Threat to Hindu temples: The acceleration of the Malaysian Indian existential crisis

Threat to Hindu temples: The acceleration of the Malaysian Indian existential crisis

1 May 2025 • 1:00 PM MYT


TheRealNehruism
Writer. Seeker. Teacher

Image credit: Buletin Malaysia / Malay Mail/ Focus Malaysia / TF Fan Flickr


I am not the least bit surprised that Former national unity minister P Waytha Moorthy has called on Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim to ensure swift action is taken by the police on the apparent escalation of threats against the Indian and Hindu community.


According to Waytha, a handful of irresponsible netizens had recently warned of a repeat of the May 13 racial riots and called for Hindu temples to be bombed.


Unlike Waytha however, I don’t think that it matters whether the government or PMX Anwar take any action, because I don’t for a moment believe that either the government or Anwar can do anything to stop the dictates of reality.


Reality dictates that an identity can only be preserved only to the extent it possesses vitality and vigour.


It is debatable as to whether the Indian identity in Malaysia possesses much vigour and vitality left, considering that we have little to no political representation, are economically weak and socially constitute a mere 6.5 percent of the population.


There is no point in asking why it is the Indians that are being threatened in Malaysia, when the Indians are so weak that we can hardly threaten anyone else politically, economically or socially.


In the way that reality works, the weak are always the first to be threatened. Rather than ponder why or beat our chest complaining about the injustice of it all, we should just accept this fact, which is that the weak in all corners of the world from the beginning of time will always be threatened, and see what we can do to address the situation.


Asking for the government or Anwar to protect the Indians, or asking the government to stop using the term "illegal temples" to describe the status of Indian temples, as what MIC’s deputy M Saravanan is doing, are at best a stop gap measure, that will only postpone the inevitable.


As I have repeatedly mentioned in previous articles, the number 1 problem with the Indians in Malaysia today, is that our identity is facing erasure, and if we are not careful, we are going to face extinction in just a couple of generations.


While some of us might believe that it is external forces that are threatening to erase our identity, perhaps by labelling our temples as illegal and threatening to bomb it, I think that the view, even if there is any truth to it, lacks insight.


The threat by external forces alone cannot explain why Indians are not politically represented, economically weak or socially insignificant.


At the point of our independence, we were seen as one of the founding races of the country, that together with the Malays and the Chinese, achieved the Independence of Malaya from the British. At that time, we were seen as a race of lawyers, civil servants and doctors, the group of people that is most associated with the responsibility of maintaining the road and railway networks in the country, as well as an important contributor to the economy, in lieu of our role in the plantation sector.


Today, however, we have declined to become a race that is often unable to get a decent apartment to rent, have a reputation for alcoholism, aggressiveness and gangsterism, and now even our temples are being moved about and demolished at will.


At the rate we are going, I suspect that within another 2 or 3 generations, most of our descendants might not even identify as Indians.


Instead, they might just identify as Malaysians, or Muslims, or Christians, or Malays.


While I will not contest the action of Indian leaders like Waytha or Saravanan to seek the protection of the Indian temples by the government, I think that the more meaningful thing for them to do, is to address, or at least raise, the matter of the existential crisis that the Indians in Malaysia is facing.


Regardless of whether you are Tamil or Telugu, Malayalee or Kannadiga, in two or three more generations, your descendants will likely not only be economically poorer and politically insignificant, they might not even call themselves Tamil or Telugu, Malayalee or Kannadiga.


We all know that this is happening. The sign that our identity is facing an existential threat has become so conspicuous, that the last bastion of our identity – our temples, even the old ones, are being threatened.


The question now is what are we going to do about it?


I, for one, propose that as a first step, we should at least talk about it.


Right now, most of us are not even aware of the existential crisis that we are facing in the country.


After they are done petitioning the government, I hope that perhaps Waytha or Saravanan, will get the wheels turning, and raise the question of what we are going to do about the extinction of our identity, in Malaysia today.