Naan Violent protest

BELLA COUNIHAN
If food represents culture then Australians may well be like their own meat pies - one has only to lift the lid, add a little tomato sauce of feeling and the majority of us are not like the crusty exterior. On the inside we are just a gooey mix and this is perhaps why Mia Northrop, organiser of Vindaloo against Violence, felt she had to do something about the violent attacks against Indians in Melbourne.
As protests go, it's a fairly strange one. VagainstV asks its 16,000 participants from New York to Melbourne to stop for a curry at their local Indian or cook their own Indian food at home. In a kind of reverse boycott, everyday people who are appalled at the violence in Melbourne, send a message through sheer numbers. This is designed for people who would not usually be bothered going along to muddled lefty student protests or get hassled into signing a petition against the occupation of Palestine. Instead Northrop has got people involved via social media like Twitter and Facebook to send a message of compassion, to Indian media, to governments and to the Indian community itself. As Northrop said in The Age, "It's a small gesture, but when it's made by thousands of people simultaneously, I think it sends a really powerful message."
But there are concerns, some more legitimate than others. One blogger was not impressed, worried that "[the protest] has a tendency to reduce the cultural presence of Indian people in Australia to those jolly service industry folk dishing out butter chicken and saying, "Thank you, come again!" A simplistic view perhaps but the blogger reminds us of the site Stuff White People Like's section on 'awareness' protests. Stuff White People Like blogger Christian Lander writes that 'awareness' protests mean participants "keep doing stuff they like, except now they can feel better about making a difference." Noting that it is difficult to criticise 'awareness' despite its streak of self-congratulation.
How do you criticise something like this when hearts are in the right place and when there is a bit of community oomph behind it?
There are clearly lots of people getting behind it. The Victorian Premier John Brumby and the Minister Assisting the Premier on Multicultural Affairs James Merlino will join a group of Indian students for lunch in Melbourne to support the initiative. The dining hall in Victorian Parliament, which is sitting this week, is changing its menu to serve Indian cuisine. The Victorian Multicultural Commission and the Victorian Police are lending their official support by having lunches and dining at Indian restaurants. Julia Gillard will not be able to attend but a spokesperson said she supports any initiative that has the potential to reduce the incidence of violence in our communities and encourages Melburnians to get involved.
There are, however, still concerns from the Indian community particularly that this event does not actually formally raise money, although the organiser hopes that the restaurants "will channel the community spirit and "pay it forward" by donating to relevant charities. Gautam Gupta, spokesman of the Federation of Indian Students of Australia, points out that even some of the profit that Indian restaurants will generate "could pay for the legal representation of tens of thousands of Indian students who now urgently need to legally challenge unjust and retrospective immigration changes. The idea of VagainstV has its appeal but it lacks substance." Northrop notes, however, that Gupta had previously expressed support for the initiative. She also says that because it is a grass roots intiative done on a whim, funding issues would have been overly complex, the focus of the event being more about giving a "virtual hug" than addressing all the Indian communities issues at once.
I suppose the proof will be in the curry pudding, as it were. If the Indian community feel that hug and if restaurants pay the money forward that will go a long way to making the idea a success. And there are little other positive alternative ideas out there, especially ones as community oriented as this. So in the end, if it's a choice between having a vindaloo together or doing nothing, I think I'll go with the vindaloo.