May Rebound On Them

Fiji Indians Fear Prasad Case May Rebound On Them

Indians in Fiji are concerned that the hullabaloo over the six-year-old Fiji-Indian girl Nalnie Prasad, who was deported from Australia early in August, will have adverse repercussions on them if they want to enter Australia.

THEY say that the Australian authorities will now make it “awkward” for them to get permits, and that there are already straws in the wind.

They say that one of these is a notice in The Fiji Times of August 19 from the Australian Commissioner in Fiji informing intending applicants for entry into Australia (including tourists) that they should submit their applications well in advance of the desired date of travel.

The Indians say that their applica tions may not be refused, but that entry permits may be so long in coming that they will die of old age before getting them.

They point out also—although it may only be coincidence—that an Indian nurse, a trained hospital sister, who applied recently to enter Aus tralia to do two years’ midwifery and child welfare training, has had her application turned down. This is be lieved to be the first time that such an application has been refused.

Manoeuvring

Nalnie Prasad, also known as Nancy, was deported to Fiji after two years of manoeuvring by relatives in Australia to enable her to stay, plus hundreds of letters to the Aus tralian Immigration Department, countless twisted, angled, and hysterical words in her favour in some sections of the Australian Press, and a fake kidnapping at Sydney’s Mascot airport.

Nalnie had come to Sydney from Fiji in April, 1962, with her father Mr. Shiri Prasad, a Suva carpenter, her mother, three brothers and sisters, and Mr. Prasad’s mother-in law.

The Prasads, who have relatives in Australia married to Australians, entered the country on tourist permits.

These permits were subsequently extended to April, 1963. Meanwhile Mr. Prasad bought two houses in a Sydney suburb, and when his family’s permits expired in April,

1963, and he showed no sign of going home, the Australian Govern ment issued deportation orders.

With the exception of Nalnie, the Prasad family returned to Fiji in the liner Orsova the following November.

At Mr. Prasad’s request, the Govern ment allowed Nalnie to say a further two months because of a throat in fection. However, at the end of that time, her relatives failed to re turn her to Fiji as agreed with her father.

Subsequently, Mr. Reg Powditch, an English-born panel beater, of Sydney, and his wife Shashi (Nalnie’s grown-up sister) attempted to adopt Nalnie to avoid having to send her home. However, the courts turned down their application and they had no option but to send her back.

But on the night Nalnie was due to leave Mascot airport, she was kidnapped by a part-aboriginal—by arrangement, it was later revealed, with the Powditch family.

On being returned to the

Powditches, the Australian Immig] tion Department promptly issued deportation order, and she return to Fiji the following night in t company of Mr. and Mrs. Powdito All fares were paid for by the At tralian Government.

During the two years manoeuvrings to keep Nalnie in At tralia—and particularly in the 1 stages—some sections of the At tralian Press tried to make out ti Australia’s Minister for Immigratic ex-world cycling champion Hub Opperman, was a wicked villain 1 insisting that Nalnie should go hoi to her parents. They also made c that virtually the whole of Asia v rising in wrath against him what, in their view, was a flagn example of the White Austra policy in action.

Annoyance, Anger

Despite statements by Mr. Opp man that the Prasad case had be “constantly and gravely misrepi sented” to the public (which certainly had), and efforts by h to set out the facts calmly a correctly, his side of things v usually ignored.

Meanwhile, in Fiji, the feeli among the Indian community v one of annoyance and even ang rather than sympathy, at the attem by the Prasads and Powditches “buck” the Australian Governmen Now, Fiji’s Indians look like be: made to suffer as a result of it.

Nalnie Prasad smiles for a "Fiji Times" photographer soon after her arrival in S[?] from Australia in August. She is with her brother-in-law Mr. Reg. Powditch, of Syd[?] and his wife Shashi (Nalnie's grown up sister). Behind are other members of Prasad family.