Would my beef with Hindraf be insensitive?

From FMT:



DAP, PKR welcome Hindraf support


Hindraf supporters can bank on the opposition to protect the rights of minorities, says Kulasegaran.

wakakaka, I see Sivarasa Rasiah again 

PETALING JAYA: DAP and PKR Indian leaders have welcomed Hindraf Makkal Sakthi’s pledge to unconditionally support the grand coalition of the opposition to oust the ruling Umno/Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition.

DAP national Vice-Chairman M Kulasegaran said his party had no qualms about working with Hindraf provided they adhered to the rules of engagement.

He said although the DAP was a multiracial party, it also championed and protected the rights of minorities like the Indians and Orang Asli.

The Ipoh Barat MP added that by now Hindraf supporters would have realised that the BN government was good only in delivering empty promises to secure their votes.

“This is the reason (its chairman) P Waythamoorthy had to give up his position as deputy minister when BN declined to implement the contents in a memorandum of understanding signed just before GE13,” he said.

Kulasegaran said this in response to Waythamoorthy’s statement on Monday that Hindraf would mobilise its supporters to work voluntarily to defeat BN.

Hmmm, I don't know.

I appreciate Kulasegaran's promise to champion and protect the rights of Indians and Orang Asli, but I wonder about Hindraf, because of two points:

(a) I, nay, in fact we are already familiar with Hindraf and its seemingly racist-orientated and religious-shellac coating, and

(b) Kulasegaran's cautious verbal qualifications above, to wit, that DAP ... had no qualms about working with Hindraf provided they adhered to the rules of engagement.
He said although the DAP was a multiracial party, ...

The above verbal qualifications by Kulasegaran about working with Hindraf are indications that the DAP is apprehensive about Hindraf, that the latter might turn out to be either a loose cannon or one which would be an Indian version of UMNO or PAS. basically a religio-racist NGO or (becoming a) political party.

Let's revisit the beginning of Hindraf. Wikipedia informs us (relevant extracts only):

HINDRAF or Hindu Rights Action Force ........ began as a coalition of 30 Hindu non-governmental organisations committed to the preservation of Hindu community rights and heritage in a multiracial Malaysia. [...]

Between April to May 2006, several legal Hindu temples were demolished by city hall authorities in the country. On 21 April 2006, the Malaimel Sri Selva Kaliamman Temple in Kuala Lumpur was reduced to rubble after the city hall sent in bulldozers.

The Hindu Rights Action Force or HINDRAF, a coalition of several NGO's, have protested these demolitions by lodging complaints with the Prime Minister of Malaysia but with no response.

Many Hindu advocacy groups have protested what they allege is a systematic plan of temple cleansing in Malaysia. The official reason given by the Malaysian government has been that the temples were built illegally.

However, several of the temples are centuries old. According to a lawyer for HINDRAF, a Hindu temple is demolished in Malaysia once every three week.

The aim of protecting Hindu temples is okay to me, in fact quite worthy, justified and honorable, but this noble aim should be strove for as Indian Malaysians, whether in the DAP, PKR, MIC or Gerakan, but not by some religio-political Hindu-Indian NGO.

But what I personally don't like was the whiff of Uthayakumar's and his brother Waythamoorthy's style of quite racially-inclined politics.

In Uthayakumar's sorry story he had also been a pompous big-headed bloke who went all the way out to offend his very supporters, calling people like P Ramasamy a mandore. How rude he had been.

I used to be an ardent supporter of Hindraf and even composed a lil' 'something' for the NGO's rally in 2007 in KTemoc Komposes, as follows:

I walked on 25 November 2007
In the man-made acid showers
Which burnt my skin and those
Of my brothers and sisters too
But the chemically poisoned rain
Could not burnt away the tears
That’s in our hearts for 50 years
But merely fertilised our resolve

Through the thick fog of tear gas
We held our hands together and
Marched on to tell the world of
An unjust economic caste system
That places us at the very bottom
As menial pariahs, harijans, dalits
Oh, don’t be shy, take your pick
Any, each would still read our lot

Just like a fusion bomb, our ‘H’
Gave a mega blast to hitherto
Silent acquiescence and equally
Silent dismissal of our cries for
Help against cold cruel inequality
Are we nothing more than serfs
Slaves, sherpas to failed Hillary’s
Or as prêt-à-porter criminals?

The explosion of our H-synergy
Tore away masks of hypocrisy
Ripping to shreds the snow white
Fleece of ethnic wolves, howling
At black sheep not cukup Bersih
Not even of de facto human status
To merit the march in messianic
Footsteps to the Arc de Triomphe

Then I was so moved by Hindraf's action that I begrudged Brother Haris Ibrahim who advised Hindraf not to have its rally. Later I came to realize Brother Haris' wise advice and that he is a very good man. I regretted my then-anger at Brother Haris and apologized. 

Subsequently I became disgusted with Uthayakumar's rude antics that in 2009 I wrote 'False prophets of Kampung Buah Pala' (also in KTemoc Komposes):

The court has passed the death sentence
On High Chaparral, the village of Buah Pala
Signalling the final chapter of a resistance
That was further weakened by bull charisma

The villagers mortally wounded long ago
Were ill served by the new false prophets
Misleading the residents from woe to woe
Treating innocent hopefuls as mere puppets
Once where real cow poo fertilize the land
Sheer utter bull now corrupts the pristine air
Confusing the villagers with sleight of hand
By their exploitative braggadocio and dare

Resist, hold fast, give way not a millimeter
From way behind they shouted ferociously
We’re sure to win, but comes September
Those ‘brave’ voices will just be a memory

See Malaysiakini - Federal Court strikes out Buah Pala residents' application

In Waythamoorthy case, we were flabbergasted by his deal with PM Najib, which came to nothing for Hindraf.

When Hindraf was about to lie in bed with Najib, its officers had the temerity to accuse the DAP of plagiarism when the DAP had inclusively incorporated into its Gelang Patah Declaration what Hindraf wanted.

Yes, the DAP had wanted to do exactly what Hindraf wanted, and was accused of 'plagiarism'. Well, I never ...!

How did the term 'plagiarism' ever arise beat me? 

Then (April 2013) I had written that Hindraf's weird accusation of DAP's so-called 'plagiarism' when the latter was inclusive of the former's aspiration and objectives led many observers to uncomfortably see that Hindraf had already have designs on then-desirable UMNO, and the DAP was basically an unwanted kacau-saja suitor, wakakaka.

At that time, when I read in Malaysiakini’s ‘Tough issues in store for second PM-Hindraf meet’ I saw a totally different Hindraf reaction to its meeting with PM Najib Abdul Razak. I cheekily said Hindraf was coquettishly coy with the PM, all complete with fluttering eyelashes, in total contrast to its freezing frigid f**k-off dismissal of the DAP. 

Also, see my letter to Malaysiakini Plagiarism cries, and the tragedy of Hindraf and my post The Tragedy of Hindraf.

But what I was more concerned had been Waythamoorthy's Hindu religious inclinations when he even took to religious fasting in a Hindu temple in an attempt to pressure Najib into giving in to his political aspirations. That's not the way to go in an already over-crowded religious domain like Malaysia.

Pissed off with what could become another dreaded theocratic-racist political party like PAS, I gave up with Hindraf and whatever racial issues it had been fighting for. On this, it may be worthwhile to read my post SARSI?, wakakaka.

Oh, I finally penned a Dirge for Hindraf wakakaka, as follows:

Alas, here lies a once great movement

That had wanted its people to be free
But it failed even its own development
Shackled by its leader’s lamentable hubris

But why shackle your own downtrodden
Further with colour, caste and creed
So discard the burden of all that's rotten
By all being from one Malaysian breed

Thus I have some trepidation for the DAP in mingling with Hindraf. Instead, the Hindraf members should disavow their religio-racist mindset, disband Hindraf and join the DAP as Indian Malaysians.