Responding to Geneva by Exemplary Restitution

Responding to Geneva by Exemplary Restitution

By Sandhya Jain on March 29, 2013

The shrillness with which political parties in Tamil Nadu have espoused the cause of Sri Lankan Tamils, with Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa setting a dangerous precedent by seeking UN intervention for a referendum to partition the island nation, contrasts sharply with their deafening silence on the plight of the Tamil minority in Malaysia. Though Malaysian Tamil leader P Waythamoorthy has been on hunger strike since March 10, 2013, to protest against the indifference of the ruling Barisan Nasional and opposition Pakatan Rakyat coalition towards the plight of the Indian poor, there has not been a word of support from any regional or national political party in India.

Hindraf chairperson launched his ‘hunger viratham’ (water only) as part of a bid to draw national and international attention to the fact Malaysia’s system of electoral democracy entrenches the marginalisation of minority groups by the numerically and economically superior ethnic groups. To counter this in-built racism, Hindraf proposes a blueprint comprising a five-year action plan to end minority alienation, which it wants the Government led by Najib Razak and opposition coalition led by Anwar Ibrahim to endorse. Hindraf wants a Minority Affairs Ministry to address the problems of all marginalised communities.

For this, it hopes to make the Tamil vote count in the national and provincial Assembly elections this year. The core demand is repudiation of Article 153 of the Malaysian constitution which establishes Malay supremacy in the Islamic nation. Hindraf wants a secular state.

Hindraf’s blueprint calls for comprehensive government action to uplift over eight lakh internally displaced estate workers (DEW) who have been forcefully pushed to form a new urban underclass and lumped together with other Indian poor. These descendants of Tamil indentured labour during the British Raj not only lost their homesteads and livelihoods when evicted from the rubber estates and plantations in past decades, but suffered fragmentation of the communities and massive destruction of their clan temples.

The affirmative action proposed by Hindraf covers other races (such as Chinese) if they too are displaced estate workers or descendants of such workers. It proposes allocating land to DEWs under a contract farming programme, developing a housing programme for them, empowering DEW youth through training and skills programmes, and building places of worship and granting burial grounds for them. In like manner, the Hindraf blueprint extends to non-Indians affected by denial of adequate and equal educational opportunities or subjected to unequal employment and business opportunities.

A major concern highlighted by Hindraf over the years is the crisis of over 350,000 stateless Indians, that is, those denied birth certificates by the authorities, those without MyKads (full Malaysian citizenship status), and those without blue identity cards. It wants all stateless Indians without MyKads to be given full Malaysian citizenship status immediately. Those without MyKad and birth certificate should be permitted a simplified requirement of having just two other fellow Malaysians submit affidavits regarding their personal knowledge of the birth and parentage of the applicant. Finally, the Government must permanently simplify registration procedures to prevent the extension of the current situation of statelessness. The problem of stateless Indians is not exclusive to Tamil Hindus but extends to those of mixed parentage and will also help Chinese holders of red identification cards (ICs).

Other serious concerns include custodial deaths of Indian detainees, and the perception that the Royal Malaysian Police behave with impunity while maltreating detainees from the community. Hindraf favours establishment of an Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission to manage the uniformed services; implementation of effective measures to curb extra-judicial killing in custody. It claims these will benefit all Malaysians equally as they transcend racial and religious boundaries.

The hunger strike has now been on for 20 days, and Waythamoorthy’s physical condition has weakened considerably, as he also has a heart condition and is a hypertensive diabetic. Waythamoorthy is a tireless campaigner for the human rights of his people. He came into the limelight when, on November 25, 2007, he brought over 30,000 (some claim 100,000) Indians on to the streets of Kuala Lumpur in defiance of a ban on public rallies, to protest against five decades of oppression and marginalisation of the community.

The rally followed the arrest of Waythamoorthy and leading Hindraf members, M Manoharan, P Uthayakumar and V Ganabatirau, on October 30, 2007, for participating in a protest against the demolition of a Hindu shrine in Kuala Lumpur. They were released after two days. But on November 23, Waythamoorthy and Uthayakumar and Ganabatirau were arrested on charges of sedition. They were granted bail, but Waytha refused bail in protest against the arrest. On November 26, the court discharged all three men because the prosecution had failed to adhere to the judge’s instructions to attach the Tamil transcripts of their speeches to the charge sheet.

After a four and half year exile in the UK, Waythamoorthy returned to Malaysia in August 2012, to help the Human Rights Party make an electoral debut. He has actively engaged with the ruling party and the Opposition coalition for a seat arrangement. Observers say that if the Opposition does not accede the request for certain seats at the national and provincial level, the Indian vote may be lost to both formations, which would give a de facto advantage to the ruling Barisan Nasional.