“I served the highest prison sentence in this country for a sedition charge, at two and a half years and later reduced to two years by the Court of Appeal, for highlighting the plight of the most vulnerable and most racially, religiously and economically victimised Indian poor by the supremacist Umno regime. I stand by what I said and did. I have no regrets.”

- P Uthayakumar

COMMENT | Former prime minister and de facto opposition leader Dr Mahathir Mohamad is right when he said that Indian representation in Pakatan Harapan is inadequate. He is also correct when he claimed in the nomenclature of that specific class (read this as the hypocritical ruling elite class (establishment and opposition), that Hindraf in its various incarnations represents the marginalised Indian communities rather than the urban professional opposition-leaning class of the Indian Malaysian polity.

As for Umno vice-president Hishammuddin Hussein’s contention that Mahathir’s alleged unilateral decision to meet Persatuan Hindraf Malaysia (PHM) chief P Waythamoorthy as indicative of the lack of “team spirit” within Harapan, I would like to remind the minister that pacts amongst kleptocrats and their enablers does not qualify as “team spirit”.

Meanwhile, MIC Youth chief C Sivarraajh is in dreamland if he thinks that the Indian community has lost faith in Hindraf. The marginalised Indian community has lost faith in politics, period, and there is an overt distrust of the thuggish behaviour of the MIC, and more importantly the establishment, when it comes to religious matters that concern the Indian community. Waythamoorthy openly challenging Zakir Naik plays better with them than a minister who makes excuses as to the delay of a bill which corrects unilateral conversion. Chew on that for a minute.

It is great to see that DAP would keep an open mind on this matter, because really, when you are collaborating with a right-wing “Malay only” political party, what are you going to say about Hindraf or any politician who “champions” Indian rights? That we are not a race-based coalition? Seriously, get over yourselves.

However, Harapan should also collaborate with P Uthayakumar. Hindraf partisans should not take this to mean that I favour one brother over the other, but the rather that both working with the opposition should be able to galvanise the Indian community which apparently are needed to “save Malaysia”....