Born On A Cusp

Occupying a lot of space these days in local papers is the news about the killings of two Indian nationals in Louisiana.

On Thursday night last week, the two students were found shot dead inside an apartment in Louisiana State University, where they were both pursuing their PhDs. The police had initially said it was a case of a random break-in, but later changed their theory to one saying the two students — both natives of Andhra Pradesh — were “specifically targeted.”

Over the last days the reportage has been persistent; all angles are being pursued.

I am not bothered by the attention being showered to this news. All life is precious, after all. I am simply curious about the lack of equal attention to the reported spate of killings of Indian nationals living in the Philippines.

In a report in August this year, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism described what it called an “alarming” incidence of violent attacks against Indian nationals in the capital, Metro Manila, and surrounding cities. Quoting India’s Ministry of External Affairs, the report says 19 Indians have been killed in the Philippines in the last two years; in 2006 alone, about a dozen Indians were killed there — the highest number of Indian fatalities that year outside of their home country, higher even than those recorded in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan.

(The Indian Embassy in the Philippines estimates that there are about 28,000 Indians in the country, most of them rural folk, and mostly Punjabis and Sindhis, historically the merchants and traders among the population.)

Most of the victims of violence, according to the PCIJ report, were moneylenders — those who extend small loans to poor families and were repaid with 20-percent-interest.

I wish Indian news would write about them too.