Deepak Joshi gave the following speech to a Unite Against Racism rally in Naarm/Melbourne on September 26, organised by the Refugee Action Collective, Victoria.
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I acknowledge we gather on the lands of the First Nations people, lands never ceded, lands brutally stolen. I also acknowledge the indigenous communities of my country of origin, India — the Adivasis and Bahujans — and their ongoing struggles for justice.
We, as migrants, owe our cultural freedoms in this country to civil rights struggles worldwide, including those of Australia’s early migrants and First Nations people, whose resistance played an important role in ending the White Australia policy.
The recent racist rallies across Australia were branded as “anti-Indian”, but they actually targeted all migrant communities. These street manifestations are merely the tip of a much deeper iceberg.
Daily, in boardrooms and government offices, our qualifications and competence face constant scrutiny in a way that our white colleagues never experience. Look around the corridors of power — corporations, government offices, parliaments, newsrooms, the law enforcement agencies. Where is the representation reflecting cultural diversity?
This exclusion is not accidental. It is systemic. Structural racism isn’t just street violence — it’s the collective bias of educated professionals in hiring, promotion and workplace cultures.
It’s the apologetic smile while denying promotion or responsibility, or curriculum vitae rejected because of their foreign names. For many, Australia is a great multicultural nation, as long as we, migrants, “know our place”. This covert, insidious racism is harder to challenge, because it leaves room for doubt while systematically limiting opportunities.
When we try to discuss these experiences, we are not entering an equal conversation. The difference in power between us — and the lack of introspection that privilege affords — makes genuine dialogue nearly impossible.
How can you have meaningful exchange when one side holds institutional power, has never had to examine their dominance, and refuses to acknowledge that the problem even exists?
Empty reports
It has been exhausting watching governments respond with reports, reviews, frameworks and ineffective task forces.
Just in the past year, we have seen the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Anti-Racism Framework, Victoria’s Multicultural Review, the City of Melbourne’s inclusion strategies, Victorian Equal Opportunities and Human Rights Commission’s reports, and a few more.
Yet none prevented the Sikh community being called terrorists — often by people from their own country of origin, Muslim women having their hijabs ripped off, or Asian or African gig workers being targeted, even killed, for their appearance.
These reports gather dust while racism flourishes. Officialdom lacks the political will for community-led solutions. There are no consequences for racist statements or actions by people in corridors of power, the most visible examples being attacks on Senator Mehreen Faruqi, Fatima Payman MP and Senator Lidia Thorpe.
Hope amid hatred
But the days of protests have also revealed hope. There were counter-rallies in several cities, predominantly organised by Australians of European descent who refused to let racist rhetoric go unchallenged.
Numbers at the anti-racism counter-protests often outdid those anti-immigration rallies, with people of the same racial background as those protesting migration, passionately confronting the neo-Nazi elements head on. They showed that just as migrant communities are not homogenous, not all white people are racists.
As migrants, I strongly believe it is our responsibility to hold our own communities to account and let go of our own cultural biases and stereotypes.
I must also address something uncomfortable. Indian, who arrive as skilled migrants, are often hailed for our education, skills and contribution to health, technology and other services.
This “model minority” label seems like recognition, but it is deeply problematic. It divides us from historically excluded minorities. Our “success” in this settler-colonial state is often pitted against other minorities — First Nations people, asylum seekers, those fighting for justice here or in their homelands.
Politicians who praise our “hard work”, ignore Indigenous sovereignty, detain refugees and silence voices demanding justice for Palestine.
So, the question we must keep asking is, are we aligning with oppressive systems or standing in solidarity with resistance? Our future depends on challenging the colonial status quo, not upholding it.
Until we refuse performative gestures — festival appearances, ceremonial scarves, photo opportunities in our turbans and hijabs — politicians will treat us as vote banks, easily swayed by multicultural window dressing.
Real influence comes from principled positions, not symbolic recognition.
Gaza complicity
This connects to the Australian government’s complicity in the genocide in Gaza.
Governments, and oppositions, that condemn racism at home but refuse to sanction nations committing atrocities, such as Israel in Gaza, reveal their selective approach to moral questions and their racism. For them, some lives matter infinitely more.
Those people who came to the anti-immigration rallies and chanted racist slogans learn from our “leaders”: Some suffering is acceptable; some deaths are too.
We cannot fight racism at home while enabling genocide abroad.
These struggles connect through recognising that all human lives have equal worth. Let us stand with Palestinians through solidarity, not charity, understanding our liberation is interconnected. Let us fight structural racism because silence anywhere strengthens oppression everywhere.
[Deepak Joshi is the co-founder of Hindus for Human Rights Australia and New Zealand, and The Humanism Project.]