Why Pakatan should engage Hindraf

There seem to have been a lot of bad blood between Hindraf and Pakatan, mainly DAP, after the Kg Buah Pala issue and PKR after de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim came blatantly out to brand them as a racist party. Funnily though, PAS has not had a single word to say against Hindraf.

Imagine even with the prevailing hudud issue, everything is kosher for Pakatan and its avid fans but Hindraf is racist for championing long forgotten bread and butter issues the underclass, voiceless Malaysian Indians. Such is the irony of the society and propaganda.

Now it does help neither the society nor anyone one for the matter to dwell on the past with this latest offer by Hindraf to work with Pakatan to work hand in hand to ensure a change in the ruling government in the coming GE13.

There are many reasons why Pakatan should work with Hindraf. For a start although Pakatan maintains that they are multicultural and what not, it would be stupid for us to accept that this is the case. If it was, hudud would have been a non issue even within the Pakatan coalition.

Now look at BN - they have 13 coalition partners, do you think they are stupid? No, because they know they will need representatives from these partners to hear their grievance and work with them to ensure their vote count is there even if nothing changes for the people on the ground.

Now, you have Hindraf, who no doubt galvanised the political landscape in GE12 that neither Semangat 46 in 1990 nor Barisan Alternatif in 1999 could achieve. Sure, we can argue until the cows come home, but any man in the street irrespective of his/her origin will till today have a story about the Hindraf uprising.

The leaders of Pakatan may think that they have all the support through their mandores, the same mistake that Umno did with MIC pre GE12 as we had our great Dato SM galloping from one state another, issuing press statements undermining the importance of Hindraf and naturally you saw what happened.

No doubt, we are also reminded of the Hulu Selangor by-election where Pakatan lost due to their ignorance of the importance of the Hindraf factor.

BN has its untold wealth to drive propaganda, Pakatan has Anwar's ill gotten chest during his Umno heydays, but Hindraf has human rights instincts that is priceless as they have proven with their consistency, fighting against the odds for the community even without having elected representative.

No, this is not about Pakatan and their leaders and mandores, but ensuring that they can to ensure the downfall of the BN for the betterment of the society, even if that means working with Hindraf

Many view Hindraf as arrogant, but seriously in what way have they been arrogant, except in fighting for what is moral. Rather it is the elected representative in Pakatan who have become arrogant in their new found power through the peoples' vote, after the Hindraf tsunami.

Anyway, both parties should let bygones are bygones; start over for the society's benefit.

The olive branch that Hindraf has offered to Pakatan is an attempt that can be considered, reconciled and is to be taken seriously if Pakatan leadership is serious about effecting the changes that the society seeks, and defeating BN in GE13.