From independence to Hindraf : the Malaysian Indian community and the negotiation for minority rights

Abstract

The Hindraf (Hindu Rights Action Force) Rally in November 2007 drew unprecedented global media attention upon the Indian community in Malaysia and its plight as a marginalised community for the past 50 years since Independence. The fact that the Hindraf leaders were petitioning the Queen of England to have their plight redressed metaphorically and actually demonstrates that the Indians understood the colonial era and the moment of Independence from the Empire as the point of genesis for their suffering. Analysts have accurately noted that the class action suit was a ploy for the group advocating Hindu Indians Rights in Malaysia to embarrass the incumbent UMNO-Ied Malaysian government. As civic space in Malaysia continued to narrow for non-Malay-Muslim minorities over the last fifty years beginning from the social bargain at independence to the NEP (affirmative action) to rising Islamisation, Indians, like other minorities, began to feel increasingly pressured by a lack of opportunities and freedom to practise their culture and religion. The Hindraf Rally in 2007 instigated my research in this area to understand the problems the Indians in Malaysia have endured and how Indian leadership and organisations over a span of 50 years have handled these problems. I undertook fieldwork in Malaysia from August 2009 to July 2010, interviewing journalists, prominent members of the Indian community, doing archival research and just talking and interacting with Malaysian Indians to understand the situation. The fact that Indians led by Hindraf lawyers were leading a protest in 2007, 50 years after Independence, suggests that Indian leaders and their organsiations had been inept in the management and problem solving approaches against the backdrop of a state that was adamant to preserve the rights of only one ethnic group above all others. This thesis charts the history of the Malaysian Indian community through its organisations and leadership to understand the text and context of the Malaysian Indian predicament as a marginalised minority to track a slow, haphazard road to the Hindraf Rally. It aims to understand how and why the Hindraf Rally of November 2007 occured and what it was a culmination of.