The third anniversary of the Hindraf November 27, 2008 protest is being commemorated today by rival groups and in different ways to keep the flame alive.
And these groups are hoping to sway Indian voters to their cause by marking the third anniversary.
The founder and leading light, lawyer P. Uthayakumar, has moved on to form the Human Rights Party (HRP) which is trying to gather supporters to contest some 15 parliamentary and 38 state seats in the next general election.
It’s called the 15/38 project and he is targeting seats held by well-known Indians he sees as rivals like Penang Deputy Chief Minister P. Ramasamy in Batu Kawan, M. Kulasegaran in Ipoh Barat and S. Manicavasagam in Kapar, among others.
But his plan to move Indian voters from other constituencies to these selected constituencies where Indians predominate to create artificial “Indian-majority” seats is not working.
The logistics and the resources needed to fulfil this task are beyond his means and his unregistered party’s capacity.
His brother P. Vethamurthy is still in limbo, travelling between London and Singapore to meet his family and dabbling in several political ventures to unite Sabah, Sarawak and the Orang Asli and other ethnic minorities but the political impact is missing.
Uthayakumar, like in 2009, is commemorating the Hindraf protest with a morning-to-evening hunger strike at the KLCC today.
The 2009 hunger strike was attended by about two dozen hardcore supporters and was led by leading Hindraf activist S. Jayathas wearing the trade mark orange Hindraf T-shirt.
Then, the police monitored the situation before disbanding the “strike” about three hours later.
The government had banned Hindraf in October 2008, accusing it of extremism.
A second group under former Hindraf ISA detainee K. Vasantha Kumar, who is a PKR member but derided by Uthayakumar as a police agent, is commemorating the protest with a gathering at the Dewan STC in Batu Caves today.
The event will be attended by Pakatan Rakyat leaders who rode the Hindraf wave of protest to victory in 2008 but ended up with Vasantha Kumar in their bag because Uthayakumar, they say, is beyond control.
“We would have liked him in Pakatan as an MP and gain from the association but he is unruly and beyond reason,” a senior DAP leader said. “Nobody in Pakatan wants him… his ego is too huge.”
Another former Hindraf ISA detainee, V. Ganabathirao, and his brother Raidu together with lawyer P. Gengadharan, another Hindraf ISA detainee, are organising a gathering in Shah Alam under the guise of a Deepavalli dinner to pass “resolutions”.
The Makkal Sakthi Party that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak gave instant recognition and support to now stands as a failure, hit with dissension as rival groups fight for the famous Makkal Sakthi, or People’s Power, name, which was PR’s rallying cry in 2008.
Najib has nothing to fear in Hindraf or Makkal Sakthi anymore because the movement that woke up Indians from their political slumber has lost its bite through attrition and internal division.
Najib, meanwhile, has developed personal link with many Indian NGOs and minorities in the Indian minority like Sikhs, Telegu, Jaffa Tamils and Tamil social and reform movements like the Sri Murugan Centre.
All the interest groups and NGOs and reform movements that MIC president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu alienated during his long 30 years in power are now being courted by Najib and won over.
His ultimate stroke was to “persuade” Samy Vellu himself to retire and hand over power to his deputy Datuk G. Palanivel.
Without Samy Vellu and if the new leaders handle the transition wisely, the MIC has a chance to win over the Indian support it lost in 2008.
Hindraf and its offshoots will always be remembered but their ability to move the people has dissipated mainly because of its leaders’ failure to stay united and manage the success of the November 27 protest.
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