P. Uthayakumar, P. Waytha Moorthy and HRP has been portrayed by UMNO as racist and who would refuse to champion a Malay victim Anuar bin Sarip who tragically died in police custody at his prime at 31 years of age.
P. Uthayakumar kept the battle for justice going since 1999, some eleven years ago, irrespective of the ethnicity of the victim. In fact this is the very first of the series of death in police custody cases filed by P. Uthayakumar (and not an Indian victim).
Besides Anuar bin Sarip, even way back in 1994, P. Uthayakumar had defended police abuse and malicious prosecution case involving one Abdul Wahab bin Lakmit Hamzah bin Adam (himself an ex policeman) whose son died as a result of police over zealous enforcement.
Needless to mention at the height of the Reformasi movement P. Uthayakumar had defended hundreds of Reformasi protesters so much so that Harakah carried a feature article of “P. Uthayakumar Peguam Reformasi” (written by Zunar and Mr. Koya).
The very first (High Court) case involving an application for a Post Mortem Report was for Ho Kwai See (28) a coconut trader who also died in police custody. (Again a non Indian victim). All the above cases were undertaken by P. Uthayakumar on a pro bono basis.
But UMNO, Bernama and Berita Harian yesterday and today’s news blacked out and intentionally refused to acknowledge P. Uthayakumar ‘s role in the unprecedented RM 1.4 million civil suit case precedent that Anwar bin Sarip’s widow had won at the Kuala Lumpur High Court.
To us this is part and parcel of UMNO and the Malaysian police special branch’s political agenda in maintaining and sustaining the perception that Hindraf is racist and is not capable of defending a Malay victim. Also UMNO does not wish Hindraf and HRP to make inroads with the Malay community. It does not want to acknowledge that Hindraf is also a champion of the oppressed Malays. Imagine the irony, none of the Malay lawyers, NGOs, PAS, PKR or Umno stood up for oppressed Malays like Anuar Sarip. None! It took an Indian to stand up for the Malay when he had nowhere else to go.
Be that as it may the fact remains that an estimated 95% of the police shot dead by the police victims are Indians, 90% of the death in police custody victims are Indians and the most marginalized poor powerless and politically voiceless community in Malaysia are the Indians as they do not even have the social safety net of the traditional villages and ancestral land that the poor Malays, orang asli, Kadazan and Iban have that thye could fall back on. Even the Chinese poor have hundreds of their Chinese New Villages where they could find some daily casual work, temporary accommodation or simply a sanctuary when times are bad.
We have recent reported cases of Indian children eating sand and pebbles because of hunger and poverty. 90% of Indian children in Tamil schools did not attend kindergartens because of poverty. An Indian lady giving birth next to the drain in Brickfields because of the poverty. The single parent rate is 500% higher than in the Chinese community because of poverty. And the suicide rate is 600% higher than in the Malay community also because of poverty.
All this does not mean anything to the Malay or Chinese communities although it is they and their political parties who are responsible for discriminating and marginalising the Indians. Their attitude is to care a damn and simply grab everything for their own ethnic groups. and when Hindraf/HRP champions these issues, they are immediately shut out and branded as racists and ultras. This is their perverted way to avoid dealing with their own racist and chauvinistic follies.
And Hindraf and HRP will continue focusing on these pressing and critical Indian problems but with the least attention from BN, PR, NGOs, civil society, Indian elites and the print and electronic media, bloggers and the alternative media generally who go for championing and reporting on majoritarian issues (read Malay and Chinese issues) and to the gallery as opposed to the gravity and severity merits, and needs and problems which are most suffered by the most oppressed Malaysian Indian community .
If and only if the One Malaysian and the multi-racial Malaysian community media and NGOs do not sideline Indian problems just because they are poor, powerless and do not have an political effective voice, Hindraf and HRP would naturally have less focus on the Indian poor and would be seen to be more multi-racial.
But that is not seen to be coming. It is the omission and failure of the existing parties on both sides plus the NGOs that brought about the need for Hindraf.
S. Jayathas
Information Chief