"Pit race against race, religion against religion, prejudice
against prejudice. Divide and conquer! We must not let that happen
here." - Eleanor Roosevelt
COMMENT As
someone who is despised by Hindraf supporters or rather their online
cultists (Pakatan Rakyat too have their kool aid drinkers), it's uncanny
how I have the ability to articulate the general drift of Hindraf's
various attempts at dealing with those who have power and those who want
to claim it. Hindraf leader P Waythamoorthy's strategy (which
seems to be in direct opposition of elder brother Uthayakumar's) of
dealing with BN and Pakatan for the betterment of a certain class of
Indian Malaysians, is something I have written about in my various
Hindraf pieces.
I wrote that one possible strategy for Hindraf
was to discover which coalition gave them the best deal when it came to
the voting block they claimed to represent. At first glance,
this seems like running with the hare and hunting with the hounds and no
doubt the extreme mercenary nature of this proposition puts whichever
class Hindraf claims to represent as being either racists opportunist or
shiftless wastrels always on the lookout for handouts from groups in
power. But as I argued in countless other pieces, we are still
playing a race game and the only difference between Hindraf and the
other players is that Hindraf is displaying their race cards for all to
see.
So, while the comment section of Malaysiakini is
littered with Pakatan partisans who have no problem with the championing
of Chinese rights (sic) with regards to education and the systemic
discrimination the (Chinese) community faces, all done under the guise
of multiculturalism, these same defenders of ‘human rights' bristle at
the gumption of Hindraf for doing the same for the Indian poor. Of course, Hindraf does itself no favours. Visit the Human Rights Party website
and you'll discover everyone except Indians are racists. Indians who do
not agree with them are ‘mandores' or ‘mandorinis'. All this is beside
the point and I'm just going over old ground.
Waythamoorthy's (right)
drama-filled return and subsequent refinement of strategy has earned
him the scorn of some within Hindraf who see him as a pretender to the
throne, and of course some Pakatan supporters who see him as some sort
of Umno stooge. Just like when Uthayakumar declared he would
stand for election against Pakatan, there was the usual deluge of
rumours that he was bought over by Umno.
Unbridled partisanship
What I find hilarious is that the idea of non-partisanship seems anathema to certain Pakatan supporters. If
an organisation is willing to work with the federal government, then
the said organisations are Umno stooges. Don't get me wrong, I am aware
that Malaysia is filled with proxy Umno NGOs that are there as the
unofficial voices of Umno or BN but who claim non-partisanship. However, just as there are many groups which claim non-partisanship thar
are aligned with Umno-BN, there are many groups claiming the same but
aligned with Pakatan.
I'm of the opinion that a group like
Hindraf works best as an advocacy group instead of a political party.
When you are focusing on communal issue affecting a particular racial
group, you cannot attempt the moral high ground and claim that you are
fighting for the rights of all Malaysians regardless of race or that
getting what your community wants will benefit the all Malaysians. This
is the problem with a political entity like the Human Rights Party.
Nobody takes its or Hindraf's claims that it is fighting for the rights
of all Malaysians seriously. Nothing in its rhetoric suggests this.
However,
when it comes to Waythamoorthy's plan of dealing with BN or Pakatan,
each comes with its own specific set of problems. Waythamoorthy's belief
that PM Najib Razak regime's handing out of goodies to Indians is
indicative of the administration's acknowledgment of the problems facing
the Indian community is rather bizarre. Firstly, the regime has
been handing out goodies to all and sundry in a desperate attempt to
garner votes. The whole 1Malaysia scheme in its various guises is merely
state sanctioned bribery which the average citizen laps up, but which
would not make a difference to hardcore Pakatan supporters. Take the
money (goody) and vote Pakatan, as they say.
Secondly, what
exactly has Umno-BN done with regards to the issues raised by Hindraf to
demonstrate that they are acting in good faith? The plight of
marginalised communities, be they Indians, Orang Asli, Malays or
Chinese, is the last item on the reform agenda. Specific voting blocks
are targeted, Felda settlers, civil/military personnel, the urban poor,
etc, in the hopes of bolstering ground-level support but the reality is
the large masses of economically deprived, no matter which race, are
left out of the equation.
Hindraf's reversal of fortune
Is
Pakatan any better? Waythamoorthy asks Pakatan to engage in a little
introspection. I suggest the same to Hindraf. If 50 percent of the
Indian vote has shifted back to BN as Waythamoorthy suggests, the
question I think should be asked by Hindraf is, is this a good thing? Was Pakatan so derelict in its duties that the Indian votes would be
better spent in BN, who have been derelict in their obligations for the
past 50 years? In other words, has the BN changed so drastically in the
past four years that it would be better for Indians to vote BN?
Waythaymoorthy says that it's not his duty to "control people's minds"
but he had no problem during the last elections asking people to vote
Pakatan and now asking them to vote for either alliance if they help
solve the "problems of the poor and underclass". It's all a bit
strange. Either concede that solving the problem of the Indian poor
means influencing the Indian vote or take the stance of total
non-participation in the voting process as far as Hindraf is concerned
and remain true to its non-partisan ethos.
But the most
important questions, Hindraf need to ask itself, is why its fortunes has
changed so much since the 2008 tsunami? Where once Hindraf was held in
high esteem by most Malaysians and by a large section of the Indian
voting public, it is now a fringe group involved in its own petty
infighting. What happened? Is its reversal of fortune because
Malaysians are racists? Are all the Indians who don't support Hindraf
‘mandores' or ‘mandorinis'? Is everyone wrong and against human rights
except Hindraf?
If the various race-based political parties that
make up Pakatan can ride the multiracial winds to satisfy their agendas,
why can't Hindraf, which claims to represent all Malaysians?
No-win situation
At the end of the day, playing the race card is a no-win situation.
Even if Hindraf get everything it wants from whoever is in power it
would be based on a race criteria and would be wholly dependent on the
whims of the ruling parties. In effect, what Hindraf or any
race-based party which advocates any kind of racialism would create is a
permanent mandore-class subservient to whatever racial formula which is
in play at the moment. This, of course, does not mean that I
think there is no place for advocacy groups highlighting the grievances
of particular communities but rather I believe that there must be a
point where race-based considerations are absorbed into a wider
class-based approach. For all my criticism of Pakatan, I believe that
they at least are attempting something like this.
As it is, the
Indian community is far too small to make grand sweeping changes to the
political reality of Malaysia but what it is in a position to do (if the
community is united) is to tip the scales in way that makes it possible
for those grand changes to be made on the communities' behalf which
would benefit every Malaysian. Never mind the revisionist
history of some Pakatan bigots that belittle the contribution of Hindraf
to the 2008 tsunami, what right-thinking Malaysians must be cognisant
of is that there has never been such a radical mainstream movement like
Hindraf capable of influencing the future of this country.
What it needs to do now is get its act together.
Writer’s note: Ranjit Singh correctly draws attention to the fact that in all my articles about Hindraf, I have not directed readers to Hindraf.org,
which is the party website. Anyone interested in getting a better
understanding of Hindraf should also visit that website. I'll end with
this rejoinder from Albert Camus whom we are both obviously familiar
with: “If absolute truth belongs to anyone in this world, it certainly
does not belong to the man or party that claims to possess it.” Malaysiakini
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