One year of freedom from ISA

One year has gone by since my release from the Kamunting Detention Camp, so quickly, just like the 514 days went by, in detention. It just confirms my commitment that if we want to do something in our lives, we just have to do it, as time in its normal haste does not wait for any one.
In the last 365 days the achievements since the release have been significant. The Grand Hindraf Rally of November 2007, a totally unexpected eruption put me on a trajectory in my life that I vaguely expected and whose fine curves I could not know and of which I continue to learn daily now.
The Grand Hindraf Rally was a significant expression of the frustrations of the Indian community, against the root cause, the UMNO Malay Muslim supremacy agenda.. Then UMNO in further act of aggravation, decided to incarcerate me along with my colleagues, to teach us a lesson for championing the Indian cause and put us away under the ISA indefinitely.
What they did not know was that that act of imprisonment only had the effect of institutionalizing the Hindraf Rally phenomenon into a historical process. The 514 days of imprisonment really helped me to refine my understanding of the true nature of the Indian problem in the country and to develop a compelling picture of what was needed to be done to institutionally correct the problem.
On the outside waiting for me on my release 365 days ago was a Hindraf that had already gone through its early mutations. The opportunists in the group were leaving, had left. The sincere elements who were willing to sacrifice and were willing to continue to risk it descended around me and I began anew with them that day the 9^th of May 2009..
A completely new phase in the struggle had begun. I came out on that day with a firm conviction that the Indian minority in the country had to find effective representation if its long term interests were to be safeguarded. There was just no other way. Whatever said and done this country is  ethnocentric. And it is my opinion that it will be so for the foreseeable future. I wanted the Human Rights party to be formed with the sole objective of promoting the Indian Rights and Interests and bringing Indians into the mainstream of National development.
The Human Rights party was created as a political wing of Hindraf in these last 365 days. We have started a whole range of activities through this political wing of Hindraf in institutionalizing the search of the Indians for a truly better future in Malaysia.
We have established as a medium term objective the 15/38 project – to capture 15 parliament seats and 38 state seats in the halls of power.
We have started to create the capacity building effort for in the absence of the necessary capacities to secure the objectives,our strategy will be no better than a slogan, a dream or a delusion.
We have created a national organization structure for the Human Rights party .
We have started work of developing young intellectual Indians to become the political leaders of the future.
We have started developing the infrastructure throughout the country to educate the Indian poor to the ideas of empowerment and the strategies of empowerment.
We have created a vibrant website –www.humanrightspartymalaysia.com which effectively has become the party organ. We recognize this does not reach a majority of the Indians and we are addressing that with creating a paper based Tamil equivalent and with increasing face to face contacts.
We have created a focus in our activities and have begun to take positions coherent with our basic understanding of Political Empowerment of Indians in the country.
We have continued with our International lobby – we have raised the huge Human Rights violation against the Indians and other marginalized groups in the country, throughout the world and have sought and continue to seek intervention for the poor and weak Indians in the country . We have had several notable events in the last 365 days in International halls of power.
We continue to meet the people throughout the country. Every week there is some event occurring in the country.
We continue to champion Human Rights issues in the country of the Indians and in doing so we continue to show up the inherent racist nature of the system we live in. This racist tendency of “ it is alright if it happens to those rowdy Indians who anyway only hang on at the periphery and cause nothing but trouble” has soaked in so deep that most in the system do not even want to hear , let alone recognize that it is not in the natural order of things that all of this should be so.
We have become a process in the last 365 days .
And as I always quote the famous Chineses proverb – A journey of a thousand miles starts but with a single step. Well, we have taken a few steps already, but it is still a thousand mile journey and I do not know how many 365 days it is going to take us all to get there – but get there we must.
We continue with our struggle – no breaks, no intermsissions, no let ups.
Uthayakumar