Human Rights Party @ Hindraf –Leadership Without Direction/Vision

(by penang3brothers)

Due to recent developments brought about by the propagation of ‘marginalised Indians’ by none other than the infamous Secretary General of HRP, Mr. Uthayakumar, we feel constrained to write and in doing so, we are asking you to reflect upon the points raised. 

First and foremost we would like to register our stand on this issue as being not against the struggle of Mr. Uthayakumar but against the method employed. As an educated lawyer, he should have known from the beginning that Democracy is based on the principles of ‘majority rule’; and that the majority rules to its advantage, obviously.

Having said that lets us contemplate on the matter in hand. We did patronise the HRP website and came out disgusted with the amount of racism advocated against the Malay Community through some of his outlandish claims against UMNO. If his sincere objective is to highlight the mismanagement/oppression/brutality of the UMNO leadership then he should have been more precise in naming these leaders instead of demonising the entire UMNO which consist of nearly 3 Million members. This is tantamount to calling all Malays as anti-Indians which is definitely an outrageous claim. We detest the approach undertaken by Mr. Uthaya and we foresee that this group of Indians are unwittingly being lined up to face reprobation from the Malay Community, since most of his statements are very reproachful towards them.

Mr. Uthaya must understand that UMNO is NOT the enemy of Indians and below is one reason why;

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 (Posted by Aspan Alias in his blog- 28^th June 2009)

 “In 1999 General Election, Kuala Pilah had 24,000 UMNO members but BN candidate Dato’ Napsiah Omar secured only 16,000 votes. Out of the 16,000 votes, 10,000 came from the non-Malay votes as the Chinese and Indians were all out in support of BN then.
To summarize the figures, Napsiah only managed to secure 6,000 Malay votes and that included Malays who were non-UMNO members and that was the clear voting pattern everywhere in the Peninsula. The same situation happened in 2008 General Election when more than 80% UMNO members voted for the opposition in many constituencies.”

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Fanning hatred towards the Malay community and/or their leaders will not solve these Indians problems but in fact will add further weight to their burden as they will be sidelined as trouble makers. In fact it’s already in motion. 

The core factor for nearly all the problems faced by this group of Indian community is nothing but poverty, to which Mr. Uthaya himself had acknowledged in his web-postings and letters to the Government. 

The question now is, what is he doing to tackle this problem? By organising street demonstrations, hunger strikes, mass prayers, soliciting foreign aids and all other methods of demands, at best, solved nothing but gained cheap publicity and popularity for the top leadership of HRP @Hindraf. The cause might be noble but the method is despicable. 

The time has come for Mr. Uthaya to address the root cause of their ‘marginalisation’ ,which we strongly feel is due to their lack in ‘financial independence’. 

Let us look at the Chinese community. After the dark episode of ‘May 13’, didn’t the Chinese move forward? They did not organise street protests nor did they lament at the many obstacles and bureaucracy thrown at them by the Government but instead they organised ‘kongsi’ meetings. They were united in their struggle. They did not resort to ‘hindrafism’ but strived towards financial independence. 

Their great leaders of that time drove them forward in achieving a self-sustaining community. They bought their own land, they build their own temples and schools on that land, they placed high importance on education, and even the villages had private Chinese schools. These schools were not aided by the Government, in fact even the national Chinese schools did not stretch their arms and beg for Government allocations but on the contrary, they raised their own funds. 

We agree, that the task of seeking financial independence of this ‘marginalised’ community is indeed a laborious process but if planned and executed correctly, it is achievable, just like the Punjabis, Sikhs, Bengalis, Malayalis, Gujeratis and many other Ethnic Indian community who stood on their own and still standing on their own effort and perseverance against the many hurdles encountered along their social and economic struggle. They did not surrender their fate in the hands of MIC but chose to fight their own survival and they did it and still doing it without resorting to any violence or reproach towards any race. 

The ‘marginalised Indians’ championed by Mr. Uthaya are entirely, if not all, made up of ignorant, contented and/or illiterate Tamils. At best Mr. Uthaya is unwittingly shepherding this group of Indians further away from fellow Malaysians by providing an avenue for this group in coming together and finding solace in the “ we are oppressed, we are helpless, what can we do” cocoon spun by HRP @Hindraf.   

As we acknowledged earlier, Mr. Uthaya should be commended for championing the plight of the oppressed minority but we stand firm with our conviction that he is not a good leader; for leadership comes with great responsibility which until today we find it lacking in him.  

The main point in contention; we abhor the sight of children being used and manipulated in a man’s battleground. What kind of human being let alone a leader would stoop so low as to shield himself behind these young and innocent kids during HRP’s 2^nd Hindraf Anniversary (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fBGKKcOzaM) and during the handover of the 18 points memorandum to the PM’s office? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm1gEGnXckI).

What if there was a commotion or if the Police resorted to firing tear gas? He knew very well the likely possibilities in a street protest and yet he chose to expose these children to the risk of getting themselves seriously hurt, if not killed. We strongly condemn his foolish behaviours which will, inevitably, bring down with him these ignorant ‘marginalised’ Indians. 

Having said all these, we believe in constructive criticism, as such we would like to suggest to Mr. Uthaya to channel his and his party’s resources towards uplifting the standard of living of these ‘marginalised’ Indians (Tamils).

Below is the excerpt from ‘The New York Times’ daily; 

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Rural India Gets Chance at Piece of Jobs Boom

 By Lydia Polgreen         Published: November 12, 2009  

BAGEPALLI, India —  

“Seventy percent of Indians live in rural areas like Bagepalli. A handful of entrepreneurs are experimenting to bring the jobs to distant corners of India that have been largely cut off from its extraordinary economic rise.

Almost all of those jobs are in cities. But 70 percent of Indians live in rural areas. India largely skipped — or never arrived at — the industrial phase of development that might have pulled the rural masses to cities.

Over the decades a Gandhian fondness for rural life has also kept people in villages, where the bonds of caste and custom remain strong.

India has struggled unsuccessfully with the question of how to lift this vast underclass out of poverty. Some economists argue that India still needs rapid urbanization if it is ever to become a major economic power and provide jobs to its vast legions of unemployed.

But the founders of Rural Shores a company that is setting up outsourcing offices in rural areas, say it makes more sense to take the jobs where the people are.

“We thought, ‘Why not take the jobs to the village?’ ” said G. Srinivasan, the company’s director. “There is a lot of talent there, and we can train them to do the job.”

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Based on the above, we suggest that instead of wasting his effort and energy, banging on the doors of the Government, Mr. Uthaya should pool together his friends, relatives, well wishers and party members in helping this backward group of people in striving towards a better living. All those monies being collected / donated to the Temples should be directed to refurbishing the existing Tamil schools.

Every Indian village and estate should have a ‘Community-Computer-Centre’ manned by his HRP members to facilitate the growth of computer literacy among the young and old. Apart from that, free tuition classes must be conducted on a regular basis to assist the weak students. Amazingly, the Indian Community, especially the Tamils, have more Temples then Centre of Learning (our Indian friends concurred with this fact). Mr. Uthaya as a learned Lawyer should encourage and instil the importance of formal education among this group.  

In the same breath, business and job opportunities in the private sector should be made available to them. As what the Director of Rural Shores said, bring the job to them. It’s a win-win situation for both parties since these entrepreneurs will find the cost of operation in these areas are much lesser than in townships.

Mr.Uthaya and HRP @Hindraf, while continuing their social struggle, should not ignore the gospel truth that Sound Education and Economic Independence shall liberate these ‘marginalised’ Indians. All efforts and resources should be mobilised towards achieving this common goal and rest assured, once achieved, they shall not be oppressed any further.

To Mr.Uthaya; “these Indians dont need a fighter, they need a leader. Its time for you to become one”

Thank you.

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