Falling flat for BN crumbs

Waythamoorthy is either naive or foolhardy in assuming that Najib has the greater good of the Indian community at heart.

COMMENT

Days before the “mother of all elections” is due, history of sorts has taken place with Hindraf pledging full support to Barisan Nasional and insisting that the Indian community do the same.

Hindraf’s P Waythamoorthy on April 18 inked a deal with BN supposedly for the uplifting of the Malaysian Indian community.

The Hindraf-BN five-year blueprint, among others, highlights issues related to displaced Indian plantation workers, the need for tertiary-level education for Indian students, job opportunities in the government sector, financial loans to Indian entrepreneurs and the establishment of a unit to oversee Indian affairs.

However, neither Hindraf nor BN found it worthy enough to highlight the issue of racial discrimination that continues to hound the Indian community.

Nor was there any mention of the government’s effort to put an end to the never-ending deaths of Indian youths in police lock-ups.

Leaving the safety of the Indian community out, Waythamoorthy had the audacity to ask Indians of this country to give their unconditional support to BN.

Waythamoorthy had previously said that Hindraf would support whichever party endorsed its blueprint. Alternatively, he had declared that Hindraf supporters would abstain from voting if neither the opposition Pakatan Rakyat pact nor BN was willing to endorse the blueprint.

He had also embarked on a hunger strike on March 10 in order to get either BN or Pakatan to endorse the Hindraf blueprint. The hunger strike ended on March 31 when Najib officially started talks with Hindraf.

The first indication that Najib was willing to look into Hindraf’s proposals came when he included the setting up of a special unit to oversee Indian affairs in the BN manifesto.

Though this was a far cry from the ministry which Hindraf sought, it however gave them the belief that Najib was willing to meet them half way to help uplift the Indian community.

Waythamoorthy chooses to believe so much so that in reacting to the criticisism coming his way after the Hindraf-BN “handshake”, he said it did not matter whether it was Ram or Ravana who led Malaysia.

(Ram is the seventh incarnation of Vishnu and the central figure of the Ramayana epic, the complete guide to God-realisation. It is said that Ram was born to free the earth from the cruelty and sins of the demon King Ravana.)

Now, to the Hindus, that line was incendiary and just might cause the incautious Waythamoorty dearly.

Hence, if Waythamoorthy can no longer distinguish between good and evil, it becomes unsafe for the Indian community to place both their trust and votes into his hands.

Najib’s ammunition to oust Pakatan

Hindraf became a household name six years ago when in 2007 it led a mass street demontration which highlighted the plight of the Indian community in this country.

The awareness created by Hindraf then had helped Pakatan win over the Indian votes and go on to claim a huge victory in the 2008 general election.

But now with Waythamoorthy having turned the tables in favour of BN, only May 5 will reveal whether Hindraf was in the right direction by forging a deal with BN.

For now, Waythamoorthy hopes Najib will help dispel criticisms arising from the agreement by implementing the blueprint for the 1.5 million Indians that stand to benefit from the deal.

“I hope the prime minister will prove them all wrong,” Waythamoorthy said after signing the Memorandum of Understanding with BN.

Waythamoorthy is either naive or foolhardy in assuming that Najib has the greater good of the Indian community at heart. The deal with Hindraf is simply an act of desperation, a BN’s way of securing as many Indian votes as posible.

Had the welfare of the Indians truly been part of Najib’s political agenda, he, as the leader of a nation that is home to people of diverse faiths, would never have kept quiet each time ridicule, insult and humiliation were hurled upon this community.

Events of the past stand witness to Najib’s indifference to the pain and shame suffered by the Indian community at the hands of the Umno politicians – be they ministers, state assembly representatives or members of parliament.

So why should the Indian community now lend any support to Najib and BN when the latter have never held the community in high esteem and found no reason to offer the Indians the much-needed assistance until the arrival of the 13th general election?

Najib’s show of support to Hindraf remains just that: a sandiwara, the chief aim being to block the Indian votes from falling into the hands of Pakatan.

What’s Waytha’s real agenda?

The Hindraf-BN “smart” partnership has far from pleased Waythamoorthy’s brother Uthayakumar, the pro-tem secretary-general of Human Rights Party.

Instead, Uthayakumar has labelled his sibling and his followers as “Hindraf hijackers” and is steadfast in his stand that signing a deal with Umno-BN was never part of Hindraf’s struggle.

Uthayakumar, who calls himself the most senior de facto Hindraf leader, continues to reiterate that there has been no change in Hindraf’s political direction: the journey was never about voting for BN.

“Voting for Pakatan is up to the individual as Hindraf is not prepared to take responsibility for Pakatan’s non-delievery to the Indian poor,” Uthayakumar had said in reaction to the deal between Hindraf and BN.

However, Waythamoorthy is all “thumbs up” for BN, completely or conveniently forgetting that the BN candidate being fielded in Shah Alam, Zulkifli Noordin, the former MP for Kulim-Baru Bandar Baharu, has never missed an opportunity to humiliate the Indians of this country.

Waythamoorthy has to have a better reason to convince the Indian community that BN is genuine in looking after its well-being.

After all, Waythamoorthy’s demand for seven parliamentary and 10 state seats was dismissed by Najib. If contesting in the general election is all that mattered to him, why did Waythamoorthy not demand the same from Najib after being rejected by Opposition Leader Anwar?

As it stands, from 2008 until the eleventh hour of the 13th general election, the needs and demands of the Indian community had been trivialised by BN.

While Waythamoorthy may try to justify his deal with BN by expressing his disappointment with Pakatan and its leader Anwar for not taking Hindraf seriously despite engaging in several meetings, the crux of the issue that rankles the Indian community is that Hindraf or rather Waythamoorthy fell flat for the crumbs offered by BN.

Jeswan Kaur is a freelance writer and a FMT columnist.