Uthayakumar - hero or villian, or both?

"Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better."

- Martin Luther King, Jr

Depending on who you ask, P Uthayakumar is either a hero or villain to the cause of justice and equality in this country. Or perhaps like Macbeth he is both hero and villain in this tragicomic narrative of race relations in Malaysia.

After the 2008 political tsunami, it seemed like everyone who voted Pakatan Rakyat was living in a Yasmin Ahmad fable of hope and promise.

Hindraf was riding high on a wave of public admiration and the Indian community seemed to be the harbinger of long needed change. The few who raised concerns of the polemics of Uthayakumar (right) and his younger brother, Waythamoorthy, were shushed in the rush of myth-making.

Four years on, Hindraf is demonised as a racist organisation and treated like a political pariah by mainstream opposition parties, many of which benefitted from the Hindraf wave, and the Indian community is viewed as possible spoilers for the frenzied dash of Pakatan to Putrajaya.

The ‘racist' label Hindraf has had to endure is usually spewed by the crypto racists within Pakatan, who hide their own racialist tendencies behind the ‘muhhibah' spirit of multiculturalism that is the common platform of the disparate ideological and religious interests that make up this opposition pact.

Never mind that not too long ago, DAP was labeled as a chauvinistic Chinese party intent on destroying the social contract and their championing of equality and justice was viewed as ‘racist' because of their rhetoric, not to mention ethnic make-up of the party.

And this is the problem with race-based approaches to social and political issues, it becomes easier for critics (especially those who have a multiracial camouflage) to conflate the articulation of legitimate community (read: race) grievances with overt racist polemics.

In my interviewwith Sungai Siput MP Dr D Jeyakumar (right), he said: "Hindraf as a movement is based on an analysis that is past its ‘use-by' date. It is premised on an ethnic analysis of society, and there isn't much ideologically speaking to differentiate it from either MIC or Perkasa", which does not mean that Hindraf is a ‘racist' organisation like Perkasa, only that Hindraf's race-based perspective is an impediment to any long-lasting solution to nation-building in a multicultural society, while Perkasa's race-based perspective is malicious and threatens the security of the non-Malays (and perhaps even certain Malays).

In other words, in this context, intention defines racism.

Muddled thinking

Uthayakumar himself hasn't done what remains of the Hindraf movement, and its various franchise holders like the Human Rights Party, any favours.

By labeling BN and Pakatan as both "racist", his political strategy seems to be positioning his cause between a rock and a hard place. Not much of a long-term strategy when you think about it. And yet when it comes down to it, Pakatan or those aligned to it, seem to have more in common ideologically with the Hindraf cause than BN.

In a recent letter toMalaysiakinilamenting the Umno regime's inaction in addressing the social ills facing the Indian community, Uthayakumar writes, "Why not affirmative action for all the poor, including the Indian poor? After all, we are supposed to be 1Malaysia. And we are also supposed to be ‘multiracial'."

Hold on a second, Uthayakumar. Are you really suggesting a class-based prescription instead of a race-based one?

And isn't this what activists like Jeyakumar and others have been advocating for some time now, the same people you label as "Indian elite" and "pseudo socialists"? The same people who benefitted from the Hindraf wave and who are simpatico with the struggles of Pakatan?

The same kind of muddled thinking goes on when Uthayakumar and Wathyamoorthy talk about the ethnic, social and economic cleansing of the Indians in Malaysia. The part they get wrong is that it's not the Indians who suffer this "cleansing", but the Orang Asli in Peninsular Malaysia.

And this has always been the problem with the extreme polemical stance of Hindraf. They are the best and worst thing that has happened to the Indian community or at least the majority of the Indian community that has been intentionally marginalised by the mainstream society.

Umno benefits from Indian split

I have no idea if the recent survey by the Merdeka Centre is an accurate snapshot of the current inclinations of the Indian community, but I do place credence on the by-elections in Bukit Selambau, Bagan Pinang, Hulu Selangor, etc, as an indication that perhaps the schemes of BN when it comes to satisfying the Indian agenda - i.e. what they ‘want' in terms of recognition, temples and Tamil school education - is bearing fruit.

In 'The slaying our sacred cows', I wrote about my objections to these ‘wants' but these are exactly what Hindraf has been advocating for the past four years or at least these hot-button issues have been used to frame the discourse when it comes to ‘Indian problem'.

So even though Uthayakumar may rant about the abuses of Umno and BN, they (BN) are giving the Indians exactly what they want, not what they need, and what they want is exactly what Hindraf has supposedly been fighting for all this time.

And because the Hindraf movement was never really a disciplined political organism but rather a combustible mix of different Indian NGOs, the movement itself has splintered into various fractions, each enjoying the largesse of Umno in varying degrees and each claiming to speak for the Indian community, all the while a smirking MIC waits for its resurgence in the background.

So it would seem that as usual the only party that benefits from the petty squabbles of the Indian community and those fighting to represent them is Umno.

A polarising figure

Now of course, 'racist' commenters have "turncoat" to add a little spice to the mix.

Uthayakumar's decision to field candidates in Pakatan seats has naturally started the ball rolling on conspiracy theories that Hindraf and Uthayakumar are merely BN stooges.

How one can be Pakatan-friendly when in the best-case scenario you win the seat or the worse, you deprive Pakatan of it, is beyond me but all this seems logical enough to Uthayakumar.

But to dismiss Uthayakumar as a racist or turncoat or a has-been gadfly, is an exercise in hubris. Pakatan is in the pivotal position it is in today thanks to the efforts of Hindraf and Uthayakumar.

Hindraf was also the turning point for Uthayakumar - its passionate and polarising figure, who articulated the grief of a community which for so long had been marginalised by the mainstream society.

The fact that he continues to raise these issues in a political and social climate where ‘race relations' are solely defined as being between the Chinese and Malays, is evidence of how important Uthayakumar's polemical voice is when it comes to creating a socially cohesive society. The problem is most people would rather mock the messenger than discuss the message.

I have no idea what role Uthayakumar will play in the coming political storm but if he can't find a way to play well with others, whatever role he or Hindraf will play will not be as significant as it should be - and this would be a great loss to the Indian community, not to mention Malaysians in general.

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S THAYAPARAN is Commander (rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy.