Amid the ongoing diplomatic tensions between India and Canada, an Indian-origin man faced a hateful encounter while walking in the Kitchener-Waterloo region in Ontario.
The man was subjected to hate speech by an elderly woman who told him to 'return to India' because of his Indian heritage.
Ashwin Annamalai, while recounting being confronted by an elderly woman, took to X and described it as deeply unsettling. He highlighted a trend of rising hate crimes against people of colour in the region.
He posted, “The once welcoming community of Kitchener-Waterloo has seen a disturbing rise in hate A random woman gave me the finger & spewed hate while I was out for a walk.”
In the long post, Annamalai showed an elderly Canadian woman abusing him for his Indian heritage. On being asked the reason for the woman’s aggression towards him, she said, "I am being aggressive to you because there are too many Indians in Canada. And I want you to go back. Go back to India. Your parents are not Canadians and your grandparents are not Canadians.”
Annamalai shared the incident and wrote, “She WRONGLY assumed I am Indian and I must leave immediately. When I challenged her very politely she went about her racist rants… She also is upset that there are black people in the community. She also accuses me of not speaking English & that I need to just leave.”
He also mentioned that the woman targeted him and included derogatory comments about other communities. he also shared a report which indicated that Canada's Waterloo region has the highest rate of police-reported hate crimes.
“This isn’t an isolated incident. Such hate-filled encounters have been happening regularly since the beginning of the year, & people seem to be getting more emboldened. I’ve spoken about the racism faced by international students in our community,” the Indian-origin man wrote on X.
“Harassing well-meaning Canadians on the streets and blaming them for no rhyme or reason isn’t the solution to the challenges we face. We as a community can definitely do much better than blaming each-other & come together to find solutions to problems that plague all of us,” he added.
The recent incident took place amid the trend of immigration to Canada from India has seen a remarkable surge. As per data, the number of new Indian permanent residents (PRs) rose from 39,340 in 2015 to 139,785 in 2023.
