We need to build a strong global community of Indians all over the globe

Not as progressive as I thought it was.

@ BSG: Canon 30D with 10-22 lens.

@ shlok: I was in Trinidad in 2003.

@ Sadaiyappan: Indians face legal and illegal discrimination, as the government promotes Bumiputra (“sons of the soil”) policies that favor the Malays, who consider themselves the native, superior, and rightful people of Malaysia (yes, there is irony in the fact that Bumiputra is a Sanskrit word and is also used on the subcontinent in a different context). The legal discrimination comes from policies that reserve government jobs for Malays and from business laws that require percentage Malay equity stake in all companies, to name two examples. The illegal discrimination comes from the fact that crimes against Indians go uninvestigated; racial hiring quotas in government, university seats, and in the awarding of business licenses rarely give Indians their due; and every Indian here has tales of major and minor slights — from Bumiputra business partners cheating them with impunity to school children denied ranks in class, even when their grades are superior.

Temple destruction is the issue, though, that has mobilized the Indian community (and now minority communities generally) after the Nov. 25 HINDRAF rally, which was suppressed by the government. The phrase, though, should be clarified. In India, when you read about “temple destruction,” the perpetrators are an angry mob and the incident is communal. In Malaysia, temples are destroyed by property developers. Rubber estates, which used to dominate Malaysia, all featured Hindu temples for their workers, who were almost exclusively Indian and Sri Lankan Tamils (this is why Malaysia has such a cultural storehouse of Hinduism–many of the temples date to the late 19th and early 20th centuries). As the estates have been broken up over the last 30 years, the land has been sold and developed. Often there are no Indians left in the area and the temple is unused. The government is supposed to offer alternative land for the temple and the opportunity to move it; or at least sufficient time to relocate the deities with the appropriate rites. In practice, however, some temples just get bulldozed. So most Indians hear or read about temples being destroyed somewhere in Malaysia — but these are usually not the ones they worship in (not that this excuses the practice).

The other big factor in mobilizing the Indian communities recently is that the Malaysian Indian Congress — an Indian party that has been part of the governing coalition since independence — has not been able to stop temple destruction. Its leader Samy Vellu, one of Malaysia’s longest serving members of parliament, said he would stop the practice, but the government just ignored him (it was seen as a sign of his, and the party’s general ineffectiveness). So Indians are looking elsewhere for leadership. Samy Vellu went to Chennai recently, where state officials refused to meet him (here is what Lim Kit Siang wrote about his trip).

But Nina P:

I appreciate the news about how some of the Malaysian Muslim population is addressing anti-Tamil discrimination.

That’s actually not accurate and I don’t think it’s what Preston meant to suggest. PAS isn’t addressing anti-Tamil discrimination, as far as I know, and if they are feigning interest in the plight of non-Muslim Indians, I’m sure most Indians and Chinese know it’s only for politically expedient reasons — PAS is not a party that will do anything for non-Muslim Indian (or Chinese) interests. They’re a fundamentalist Muslim party — a bunch of horrifying fanatics — and their leaders have spoken in favour of imposing Sharia law on all Malaysian citizens if elected. Support for PAS from Hindu Indians and Chinese is a form of protest and nothing more — a way to show for them to show just how disenchanted they are with the party that’s been in power for 50 years.