Jaishree Balasubramanian
Kuala Lumpur, Feb 14 (PTI) Malaysian police detained 58 members of the outlawed Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) and a 10-year-old girl for protesting against a proposed school textbook which contains reference to the caste system.
Selangor state police chief Tun Hisan Tun Hamzah said the men were arrested yesterday for joining an illegal assembly for demonstrating and handing out pamphlets against the use of the book “Interlok”.
Police said all were released after their statements were recorded. The arrests were made across three states in the country.
A 10-year-old girl was also among those arrested.
Assembly of more than five persons without police permission is considered illegal in this country.
The book,”Interlok”, came under criticism following the Education Ministry’’s decision to use it as a literature text, with several academics and the Malaysian Indian Congress, the country’’s largest ethnic Indian political party, claiming that it contained words sensitive to the Indian community.
The use of the word “pariah” in the novel has been objected to by the community members who feel it connotes caste system which they say is not found among ethnic Indians here.
A Hindraf member said that the arrests were unlawful.
The group has said it will organise another protest on February 27 outside the Petronas Twin Towers here to demand the textbook is dropped from the curriculum.
Earlier, the Government had said that the novel would be included in the school curriculum with amendments so as not to hurt the feelings of the Indian community.
“Interlok”, written by a national laureate Abdullah Hussain, covers the history of relations between of Malaysia’’s three main ethnic groups — Malays, Chinese and Indians — from the 1900s until independence in 1957.
The Malaysian Indian Congress, the third largest component party in the ruling coalition, has called for the novel to be withdrawn or to remove the passages touching on the caste system and other areas deemed offensive.
Ethnic Indians form eight per cent of Malaysia’’s 27 million population.
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