If you mean its been divisive in the sense that MIC was diminished as a result of HINDRAF, then sure its been divisive. I mean in that case, any organization pitted against another is technically divisive. No arguments there.

But if you mean that its been divisive in the sense that it’s pushing some sort of hindu nationalism among Malaysian Indians, then I think that that is unfair. HINDRAF was in part responsible for the DAP’s success in 2008-isn’t the DAP (despite being a majority Chinese Party) what Preeta wants the country to turn to?

Like Preston said, HINDRAF was energized by issues that primarily concerned Hindus, such as court rulings that were perceived as unfair and temple demolitions, what’s divisive about voicing your community’s concerns when NO ONE ELSE is going to do it for you?

On that note, do you find organizations like the NAACP and LULAC, hell or even SAALT as being divisive here in the states?

Preeta says, “What the country needs is a political movement that does not talk about ethnic origins, because these should not be relevant….Yet every opposition movement to-date has somehow become trapped in the same rhetoric of race and religion, even if what they’re seeking is precisely to narrow the divisions between the communities.” That seems to me pretty perceptive.

Sue, this blog has discussed “South Asia” as a term in many other places… also, as a point of fact, Preeta is making a distinction between South Asia and South East Asia, not using the terms interchangeably. (For that matter, neither am I.) I agree about her wicked sense of humo(u)r.

Indians have been represented in the Malaysian government since independence in the form of the Malaysian Indian Congress (one of the three pillars of the Barisan Nasional, the ruling coalition), so the HINDRAF protests were as much as reaction against the failure of the MIC to protect their interests as a protest against the status quo. So HINDRAF is certainly a divisive force — in Malaysia’s Indian communities.

But in the end, HINDRAF won. After the Nov. 7, 2007 protest (when the government responded with tear gas and water cannons), the detention without charge of the five HINDRAF leaders under the Internal Security Act (a Cold-War era law for detaining Communists and terrorists), and the elections of March 2008 (in which the ruling coalition’s majority was reduced from 2/3 to a simple one), the racial and political calculus changed. Minorities, not just Indians, became more involved in politics, supporting a host of opposition parties, including ones not based on a race. Indians diminished their support for the MIC and gravitated toward the Democratic Action Party, the largest secular, non-racial party in the opposition, which tended to be dominated by Chinese. And the HINDRAF Five were eventually released.

It’s a remarkable turn of events in Malaysia and among Indian diaspora communities around the world. It’s too early to know what Malaysia will look like in the future, but the events of 2007-2008 give the impression that most Malaysians (of all races) are moving away from a race-based polity and toward something that offers equal opportunities to everyone. HINDRAF was at the center of this, but none of this political change would have been possible if it had been limited to the actions of the Indian community alone.

I’m not a Malaysian Indian, so I’m somewhat hesitant to challenge your point here. However, wasn’t Hindraf in part a reaction to the temple demolitions and court cases that many felt were biased against Malaysian Hindus? Also, don’t some Tamil Muslims recieve bumiputera benefits-I think to argue that the concerns of tamil muslims and christians being entirely the same may not be accurate. When I lived in penang, I always got the feeling that the tamil muslims were considered a different community altogether.

My feeling is that groups like HINDRAF come about when people feel they don’t have any other avenue of challenging grievances, and it seems a little unfair to try and cast them as a divisive force.