The Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) is back, pointing fingers. Its national adviser N Ganesan has jumped on the bandwagon of P Waythamoorthy to ridicule and condemn the government. They plucked some figures from the trees behind their houses, drew some graphs and made comparisons between income growth among the top 20 percent Indians versus the bottom 40 percent.
Naturally, the growth among the top 20 percent increased significantly over the years while the bottom 40 percent barely improved. Anybody can put some numbers, draw some graphs and make accusations. From where did they get those numbers?
Hindraf is so complicated that till now nobody knows for sure who is the real leader of the organisation, Waytha or P Uthayakumar. It is probably easier to decipher the Da Vinci Code than to understand the complexities involving Hindraf.
Instead of trying to make your presence felt by shouting over the microphone, NGOs like Hindraf should be on the ground showing these people the light at the end of the tunnel. That is the role of an NGO. It is ever so easy to complain. Waytha does it very effectively.
He even did an Ambiga and went to the streets. He made use of the Indians. Made them demonstrate for him. While his brother went to prison, he allegedly ran to the UK and hid. He used the money people sent to him from Malaysia and allegedly had a good time in London.
Waytha then made a deal with Barisan Nasional, joined the BN coalition and even became a deputy minister. From the man who questions, suddenly he was in a position to do something about the problems he claims foster rampantly among the Indians. But what did he do?
His only achievement as a deputy minister was creating a memorandum of understanding (MOU). He tried to hijack millions from the government directly into his pocket. When he failed, he quit and said the government cheated him. From BN is evil to Pakatan is evil and then now BN is evil again. Everyone is evil except Waytha.
After inking an agreement with BN, Waytha tried to show off his in-depth knowledge about Hinduism. He actually said that it doesn’t matter whether the nation is ruled by Rama or Ravana (two epic legends in the Hindu book of ‘Ramayana’). I do not know whether to laugh or cry at Waytha’s statement.
In Hinduism, Rama is seen as an embodiment of goodness while Ravana, the embodiment of evil. Any person with even a little knowledge of Hinduism will never make such an idiotic statement. Waytha somewhat revealed his true colours with that statement. All that matters to him is himself and he doesn’t care whether evil or good rules the nation.
Let us look back at a little history. In 1939, the then-Malaya sent a delegate to India to hold talks with the chief minister of Madras, C Rajagopalachari. The Malayan deputy controller of labour then drew up a budget showing how the rate of 33 cents per day was adequate for an Indian worker. That was the situation back then.
Today, the hardworking Indians have surpassed expectations. The King of the Air is Tony Fernandes while the lord of the sea is Westports chairperson G Gnanalingam.
Indians constitute 15 percent of the Malaysian professionals while 30 percent of the medical workforces in the country are Indians. The fact is simple. If you work hard, no matter which ethnic group you belong to, you will flourish. If you expect help all the time, you will never improve and will keep regressing.
Anyway, I wonder what has prompted Waytha to suddenly try to become relevant again. Is it the money the BN government plans to allocate for Indians? Is he hoping that someone from BN approaches him and he gets to reconcile with the government so he can try pocketing the money again?
