Asking India to play an active role to restore equal rights of ethnic Indians in Malaysia, Hindu Rights Action Force, a Malaysian-based organisation, said.
CHENNAI: Asking India to play an active role to restore equal rights of ethnic Indians in Malaysia, Hindu Rights Action Force, a Malaysian-based organisation, on Saturday said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should take up the issue with his Malaysian counterpart.
Singh could speak to Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on the 'ill-treatment' meeted out to the community, its leader P Wayda Murthy, who was arrested on sedition charges by Malaysian police and later released, said here.
Murthy, who faced sedition charges 'for spearheading the November 25 demonstration by the community members' is now visiting different countries to garner support for the cause.
He thanked Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi for taking up the issue of marginalisation of ethnic Tamils in Malaysia which drew angry reactions from a Malaysian Minister Nazri Aziz, asking the DMK chief to 'lay-off'.
The issue figured in Parliament on Friday during which Singh voiced concern over the developments in Malaysia while the government said it was taking up the issue with Kuala Lumpur.
Murthy said Karunanidhi was the 'most respected Tamil leader who was being looked up to by Malaysian Tamils to solve their problems. We expect more aggressive steps from him and India in general to solve the marginalisation issue' of ethnic Indians.
"They want him to keep speaking for them (Tamils) and for the entire ethnic Indian community," he said.
Murthy, a follower of Gandhian ideals, said he wanted to meet Karunanidhi to discuss the matter.
"If the issue is not solved now, there is a danger of people taking up arms. But the protest last week was done in the Gandhian way which they proved by carrying the Mahatma's portraits during the demonstration," he said.
Indians, taken to Malaysia 200 years back, were Malaysian citizens only on paper but not in spirit. The marginalization of ethnic Indians started soon after Malaysia became independent in 1957, he alleged.
"They have killed our spirit and the ethnic Indians are treated very badly by the Malaysian government. It gave just three months' wages as rehabilitation to Indian plantation workers but paid huge money to each of the hundred-odd Muslim families for acquiring their land for the Kuala Lumpur Airport project," he claimed.
Murthy alleged that many Hindu temples had been demolished and the incidents increased after the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992.
"About 10,000 temples have been demolished in the last 50 years," he said adding the HRAF, the organisation which he leads, was formed two years back to arrest the trend.
Of Malaysia's 26 million population, he said two million were from the ethnic Indian community, of which 90 per cent were Tamils. Seventy per cent of ethnic Tamils of Malaysia remained poor while the rest were doing well.
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