Indians

Hindraf demo – Cabinet should offer olive branch and end all sabre-rattling

By Kit

November 27, 2007

The Barisan Nasional leaders, led by Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, should stop their truculent and confrontational responses to the Sunday 30,000 Hindraf demonstration in Kuala Lumpur, as illustrated by the following:

In my first parliamentary speech when I returned to Parliament after the 2004 general election, I had called for a Parliamentary Select Committee on the Marginalisation of the Malaysian Indian community, the new underclass in the country.

I had quoted the paper “Election 2004: New Politics for Indian Malaysians” presented by “Group of Concerned Citizens” which had summarized nine long-standing fundamental issues faced by Indian Malaysians, as proper agenda to constitute the terms of reference of the Parliamentary Select Committee on the Marginalisation of the Malaysian Indian community, viz:

There will now have to be a tenth term of reference — the rampant demolition of Hindu temples and disregard of the religious rights and sensitivities of the Malaysian Indian community.

On June 4, 2004 I had written to the Works Minister and MIC President, Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu, asking for his support in Cabinet for the establishment of a Parliamentary Select Committee to break the back of the problem of the marginalization of the Indian community, as the Indians in Malaysia had not received commensurate benefits from decades of national development.

Although Samy Vellu expressed support for the proposal for the establishment of a Parliamentary Select Committee on the Marginalisation of the Indian Community when he received my letter, nothing has been heard on the matter in the past three years.

Will the Cabinet heed the “cry of desperation” of the Malaysian Indian community as symbolized by the Hindraf demonstration on Sunday — or will it remain, blind, deaf and mute to the growing sense of despair, disillusionment and alienation of Malaysian Indians?