Last Sunday’s anti-immigration rallies across Australia’s major cities were painted as primarily anti-Indian demonstrations. But the weekend revealed something far more sinister. Beyond targeting Indian migrants, the same extremist forces desecrated Camp Sovereignty in Melbourne – an Indigenous-led site standing for justice, truth-telling, and sovereignty. This attack demonstrates how Sunday’s violence extended across multiple communities of colour.
Yet Sunday also revealed hope. Counter-rallies emerged in several cities, predominantly organised by Australians of European descent who refused to let racist rhetoric go unchallenged. These counter-protesters often outnumbered the anti-immigration demonstrators, with people sharing the same racial background as the racist rallyists passionately confronting neo-Nazi elements head-on.
The Scapegoating Playbook
The anti-immigration rhetoric follows a familiar playbook that blames newcomers for systemic government failures. Housing shortages, strained healthcare systems, inadequate infrastructure, and rising costs of living – these are policy failures, not migration outcomes. For decades, Australian politics has weaponised fear-based messaging around immigration, from “stop the boats” to reducing human beings to numbers.
Yet it wasn’t always like this. After World War II, Prime Minister Ben Chifley welcomed 170,000 refugees. In the 1970s, Malcolm Fraser ensured Vietnamese asylum seekers were treated humanely. Nearly one million refugees have helped transform Australia into today’s diverse society. Current toxic messaging represents deliberate political choice, not inevitable response to migration.
Indians become easy targets because of their visibility – skin colour, cultural dress, and religious practices make them convenient scapegoats for broader economic anxieties stemming from decades of policy choices favouring property speculation over public investment.
Political Responses: Troubling Patterns and Encouraging Unity
The political response to Sunday’s rallies has revealed both troubling patterns and encouraging developments. While figures like Pauline Hanson continue their anti-migrant rhetoric – recently ruled by a court to have racially vilified Senator Mehreen Faruqi – and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price launches anti-Indian rants claiming the government prioritises “Labor-voting migrants,” a more hopeful pattern has emerged.
Despite the presence of divisive figures, Sunday’s events have unexpectedly united politicians from mainstream parties across party lines in criticising the rally’s racist undertones. Citizens who may vote for different parties have come together in rejecting anti-migrant messaging. The rally’s extremist actions and speeches may prove to be an “own goal” – creating a clearer vision of inclusive Australia where people stand up for each other rather than engaging in “othering.”
The Model Minority Trap
For Indian-Australians, the “model minority” label may seem like recognition, but it’s actually a tool of division serving white supremacy. While highlighting Indians’ educational achievements might seem effective counter-rhetoric, this approach inadvertently reinforces harmful hierarchies against Muslims, Arabs, and refugees facing intensifying derision.
When we defend Indian migrants by emphasising their “value” – degrees, invited status, tax contributions – we implicitly suggest other migrants are less deserving. This creates false hierarchy where skilled migrants are worthy while refugees are burdens. Australia is signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention with certain safeguards, which protects refugees’ rights and specifies they shouldn’t be penalised for irregular entry.
Politicians praising Indian migrants’ “hard work” simultaneously turn their backs on Indigenous sovereignty, maintain refugee detention, and silence voices seeking justice for global struggles. This selective praise isn’t genuine multiculturalism – it’s strategy to divide communities of colour while maintaining existing power structures.
Beyond Tokenism: The Need for Genuine Engagement
Migrant communities have too often been placated by tokenism – festival appearances, ceremonial scarves, strategic photos – rather than demanding a serious engagement on issues of importance such as representation, and co creating solutions and frameworks that build resilience and foster connection and respect. This transactional approach ensures communities remain politically expendable, treated as vote banks easily swayed by symbolic recognition rather than structural change.
Talking to NRI Affairs, Race Discrimination Commissioner Giridharan Sivaraman condemned anti-Indian flyers as “terrible” while revealing the National Anti-Racism Framework has stalled nine months without government response. As Sivaraman notes, “We won’t get along by pretending racism doesn’t exist.”
The path forward requires difficult conversations between communities to find common ground. When Indian-Australians experience racism, the response shouldn’t be seeking individual protection by emphasising worthiness compared to other migrants, but strengthening collective resistance alongside all marginalised groups.
Linked Liberation
As migrants of colour, our future as equal citizens is fundamentally linked to Indigenous communities’ rights and dignity. The attacks on Indigenous sovereignty sites and anti-Indian rallies spring from the same source – rejection of genuinely multicultural, decolonised Australia.
Indigenous sovereignty doesn’t threaten migrant rights – it creates foundation for truly inclusive society where multiple cultures coexist without assimilation into white-dominated structures. The question facing Indian-Australians and other migrant communities is stark: are we aligning with oppressive systems, or standing in solidarity with those resisting them?
A Vision for True Multiculturalism
Building genuine multicultural democracy requires acknowledging that not everyone at Sunday’s rallies was driven by pure racism. Some attendees may have genuine grievances about cost of living and housing – concerns deserving legitimate political channels rather than extremist exploitation.
Yet introspection must also turn inward. Indian-Australians cannot demand protection from racism while remaining silent about toxic elements imported from our homeland: divisive nationalism, Islamophobic rhetoric, and entrenched caste discrimination. These prejudices, when transplanted to Australian soil, poison the very multiculturalism we claim to champion and undermine our credibility as advocates for inclusive society. True maturity as a diaspora community means confronting uncomfortable truths about how homeland politics can fracture our new home’s social fabric.
This means creating forums where economic anxieties can be discussed without demonising migrants, investing in cultural literacy programs across all communities, including Anglo-Australians, and ensuring legitimate policy debates don’t become recruiting grounds for hate movements. When genuine concerns are left unaddressed, they become vulnerable to manipulation by extremist groups offering false solutions.
The path forward involves implementing the stalled Anti-Racism Framework, supporting Indigenous sovereignty, and refusing to let political fear-mongering divide communities. Most importantly, it means recognising Sunday’s rallies weren’t aberrations but predictable outcomes of decades prioritising division over inclusion.
Sunday’s events served as both warning and opportunity. The extremists who targeted multiple communities serve a vision of Australia with no room for Indigenous sovereignty or migrant equality. But the cross-party political unity and citizen solidarity that emerged in response suggests another path is possible.
Our response must be unified: standing together for the decolonised, genuinely multicultural society that benefits everyone except those profiting from division. Racism has no place here, but neither does individualism that leaves communities vulnerable to divide-and-conquer tactics. Our liberation is linked, and our future depends on recognising that truth.
