the reasons for a very large number of standard XII Indian students from Punjab and Andhra Pradesh coming to Melbourne to pursue vocational courses in the 2007-2008 period,’’ Vasan said.

Vasan said that these standard XII students, enrolled for the two-year vocational courses and took up jobs at petrol pumps and supermarkets to make ends meet.

“Majority of these students were paid in cash, travelled alone late at night and became easy targets for misguided Australian youth,’’ Vasan said. He said many of the fraudulent vocational institutes run by people from the Indian sub-continent insisted on cash payments forcing Indian students to carry cash.

According to Vasan, the Indian students who were attacked in Melbourne were flush with cash. He regretted the stabbing attack on Nitin Garg in a Melbourne park in February 2009 which cost him his life (his attacker has been sentenced to 13 years in jail) and the screwdriver attack on Shravan Kumar by a drunken Australian youth.

When matters came to a head in 2009, Vasan said the government of Victoria involved the FIAV and the former Indian consul general in Melbourne Anita Nair to help them handle the situation. Vasan said FIAV and Nair immediately held a series of meetings with the Indian student community and advised them to travel together, not to carry cash, play loud music or carry costly cellphones and laptops especially late at night.

Vasan also said that the Australian government realising their folly, decided to stop linking education with eligibility for permanent residency. “The two-year vocational courses are no more a passport to migration. Today, the Australian government has made the visa rules for students more stringent and this has resulted in fewer students coming to the country,’’ Vasan said.

According to Vasan, the latest Australian migration policy emphasises more on working professionals like health care professionals, accountants and IT professionals.

In a bid to integrate with the local Australian society better, the FIAV plans to hold an Indian music, dance and food festival in Melbourne on August 18-19 in Melbourne.