As Malaysia marked 50 years as an independent nation on Aug 31, a team of Malaysian lawyers were in London filing a lawsuit against the British government for abandoning minority Indians to the mercy of majoritarian Malay-Muslim rule while granting independence in 1957.

The extraordinary lawsuit backed by the Hindu Rights Action Force or Hindraf, a Hindu grassroots movement that is beginning to win wide support from ethnic Indians in the country, blames the British colonial government for the many woes the community faces in Malaysia today.

"We were removed by duplicity and force from our villages (in India) and taken to the then Malaya and put to work to clear the forests, plant and harvest rubber and make billions of pounds for British owners," said Malaysian lawyer Waytha Moorthy Ponnusamy who filed the suit in London.