By Casey Neill
A Greater Dandenong Council candidate has been told to “go back to your s***** country” in a shocking text message.
Gagandeep Singh, 29, will vie for one of three seats in Lightwood Ward at the Saturday 22 October local government election.
At 7.46pm on Tuesday 4 October, the Indian-born Australian citizen received a racist message from an anonymous texter.
“Why are you standing in the local council election, you should go back to your country, India,” it started.
“The country with population of 1.4 billion, a dirty, s***** over-polluted country, the country that has more than 800 million Indians living below the poverty line.”
Mr Singh was very shocked and replied to the message with “thanks”.
“I was very devastated and shocked that’s what people are thinking about Indians,” he said.
Riddled with spelling and grammatical errors, the message went on to say that and hundreds of millions of Indians defecated anywhere they could find because of lack of sanitations and public toilets.
“That’s one of the reason that too many dirty and primitive Indians keep coming to Australia,” it said.
“And soon Australia will become as s***** country as India.
“Why don’t you go back to your s***** country and make it as beautiful as Australia.”
The text said Mr Singh might get some votes from his fellow Indians living in “the ghetto called Little India”.
“You look like ISIS TERRORISTS,” it concluded.
Mr Singh, who came to Australia more than six years ago, said the message didn’t make him second-guess his candidacy.
“I’m there to serve the community. If people say good things, if people say bad things, I’m there for the community,” he said.
He didn’t expect such an extreme reaction.
“I thought there would be a few people who would be racist, but not to that extent,” he said.
“It’s very bad message.
“I’m worried that this is the way he feels about all Indians.
“But that’s what he thinks. He’s not going to change me.
“I’m a good person at the end of the day.”
Mr Singh pointed out that in multicultural Australia, “no one is Australian except the Aboriginal people”.
“We all are migrants,” he said.
See pages 38 and 39 for Greater Dandenong candidates’ responses to three questions from the Journal ahead of the polls.
