The Human Rights Party – a political arm of Hindraf – documents in its website the oppression suffered by the Indian poor on a day-to-day basis and which is not getting the attention it deserves. The issues highlighted by HRP, says its pro-tem secretary P. Uthayakumar, are “diverted, diluted and dismissed” by the expedient of detractors labelling their predominantly Tamil-Hindu movement an “Indian Perkasa”.

Uthaya pinpoints racial chauvinism and the discriminatory policies by Umno as the root cause of the structural failure causing Indians, especially the non-Christian, non-English speaking ones, to languish in the doldrums.

Citing a report in yesterday’s Tamil daily Makkal Osai (Dec 13), Uthaya uses the case of R. Nadarajah, aged 41, to illustrate his point.

Nadarajah is a diabetic who has high blood pressure, and has had one leg amputated.

He lives in Seremban with his wife G. Ananthi, 27, who has asthma. With her meagre income of RM500 per month from selling jasmine strings, Ananthi has to feed her husband and three children – two in primary school and one aged 4.

Paying the rent alone takes up half her earnings, what more with the costs of Nadarajah’s medical treatment added.

Yet this Indian family has been denied the monetary aid allocated to the Welfare Department, Socso, the various foundations including Yayasan Negri Sembilan, the National Welfare Foundation, etc simply because they are the Indian poor, says Uthaya.

He points out additionally that the Indian poor cannot avail themselves of the assistance provided the Muslim poor by fully government-funded agencies such as Lembaga Urus Zakat, Baitumal Tabung Haji, the Islamic state departments and even the kampung working committees (JKKK).

As a consequence of government (read Umno) neglect, the Indian poor are trapped within a social circle of relatives and friends who are more or less in the same predicament – all suffering in silence and unable to help or uplift each other.

Uthaya’s younger brother P. Waythamoorthy had issued press statement a day earlier (Dec 12) in London declaring Hindraf’s participation in the ‘Anything But Umno’ initiative.

The two Ponnusamy brothers who co-founded Hindraf came to their decision to support ABU, because of both their analysis which lays at Umno’s door a large part of the blame for the predicament of the Indian working class as well as from a critical evaluation of recent developments.

From what has been said by Prime Minister Najib Razak and reading between the lines of his pronouncements on the budget, the various handout schemes and other subsidy maintenance programmes, all indicators point to “a hardening of Umno’s political attitude”.

Waythamoorthy observes that Najib has been speaking “a hard brand of racist talk to his core constituency” [the Malays] and is keen on mingling with organizations [e.g. Pekida] acknowledged to be possessing questionable credentials.

“For the large segment of educated young and the middle-class voters, [Najib] is creating an illusion of liberalization and moderation when in fact the recent changes and additions to our laws – the amendments to the Employment Act and the introduction of the Freedom of Assembly bill – are in reality detrimental to the people.”

Hindraf believes that even as Najib is gearing up for the polls with all of these proceedings, he is at the same time also gearing up for more repression in preparation for the unpopular and postponed actions that will be necessarily carried out after the general election.

Given that Hindraf’s primary objective since its inception has been to unseat Umno from Putrajaya, the movement sees the ABU objectives as dovetailing with their own.

What Hindraf hopes for ABU to achieve is opening up democratic space for all Malaysians once Umno is relieved of the reins of power. In this post-Umno and changed scenario, Hindraf can then operate more freely and have enough room to work. Thus removing Umno is required in order to bring about the reforms that they seek.

ABU was launched on Dec 9 by its prime movers Badrul Hisham Shaharin and Haris Ibrahim, and is a coalition of civil society groups such as Malaysian Civil Liberties Movement (MCLM) and Solidariti Mahasiswa Malaysia (SAMM) as well as political parties Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) and Parti Rakyat Malaysia (PRM).

Badrul Hisham, the PKR leader popularly known as Chegubard, was quoted as saying: “ABU will be launching a nationwide campaign to call on the people to gather their courage to voice out their disgust and repulsion towards the misappropriations and corruption being practised by Umno.”

ABU will be holding its inaugural session tomorrow at Taman Melewar, KL, where core Hindraf people will also be present.