A massive anti-racism rally held yesterday outside the Australian embassy in Mumbai in protest against Indian students being targeted in Australia turned into a racial slugfest.
Over 20,000 protesters from different races, castes, communities and religious groups turned up outside the precincts of the Australian embassy for the rally which was organized by Students Federation of India (SFI) along with the National Students Union of India (NSU). Shouting anti-racism slogans, the protesters demanded that Australian government should take more steps to ensure security for Indian students residing in Australia.
But soon after, the protest rally took an unexpected twist when a group of north Indians from Bihar started shouted slogans against Raj Thackeray calling him a racist and demanded that Maharashtra Government should arrest and punish all those who were involved in the attacks against north Indians last year. They also called for banning of Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) terming it a racist party. Some protesters, allegedly from Shiv Sena and MNS, angered by the sloganeering of this group started pushing and beating this group of protesters and told them that if they can't maintain discipline during protesting, they should go and hold a protest rally of their own in Patna or Ranchi.
Watching the fracas between the two groups, another bunch of protesters belonging to the Muslim community decided to join in and began raising slogans against Narendra Modi and Bal Thackeray calling them mass-murderers. They demanded that Indian government should first protect minorities of India from communal and racist violence unleashed against them by Hindutva leaders and punish all those responsible for Mumbai and Gujarat riots before raising the issue of racism on an international level. This turn of events infuriated thousands of other protesters who started abusing the Muslim protesters by calling them 'terrorists' and asking them to 'go back to Pakistan'. Several protesters belonging to the minority community were badly beaten up and had to be rushed to a nearby hospital.
Disturbed at the proceedings, the organisers of the rally tried to calm down the passions. But the situation got more ugly when a small group of Dalits on the periphery of the rally took the opportunity to protest against killings of Dalits and began taunting a nearby group of college students for their hypocrisy in not standing up against caste-violence in the interiors of the country. Some college students retaliated against their taunts by shouting anti-quota slogans calling reservations in educational institutions as a form of 'institutionalised racism'. This resulted in fist-fights between the two groups in which several protesters from both sides were injured and had to be hospitalized.
Policemen who were covering the rally were clearly outnumbered and could do nothing but watch helplessly as the protest rally turned into a battleground. Before additional police parties could reach the venue to control the situation, another minor fight broke out between a group of Tamilians who started shouting slogans against Indian government for being mute witness to killings of over 50,000 Tamils in Sri Lanka and a group of north Indian students who responded by chiding the protesting group for supporting LTTE terrorists.
By the time additional forces rushed in and managed to control the rioting groups by lobbing tear gas shells, over two thousands protesters had suffered serious injuries.
The Australian deputy high commissioner who was watching the proceedings from his office window was seen chuckling loudly at the tragic turn of events but later issued a statement condemning the violence that broke out at the protest rally.
