Hindraf suit in UK not to embarrass Malaysia

Malaysian Prime Minister will be subpoenaed by the British Court to testify during hearing.

KUALA LUMPUR: The primary intention of Hindraf Makkal Sakthi’s class action suit, filed on behalf of Malaysian Indians against the British Government, was the truth about the Federal Constitution. “It was not designed to embarrass the Malaysian Government,” said Hindraf Chairman P Waythamoorthy. “I want to make that clear.”

“It’s all about seeking justice, through the truth, for the blood, sweat and tears of our forefathers and their descendants. The British owed them a duty of care.”

He was responding, from London, to the brickbats in the social media – there were many bouquets as well — on the suit filed by the ad hoc apolitical human rights NGO working across the political divide.

“Some of the critics feel that I should be arrested for sedition for filing the suit. We are not suing the Malaysian Government but the British,” pointed out Waytha. “There’s no reason why the Malaysian Government should protect the British. They (the British) have to face the music.”

“One million Indians died for the Empire either on their way to Malaya, misled by the British, or in that country. They were covered by the British Nationality Act 1948 in the great plantations.”

He was also clarifying a statement that he had released on Saturday about the March 30 date in Court in London.

Waytha conceded that at some point in time during the hearing of the suit, the British Court would have to subpoena the Malaysian Prime Minister to testify on failing Malaysian Indians since 1957. “The British laid the seeds for what has happened since 1957 but what actually happened between independence and now will come back to also haunt the Malaysian Government,” said Waytha.

The truth behind the Federal Constitution as upheld by the Reid Constitutional Commission is one thing, he added, but how the supreme law of the land subsequently unfolded in a deviated and distorted form under the Malaysian Government, aided and abetted by the British Government which laid the seeds of polarisation, was another matter.

The net result of the British and Malaysian Governments being in cahoots, he continued, caused great suffering to Malaysian Indians in particular, and it became an obvious fact that they continued to be misunderstood by other communities in the country. “The human rights violations that Malaysian Indians have experienced since 1957 stems from the failure of the British in 1957,” said Waytha. “The Reid Constitutional Commission’s Federal Constitution was not what came into effect upon independence.”

Hindraf has all the necessary evidence to produce in Court

The far-reaching consequence of the British failure in 1957 has been obvious since 1957 viz. 800,000 displaced estate workers, 300,000 British subjects who remain stateless, marginalisation, disenfranchisement, ghettoisation, creeping desecularisation and creeping Islamisation, among others. “RM1 trillion was spent under the New Economic Policy (NEP) from 1970 to 1990 but Malaysian Indians were excluded from the mainstream,” said Waytha.

“It’s the racist system put in place by the British in Malaya, for no rhyme or reason, that allowed the Malaysian Government to get away with racist and discriminatory policies for more than half a century.”

While Tunku Abdul Rahman railed hypocritically against Apartheid in South Africa, he reminded, the system in Malaysia was worse than Apartheid, Nazism, fascism and the evils of the caste system combined. The Hindraf Chief disclosed that his NGO had all the necessary evidence to produce in Court.

These include declassified documents and other documents in the public domain, complete with facts and figures. “The May 2013 MOU between the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) and Hindraf is one such document,” said Waytha who quit last year as a Senator and Deputy Minister in Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s Government after the MOU was not honoured.