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Monday 3 December 2007

India's Role In Malaysia's Ethnic Crisis

There's quite a bit of history lessons in here that I never got from my textbooks when I was in school.

Bummer.

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OVERSEAS AND UNHAPPY - India needs to pay attention to the ethnic crisis in Malaysia

by Sunanda K. Datta-Ray
The Telegraph (Calcutta, India)

Malaysia’s simmering ethnic crisis is something for the ministry of overseas Indian affairs to ponder on. Presumably, the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman was bestowed on S. Samy Vellu, president since 1979 of the Malaysian Indian Congress and public works minister in the ruling coalition, because India approves of his work as representative of more than two million ethnic Indians. Since the man and his constituency are inseparable, convulsions in the latter that question his leadership oblige India to reassess its attitude towards the diaspora.

Initially, screaming headlines about Hindus on the march suggested hordes of ash-smeared trident-brandishing sadhus with matted locks rampaging to overwhelm Muslim Malaysia. In reality, thousands of impoverished Tamils carrying crudely drawn pictures of Gandhi sought only to hand over a petition to the British high commission in Kuala Lumpur about their plight since their ancestors were imported as indentured labour 150 years ago. It so happened that the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf), a new umbrella group of 30 organizations, mobilized Sunday’s protest when Tamils battled the riot police for six hours.


The confrontation was even farther removed in space than in time from Lee Kuan Yew’s claim in 1959, when Singapore was waiting to join Malaya, that India was to Malayan culture “what Greece and Rome are to Western culture”. Peninsular Malay was part first of the Srivijaya empire and then of Rajendra Chola’s overseas dominions. Even modern Islamic Malaysia borrows heavily from India. Terms like Bangsa Melayu (for the Malay nation) and bumiputera (Malay Muslims), the cherished determinant of political and economic privilege, expose Malaysia’s own unacknowledged linguistic bankruptcy.

Describing the Thirties excavations in Kedah, which confirmed that Bujang was a Srivijaya empire port — dating back to the 4th century — within easy sailing distance of India, Time magazine reported in 2000, “But an Indian Malaysian visiting the Bujang Valley might come away feeling demeaned rather than proud — and that would be no accident.” Anthony Spaeth, the writer, went on to say that “the official literature does its best to downplay, even denigrate, the Indian impact on the region”.

Ironically, the Indian minority’s further marginalization coincided with the long tenure (1981-2003) of the former prime minister, the ethnic Indian medical doctor, Mahathir Mohamad. He also took Malaysia further along the road to Islamization. A kind of competitive Islam was at play under him with the fundamentalist Parti Islam SeMalaysia demanding Sharia law and Mahathir’s subsequently disgraced lieutenant, Anwar Ibrahim, peddling what he called Islamic values without “Arabisation”.

Lee says Chinese Malaysians (25 per cent) who have maintained an uneasy peace since the vicious Malay-Chinese riots of 1969, are being marginalized. But they at least have someone to speak up for them. They are also able to salt away their savings in Singapore where they often send their children for education and employment. Lacking any of these fall-back advantages, the much poorer Indians suffered in silence until Sunday’s upsurge. They did not protest even when six Indians were murdered and 42 others injured in March 2001 without the authorities bothering to investigate the attacks.

Nearly 85 per cent of Indian Malaysians are Tamil, and about 60 per cent of them are descended from plantation workers. Official statistics say Indians own 1.2 per cent of traded equity (40 per cent is held by the Chinese) though they constitute eight per cent of the population. About 5 per cent of civil servants are said to be Indian while 77 per cent are Malay. An Indian who wants to start a business must not only engage a bumiputera partner but also fork out the latter’s 30 per cent share of equity. The licence-permit raj has run amok with government sanction needed even to collect garbage. Lowest in the education and income rankings, Indians lead the list of suicides, drug offenders and jailed criminals. All the telltale signs of an underclass. While the state gives preferential treatment to bumiputeras, the MIC has done little to help Indians rise above their initially low socio-economic base.

Religious devotion often being the last refuge of those with little else to call their own, Indians set great store by their temples, which are now the targets of government demolition squads. Many are technically illegal structures because the authorities will not clear registration applications. The last straw was the eve-of-Diwali destruction of a 36-year-old temple in Shah Alam town which is projected as an “Islamic City”. Insult was piled on injury when, having announced that he would not keep the customary post-Eid open house as a mute mark of protest, Vellu hastily backtracked as soon as the prime minister frowned at him.

Emotions have been simmering since 2005 when the mullahs seized the body of a 36-year-old Tamil Hindu soldier and mountaineer, M. Moorthy, and buried it over the protests of his Hindu wife, claiming Moorthy had converted to Islam. A Sharia court upheld the mullahs, and when the widow appealed, a civil judge ruled that Article 121(1A) of Malaysia’s constitution made the Sharia court’s verdict final. Civil courts had no jurisdiction. Such restrictions and, even more, the manner in which rules are implemented, make a mockery of the constitution’s Article 3(1) that “other religions may be practised in peace and harmony”.

Last Sunday’s petition was signed by 1,00,000 Indians. The fact that it was provoked by a supposed conversion and a temple destruction and was sponsored by Hindraf prompted P. Ramasamy, a local academic, to say, “The character of struggle has changed. It has taken on a Hindu form — Hinduism versus Islam.” But that is a simplification. The protesters who were beaten up, arrested and charged with sedition were Indians. They were labelled Hindu because Tamil or Malayali Muslims (like Mahathir) go to extraordinary lengths to deny their Indian ancestry and wangle their way into the petted and pampered bumiputera preserve. In Singapore, too, Indian Muslims who speak Tamil at home or sport Gujarati names drape the headscarf called tudung on their wives and insist they are Malay. Malaysia’s Sikhs also distance themselves from the Indian definition which has become a metaphor for backwardness.

Branding Sunday’s demonstration Hindu automatically singles out the minority as the adversary in a country whose leaders stress their Islamic identity. The implication of a religious motivation also distracts attention from the more serious economic discrimination that lies at the heart of minority discontent. Acknowledging that “unhappiness with their status in society was a real issue” for the protesters, even The New Straits Times, voice of the Malay establishment, commented editorially, “The marginalisation of the Indian community, the neglect of their concerns and the alienation of their youth must be urgently addressed.”

Some have suggested that the illusory prospect of fat damages from Hindraf’s $4 trillion lawsuit against the British government may have tempted demonstrators. But the lawyers who lead Hindraf must know that their plaint is only a symbolic gesture like my Australian aboriginal friend Paul Coe landing in England and taking possession of it as terra nullius (nobody’s land) because that is what the British did in Australia. The more serious message is, as The New Straits Times wrote, that secular grievances must be addressed. Though plantation workers have demonstrated earlier against employers, never before have they so powerfully proclaimed their dissatisfaction with the government. In doing so, under Hindraf colours, they have also signified a loss of confidence in Vellu and the MIC. The worm has turned. There is a danger now of the government hitting back hard.

All this concerns India, not because of M. Karunanidhi’s fulminations but because interest in overseas Indians must be even-handed. The diaspora does not begin and end with Silicon Valley millionaires. Nor should Vayalar Ravi’s only concern be V.S. Naipaul and Lakshmi Mittal whose pictures adorn his ministry’s website. Indians of another class are in much greater need of his attention.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kudos, a very well written article.

It will take a long time before we can see changes in Malaysia. The Malaysian PM will continue using MIC to shield himself and continue pouring millions of dollars into making the rulling class of muslims even stronger through education, allocation of jobs in high corporate positions and loans worth billions.

MIC cant do much because they are eating out of UMNO's hand for "petty contracts etc" the supremo among the coalition party. They are so used to malay supremacy ( Ketuanan Melayu) that they will continue being beggars and fight at party meetings amongst themselves.

They will also justify why we have to succumb to the all these things. As if that is not enough it seems like he is grooming his son to take over MIC and gives control to MIC investment arm MAIKA. ( which was set up from funds collected from poor Indians who mortgaged their houses and pawned their gold chains with the hope of reaping profits for their betterment)

The MIC President also made a remark in the news papers today pointing that the malaysian indians should be grateful that they have enough food and clothes to wear !

India must have a big reason for confering awards on people like this. He also said in the newspapers today that he will talk to the Indian leaders in India during his visit and explain what the actual situation here is. ( i.e everything is fine, the indians are asking too much).


And the minister who told off Chief Minister Karunanidhi uttered that the Malaysian Indians are simply making their life difficult for themselves through demonstrating their dissatisfaction.

I also wonder how much gratitude this people have for the millions of dollars worth of road contracts that India gave Malaysia and how many of these contarcts actually owned by malaysian indians.

Indian can participate to help the Indians here through establishing schools and universities for people of Indian origin. Funding can be collected from Indian millionaires and indian enterprises world wide.

I really did not care about all this until I saw police brutality againts the peaceful demonstrators. When I went to the hospital on that fateful day I saw poor indians seeking treatment. I realised how I have lived in my own world. It has been long enough since I have spoken or even cared about their welfare. I frequently dismissed their poverty for lack of hardwork. Loooking into their eyes I saw destitute and a state of hopelessness.

To help them you will need massive cultural as well as academic initiative. You first have to raise their level of conscience and build their character , many of them are the same as their forefathers when they were recruited as indentured labourers from the farms and streets of India but as Samy righfully pointed out they have enough food and clothes to wear so shouldn't they be grateful !

Om Namasivaya

ARJUNA

Anonymous said...

For too long the Indians in Malaysia have been marginalised and deprived of in the land of aplenty. Discrimination in every aspect of life is the norm. During the 80's the civil service was made up of 30% Indians, now they only makeup about 2%. Indians have been deprived of places in universities and smart students denied scholarships. And now the Malays have embarked on hindu temple destruction. So naturally the consequence is the Hindraf explosion.

gmk said...

What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight - it's the size of the fight in the dog.

History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.


Dwight D. Eisenhower

Anonymous said...

In 2004, global financial services firm Morgan Stanley issued a report that estimated that over US$100 billion (RM360 billion) had been lost to Malay patronage in the 20 years preceding 2003 (from 1984 to 2003). One economist estimates that in the 36 years of its existence, the New Economic Policy has been used to channel over one trillion ringgit to the Malay community through ASN (Amanah Saham Malaysia), ASB (Amanah Saham Bumiputera) and other related government schemes.

Since 1970, the government has used the NEP to divert education, employment and every other conceivable benefit to the Malay Malaysians. These measures have largely been successful with all the top posts in government-linked companies (GLCs), the government, universities, public-listed companies and practically every single area that the government has any control over being reserved for one race.

No company may be listed with a lower than 30% bumi equity but there is absolutely no problem if it is otherwise. Some industries have a mandatory 51% bumi ownership while others are reserved exclusively for them. Petronas, for example, only employs Malays for its top managerial and executive positions and awards contracts only to Malay Malaysians.

All government and municipal contracts are reserved to class ‘F-class’ bumi contractors. All the proposed projects under the 9th Malaysia Plan thus far are reserved for 100% bumi-owned companies. Even open tender projects are awarded to Malay Malaysians even if their prices are higher with blatantly inferior materials.

Micro-business loans, business licences, discounts on property purchases, new government employment, even licences for hawker stalls are reserved for one race. The list goes on and on.

Asian Strategic and Leadership Institute’s estimate of 45% for bumi share of the nation’s equity is opposed to the government's 18.9%, firstly, because the equity value is calculated at par value. For example, if you hold 1,000 Maxis shares of RM5 market value each, the government says that it is only worth RM250 as these shares have a par value of 25 sen each. If you owned a company with a paid-up value of RM2 but conducted business worth millions of ringgit worth of transactions, the government values that company at RM2.

The chief setbacks of the abuses of the NEP are rampant corruption and cronyism, worsening racial polarisation, unrelenting brain drain, warped educational system, thwarted economic competitiveness, ineffectual bureaucracy, retarded economic growth and perverted social values. Such anachronistic and regressive policy has no place in the present globalising world, and for that matter, in any civilised society.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi recently intensified the imprint of the perverted NEP philosophy by prohibiting inter-religious and inter-racial discourse which would otherwise have contributed to greater understanding and harmony among the races. Consider the hegemony this has created...

The Jasin MP's saga of cheating millions from Customs over timber imports went unpunished. APs are reserved for bumis only and despite the millions that each of them make year after year, a senator's son has the audacity to clone the APs several times and the whole thing gets swept under the carpet.

A Port Klang councilor buys a 43,000 sq ft plot of land set aside for low- cost housing valued at RM1.8 million for RM180,000 and builds a palace without any approval. He gets fined RM5,000 and still has 30 days to submit his building plans. And despite all the bad press this issue got, he is still Selangor’s state assemblymen representative and that of his son and daughter-in-law are councilors. The message is clear - power has shifted from the people to the executive.

The whole issue of bumi chauvinism started at last year's Umno assembly when the very vocal Umno Youth leaders stated in short that "It's our turn to be rich." This greed is not going to end. We, as a nation of loyal citizens, have to put a dent into this rubbish for the sake of our children.

Anonymous said...

now at the last 3 UMNO general assemblies the UMNO Youth prick who is also the Education Minister uttered seditious remarks against the Chinese and Indians in this country.

Despite a public outcry to the live televised seditious speech he made, he and many others were left off with a tap on the wrist.

Now with Britain, India and the United States voicing their concerns, I would like to see the same Keris [ dagger ] weilding Hang Tuah wannabe organise a UMNO Youth rally outside the embassies of these 3 countries in Malaysia.

Cmon UMNO Youth, i thought u guys pantang dicabar, always warn people not to play with fire, now your house is burning and you have all run away

Crankster said...

Hahaha!!! The daggers were for scaring and impressing the little boys, not the bigwigs, mate!

gmk said...

The Malaysian government is an organized hypocrisy.
When Malaysia can cry foul in Bosnia, Palestine, Iraq, Afganistan ,Thailand and Philippines.
Other countries can do the same here.
There can't be 2 different rules or double standards, right?

Anonymous said...

you know, if they do have the guts to actually demonstrate in front of the embassies [ of course after getting a permit from the police ]

i would like to see them.........

doing the silat in front of the embassies with the keris in their sarong [ dont forget to wear your underwears guys ]

and suddenly the super powers just drop a nuclear bomb of the Umnoputras heads

hahhahahhahahahahah the whole world will rejoice after that

zorro said...

Miss Crankshaft, you are welcome to use any picture you see on my blog.You may notice some graphics have the words Getty and Inmagine on it. These are stock photos. I use it freely because my blog has got no commercial value...If later on I decide to go commercial, I will not be able to use stock pictures from the stock libraries. They can litigate. I notice you do not have ads on your sidebar, like mine....we are safe, if we use them. Interesting reading, miss.