The Hindraff Agenda

The past few days we have been reading so much about the Hindraff demo. Coming just a few weeks after the successful Bersih demo, I thought the organizers had also pulled off a major coup. After all, the police were better prepared. They even managed to obtain a restraining order to stop any gathering. Now that sure make it an illegal gathering because the court has determined it to be so.

To put the records straight, I fully sympathized with the Indians for being continuously neglected. But I wouldn't want a policy to help just the Indians just as I did not want a policy to favour just the Malays. The government should help the poor regardless of whether they are Indians, Malays or Chinese. Yes, there are poor Chinese too. If we have a policy just to help the Indians then we will be helping the Ananda Krishnans, Nallakaruppans, VK Lingams and their likes. These people should be doing their part in helping the poor Indians but they would rather give scholarships to the children of a Malay politician instead of an Indian rubber tapper's son.

Actually the purpose of this post is to comment on the contents of the Hindraff memo. I was sympathetic towards Hindraff until I read their memo in Rocky's blog
http://rockybru.blogspot.com/2007/11/why-i-didnt-walk-yesterday.html
I cannot help but feel disappointed when I read that. If what is posted by Rocky is true then, Uthayakumar has lost my support. It seems to me, in trying to rally support among the Indians, he has alienated the majority of the Malays. He will be a hero of the Indians but sorry to say he will not achieve his objective of helping them. I'm sure he knows that Britain will not do anything about his badly written memo. Initially, I thought it was brilliant to sue the British when his actual target is the Malaysian government because it would attract global attention. But after reading it I now think otherwise.

My worry is that his memo will be used to garner support among the Malays for other causes which the Malays themselves are fighting for such as a clean and fair elections. Some of the Malays may now be willing to "sacrifice" a fair election to protect their interests and Uthayakumar has given them a common cause. And as we know, the propaganda machinery can do wonders.

Lets see how things turn out in the next few days but I think the Hindraff memo was a mistake. And it could be a costly mistake.