asianaffairs-Feb 2008

                                     Malaysia

Ethnic Indians in distress

Ethnic Indians in Malaysia complain that the government is systematically persecuting them, writes Atul Cowshish

  During the three-day ‘successful’ visit of India’s defence minister A.K. Antony to Malaysia in early January it was reported — later denied — that Kuala Lumpur would freeze recruitment of Indian workers. The report brought back memories of the uncalled-for police swoop on over 200 Indian IT (information technology) professionals in Kuala Lumpur over a year ago and their subsequent ordeal that ended only after high-level diplomatic intervention. The latest report coincided with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's address to the ‘Pravasi Bharatiyas’ (overseas Indians), an annual show of diminishing interest, where a Malaysian minister of Indian origin, S. Samy Vellu of the Malaysian Indian Congress, was among the audience.
   It was left to the somewhat embar-rassed minister to refute the report — later also by the Malaysian home minister. Vellu’s words would have brought relief to the thousands (140,000, according to some reports) of Indian workers in Malaysia if only he enjoyed better credibility among fellow Malaysian Indians, who seem to think he has done little to protect their interests in the last three decades of enjoying ministerial posts. Some accuse him of not allowing better Indian representation in the cabinet to maintain ‘monopoly’. The Chinese on the other hand have seen their representative strength in the cabinet rise to six from three.
   Antony claimed that he returned home with an assurance from Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi that he was not planning to throw out the Indian workers from his country. Soothing as these words might be, for any assurance about the future of ethnic Indians in Malaysia to be convincing only changes on the ground will matter. The federal Malaysian government can no longer afford to be indifferent to the complaints of the country’s Indian community, specifically the Tamil-speaking community, a large number of whom have been living in penury after the demise of plantation cultivation. It is believed that 60 per cent of the ethnic Indian community in Malaysia lives in poverty.
   Relations between the Badawi-led Barisan Nasional coalition government and the ethnic Indians looked to be at an all-time low last November when the authorities took umbrage at a protest demonstration by about 10,000 supporters of the Hindu Rights Action Force, or Hindraf, near the British High Commission in Kuala Lumpur. Since the demonstration was banned, the security forces felt free to beat the Hindraf supporters, arrest their leaders and then seek ‘treason’ charges against them. Hindraf claims to represent 30 NGOs (non-governmental organisations) but the government overshot the mark when it accused Hindraf of links with the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam).
   Malaysia, among the much-acclaimed countries of ‘Asian Tigers’, may have made rapid economic strides in the last two decades or so but at the cost of democracy and freedom. Its constitution makes the executive supreme — even the judiciary is accountable to it. The press enjoys little freedom. Dissent is deeply resented by the government: a former deputy prime minister had to spend time in jail on trumped-up charges. Add to this the creeping Islamisation of the society.      
   The Hindraf demonstration was organised ostensibly to seek a $4 trillion award in damages from Her Majesty’s government for the people of Indian origin in Malaysia who were transported as indentured labour in the nineteenth century into what was then known as Malaya to work on plantations and other agricultural avocations. In recent years many of their descendants have felt orphaned because the government is allegedly unconcerned about giving them a better life. They also allege that the government is systematically ‘persecuting’ them.
   After the cry of the ethnic Indians reached India and some influential leaders voiced their concern, the Malaysian government reacted angrily, asking the Indian critics to mind their own business. ‘No interference’ in our internal affairs, came the warning. When this did not work, the Malaysians did appear to soften a bit. It looked as though the government in Kuala Lumpur was ready to take a more lenient view of the ‘demands’ of ethnic Indians.

  But the government’s son-of-the-soil (Bhumiputra) policy rules out special favours for any Malaysian other than native Malays (Muslims). The policy was designed to please the majority community, which wanted a bigger share in jobs to improve their standards of living in a Malaysia of fast growing economy. This has coincided with the snowballing influence of hardline Islamists. Demands have been raised for declaring Malaysia an Islamic state ruled by the Sharia. In his last years in office as prime minister Mahathir Mohammed took ardent steps to emphasise the Islamic character of Malaysia.
   Religious fanatics in Malaysia took advantage of it to raise some outrageous demands. They sought a ban on keeping dogs as pets because it is considered unclean by them. These elements made provocative comments against the minority communities. One legislator had reportedly asked for the ‘decimation’ of the Indian community. The least that the Indians expected was a reprimand for the man; but none came.
   Religious minorities in Malaysia came under stress because of an increasing sense of being discriminated against. For instance, their civil disputes with a member of the majority community are decided in Islamic courts. The widow of Malaysia’s most famous mountaineer, M. Moorthy, was denied permission to perform his last rites according to Hindu custom as he had ‘secretly’ converted to Islam.
   The post-independence history of uneasy relations between the majority and minority communities in Malaysia is traced to the 1969 ‘race riots’, with one in 2001 resulting in the death of five ethnic Indians. Since 1978 a large number of temples frequented by the ethnic Indians have been demolished, allegedly because they were built on public land. At least two of these temples were about a century old. Similar treatment does not seem to apply to mosques.
   Attacks on the ethnic Chinese at one time reached a level that required urgent ministerial-level talks between Malaysia and China to prevent permanent damage in their bilateral relations. But being relatively prosperous the Chinese community is apparently more confident of safeguarding its interests and its status than its poorer Indian cousins.
   Instead of addressing the problems being faced by ethnic Indians — if it concerns only the Tamil-speaking ones it must be so much easier for the government — the Malaysian government seems to have opted for outright rejection of their demands and using force to silence the dissidents, when dialogue would decidedly be the better course.

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