Dear Mr. Suresh Grover,
We hope you had a safe journey back home and have recovered from both mental and physical exhaustion over the strenuous one week visit to our beloved country! You have come and gone, living lasting impressions in our minds!
The first time we saw you, albeit Mr. Khan missing next to you, being ushered inside the Klang hall, onto the stage through the jam-packed crowd with cries of HINDRAF Vaalga, Waytha Moorthy Vaalga, Imran Khan Vaalga and Suresh Grover Vaalga, amidst hundreds of cell-phone snaps, we were just overwhelmed by emotion. Thoughts of Mr. Waytha Moorthy living in exile, thousands of miles away, where you came from and whom you were representing, forced us to hold back our tears.
Your speech, received with thunderous applause and cheers, and at times pin drop silence, marking the seriousness of your message, was inspiring. It reminded us of the public speeches given by Mr. Waytha Moorthy to the massive gatherings prior to the 25 November 2007 HINDRAF rally. It also reminded us of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a Dream” speech! Applause and cheers from the 2500 strong crowd reverberate in our ears till today. Even after the meeting, captivated by your warmth and vigor, people lingered around for a long time with no intention of departing for home.
Your unbounded compassion and love for the poor, that we saw in your eyes and conduct throughout the hectic fact-finding mission, have created lasting impressions in our minds.
Being chauffeured around from south to north without proper rest and sleep for days, frequently skipping breakfast, lunch and dinner, you showed not even a trace of exhaustion. The long drives off the majestic world class highways, into the small town roads and untarred muddy roads pitted with potholes, cutting through the rubber and oil palm plantations and poor settlements, did not deter you from pursuing your mission. As you waded through the trodden paths to get the first hand evidence of what prompted this civil suit, poverty, discrimination and injustices suffered Malaysian Indians, you witnessed scenes of the their everyday domesticity. We did not fail to catch a glimpse of your saddened face while saying hello to those people. Many a time you seeped into silence, maybe disturbed by their, “living a life chained to poverty without any hope for the future.” Maybe!
The hundreds of photographs that we managed to snap during your mission have captured just too many truths about the current state of affairs of the minority Indians in this country. Almost 80% of them live a life trapped in poverty, in a low-wage, low-skilled work, with little job security. They are deprived of even the basic needs, food, shelter, education, and health care. Worst of all, the state sponsored institutionalized racism has also robbed this community of their dignity. In your words, they are given “no dignity in life or death!”
Otherwise how does one comprehend the denial of Birth Certificates, Identity Cards and Marriage Certificates for all the children and grandchildren of a couple caught in conversion turmoil? In every such family, the victims run into tens and hundreds including the daughters and sons in law and their innocent children. Needless to say, around the country, (Indian) families suffering the same fate are numerous, more than Malaysians can imagine. Having lost hope, they suffer in silence. What are we to make of the Hindu cemeteries that look like waste grounds or rubbish dumps with the sewage system open and the pungent smelling dirty water flowing in from the drains, without proper roads leading to the graves, far away from the main roads? Yes, these were people who “had contributed to the country, but their contributions forgotten because their deaths had not been respected!” You were shocked that some of the people, having suffered serious brutality and indignity, had no recourse for justice. Perhaps you had not heard about the hundreds if not thousands of cold blooded murders of Indian youths “alleged” criminals by the police, on the streets, in police custodies. You met young girls, sixteen, eighteen year olds who had not been through formal education because they do not have the documents and are subjected to exploitation at work. Perhaps you should have seen the many child labourers who are washing dishes at restaurants and scavenging on landfills and dumpsites to make a living out of trash as the country’s racism and supremacy policies have left them destitute.
People living in abject poverty, denied their identity cards, made stateless, homeless, jobless and illiterate, despite them being here since before independence, are all daily feeds in the lives of minority Indians in this country, conveniently abandoned and forgotten, by all.
May justice prevail in this nation and the world over.
Thank you, sir. God bless you!
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