By and large, the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) rally last Sunday Nov 25 was a very mild affair, compared to the volatile demonstrations in France and Pakistan held during the same period.

Given the tension created in the air and the media, what with numerous police roadblocks, stern warnings from top cops and politicians, the arrests of three Hindraf lawyers for sedition on the eve of the rally, you would think that a race riots by our nation's ethnic Indians was imminent, or even inevitable.

Despite the official intimidation though, tens of thousands of Malaysian Indians still turned up to show public support for Hindraf, much to my surprise. The repressed but desperate and swelling sentiments of discontent among the Indian community must have been truly heartfelt and deep rooted.

I am glad they turned up in full force, despite the threats of court order and mass arrest. There were incidents of stone-throwing and some minor scuffles. One wonders if these could have been avoided if the police had handled it differently. We are a long way from learning the democratic culture of peaceful demonstrations. The way the government is condemning this culture, both demonstrators and the police have yet to create new democratic traditions so common in other countries.

Days on end after the incident, the psychological warfare of demonising public peaceful demonstrations continues unabated in the media. The dominant voice of political power screams through the national dailies.

Little room to answer

Let us look at the headlines. "Najib: Rally was politically motivated 'We won't back down' we will meet the challenge." "Hindraf made empty promises!" "Illegal rallies will affect economy, people's lives" "City Hall hardest hit by protesters" 'Street protests bad for tourism'" "Rally not our way" (This one was accompanied by the picture of a distinguished and prosperous looking Indian gentleman representing some Indian organisation.) A columnist's article in the NST had the predictable title of "All it needed was a small spark to cause problems".

Against this tsunami of propagandist demonisation, there is little room for Hindraf to answer in self defence. Their silence in the mainstream media is ironically the loudest self defence for their rally on Sunday. In a country where the "proper channels" are closed to marginalised and disenfranchised citizen groups, going to the street in protest is the only channel left for the dispossessed.

On the surface, the Hindraf rally was organised to summit a petition to the Queen of England through the British High Commission in KL in conjunction with a court case in London in which Malaysian Indians are demanding compensation for their 150 years of suffering after having been moved from India to Malaysia.

The merit of the case will be debated and decided in the British court. But the rally organiser was using this symbolic gesture to highlight the political, social and economic backwardness of the Indian community in Malaysia.

That the rally did materialise against all odds is a boomerang attack on the BN race based nation-building policies that are seen to have victimised Indian citizens. Above all, it cast into sharp focus the impotency of MIC in relieving the sufferings of Malaysian Indians, and questioned the legitimacy of MIC as political representative of their community in this mysterious business of the "social contract. No wonder the MIC president was so riled up by the Hindraf rally.

Was the Hindraf protest politically motivated?

Of course it was! Those mostly middle and middle-lower class Indian citizens who came from all part of the Peninsula and gathered around Batu Caves and the Jalan Ampang areas were by a political concern for the welfare and the future of the Indian community.

Tales of horrendous poverty

Fifty years after independence, the Indian Malaysians have been marginalised much more than the Chinese under the yoke of the NEP, and the communal policies of the Umno-dominated BN ruling coalition.

Despite the emergence of a very small and prosperous professional and business class, the majority of Indians form the urban and suburban under-class, providing cheap labour for dirty and lowly jobs shunned by Malaysians of other ethnic origins. There are numerous tales of horrendous poverty and suffering in estates where the Indians contribute the bulk of plantation workers.

Their community is beset with all kinds of social problems, ranging from unemployment, under-employment, crimes, alcoholism, domestic violence, suicide, and high school drop-out rates. These are typical ailments associated with a socio-economically depressed community. Recently, reports of their Hindu temples being dismantled by local authorities have further entrenched this perception that the religious rights of the Malaysian Indians have been encroached. Samy Vellu and the MIC have failed.

That the Indians lag behind the other ethnic communities as a whole is a fact well known to all Malaysians. But because the backwardness and the suffering of our Indian citizens do not make sexy news, they were seldom reported in depth in the media.

Unlike the Chinese, the Indian voters do not form the majority in any one of the country's 221 parliamentary constituencies. In reality, MIC is entirely at the mercy of Umno and MCA for the political survival of the party that is supposed to fight for Indian rights. This sort of unequal relationship between component parties of the ruling Barisan does not auger well for Indian rights on the negotiating table.

When all proper channels are closed to them, the Hindraf people decided to go to the street, peacefully. That is what you would call historical logic, if you study the history of street politics starting in Europe in the 18th century.

But the Hindraf protesters were not politically motivated in the sense of their being sponsored by any political parties. (One has to make this distinction, because in the public vocabulary of Malaysian politics, to be "politically motivated" is to be involved in party politics.)

On the contrary, the fact that the Hindraf protest did go on against all odds is a clear visible sign that our democratic institutions and our system of party politics have not functioned well. This spontaneous groundswell of anger and resentment by such a massive gathering of peaceful Indians who show no tie or connection to any political party is a release of a morally legitimate social force.

Those Indians who went to the street and put their body in harm's way just so as to be counted were courageous citizens who agitate for the power of a civil society. They did what Bersih did two weeks ago, and broke the hegemonic monopoly of political expression by political parties. The presence of their bodies last Sunday afternoon sent a louder message than whatever Samy Vellu could have said behind the closed door of BN coalition.

ISA - a powerful weapon

One could criticise the Hindraf participants for breaking the laws and subverting the Rule of Law, thereby endangering public security. But we should bear in the mind that the absence of the sprit of the Rule of Law is precisely brought into focus by the Hindraf rally. It is because the Hindraf participants and supporters felt the injustice of the law that they went on the street as their last resort. Simply put, we have the Rule not of the Law, but Rule by unjust Law. In fact, the Rule of Law is but the window dressing for what in effect amounts to the Rule of Man.

What we witnessed on the streets of KL in recent weeks is the emergence and public demonstration of a new form of civil society in Malaysia, releasing a new form of social capital which will auger well for the democratic future of our country. If it is not yet our culture, it ought to be in the immediate future.

Already, the government has dug up their arsenal of repression from the 60s and the 80s. The PM has finally given up his pretence of liberal openness, and threatened to use the much feared ISA to arrest future demonstrators.

Legislated in 1961 to combat internal armed insurgency, the ISA might have its reasons to be once when the country was indeed in a state of emergency. The insurgency has since long gone, but the ISA has become a powerful weapon in the hands of the ruling parties to oppress and silence opposition parties, political dissidents and social activists. The ISA has been the single most harmful obstacle to the nurturing of a healthy civil society in Malaysia. It is one of the most unjust laws we have around. With the shadow of the ISA hovering around the Malaysian sky, we will never be a First World nation.

Whether the ISA will work in Malaysia in the 21st century in repressing dissent is not yet ascertained. Perhaps somebody will organise a street protest to call for the repeal of the ISA.

In the end, the police may start to arrest street protesters under the ISA. The protest will be considered successful if the detention centres at Kamuntin and elsewhere will be crammed to overflowing. Hopefully, the penal facilities in the whole country will not be sufficient to cope with an explosive demand for prison cells.

Perhaps people like the editors of Malaysiakini should start packing a small overnight bag with tooth brush, tooth paste, and a comb, in readiness for the loud pounding on the door in the middle of the night.