“//…I do not completely fault Abdullah for trying get political, general election and voter mileage over the “Thaipusam as public holiday” gambit..//” – YB Kit.

One of the main grouses of Malaysian Indians, leading to Hindraf, is govt’s insensitivity and religious intolerance in demolishing Hindu temples.

So to make amends, for the sake of ameliorating Malaysian Indians’ alienation, a corresponding gesture and concession to ‘religious tolerance’ has to be made, and what better way to make it than to make Thaipusam a holiday?

A holiday is a symbolic gesture. It is an easier concession to make for immediate political expedience than implementation of other substantive programs to help Indian underclass including upgrading funding, aid, the facilities and standards of Tamil primary schools – or the other problem of Hindu temples sitting on government reserve lands or their relocation – that will take time to work out.

Even the holiday symbolic concession is a half way measure – it is a public holiday for FT and Putrajaya only and not a national holiday throughout the country, as MIC/Samy Vellu requested.

It is almost as if the government, in making Thaipusam a public holiday for FT and Putrajaya, is merely extending this olive branch to the Indian community – “We’ll give you a holiday for FT and Putrajaya (after all its no big deal because with Selangor having holiday, and with its people on leave flocking into FT and Putrajaya, and the religious procession, these two places will be jammed anyway – and if you show gratitude for this holiday for limited places (KL & Putrajaya) to continue giving support as you traditionally did in respect of BN in this imminent election, then we’ll consider all the way to making Thaipusam a national public holiday all the way, throughout the land…..”

This kind of “olive branch” of a public holiday for Thaipusam in KL and Putrajaya must be viewed subject to two caveats:-

1. the granting of a holiday on Thaipusam is not something that the community should be particularly grateful about because it should have been given in the first place; it is odd that you can deprive a community an equal entitlement to the right of a religious holiday that others enjoy and when you eventually restore the original entitlement, you can ask something back quid pro quo based on a pledge on the gratitude of the community originally deprived;

2. the granting of a public holiday is more a symbolic token expression of making amends and is not a substitution for grappling and addressing the real and hard issues and concerns relating to neglect and marginalisation of the community for last 20 over years; to otherwise calculate that something token could substitute for something substantive to retain the votes of this particular community is to make condescending presumption that the community benefited cannot differentiate between what is important and substantive and what is not being mere token and symbolic gesture.

There’s another question : why, even by way of token or symbolic gesture, grant a Thaipusam holiday for FT and Putrajaya and not immediately a national holiday for Indians in rest of country?

Is it because it is a mere half way measure and token as if to say (and test), it all now depends on how the Malaysian Indian community will respond to this extension of an olive branch – will they continue to give their traditional support to the BN in the coming election (suspected weakened in the wake of Hindraf) to return quid pro quo their gratitude (the implication being otherwise no national holiday for the rest) ?

In the beginning I was aghast that there could be such an unspoken implied condition behind this half measure/token. It is most condescending (I thought) to attach such an implied condition to an olive branch extended.

On further reflection, it would appear that we should not impute such an implied condition to explain why the holiday is confined to KL and Putrajaya and not whole country.

The PM said that whether it is also national holiday for all will depend on discussions in due course with various Mentri Besars and chief ministers of other states affected, and he is correct.

Not many are aware that holidays are actually regulated by a Holidays Act 1951. Whereas the PM/Federal Minister could decide holidays for Federal Territories by notification in gazette – here I don’t know why he made specific mention of KL & Putrajaya and not Federal Territory of Labuan as well – holidays in the states can be determined and declared only after “consultation” with the relevant state authorities. That appears to be the position.