PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim has described the Hindraf rally today at the British High Commission as "a safety valve for long smoldering Indian Malaysian grievances."

"These grievances should be allowed public space for free speech expression and not be bottled up," said the PKR leader.

However, Anwar hastened to add: "I must appeal to Hindraf to consider a more balanced and inclusive approach to addressing its grievances.

"Its grouses should be focused on the corrupt Umno-led BN coalition government that is guilty of serious abuses of power and which continues to neglect the plight not only of poor Indians but also those of other groups as well.

"Scapegoating ethnic groups is not a constructive approach to achieving change in Malaysia. We must demand justice and fair treatment for all."

The Hindu Rights Action Front (Hindraf) has called on Indian Malaysians to gather at the British High Commission to support the filing of a class-action suit against the British government to compensate them for 150 years of exploitation of indentured labour.

Kuala Lumpur police have taken out an unprecedented court order against the rally after refusing the organisers of the rally a permit.

Anwar criticised the police for their disregard of the rights of citizens to peaceful assembly.

"The denial of this right by the authorities will certainly aggravate the sense of disconnection from national endeavour that large swatches of the Indian population in Malaysia feel," he lamented.

Anwar also cautioned Hindraf against the machinations of agent provocateurs who he said could start trouble among rally participants and melt away after having achieved their aim of getting the police to use force against otherwise peaceful demonstrators.

Marginalised Indians feel neglected

In addressing the causes of Indian Malaysian discontent, Anwar said: "Ever since the fragmentation of the estates in the mid-1960s, large numbers of estate workers have migrated to urban areas and barely subsist as squatters in poor and underdeveloped areas.

"This sense of disconnection was compounded when another class of Indians found themselves caught in the backwash of the New Economic Policy which denied them opportunities to hold decent wages in professional occupations in which they were once prominently represented," said Anwar.

"Indians view themselves as having made significant contributions to the development and growth of Malaysia. It is therefore incumbent upon the nation to conceive of this important minority as bona fide citizens with equal rights and protection under the law and fair access to opportunities for economic advancement and personal development.

"The fact that small numbers of Indians had done well in the legal and medical professions has tended to give a misleading impression of overall Indian well-being," said Anwar.

He said recent episodes of the demolition of Hindu temples had inflamed festering discontent in the Indian community. "The mobilisation for the Hindraf rally is a culmination of that discontent."