Monday, November 03, 2008

Hindraf and the supremacy of State

Speculation is rife that the current ban on Hindraf is an aspect of Malaysia’s national security update.

Of unusual international importance is the fact that Malaysia’s Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak has, with a topical political touch, extended Deepavali greetings to the ‘Hindus’ among the country’s ethnic Indian minority.

Unlike in India, where even the greetings of interest to only some sections are extended to all citizens regardless of their sub-national identities, it is customary in Southeast Asia to specify the target group on such occasions. This, of course, is not the real issue at stake now in Muslim-majority and multicultural Malaysia, insofar its two-million-strong ethnic Indians are concerned.

The relevant point is that Mr. Najib, who has been designated by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to succeed him next year, linked the mystique of Deepavali to the challenges faced by the Indian-origin citizens today. Noting that the festival marked a traditional celebration of the triumph of good over evil, Mr. Najib expressed the hope that Malaysian ‘Hindus’ would, in that “spirit,” seek to “resolve any problem in the best way possible.” Why has he chosen to strike this line? The answer is not far to seek.

Malaysian Indians, many of them mobilised by the recently-banned Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) for over a year now, want to keep their grievances in global focus. And, Mr. Najib is equally determined to reassert the supremacy of the state. The authorities have recently taken actions that the opposition parties in the country see as a political “offensive” against an outfit with “a core human rights agenda.”

An alternative view, favoured by the Malaysian government, is that Hindraf, which began making its presence felt at the time of Deepavali last year, is divisively communalist, as different from being merely ethno-centric. The country’s social contract has fostered power-sharing among race-based political parties that are drawn from the ranks of either Malays or ethnic Chinese or, indeed, the people of Indian origin. However, these predominantly ethno-centric parties have, by and large, fought shy of readily accepting religion as the wellspring of a political or social outfit.

Striking example
A striking example is the general hostility of race-based parties in the ruling coalition towards Parti Islam-Se Malaysia (PAS). Over a noticeably long period, PAS stridently advocated Shariah-based Muslim polity as the best model for the country. In the run-up to the recent snap general election, though, PAS publicly gave up its political patent — the advocacy of an Islamic state. This aspect clearly helped the fast-changing party endear itself to secular voters across the spectrum. And today, PAS is a proactive member of the three-party opposition alliance, the People’s Pact, at the federal and state levels. Two of the Pact’s constituents are multi-racial in outlook, while PAS fielded an Indian-origin candidate for a state seat in the last poll.

Viewed in this perspective, Hindraf leaders have not tried so far to distance their outfit from its religious mooring. They have instead specialised in using the Hindu temple as “a safe sanctuary” to carry forward their campaign for a “fair deal” for the Indian-origin minority. The temple, they say, is the only platform accessible to them in the face of a “state-sponsored crackdown.”

Debatable as this argument might be, especially so in the eyes of the Malaysian government, the fact remains that Hindraf, proscribed with effect from October 15, had not adequately disputed its ‘religious orientation.’ On the other hand, Hindraf activists are often accused of having capitalised on the sentiments that gripped the ethnic Indians when an ‘unauthorised’ temple was demolished, for ‘development’ purposes, before Deepavali last year. Soon thereafter, this outfit, led by lawyers and other professionals, began articulating an ethnic Indian political agenda of seeking rights “on par” with those of the other communities. And, after Hindraf’s campaign picked up momentum, evident during a mass protest rally in Kuala Lumpur last November, a senior Malaysian Minister apologised for the temple demolition which had served as a ‘flash point.’

Five proactive Hindraf leaders — P. Uthayakumar, V. Ganapati Rao (also known as Ganabatirau), M. Manoharn, T. Kengadharan, and T. Vasanthakumar — were served with two-year detention orders last December under the Internal Security Act. The law provides for detention for prolonged periods without any formal charges and judicial trial. Another leader, P. Waytha Moorthy, who was abroad at the time his colleagues were detained, remains in self-imposed exile.

Political speculation is rife that the current ban on Hindraf is an aspect of Malaysia’s national security update, with or without reference to the ongoing preparations for a smooth transfer of power to Mr. Najib.

On a parallel track, Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has publicised his “plans” to unseat the present Prime Minister and form an alternative administration. Sympathetic to the cause of ethnic Indians, Mr. Anwar wants the equality-agenda articulated in a non-polarising fashion in multi-religious Malaysia. In another development in the opposition camp, PAS, shedding its ‘Islam-exclusive’ image, has now offered to mediate between Hindraf and the authorities.





P. S. Suryanarayana
The Hindu Press

MEMORANDUM DEMANDING REVOCATION OF THE BAN IMPOSED ON HINDRAF

FEDERATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANISATIONS OF INDIA
8, Todarmal Lane, Bengali Market, New Delhi- 110 001Phone: 65288241, 23718929 Fax-0112371892926.10.2008



Duli Yang Maha MuliaAl-Wathiqu Billah Tuanku Mizan Zainal AbidinIbni Al-Marhum Sultan MahmudAl-Muktafi Billah Shah
Istana Negara
Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia


Y.A.B. DATO’SERI ABDULLAH AHMAD BADAWI
Prime Minister of Malaysia


Subject:- IMPOSITION OF BAN ON “HINDRAF”

Your Highness,
The citizens and Human Rights organisations of India have taken a serious note of the ban imposed on Hindu Rights Action Force (HINDFAF) by the Government of Malaysia. We are equally concerned about the detention of five members of HINDRAF.

We feel that the sole reason for the imposition of ban on HINDRAF and the detention of five members of HINDRAF, was for expressing concerns about the marginalization of ethnic South Asians within Malaysian society and specifically for organizing rallies.It is disheartening to know that all the detainees are being treated like criminals, but they have never been charged much less convicted of a crime.
We have been informed that at least 65 people are being held at Kamunting Detention Centre under the administrative detention provisions of the ISA. The Internal Security Act allows the police to arrest individuals they believe have acted, or are "about to" or "likely to" act in a way that would threaten Malaysian security, "essential services" or "economic life" (Article 73 (1)(b) and the detainees can be held for up to 60 days for investigation by the police, after which time the Home Minister can issue a two year detention order under the ISA.
The two year detention can be renewed indefinitely without the detainee ever being charged with a crime or tried in a court of law. As such the ISA is contrary to fundamental principles of international law, including the rightto liberty of the person, to freedom from arbitrary arrest, the presumption of innocence, and the right to fair and open trial in a court of law.
We demand that the Government of Malaysia should start the process to abolish thisdraconian legislation. We also demand that the ban imposed on HINDRAF should be revoked immediately and the five members of HINDRAF should be released without any precondition.


Rajesh Gogna
Convener
(FHROI)

Press Release - Malaysia Government Bans Minority Human Rights Organisation

The Hindu community has been suffering systemic persecution at the hand of the Muslim majority Malaysia. Laws have been passed to discriminate Hindus in jobs and other economic benefits which have been exclusively reserved for Muslims. Having silently suffered since independence for over 60 years, the community had decided to form a non political organisation in the name of Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) in order to raise a united minority voice.

Over 80 Hindu temples including one over 100 years old MAHA MARIAMAN TEMPLE at Padang Jawa have been demolished under fake reasons. No alternative facilities were given to the community for their religious rights. The Hindu priests were beaten up and the statutes of Hindu deities were dishonoured.

In November 2007 the community had decided to hold a demonstration in front of the British high Commission to hand over a petition demanding intervention of the British government acknowledging that it was the British who brought them to Malaysia under indentured labour policy.

The Malaysian government had then banned the demonstration and had fired tear gas and water cannons at over 20 thousands demonstrators who had gathered there. They had arrested many of them but owing to the intervention of international media they had decided to let them go except, however, more than 100 were charged with fake criminal offences. They also arrested the five leaders of the Hindraf and charged them under draconian ISA law, which is detention without trial for anti-state activities.

The Malaysian Government has also cancelled the passport of the chairman of Hindraf Mr. P Waytha Moorty who had come to the UK in order to draw attention for the plight of his community and have thus made Mr. Moorthy a stateless person without any passport. The atrocities of the Malaysian government are still continuing. Two weeks ago after banning HINDRAF, last week they arrested on remand eleven persons including a woman who had gone to convey Dewali greetings to the Prime Minister and to request him to release the arrested Hindus before Dewali festival.


Hindu Council UK severely condemns the actions of the Malaysian government and requests:
1. That the ban on Hindraf is lifted and the Hindu minority community should be accorded with legitimate human rights.
2. That the criminal cases against leaders of Hindraf should be withdrawn and the HINDRAF leaders released unconditionally.
3. That the UK government as head of the commonwealth should prevail upon the Malaysian government to adhere to the charter of universal human rights and safeguard the interests of the Hindu minority.

Suraj Sehgal
Director for Defence and Security
Hindu Council UK

Note : Hindu Council UK (HCUK) is the foremost and largest national network of the Hindu temple bodies and cultural organisations co-ordinating all different schools of Hindu theology within the UK. HCUK is the representative umbrella body for the British Hindu issues for which a UK wide mandate was received during a two year consultation with the British Hindu public culminating in its launch in November 1994.
HCUK Admin Office: Boardman House, 64 The Broadway, London E15 1NG. T: 020 8432 0400 W:
www.hinducounciluk.org F: 020 8432 0393

HINDRAF may re-emerge as political entity



The federal government ban on Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) may pave the way for disgruntled ethnic Indians into championing their cause through political platforms.



The ban has resulted in Hindraf’s key leaders mulling how the movement and its 100,000 followers could play a role in the Pakatan Rakyat coalition.

It has been suggested that Hindraf followers can join either DAP, PAS or PKR en bloc or form a separate political entity and join Pakatan as equal partners. These suggestions were made during a meeting last week of some 100 Hindraf coordinators from across the country to discuss the post-ban scenerio.

It was agreed in principle during the meeting that the movement now needed a stronger platform to continue their struggle and air their grievances. Hindraf state coordinators are now gathering feedback from grassroots on the issue.

Although Hindraf followers are not completely satisfied with the performance of Pakatan elected representatives in handling problems faced by the Indian community, the coalition is still favoured against the Barisan Nasional. “Pakatan is the lesser evil than BN,” one Hindraf leader told Malaysiakini.

Pakatan not perfect Penang Hindraf deputy coordinator Sanjeeviramah Subramani noted that some Indian elected representatives in Pakatan-ruled states of Kedah, Penang, Perak and Selangor have failed to live up to expectations. "Penang reps fared the worst compared with others and some have even backstabbed and badmouthed Hindraf after riding on the Makkal Sakti wave to success in the last general election. "Nonetheless, Hindraf needs a platform to champion its cause and the current ideal solution is to join a vibrant political front like Pakatan," he said.Should Hindraf supporters join forces with Pakatan, the movement would still be guided by its 18-point memorandum submitted to the government last year.


Hindraf, which was never a registered body, was banned by the Home Minister early last month after its activists paid a visit to Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's Hari Raya open house. The ban was seen by Hindraf supporters as a form of revenge by the BN after the movement was widely credited to have triggered a revolt against the coalition during the March 8 general election.


Watha: Ban futile

It is believed that the majority of Hindraf supporters would prefer to form a new political party and join Pakatan, but they fear that a registration process would be hampered by the Barisan government. By joining en bloc in a single Pakatan coalition, Hindraf supporters are also hoping to break up Indian-based parties such as MIC, PPP and IPF by wooing their members.
In his email to Malaysiakini, Hindraf London-based leader P Waythamoorthy said the organisation cannot be stifled with a mere ban. He warned that Hindraf would follow the Hindu universal laws on darma, karma and reincarnation to re-emerge as a forceful movement for Indians and Malaysians in general. "Hindraf would soon emerge in a new body, a much energized and energetic human rights force which would lead us to greater democratic heights. "The government can ban Hindraf, but not the Makkal Sakti fervour," said the Waytha Moorthy who is in self-imposed exile in London following a government crackdown on Hindraf in December last year.

Indian marginalisation clear-and-present

So Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar – in a decision, as he puts it, of self-sacrifice for the sake of protecting society – has banned Hindraf.


Similar home ministerial valour must have been present when he chose to detain Raja Petra, Teresa Kok, Tan Hoon Cheng and hundreds of others under the ISA.

Many Malaysians have expressed their outrage at the latest cruel and callous act of repression against a civil group which has highlighted the continuing plight of marginalised Malaysian Indians.
I would like to examine an aspect: the assertion that Malaysian Indians are not marginalised and are actually doing better than Bumiputera Malaysians, and thus, they have no grounds to feel aggrieved, let alone angry. This is a cynical and specious claim.
We should first take note of the often ignored fact that the Malaysian Indian community is diverse, stratified and complex. Like any other.

Some are rich, some are part of the middle class, some are poor; some are posited in the mainstream, some are at the margins – and some are beyond the margins, trapped in urban squalor. The imperative question is whether the concerns of the Indian poor are being addressed by our government's attitudes and policies.
But the ruling regime would rather treat groups as monolithic blobs, then go about brandishing statistics to preempt debate - and stamp the lowly back into their place.


And so, in dismissing Hindraf's cause, Syed Hamid invoked the reality of high proportions of Indians among registered legal professionals (21.4 percent) and among doctors (18.4 percent), and the ratio of Indian to Bumiputera household incomes, of… 1.20. That's right, according to 2007 household income survey data, Indian households on average have 20 percent more income than Bumiputera households.
Is there something wrong with these figures? Why has the message of Hindraf resonated when official data paint opposing images of social mobility and nice averages?






There is no need to question the numbers, but every need to handle them responsibly, within context and in recognition of their limited scope. These bits of information provide no basis to conclude that all of the community is doing well and should therefore shut up and get on with their happy lives.

In fact, we do have evidence that Malaysians Indians are struggling as much as others to earn a decent living.

Averaging numbers
Of course there are many Indian lawyers and doctors – who’s not cognisant of that? But there are far more Indian labourers, factory workers, and others at the low reaches of the labour market. It is highly probable that the household income of the Indian community is propped up by the high earnings of professionals and managers.
Meagre family incomes of displaced agricultural workers and urban elementary workers get shrouded in the process of averaging the incomes of all Indian families.
Consider some changes that have taken place in the past decade or so.

In 1995, 17.7 percent of employed Indians worked as agricultural labor, while 8.7 percent were in professional and technical occupations.
By 2005, only 4.9 percent of employed Indians were agricultural workers, but 20.1 percent worked as professionals and technicians.
Albeit rather cursorily, we gain some impression here of developments at two ends of the socio-economic hierarchy: the continuous urbanisation of a low-skilled former plantation workforce; a steadily growing presence in highly qualified jobs providing middle class living standards. In what sort of jobs are most Indians working? Within communities, Indians registered the highest proportion of persons classified as production workers.



In 2005, 45.8 percent of employed Indians fell in this category, compared to 33.8 percent Chinese and 34.1 percent Bumiputera. Due to the unfree state of information in this land, the most we can do with officially disclosed statistics is make deductions and inferences such as these. We are still left with a knowledge gap.

However, a study by Branko Milanovic, a World Bank researcher and renowned scholar of global inequality, helps fill the void¹.
He analysed Malaysia's household income data of 1997. This is from the national survey that the Statistics Department conducts twice in five years, from which all the inequality measurements we know are calculated.
One difference with the official accounts is that Milanovic focussed on individual earnings (wages, salaries and bonuses) instead of household income (the sum of household members' earnings, property income and remittances). His findings are therefore more reflective of the earnings capacity of Malaysians in the labour market.

The housewife factor
The study analyses inequality more generally, but in the process finds something very striking: in 1997, the ratio of Indian to Bumiputera individual earnings was 0.98.
The official figure for Indian: Bumiputera household income was 1.41. In other words, the average earnings of individual Indians was basically the same as the average earnings of individual Bumiputera, even though average household incomes were quite unequal.
How might this be possible?
In terms of the gap between individual earnings inequality and household income inequality, we could postulate that combined earnings of Indians, especially in households with both spouses in professional jobs, raised their income to levels significantly higher than Bumiputera households.
This is a guess, and that's as far as we can go with available data.
What's not a guess is this objective report that average individual earnings of Indians and Bumiputeras were equal in 1997.
In 2007, with an Indian-to-Bumiputera household income ratio of 1.20, what might the inter-group earnings ratio look like? We don't know, but it is more than likely that the ratio is less than 1.20.
It is possible that earnings are on average close to equal, or that Indian earnings are less than Bumiputera earnings.
Consider recent data on the distribution of employed persons by occupation.
In 2005, with 45.8 percent of the total employed Indians engaged as production workers and 4.9 percent as agricultural workers, it is plausible that average individual earnings are on par with the average among employed Bumiputera, of whom 34.1 percent are production workers and 15.2 percent are agricultural workers.
These two low-paying occupational groups account for about 50 percent of employed persons of both race groups.
Again, we won't have a clear picture unless we have access to data and can engage in constructive discussion.

Hindraf has grounds
We have a clear enough picture, however, to affirm the plight of marginalised Indian households, whose tough circumstances in labour markets and poor living conditions are a shameful reality that cannot be garbed in middle-class statistics.
Hindraf has grounds for grievance – yes, even in the official data, if only we would take a more balanced and critical look.
And we could better understand this whole inequality thing, and devise fairer and more effective policies, if the ruling regime would release more information to our - um - knowledge society.
Resistance towards extending the same policies to members of the Indian community as currently provided to Bumiputera is partly predicated on official household income statistics.
But they give us an oversimplified and selective glimpse to a complex of problems.
It is high time to reevaluate the way we assess income and earnings and to aim assistance at the people who need or merit it most.
¹ Branko Milanovic (2006) "Inequality and Determinants of Earnings in Malaysia, 1984-97", in the Asian Economic Journal, 20(2).