Indian students in Australia are to be blamed for getting attacked - this seems to be the belief of many Indians prospering in Australia. In a flurry of e-mails from Down Under, it is made out that the Indian students invite these vicious attacks upon themselves.

According to e-mails from Australia, Indian students allegedly do not know English, they display their expensive gadgets like mobiles, laptops and iPods; play loud music, talk loudly in their native tongues, live up to 15 in rooms rented for four persons, make their accommodation filthy, come out to their compounds in their underwear to urinate in the open and display innumerable other uncouth habits loathed by Australians. No wonder they are attacked, say the e-mails.

If the well-settled Australian-Indians have known all these problems for the last few years, what have they done to alleviate the situation? Did they launch any orientation courses in their places of worship to 'welcome' the new Indian students every year and explain to them the norms of the Australian way of life? Did they approach their elected representatives to press for starting these orientation courses in India or Australia? Or, urge them to enforce additional measures at the Australian high commission in India, like an oral English test, before granting them a student visa? Did they seek the closing down of these sub-standard 'teaching shops' run by unscrupulous Australian-Indians as they attract unsuspecting students through their recruiting agents in India?

The established Australian-Indians are unwilling to accept the violent attacks by the Aussie lumpens who demand cigarettes, money and their gadgets and then slash them with knives or pierce their skulls with screwdrivers. They would not comment until the courts decide them. How many convictions have been reported in the last few years? They don't know. It's to do with their clothes smelling of curry, so they get 'curry-bashing', the local Indians say.