Many regard lawyer as a maverick, but they also sympathise with his causes
By Carolyn Hong, Malaysia Bureau Chief
The Straits Times
CONTROVERSIAL FIGURE: Hindraf chief P. Uthayakumar (right) has tapped into the discontent felt by Indians. -- PHOTO: AFP
LAWYER P. Uthayakumar, who recently roused thousands of Indians to take to the streets in a protest against their plight, is a man who stirs up a lot of mixed feelings.
He speaks like a machine gun going off, is confrontational and has the lawyerly knack of hammering home his points through repetition.
The 46-year-old is louder than some of the most strident pressure groups.
And he has turned off some Malaysians, especially the elite, who view him suspiciously as a maverick or even a publicity hound.
Yet even they have sympathy for the issues that he articulates. And the Indian march that he led on Nov 25 shows how his message has resonated with the working class.
'A lot of people do not like the way he does things, and it does affect his credibility, but it gets the message out,' said human rights lawyer Edmund Bon.
Mr Uthayakumar, who is unmarried, is a key leader of the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf), a previously little-known organisation.
He grew up in rural Kelantan, the son of a locomotive driver and a housewife.
His younger brother, Mr P. Waytha Moorthy, is chairman of Hindraf. Mr Uthayakumar said his elder brother and three sisters are supportive of his campaign and turned up for the mass rally in Kuala Lumpur.
Hindraf became a household name after it led thousands of Indians in the Nov 25 march that drew the attention of the international media.
The New Straits Times has described its plan to hand over a petition to the British government asking for financial compensation as a 'quixotic mission'.
It is precisely this sort of mission that has led some to question Mr Uthayakumar's credibility and purpose, as do his charges of the 'mini genocide' of ethnic Indians.
In 2004 he sought political asylum in London, claiming that police were harassing him over his work on deaths in police custody.
When he ran his Police Watch and Human Rights Committee to demand action on deaths in custody, mostly of Indians, it was as high-profile as Hindraf is now.
Hindraf emerged about two years ago when Mr Uthayakumar switched focus to the demolition of Hindu temples built without permission and the struggles of the Indian community.
He was quoted by The New Paper yesterday as saying that Hindraf's protests were inspired by the monks in Myanmar, and included some who 'were prepared to die for their cause'.
'I've shown slides of monks getting shot and killed during my road shows, and I think it struck a chord with the people,' he said.
Asked whether he was inspiring his followers to turn to violence, he replied: 'I think it's quite unlikely we'll head down that path towards a civil war, but there's always the possibility. Some of the uneducated may resort to violence.'
Indians form about 8 per cent of Malaysia's population, but only up to a third of them are well-off. The rest, mostly Tamils, live on the margins with little access to good education.
'He is very much issue-oriented, and these are matters that are very important to the Indians,' said Mr M. Kulasegaran, an opposition MP.
Mr Uthayakumar told The Straits Times he has been researching on these issues since he opened his law firm in 1994, and half his income has gone to his causes.
He claims his work is funded by donations from working-class Indians.
That thousands of Indians - traditionally a safe voter base for the governing party - are challenging the authorities must be a cause of worry for the government.
But it is unlikely to cost it many seats because Indian voters are a minority and Hindraf's confrontational stance repels many would-be supporters.
It would, however, be a blow to the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition if its popular vote were to be hit.
What Hindraf wants
HINDRAF has issued a long list of demands to the government, the latest coming last Saturday.
Original demands
Compensation of £1 million (S$3 million) from the British government for each of Malaysia's nearly two million Indians.
Halt temple demolitions. Those demolished to get RM10 million (S$4.3m) compensation each.
Equal rights in education and employment.
More aid to 523 Tamil primary schools.
New demands
A meeting with Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi by Sunday.
A new committee to look into Indian grouses.
Release of Indians held without trial in a notorious Johor jail.
Appointment of a non-Malay to a new post of second deputy prime minister.
Finance minister's post to be filled by a Chinese.
20 per cent of top posts in government and private sector for Indians for the next 15 years.
A minimum of 20 opposition MPs to be elected by the Indian community.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
04/12: Man behind Indians' protest stirs up mixed feelings
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13 comments:
Hisham decidedly subdued speech to Umno Youth at the party's recent general assembly was in mark contrast to his racist histrionics of last year. This showed one thing: even these morons in Umno are teachable after all.
We know that morons are slow learners, but then as we have seen even Umno morons are teachable. We just have to repeat the lessons more often, and increasing the punishment more severe each time they regress or forget their earlier lessons.
My objective as a committed cyberspace commentator is to make that rouge gallery bigger. I will not be satisfied nor will I stop, until that gallery has the country's biggest rogue included in its rooster.
The BN politicians do not differentiate between what is kerajaan and negara. Corrupted leader which form the kerajaan (government) is a traitor to its negara (country).
NEP as implemented has always involved using government funds for the intended beneficiaries. When it was the intention of the government to create the richest malay to head the list of richest individuals, now announced by the prime minister, the government adopts the policy to give public funds directly or indirectly to private individuals so that he/she can become the richest individual malay in the country.
Mahathir declared that NEP would have met its objective when the government was able to create a millionaire among the malays. It was the first time he extended the objective of NEP to make malay millionaires, and facilitated the use of public funds to enrich his cronies. Badawi now extends the creation of malay millionaires to become malay billionaires, and also to lead in the list of the richest individuals in the country.
It is clear to the whole world that NEP created unfair hardships to the non-malays no matter how Umno wanted to justify it. Unlike article 153 which was supposed to be reviewed after 15 years from 1957, NEP was to be implemented for 20 years from 1970. There was no provision for extension, and the only clearly stated quantitative target was that malays were to achieve 30% of corporate ownership after 20 years.
Badawi pretended that he wanted to be a prime minister for all Malaysians, and called for malays to forgo crutches. At the same time, he conveniently resurrected NEP and extended it to 2020, and his deputy suggested the continuation until 2057, for the present.
Prime minister and his deputy promised a year ago to reveal the methodology adopted by EPU, to challenge the results of ASLI finding that the 30% target had been achieved. His recent announcement makes ASLI finding irrelevant since NEP will continue forever, whatever the actual results show.
Ordinary malays appear to accept to pay a higher price for their motor vehicles when AP system which was exploited to enrich the well connected malays, they appear happy that NEP is continued even though NEP has caused a decline to their standard of living and level of earning. They accept that as a cost for enabling malays to lead the list of the richest individuals in the country.
We need more international awareness and exposure of the crime and wrongdoing of Umno in Malaysia. Michael Backman, a big thank you for helping us to spread the message and the truth about Malaysia and its "corrupted leaders".
When this Bodowi speaks, it makes you sick in the stomach.
Whether he steps down or not, makes no different to the country because the whole Umno and BN machinery are all crooks.
Vote them out and send them to space, that is the only answer.
The myth is sustained by the idea put forth that prior to the coming-into-being of this nation called Malaysia there was once this mythical land called 'Tanah Melayu'.
Yet the historian would be hard pressed indeed to find a source to back this claim, for the embarrassing thing about our epic histories and hikayats of old is that there is scarcely a mention of the word.
For years - if not more than a decade by now - I have been looking for this mythical land so loved and cherished by the young hotspurs and bloods of Umno, yet I have never discovered it.
Having taken it home, I looked it up in the reference books I had only to discover that it was one of those hybrid coins of dubious worth that were used in the trade between European colonial companies then stationed in Singapore and Malacca with malay traders from the (then weakened) malay sultanates on the Peninsula.
Used as loose coinage in commercial transactions that were at best unequal and at worst exploitative to the malay traders then, the coins had a decidedly counterfeit feel to them, and while registering the lightness of its weight in the palm of my hand, the thought came to me:
That this coin, with the word 'Tanah Melayu' stamped on it in Jawi alphabet, sums up the irony of the past and the painful realities of colonialism then.
The malay kingdoms had been sidelined, colonised and diminished, and all that was given back to the malays was a dull copper coin with the myth of 'Tanah Melayu' stamped on it in so casual a manner.
P.Uthayakumar is the 'Martin Luther King' of Malaysia.
He and Hindraf are highlighting issues which concern not only Indians but all non- Malays(except for the Rich) who have been marginalised-civil service jobs,overseas studies scholarships,education opportunities,business licences. etc.
Malaysia & UMNO Malays have its own 'ethnic cleansing' agenda.
Since the killings of Chinese on May 13, 1969,after the UMNO Malays lost in Selangor Elections, the UMNO agenda have broken up families with millions of Chinese migrating.
Chinese owmed Banks & Business built from sweat & hardship taken over by Malays.
40,000 scholarships overseas Uni. studies a yr given to Malays whilst only a mere 130 given to non-Malays who are the biggest Tax payers and who built the Country.
The Police take an indifferent attitude to non-Malays being victims of serious crimes.Rapes & death of snatch thieves victims are unresolved.
Rapists,Murderers roam freely!
Meanwhile, UMNO Leaders continue to plunder the country's wealth
and threatening any opposition with arrest without trial (the ISA ) and a repeat of May 13 should it lose power!
I am utterly sickened by the deleterious and tirade spewed forth from the mouths of these Umno imbeciles. They certainly will not get my vote come this election. Such recalcitrants are incorrigible and their warped-minds will be their downfall, lest they sincerely repent.
Malays have done wonders in terms of denying truth, while doing so, through policies of government raked in ill wealth for years. Malays are rich, I mean really rich.
Malays had certain qualities that other races in this country do not, but I must emphasise "had". Qualities such as "speaking less", contended, know how to read and understand the holy Quran (I know that nowadays Muslim kids spent 10 years of religious classes in school and end up not knowing).
But all done and said, the day malays deny their past, is the beginning of their end. Malays were Hindus once, as was the whole South East Asia, later some South East Asia went for Buddhism while the others went for Islam.
Who taught South East Asia races to plant paddy in a systematic manner? Who taught South East Asia races language skills, reading and writing?
The very essence of everything that South East Asia races are based on till today was taught by Tamils. Don't you guys notice that South East Asia races have similar writing codes, that are because it is based on Tamil. It even sounds like Tamil.
For peninsula: Tamils called the local inhabitants as "malai allu", basically means "people who dwell in the hills", this would mean Orang Asli, for they dwell in the hills, what is known as malays today was non-existent.
As malays are well known to do, they incorporated this term "malai" whence they started to land in the peninsula from Nusantara, and claimed the term "malai" as their own. This race has this peculiar trait of claiming that which is not theirs.
Deny this, and you deny your past, anyone who denies his past, denies his future. Malays……….be my guest.
Guess who is the master race? The master race doesn't doing some weird policy (NEP), or go around brandishing some knife, which if you really put some thinking into it, put the race on a sure path to beggary.
The reason why I commented as above is because I want malays to know that they are not tuan punya tanah.
For myself, as a Tamil, I will state what my forbearers have done centuries before, the truth is, no one owns this land, this land is owned only by - the one and only one - God.
This soil needs administration, not ownership. Accept that.
Lying, incompetent, hypocrite, faking, denial, crook, corrupt, unjust, stupid, pretending, all these words are apt to describe them Umno.
How on earth Malaysia could sink low low low!
Many many years ago, my brothers, cousins and friends, all top students applied to local university to be computer and electrical engineers. None of us got in.
We all went abroad, many of us made a killing but all of us had a good career and was in the centre of the IT revolution.
Recently some of us were approached to return to Malaysia but even at million ringgit salary, we unanimously said - No.
Cheated once, it is a pity, cheated twice is your fault.
"Only a quarter of Malaysians is Chinese while more than half of the population is malays. Yet Chinese control half of the economy while malays only about 20%."
Whether there is NEP or not, don't make much difference in the long run. When you walk with crutches for too long, you lose the ability to stand on your own legs.
Drug abuse, hate, incest, liberal extremism (culture of miniskirts and gay marriages), murder, parochialism, racism, rape, religious fanaticism, snatch theft, spoilt-bratty behavior, tribalism, wife abuse, child abuse, all that is associated with the malay race.
To them, malay is the biggest impediment towards building a truly Malaysian nation, and should be chucked into the dustbins of history.
Sad. Sad. Sad. The question asked by many of my fellow Chinese is this - Why can't you just tell the malay peoples to adopt Chinese culture which is superior?
History always repeats itself. And nature is cruel. Any race of lower intelligence gets wiped out eventually.
See what is happening to indigenous tribes and their lands, always taken over by smarter people from elsewhere. Look at Singapore, who owned it in the first place and who came and took it over?
America was taken by Europeans from the Red Indians. Even British convicts and unwanted lowlifes managed to grab Australia from the aborigines and reduced them to what they are today. They may become extinct one day.
However, Malaysians still have hope as they are learning fast. Just hope it is fast enough. Problem is that some of them are still crying for bumi policy as a crutch. The smarter ones know that it is just prolonging the agony. Anyway, the smarter ones actually are not from Malaysia originally.
You can only survive if you are able to stand on your own two legs. Shouting "Malaysia Boleh" is no use - if you can, you can.
Friend, you have a place there. Find your own niche in the food chain. (If you leave for greener pastures, you are repeating what your forefathers did when they left China and ended up in oversea.)
People with brains can overcome all sorts of man-made obstacles or unfairness. Those with brains but do not use them will cry for help.
You can decide which type you want to be.
Those Umno pea-brained morons are products of Mahathir. Difference is that Mahathir did all the talking and walking and kept his morons in cages.
Now, Badawi is not the talker nor walker, if fact, he is the sleeper. So much that these pea-brained morons have been let loose to display their stupidity of the highest degree.
Malaysia is now famous internationally for having morons running the country, one such moronic act was being performed live on Al Jazeera. Please don't mention anymore name, we may have underage kids reading.
This kind of word play shows a complete contempt for the intelligence of the Malaysian public.
Public perception in Malaysia is a crude measure of any institution's performance because the information provided to the public is generally packaged and filtered by Umno-controlled television station and media.
Universities are themselves fiefdoms, controlled not by qualified and capable academic administrators, but rather by Umno political appointees, many of whom have absolutely no background in education management.
Clearly it is because the results of the THES and virtually every other public or private ranking system show Malaysia institutions to be mediocre at best and most rankings do not even mention Malaysia at all.
Our neighbors like Singapore, Korea, Japan, China and Australia have a number of institutions that regularly appears in the top 100.
It makes no sense. The reality is that our universities are simply mediocre extensions of a flawed high school system. Our best students have no choice but to travel abroad to earn a decent education and must do so at great costs.
Our government has shown by example, that nepotism, deceit, corruption and bribery are the key ingredients for success in this nation.
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