What now Hindraf?

OCT 16 — Now that Hindraf has been outlawed, what’s next for the the movement is a question on many minds.

Will Hindraf supporters give up their struggle for the Tamil underclass and call it a day as the authorities hope they will?

Or would a hardcore section go underground and abroad and continue the struggle using the power of the Internet and other means?

Will Hindraf change name, re-focus and continue the struggle in a different form or disintegrate into several factions with some returning to the MIC and IPF while others joining the DAP and PKR.

The possibilities are numerous and it is still too early to say for a fact that this is the end of Hindraf.

These are questions the Special Branch and other security agencies are looking for answers to.

They are likely to be watching and monitoring scores of Hindraf leaders across the country, who are the mainstay of the movement, to determine what likely moves Hindraf would make now that it is officially outlawed.

In an immediate reaction, Hindraf chairman P. Waythamoorthy in London called for “no action” of any kind in the next 24 hours.

Police insiders and security analysts predict the movement, already fractured by rival leadership, will likely split into several factions as had happened to the Indian Progressive Front or IPF, which similarly championed the Tamil underclass, a decade ago.

However, they are also worried the ban might radicalise a core group and push it underground and force it to link up with other radical groups for support, especially with radical right-wing Hindu groups in India.

“This is the last thing anyone wants to see happen,” said a former security analyst with a regional risk assessment corporation.

“It is not exactly a friendly world out there for Malaysia among the far-flung Indian diaspora,” he added.

The authorities, government sources said, were pushed into banning Hindraf because they believed the movement could be infiltrated and used for purposes other than voicing out the problems of the marginalised Indians.

“Police saw a pattern in the protests Hindraf was organising over the past year and believed probably a hidden hand was pulling the strings,” the official said.

However, opposition party leaders reject such an assessment, saying the real reason for banning Hindraf was probably because the movement had successfully brought the majority of the Indian community into the opposition camp.

“There is now near total Indian support for the opposition and this support was expected to last for at least for another general election if not two more,” said an opposition lawmaker who declined to be identified.

“The real reason for banning Hindraf is also to prepare for the eventual release of the five Hindraf leaders who when released would not have a organisation to back them up. It is also to help the MIC, whose reinvention programme is a disaster, to make inroads in the vacuum created by outlawing the Hindraf movement,” the MP told The Malaysian Insider.

It is believed that with the ban a bigger faction of Hindraf would likely coalesce behind the lawyer brothers P. Uthayakumar, now in ISA detention in Kamunting, and Waythamoorthy, in self-imposed exile in London.

Insiders said other smaller splinter groups would go over and join various opposition parties.

The brothers are the original founders and the real brains behind the movement and have between them nearly two decades of unheralded struggle for the marginalised Indians.

They had fought alone, unrecognised and finally struck pay dirt with the Hindraf rally on Nov 25 last year that put Tamil underclass grievances on the world map.

The others — R. Genghadaran, M. Manoharan, V. Ganabatirau and K. Vasantha Kumar — all also in ISA detention came into the picture much later after seeing the huge emotional appeal the brothers were having over the Tamil underclass.

Currently the fractured leadership consist of regional “co-coordinators” who call the shots, while Waythamoorthy tries to exert control from London through e-mails, teleconferencing and SMS text messages.

In Kamunting itself, Uthayakumar is not on talking terms with the four others, never seeing eye-to-eye with them. He seldom meets them or holds any strategy discussions with them, said lawyers who frequently visit the detainees in Kamunting.

Uthayakumar and his brother have also accused Vasantha Kumar of being a Special Branch plant, an accusation strongly denied by Vasantha Kumar’s wife.

Under the circumstances it seems likely that the top leadership would be unable to patch up soon enough to positively respond to the challenge posed by the ban on Hindraf.

For now much depends on how the fractured Hindraf leadership reacts, the chances of a split, and how forcefully the authorities enforce the “ban”.

Baradan Kuppusamy
The Malaysian Insider