Hindraf the Malaysian Indian Community and the Negotiation for Minority Rights

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Hindraf the Malaysian Indian Community and the Negotiation for Minority Rights Australian National University THESES SIS/LIBRARY TELEPHONE: +61 2 6125 4631 R.G. MENZIES LIBRARY BUILDING NO:2 FACSIMILE: +61 2 6125 4063 THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY EMAIL: library,[email protected] CANBERRA ACT 0200 AUSTRALIA USE OF THESES This copy is supplied for purposes of private study and research only. Passages from the thesis may not be copied or closely paraphrased without the written consent of the author. From Independence to Hindraf The Malaysian Indian Community and the negotiation for minority rights Hindraf rally: Malaysian Hindu protestors at the November 2007 Rally, Ampang District, Kuala Lumpur (Source: http://www.malaysiakini.com/) Arunajeet Kaur October 2011 A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the Australian National University Acknowledgements I am grateful to: My supervisor Brij V.Lal, who nurtured, disciplined and inspired the love of the Historian’s craft. Robert Cribb, an esteemed member of my supervisory panel for teaching me how to pay attention to detail. My parents, Mr & Mrs M.M Jagjeet Singh for making me the human being that I am. Vithya Muthusamy and Shobi Nathan for helping in Tamil translations. Friends in Malaysia, Singapore and Canberra who supported, nodded and smiled when I needed that extra push or just a simple reassurance. The Staff at the Arkib Negara Malaysia, New Straits Times Office (Bungsar) and National Archives of Singapore for putting up with my wheedling and incessant demands. Maxine McArthur for proof reading my thesis. To the Insititute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) for sponsoring my scholarship for the PhD at ANU. Gods cafe at the Hedley Bull Building and the Cafe at the Film and Sounds Archive/ ANU Canberra for the numerous but absolutely essential Chai lattes Abstract Title: From Independence to Hindraf-The Malaysian Indian Community and the negotiation for minority rights. The Hindraf (Hindu Rights Action Force) Rally in November 2007 drew unprecedented global media attention upon the Indian community in Malaysia and its plight as a marginalised community for the past 50 years since Independence. The fact that the Hindraf leaders were petitioning the Queen of England to have their plight redressed metaphorically and actually demonstrates that the Indians understood the colonial era and the moment of Independence from the Empire as the point of genesis for their suffering. Analysts have accurately noted that the class action suit was a ploy for the group advocating Hindu Indians Rights in Malaysia to embarrass the incumbent UMNO-led Malaysian government. As civic space in Malaysia continued to narrow for non-Malay-Muslim minorities over the last fifty years beginning from the social bargain at independence to the NEP (affirmative action) to rising Islamisation, Indians, like other minorities, began to feel increasingly pressured by a lack of opportunities and freedom to practise their culture and religion. The Hindraf Rally in 2007 instigated my research in this area to understand the problems the Indians in Malaysia have endured and how Indian leadership and organisations over a span of 50 years have handled these problems. I undertook fieldwork in Malaysia from August 2009 to July 2010, interviewing journalists, prominent members of the Indian community, doing archival research and just talking and interacting with Malaysian Indians to understand the situation. The fact that Indians led by Hindraf lawyers were leading a protest in 2007, 50 years after Independence, suggests that Indian leaders and their organsiations had been inept in the management and problem solving approaches against the backdrop of a state that was adamant to preserve the rights of only one ethnic group above all others. This thesis charts the history of the Malaysian Indian community through its organisations and leadership to understand the text and context of the Malaysian Indian predicament as a marginalised minority to track a slow, haphazard road to the Hindraf Rally. It aims to understand how and why the Hindraf Rally of November 2007 occured and what it was a culmination of. Keywords: Hindraf, Indians as a marginalised community, narrowing civic space in Malaysia, Islamisation. Table of Contents Acknowledgements Abstract Introduction Chapter 1: Indian labour efforts at resistance - A subaltern people mobilize Chapter 2: Malayan Indians in the decolonising moment Chapter 3: Sambanthan and Manickavasagam within a tradition of elite accommodation (1959-1973) Chapter 4: S.Samy Vellu, a Malaysian politician Chapter 5: Alternative spaces to the MIC Chapter 6: The Hindraf Phenomenon Conclusion Bibliography Appendix 1 & 2 Hindraf supporters holding up pictures of Gandhi to demonstrate a peaceful protest but in choosing Gandhi as an icon they also reveal their links back to India. (Source: http://www.malaysiakini.com/) Hindraf leader, P. Uthayakumar being arrested at his office before the November 2007 Rally. (Source:http://www. malaysiakini. com/) Introduction November 25th 2007, a significant number of Indians 1 (mainly Hindu Tamils) demonstrated in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, at the Ampang District to submit a petition to the British High Commission. The petition was to urge Her Majesty to appoint a Queen’s Counsel to represent Malaysian Indians in a suit against the British government. Malaysian Indians were suing the British government for their frustrations and resentment, pent up over 50 years whilst being resident in post -independence Malaysia, with the claim for compensation.2 A claim was made that colonial Britain, while being responsible for importing labour from India into Malaya, had failed to dispense its duties to the minority Indian community of Malaya at the time of decolonization. Citing the Reid Commission Report of February 11th 1957 which accorded Malays with special privileges and failed to address the rights of the Indian community, the Indians felt that they had endured ‘apartheid’3 in post- colonial Malaysia as a result. The force behind this protest demonstration was the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf), a loose coalition of 30 Hindu/Indian organizations in Malaysia. Led by a team of lawyers, Hindraf chairman, Waythamoorthy and other Hindraf spokesmen have repeatedly brought up issues associated with the Reid Commission at Independence and its impact on minorities in Malaysia. Surprised that the Commission’s papers remain classified in Malaysia despite having been long declassified in England, Hindraf drew attention to a condition brought up during the Commission that, ‘ the special privileges of the Malays should have been reviewed 15 years after 1 It remains unclear as to the number of Indians that showed up for the November protest rally. Some sources quote as low as 8000 while others as high as 100 000. But the numbers were definitely significant in that the Malaysian government felt threathened by the numbers as demonstrated by the application of the FRU (Federal Reserve Units). 2 Malaysiakini, 17th November 2007, 'Indians to petition Queen E via British Envoy'. 3 Shawnmorgan, 4th January 2008, 'Malaysia is practising HIDDEN APARTHEID SYSTEM' posted on http://hindraf.orR/, accessed in August 2008. 1 Independence . It has not happened after 50 years’.4 Waythamoorthy has made explicit how non-Muslim minorities in Malaysia have felt pressured into not questioning the social contract made in 1957and stands firm in declaring that ‘ we are not immigrants and we have been always loyal to the country , so why are we being marginalised?’. 5 The Hindraf filed for compensation from the British government amounting to one million pounds sterling for every one of the two million Indian Malaysians.6 However as analysts have accurately noted, the class action suit was simply a ploy for the group advocating Hindu Indian Rights in Malaysia to capture international attention for their lobby and to embarrass the incumbent UMNO( United Malays national Organisation)- led Malaysian government.7 The actual reasons of discontent that were driving Hindraf had been made known in a letter of appeal to British Premier, Gordon Brown, some ten days earlier. The Hindraf legal adviser, P.Uthayakumar, cited several points of grievance in this letter of appeal, which include the demolition of Hindu places of worship, the disinclination of the UMNO government to hold an inquiry into the Kampung Medan ‘mini genocide’, March 2001, when some 100 Indians were slashed and killed, the disproportionately high number of Indians who were killed in police custody, and the discrimination endured by Indians in gaining admissions to higher institutes of learning or skills and training in Malaysia .8 As a student of the Indian Diaspora, I watched these occurrences of November 25th, 2007 with interest and surprise. Surprise because since the British colonial stereotype of the South Indian migrants being ‘malleable 4 Malaysiakini, 30th July 2007, '18 demands for Indian Malaysian rights'. 5 Ibid. 6 Malaysiakini, 17th November 2007, 'Indians to petition Queen E via British Envoy'. 7 Malaysiakini, 23rd November 2007/ Hindraf- a new face is born'. 8 Letter of appeal from Hindraf to Gordon Brown, 15th November 2007. See http://hindraf.org/, accessed in August 2008. 2 ...and easily manageable’9, seemed to have stuck well into the post- colonial Malaysian era , one never heard of Indians in Malaysia being able to mobilize effectively before to protest their plight. Interest because the events and issues encapsulated in the November 25th episode highlighted the common plight of
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