Hindraf’s challenge to Pakatan and BN

June 4, 2012

Only a fair and just Malaysia can make the real difference. That is what the new paradigm calls for. This what Hindraf calls for.

By N Ganesan

Three significant characteristics of the system of Malaysian electoral politics make it inimical to the interests of the Indian poor. It is based on simple electoral majorities, it is ethnocentric and it works to provide moral cover for the Malaysian elite.

And it has become conventional wisdom that since Indians do not form a majority in any single constituency, and  are an economically depressed community  it will be nigh impossible to gain true representation for Indian socio-economic  interests which implies that it will continue to be  dependent on the largesse of the party in power.

Hindraf challenges these three assumptions and the first stones were cast with the 2007 Hindraf rally. Hindraf has been unrelenting in this challenge ever since.

Effectively what Hindraf is seeking for the Indian minority community is a more equitable power sharing formula that addresses these inherent weaknesses of the system as far as minorities are concerned.

What Hindraf is seeking is a more just Malaysia, where the citizens worth or rights is not determined by their ethnicity or their economic status, but by more fundamental and natural rights as citizens.

Hindraf works for the larger cause of a more just Malaysia, regardless of what Hindraf’s detractors have to say.

Given the workings of the electoral system the leading parties must yet win the Indians votes, so they can continue to rule. They therefore resort to a wide range of deception to garner the Indian votes.

One key technique is to have Indians in their ranks in the State Assemblies and in the Parliament and tout it as Indian representation. They try very hard with Makkal Sakthi, MIC and the latest addition to this motley list, Indraf to achieve this deception.

Truly representative policies for the socio-economic interests of the Indians are non –existent on both sides of the political spectrum. This has been de facto BN policy for 55 years and stated (yes, stated) Pakatan policy in the last 4 years.

Hindraf for its part wants to see changes to the forces driving the increasing criminalization of the Indian youth, the increasing oppression and marginalization of the Indian poor, the continuing denial of life opportunities, the chronic underemployment of Indian,  the chronic poor life performance of the Indian poor.

Can anyone deny that neither BN nor Pakatan have stepped up to this plate?

Unimaginative deceptions

The Indians who are really crying out for fundamental change in the performance of the Malaysian socio-political system are the Indians in the lowest rungs of Malaysian society.

All the BN and Pakatan coalitions have done is to keep imitating each other in their approach to the problem. BN keeps on bribing and promising and asking for Nambikei.  Pakatan touts cosmetic efforts such as the appointment of a Deputy Chief Minister or increases in allocation to Tamil schools or naming streets after Indians as their approach to the problem.

They both fail miserably with these unimaginative deceptions. They completely ignore the problem.

It is not that BN and Pakatan are missing the point. They just do not have it in their current political DNA to address issues of the working class Indian poor. The not so obvious truth is that both only represent interests of factions of the moneyed Malaysian elite.

BN represents the Malay elite, which has been on the ascendancy for the last 40 odd years. Pakatan by default now increasingly represents the Chinese elite and a smaller disgruntled section of the Malay elite.

Being the elite, their preoccupation is to get control of the levers of policy so that they can garner the resources of the nation disproportionately to themselves.

In the next GE, the choice for the Indians as Helen Ang puts it in her article (Hindraf in slipstream of two-race system- June 3, 2012 FMT)  is not between the Chinese and the Malays, it is really between the Chinese elite and the Malay elite.

Being the elite, like elite everywhere else in the world, their primary preoccupation is to control the levers of policy, so they can usurp the larger part of the resources of this nation. Ethnicity matters only to the extent of gaining that control.

The contention between the Chinese elite and the Malay elite is intensifying. The period of post-Merdeka collusion between the two elites within the BN and the consequent marginalisation of the DAP is gone and now the Chinese and Malay elites are standing eye to eye in contention – why else have the towkays abandoned MCA and openly shifted their support to the DAP.

So it is between the Chinese elite and the Malay elite that the Indian poor have to choose from. The experience with the Malay elite has been one of systematic discrimination, racism and marginalisation for the Indian poor.

The experience with the Chinese elite and the smaller section of the Malay elite has been equally a disastrous for the Indian poor in a much shorter space of time – if you look at the experience of the poor Indians in Kedah, in Penang, in Perak, and in Selangor. If you have been watching the issues we have raised in Pakatan controlled states in these columns, the story is clear.

This experience suggests it makes no significant difference to the Indian poor either way.  If things are not going to change, not voting for either is clearly an option for the Indian poor – why should they vote for either? What is the point? There is no religion here –only simple pragmatics.

What 1Malaysia?

The demands of the Indian poor are encompassed in the 18 point demand of Hindraf which Hindraf has persisted with, since its formulation.  If either of the elite wants the votes of the Indian poor, they can have it in its entirety but they need to adjust the power sharing formula to accommodate these demands.

This effectively means  creating a new paradigm for Malaysia. It does not matter that this sounds farfetched now.

When Galileo first suggested the earth was not the centre of the Universe no one gave him an ear but history does have its way of bearing out the truth ultimately.

There is no 1Malaysia, there are any number of Malaysias as there are ethnic groups in the country today. And there are as many impotent policies and programs as there are issues working against the social, economic and cultural development of Malaysia.

BN’s ETP is a pie in the sky program with little mooring in the political reality of a multiethnic, multicultural Malaysia. Pakatan’s program sounds good but can it even bridge the most obvious difference between the Islamic state agenda and the Malaysian Malaysia agenda of its component parties So is there really any substance here either.

The reality of Malaysia is that every ethnic group is here to stay. They are not going anywhere.

Every Malaysian will continue to live here and die here. Everyone must do well or no one will do well. Pushing and shoving is not going to cut it. Only a fair and just Malaysia can make the real difference. That is what the new paradigm calls for. This what Hindraf calls for.

If Pakatan or BN can indeed rise to this challenge they can have the Indian vote in-toto.  But only if they can do this.

They now need to come up with a plan by which they are going to address the 18 point demand – which they know is bitter medicine, but they do know it is medicine. Medicine that our country so sorely needs.

Their political imperative requires they win the forthcoming elections and that imperative can certainly produce the necessary political will to accept the challenge that Hindraf is throwing at them.

If they think they can win it with their Makkal Sakthi parties and MIC and Indrafs they do so at their own peril. Plus if they have deception planned up their sleeves they are only postponing whatever it is that is that we raise here.

They need to come up with a binding and a real program, announce it and immediately begin work on it and there is a chance we will come out like we did in 2008 in favour of whoever does this.

Otherwise the Chinese elite and the Malay elite can fight it out and let the bloody mess continue. Let this go on for more years and maybe one day in the future they will find the wisdom in Hindraf’s challenge.

The writer is Hindraf’s national advisor.