KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 7 – In a New Year message issued from behind the walls of Kamunting, Hindraf founder and legal adviser P. Uthayakumar remains defiant, lambasting Umno and blaming it for all the woes faced by Malaysian Indians but also giving hope to followers that more success lies ahead.
He also reveals deep frustration at the “boring and routine prison life” and tells all about his health. He suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure and hyperkinetic heart condition.
The only thing to look forward to, he said, is the weekly visits of his family.
He also said he has decided to “go for broke” but does not explain what his future plans are.
“I have decided to go for broke because I very strongly believe in the cause I am fighting for and I have no regrets.
“Umno will not change. We will have to get rid of Umno in the 2012/2013 general elections,” he said in the message that is now widely circulating here and abroad through the Internet.
Uthayakumar and four other Hindraf leaders were detained on Dec 13, 2007, about a month after the Nov 25 rally they had organised that saw over 30,000 Indians demonstrating in the city against Umno’s “Malay supremacists” ideology for marginalising them.
Uthayakumar and his brother, P. Waythamoorthy, are also seeking consensus among PKR and DAP MPs and leaders to form a new Indian party that would “truly” represent working class Indians and have negotiated with both the BN and Pakatan Rakyat Governments for better benefits, especially a affirmative action policy to lift the Tamil masses from poverty, similar to the help given to Malays.
Their target is to get a new party up and going before the next general election to be in a strong position to bargain.
Although Indians form only about 8% of the population, they are a significant minority in 56 Parliamentary constituencies in the west coast of the peninsular and can make or break the winner if they vote as a block, as they had done for PR parties on March 8.
However, squabbles have broken out between Indian leaders in the PR alliance, especially in PKR and DAP, with some top leaders claiming they got a raw deal despite helping to make March 8 a big success.
Uthayakumar has had a stormy relationship with PKR and DAP leaders before March 8 and had rejected numerous offers from them to stand as a candidate in the landmark general election.
“Dec 13 marked our first dark anniversary of detention without trial under the draconian ISA for two years and might continue indefinitely thereafter,” Uthayakumar said.
“But I have no regrets. I fought for a just cause so that Umno would stop all acts of bullying, especially against the poor and underprivileged Indians,” he said.
He spends his time reading and writing for 12 to 13 hours a day.
“The food is pale and stale,” he said in the message, adding guards check on him hourly and record their observations into their diaries.
“Otherwise prison life is a routine where nightfall follows daylight, and daylight is waiting for nightfall. Life is a predictable routine,” he said, adding the highpoint is the weekly visits by his mother, fiancée and sisters.
He sleeps on a “one-inch thin” mattress on the cement floor.
He says he suffers from “lumbar spondalysis and arthritis.”
“I can no longer even jog slowly after this one year. I cannot squat without pain in my knees and backbone,” he said. “I also suffer from two kinds of skin diseases.”
He alleged that the medical care he is receiving is sub-standard and lambasted Suhakam for failing to highlight his woes, describing the body as the “servant and slave of the ruling Umno government.”
“But I have no regrets and am prepared for the worst. When I started the struggle 16 years ago, I always had at the back of my mind that I could one day be detained under the ISA,” he said.
He said Hindraf’s biggest success to date is the fact that the authorities have stopped demolishing Hindu temples, “at least for the moment”.
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