Between the devil and deep blue sea

Branding us as the Indian Perkasa is another tactic to divert attention from the critical needs of the Indians, says P Uthayakumar.

In an interview with FMT, Hindraf and HRP leader P Uthayakumar discusses the predicament of whom the Indians should support in the next general election.

Below are excerpts from the interview:

Is the 15/38 (to contest 15 parliament and 38 state seats) plan still on?
The original plan was 15/38. But we are not ready for it although it remains our ultimate and optimum political strategy. What we decided after that was 7/14 – seven parliament and 14 state seats – in the frontline Indian states such as Kedah, Penang, Perak, Selangor, Negri Sembilan, Pahang and Johor. It will be the parliament seats, and the state seats which fall under the parliamentary constituency. We are a small party, so we are looking at things realistically for an effective use of our limited resources.

But if the olive branch (extended to Pakatan Rakyat) fails, then we may have to proceed with Plan B, or rather Plan C, which is putting our 7/14 plan to effect in Selangor. With our limited resources, we will pull our chiefs from the other states and we will work out the logistics and train our crosshair on Selangor. Assuming that we are stonewalled by Pakatan, this will be our last resort, when we are left with no other alternative.

But in reality, it will only have a minimal impact on Pakatan, and it will not disrupt the coalition’s plan to seize federal power. We are not coming in their way as far as Putrajaya is concerned. But they risk losing Selangor, so it is up to them. We want to negotiate, but they don’t.

We are also in a dilemma. Assuming that we give political directions like in 2008 for the Indians to vote Pakatan… assuming Pakatan comes to power in Putrajaya and if they don’t deliver. We have seen the initial signs of this in their states, non-delivery or perhaps a marginal difference with BN but the core problems of the Indians remain unresolved. If this happens, the Indians are going to come back to us and ask “look you told us to vote for Pakatan, what now?” So we are also in a dilemma.

Perhaps Pakatan feels that Hindraf no longer commands the support of the Indians and therefore sees no reason to engage it.
Of course if you compare with 2007, the answer is ‘yes’ (support having dwindled)… It will appear as such for the naked eye. In 2007, that was the peak and nothing can remain at the peak forever. But it will be wrong to say that we don’t have grassroots support at all… crowds still throng our functions, perhaps not in large numbers as before, but we don’t give hampers and rice packets (to lure them).

And if we don’t have the support and if we don’t matter, why are the police still afraid of us in terms of approving permits for our events and so forth? There is something we have, something is on our side… someone told me that perhaps because we speak the truth, we are feared.

Pakatan’s emphasis is multiracial politics and you are considered ethno-centric…
If Pakatan leaders are truly multi-racial and look into the problems of the Indian poor, there will be no need for Hindraf. We don’t want to exist, there will be no necessity for us. But the situation is such that Pakatan won’t touch it (the Indian poor issue), BN won’t touch it, but when we touch it, we are accused of being ethno-centric… I think this is just a clever strategy to avoid the issues by branding us as being ethnocentric.

But how different is Hindraf from Perkasa, and you from Ibrahim Ali?
Pray, tell us one instance where we have claimed supremacy. If you can point out one instance, then I concede, we are perhaps the Indian Perkasa. On the contrary, we are saying that we want equal rights and opportunities as enshrined under Article 8 of the Federal Constitution. All we are asking for is to be above the water level, so that we can survive and not drown. Branding us as the Indian Perkasa is another tactic to divert attention from the critical needs of the Indians.

By calling itself the Hindu Rights Action Force, does this mean Hindraf is only interested in issues concerning the Hindus and not the woes of Indians of other faiths or those of other races?
Hindraf was formed by accident due to the religious conversion issue, in particular to a case where the remains of an army corporal was seized and given a Muslim burial. Even his wife had not known that he converted. So Hindraf arose from that, when several Hindu organisations came together and there was a proposal for a strong name, so the Hindu Rights Action Force was born. It started off on that basis, but nobody foresaw Hindraf taking this dimension.

Throughout our struggle, we have not discriminated. Our focus is on the Indian poor, whatever your religion is… we have also taken up cases of those of other races. So not only Indians, we have also handled cases involving the Chinese and even Malays. In practice, it does not matter to us if you are a non-Hindu or even non-Indian. But we focus on Indian issues because the government takes care of the Malays and natives. The Chinese control some 70% of the economy and are self-sustaining. They also have Chinese new villages nationwide, so even if you are a poor Chinese, you have a social safety net. But do Indians have this… is there one Indian new village? Estates are temporary.

So from the word ‘go’, for the Indians, there have only been temporary and ad hoc solutions. If you are in difficulty, they will give you packets of rice and groceries, shake hands, and the cameras go ‘click’, ‘click’, ‘click’. The Indian poor are even worse off than the foreign workers here, whose welfare is looked after by foreign-funded NGOs. But nobody wants to touch the Indian poor, so we took up the job.

So there is no possibility of Hindraf backing BN?
No! There is no way… we have no confidence (in them) at all. Our real enemy is Umno, not the other BN component parties. This is why we don’t attack MIC, because we consider them as nobody; to us, they are ‘persona non-grata’.

Ideally, we want to have a working relationship with Pakatan. But like I said before, we will not be a part of Pakatan as mandores or show pieces. But if they are genuine… (Pakatan supremo) Anwar (Ibrahim) had recently said that ‘Malaysians must be treated as children and not slaves’. As it stands now, we are treated as slaves in a way, not as children because children get equal treatment. Politicians can say all sorts of things, but do they mean it?

Why isn’t P Waythamoorthy coming back to Malaysia?
I told him not to come back because we need a representative overseas. If you remove Waythamoorthy, we will be doomed outside of Malaysia. There will be nobody to do the international lobby… during our Interlok protest, after the police nabbed the core group, it was Waythamoorthy who was giving instructions from London to those in the second and third tiers of command. If  Waythamoorthy did not make the tactical move to leave the country at that time, I will probably still be under ISA detention because there will be nobody to do the international lobby… we also enjoy a certain degree of latitude to operate now because Waythamoorthy is overseas. When we are ‘bullied’ by the authorities, Pakatan, the NGOs or the Bar Council won’t come to our aid. But the authorities know that Waythamoorthy will press the ‘international button’ and pile up the pressure.

(Uthayakumar’s brother, Waythamoorthy left for London just ahead of the police’s crackdown on Hindraf in December 2007. He has not returned since).

Some feel that the tens of thousands who turned up for the rally in 2007 were actually lured by the promise of receiving RM1 million per person via the class action suit you planned to file against the British government.
We have a recording of Waythamoorthy stating at all the nationwide forums in the prelude to the Nov 25 rally that ‘we do not promise you one cent, but what we promise you is our whole-hearted effort (on the civil suit)’… the original purpose of gathering outside the British High Commission was to ask the Queen to appoint her barristers and solicitors (to represent us), that was the strategy, hoping that something will happen because we didn’t have the money. The filing fee for the case itself came up to around RM22,000, what more the legal fee. Honestly, we never expected Nov 25 to happen (in terms of the crowd)… but I can tell you one thing, such a thing of that scale will not happen again in my lifetime… tsumanis and cyclones don’t happen everyday. That was the peak.

What is the status of the suit?
The lawyers (from Britain) came here and one of them, Imran Khan, was denied entry. We are now collecting data on matters like Indian taxi drivers and businessmen being denied licences, students denied scholarships and so forth. We are now appealing for legal aid to move the civil suit

Have you identified the candidates for the election?
We have a list, but we have not made it public… it’s a tentative list.

Are you contesting?
Yes I am… I have to.

Which seat are you planing to contest?
Let’s not reveal that for the moment.