Commentary: Malaysia's beleagured Indian community

NAGERCOIL, India, Dec. 6; It seems that historical injustices permeate the existence of all humanity. What happens when a section of humanity is violently plucked from its motherland and transplanted to another region in dreadfully subhuman conditions? It is unthinkable.

But what if that community, now reduced to an ethnic and religious minority in the country where it is has been transplanted without a choice, is further reduced to desperation through the denial of economic and religious freedom? Does it produce terrorists? Suicide bombers?

If the community happens to be a pacifist one like the Hindu Tamil community in Malaysia, it may wave pictures of Mahatma Gandhi in the face of water cannons and eye-stinging chemicals, as happened during a peaceful protest in Kuala Lumpur last month.

The protesters started by chanting Vedic hymns. Peacefully they defied the ban on the rally. Tactfully they petitioned the Queen of England, for it was British colonial rulers that brought them as indentured laborers to Malaysia over a century ago.

Today they see the state marginalize them. They see the state destroy their temples with bulldozers. They see their families split by a state that practices what can only be called religious apartheid.

Decades of discrimination and humiliation forced thousands of men and women into the streets despite the ban order. Peacefully they faced the water cannons. They sat cross-legged in the lotus position, braving the streams of water laced with chemicals.Women were chased by police who caught and chained them. Men were beaten mercilessly. Even the sacred temple at Batu Caves faced police wrath. Even though police denied firing teargas inside, photos posted on the Internet say otherwise.

Whether it is the posthumous conversion and forced Muslim burial of Hindu mountaineering hero M. Moorthy, or the forcible removal of her child from a mother charged with apostasy from Islam, or the demolition of scores of temples belonging to Hindus -- all have made the minority Tamil Hindus feel very insecure.

Couple with this the fact that Indians have the lowest share in the country's corporate wealth and the highest rates of suicide and detention. The pattern that emerges is clearly that of an ethnic and religious minority facing discrimination socially, economically and culturally. Worse, with the increasing clout of Shariah courts the apartheid is gaining a legal dimension.

The public rally was the expression of Indians' insecurity and righteous anger at the injustice and humiliation meted out to them. By petitioning the Queen of England with pictures of Mahatma Gandhi, the Malaysian Hindus have also sent a subtle message that they do not pin their hopes on India, the nation to which they should rightfully have turned. But can Indians blame them?

The Indian prime minister who lost sleep over the arrest of an Indian terror suspect in Australia is maintaining a slumber-like silence over the Malaysian incidents. Despite its ritual invocation of Gandhi's name, the ruling Congress Party seems unmoved by the violence meted out by the Malaysian government to Gandhian protestors of Indian origin.

In Tamil Nadu the chief minister wrote a letter to the prime minister. Hindu nationalist organizations have made complaints to the Malaysian Embassy. But the Indian media -- with the notable exception of the Times of India -- have maintained a cold silence on the subject.

Certain newspapers have even tried to water down the entire issue. For example The Hindu, a Chennai-based English daily, reported thus on Nov. 26: "A group, called the Hindu Rights Action Force, on Sunday defied a court order and staged a rally in Kuala Lumpur, protesting against the alleged 'marginalization' of the ethnic Indian minority in Malaysia. Police used water cannon and tear gas to disperse the agitators at one or two places in the city in the morning. The group had mobilized at least a few thousand activists in a rare show of defiance by the members of the community."

Compare this with the way the Telegraph, a British newspaper, reported the same event: "Malaysian police attacked thousands of peaceful protesters with tear gas and water cannon yesterday as they attempted to present a petition to the British High Commission in Kuala Lumpur."

Is there any wonder that the Malaysian Tamil Hindus are petitioning the British Queen and not the Indian High Commission? The silence of the Indian government is a measure not only of its insensitivity but also a manifestation of how far the Indian pseudo-secular state has moved from the values that resonate with Indic hearts everywhere. Now it is up to the people of India, and the duty of Hindu nationalists, to take up the cause of the Malaysian Tamil Hindus and demand that the Indian government speak up for them.

(S. Aravindan Neelakandan is a social scientist working with an ecological NGO called Vivekananda Kendra -- Natural Resources Development Project in Nagercoil, India. He is also a freelance writer and author of the Tamil-language "God and 40 Hz.")