Hindus for Human Rights: ‘Racism is not just about violence, it manifests through misinformation’

To all those who have come from far off-lands and continents; who have made it here despite the monumental barriers that passport privilege poses for some over others — the intense questioning as to motivation; the demand for return tickets; the visa costs that keep escalating year on year; the bank statements and medical reports to prove you will not become a burden onto the system, I am one among you.

To those who have lived here for generations and are yet still told to “Go back where you came from”.

To those who hold a sacred relationship to this land — whose belonging to this land can never be severed by the operation of an unjust, extractive and foreign imposed law.

And to all those who join us here in solidarity, who believe in the idea of an inclusive, egalitarian and multicultural Australia.

I come from Bengal in India. I am representing Hindus for Human Rights, a voice for progressive Hindus and Indians working for inter-faith and inter-community respect and understanding and advocating against all kinds of discrimination and bigotry.

Coming from India, I know all too well what hate, bigotry and the belief of the superiority of some over the other looks like, and how the destruction of the very fabric of society is tantamount to the destruction of the human within us.

It is because of the love I hold towards my home country and the appreciation for being here that I believe we must join hands in the fight against racism and bigotry, whether it comes from the far right politics of One Nation, or from the Hindutva ideology that considers Dalits, Muslims, Christians and other minorities inferior and less than human.

As I speak, Muslims are being lynched, evicted, legally stripped of their citizenship through complicit state institutions. Christians are being hounded, their prayer services are being stopped mid-worship on allegations of forced conversions. Dalits and other caste minorities remain trapped in a system where the so-called upper castes get offended by someone for sporting a moustache, or a Dalit man “daring” to attend their own wedding on horseback.

As a person bearing a majoritarian identity, I feel even more compelled to not only speak of racism emanating from a certain and distant political entity, but also the hatred, transpiring within our own South Asian community, including in Australia.

Identities, beliefs and practices travel alongside communities and are often seen through acts such as questioning one’s food preferences, tasking that one Indian student whose identity is given away by their surname to undertake the menial tasks in the house, through casual bullying. They perpetrate through closed social groups and in marriage alliances.

Hindus for Human Rights along with allies have worked hard and successfully to have caste discrimination included as a form of racism in city councils and universities.

When we speak of racism and bigotry it is also important to speak about these internal exclusions that we have created. For the same hatred that I mentioned earlier is then taken and twisted to justify that the far right is not against all immigrants — only the “bad ones” who refuse to “assimilate”, for example, the hijab- or turban-wearing student of Indian origin.

It is used to legitimise the exclusion of our fellow community members, as when One Nation leader Pauline Hanson keeps speaking of how Indians are the “good, hardworking migrants”.

It is seen when platforms show her attending Diwali festivals and being warmly received by diasporic Indians, represented through associations like the Hindu Council of Australia, or when she visits that one Indian migrant-run shop in Townsville, posing with the owner while eating fish and chips.

When I speak of racism, I speak of the overt acts: The people who called 22-year-old Harmanpreet Singh “a dog”, and physically assaulted him, leaving him with a broken nose in February in Corio. Or when they called 26-year-old Nayonika a “curry muncher”, “smelly Indian”, and a “Mrs. 7/11 driver” in Sydney’s CBD.

But racism also manifests through misinformation such as caricatures portraying Indians, and other immigrants, as being responsible for the housing crisis.

It co-exists in the digital world where desk warriors feel confident to call Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi “a filthy Australian hating racist pig”.

It does not stop at that. Racism and bigotry also acts through constant daily acts of micro-aggression; through people staring you down as you walk on the road; through the “majority’s” anxieties constantly expressed in the form of questions like: “So, you will return to India, right? (a question that I have been asked before I even had the chance to introduce myself).

Finally, it comes in the state’s lack of protection and adequate response — a right to remedy — as the law calls it.

It comes in the failure to stop large and hateful rallies, such as the March for Australia, from proceeding in the first place. Meanwhile the law enforcers seeks orders to halt pro-Palestine rallies from proceeding, citing reasons such as “public safety”.

Instead of interventions, the state resorts to “condemnations” before and after the event has already taken place. It reflects in the lack of data monitoring as to whether there has been an increase in incidents following these marches — a response that the ABC media received from the Victoria Police, New South Wales Police and Queensland Police services.

In 2024–25, the Australian Human Rights Commission said it received 144 complaints alleging racial hatred. However, these figures are only a very conservative estimate since, as we know as “immigrants”, we are often told to stay quiet, put up with the abuse and walk away. Just “active engagement with culturally and linguistically diverse communities” by the state is thus, not enough.

I now turn to give some facts on “housing and cost of living, crime and migration rates”, considering how Indians and other immigrants are being villainised in the right wing-discourse.

It is not migration, but bad policies which create housing shortages; decades of tax settings that reward buying property over building it and consecutive governments that under-fund social housing.

While the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute tells us that there needs to be 1.2 million new homes by 2029 to meet demands, we are falling behind by roughly half that rate.

This is not a migration or a refugee problem but, purely, state apathy.

When they tell Australians that migrants bring crime, check the numbers. Not only do they not hold up, but the data also runs the other way.

The Australian Institute of Criminology has consistently found that migrants and refugees are underrepresented in crime statistics relative to their share of the population. A 2023 Study by the University of Melbourne shows that migrants have higher rates of civic and political participation, including tax contributions than the national average.

It’s a different matter though when fear needs only to be evoked — not proved.

It is much easier to blame the “other” than to ask and deliver on real questions, tax billionaires, hold them accountable when a trillion-dollar AI company’s system accesses sensitive personal information like Medicare data.

We need to collectively advocate against Donald Trump-style deportation laws and excessive police powers. We need to call for investment in community cohesion infrastructures; for housing reforms; and for accountability against those who incite hatred, dehumanise, or degrade others. Individually, we can speak up whenever we are witnesses to acts of racism, and to offer support to those being victimised.

Particularly for my fellow Indians and South Asians, who are swayed by the idea of being the model minority who has nothing to fear, we must remember that our identities are mere constructs, fit to be used or disposed of, as and when those holding political power please. Remember the ethos of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam: The world is one family.

And then stand shoulder to shoulder with your neighbours, familiar and unfamiliar.