The triumphal Bersih event of Nov 10 was always going to be a very hard act to follow. And even some die-hard activists had their doubts about the validity of the Hindraf rally, decrying it as too narrowly racial and sectarian.

But Nat Tan's magnificent www.jelas.info posting on Nov 24 entitled 'Why I will walk this Sunday' must have dispelled any reservations many may have felt.

And in fact the Sunday assembly proved a copybook display of self-disciplined non-violent civil disobedience that surely would have gladdened the heart of the Mahatma himself.

From a distance, unfortunately, though at least I'd struck a small blow for good government the previous day by voting for the Greens in Australia, I followed the Hindraf rally with a feeling of tremendous admiration for my Indian Malaysian brothers and sisters. Their courage, calm and resolve in the face of impossible odds did them absolutely proud.

But the Barisan Nasional (BN) government didn't do itself so proud, as usual. In fact it acted as shamelessly as ever, first denying the organisers a permit for the protest and soon after, arresting Hindraf leaders lawyers P Uthayakumar, P Waythamoorthy and V Ganapathy Rao on charges of sedition.

And then, as seems to have become standard practice, it ordered the setting-up of police roadblocks days ahead of the event, causing massive jams in a ploy to demonise the marchers in the eyes of those members of the populace too ignorant, smug or apathetic to care what the protest was really about.

As at recent rallies by lawyers and Bersih, however, this strategy proved at best a mixed success. Certainly, to judge from some comments I've heard and seen on the blogs, the traffic jams generated anger against the marchers among some of the more gullible and self-centred sectors of the general public.

But the roadblocks not only failed to prevent great numbers of people from walking, but also served as stark symbols of the fact that the truly major stumbling block on Malaysia's road to the future is BN itself.

Grim obstacle course

Let's face it, everywhere you look the government is pulling out every stop to block Malaysia's path to political progress. Barring the way to democratic representation with an electoral system so stacked in its favour that 60 percent of the vote delivers 90 percent of the seats.

There's more. Shutting down debate in Parliament through both sheer weight of numbers and a blatantly obstructionist Speaker. Confronting dissatisfied citizens with a grim obstacle-course of unconstitutional laws like the Internal Security Act, the Official Secrets Act and the Emergency Ordinance. Shutting down any prospect of social and economic equity with a corrupt and self-serving nexus of nepotism, racism and sectarianism. And opposing lawful protest with a police force that appears increasingly unwilling or unable to fight crime with anything like the efficiency it brings to bear against dissent.

And it's become increasingly evident that poor and marginalised Indians face an additional and especially insurmountable roadblock in the person of the very man who claims to labour so tirelessly in their interests, Works Minister and MIC president S Samy Vellu.

In advance of Sunday's gathering he slandered Hindraf as a "stooge of the opposition" and urged Indians not to take to the streets but to "work through the system". Meaning the same system, I assume, that he's worked through all these years with such conspicuous success for himself and his family, but with precious little apparent result for his hapless constituents.

Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Najib Abdul Razak swung straight into characteristic attack mode, accusing Hindraf of inciting racial hatred. And in the day or two since the demonstrations his assault has been joined by other BN blockheads.

The rabble-rousing, keris-waving Education Minister Hishammuddin Hussein has threatened to sack teachers and expel students who have the temerity to defy government orders against demonstrating in the streets.

Deputy Internal Security Minister Mohd Johari Baharom has accused the Hindraf organisers of manipulating innocent Indian Malaysians with promises of money, and threatened to invoke the ISA against the culprits.

Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz has stated with his customary hypocrisy that "in this country we have laws and have to abide by them", claimed that the baton-swinging, teargas-firing police were "victims" of reported violence, and "explained" that the subsequent suspicious silence about the rally in Parliament was due to the fact that "it's an explosive issue" and "we don't want to make it worse by making a noise about it".

Of all the usual BN suspects, only (Mis)information Minister Zainuddin Maidin has been curiously silent on the subject of Hindraf, perhaps because he's still smarting from embarrassment - or under strict prime ministerial orders to keep his mouth safely shut - following his infamous interview on Al-Jazeera on the day of the Bersih rally.

Maidin's tame "mainstream" media have been in full cry, however, dutifully playing their contemptible role as Malaysia's mental block in support of the roadblock BN government.

But of course they've been powerless to block growing international awareness of the plight of Malaysia's poor and disenfranchised through Al-Jazeera, BBC World, CNN, Reuters, AP and other global news networks.

Hindraf is assured of a wealth of world publicity for its cause, thanks to its clever ploy of mounting a symbolic lawsuit demanding US$4 trillion in damages and UK citizenship for its members in reparation for Britain's abandoning them to Malay-Muslim rule in 1957.

And meanwhile the world's also witnessed the dignity and courage of Indian Malaysians protesting their social plight and the government's systematic desecration and destruction of their places of worship by peacefully walking in the footsteps of that great example to us all of the power of freedom, compassion and peace, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.