This isn't the first time we hear such accusation. We nearly lost Lunas for that reason. But, let us ponder for a moment: don't we welcome Indian-Malaysians amongst our ranks? Or is it merely a UMNO@BN sandiwara?

We claim ourself to be a multi-ethnic party, but how tolerant are we with diversity? True, we are courting the Chinese-Malaysians, but is it merely because they are a force to be reckoned with, or is it because we really believe in such noble concepts like multiculturalism?

To our credit, we have rejected UMNO's racist overtures, but Kak Wan is yet to sue NST, as she promised in November last year. What should we make of this? Indeed, as we all know, we are in the midst of a war -- with those corrupt, racists from UMNO@BN, but what is the price we should pay in order to chase those criminals out of government?

Innocence, once lost, can it be regained? I am not sure. I hope someone could explain why ths appearance that KeADILan is ambivalent about Indian-Malaysians.

IsK dZ.

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Tuesday January 30

No room for Indians in Keadilan
RN Rajah
Deputy Secretary-General Prim

2:11pm, Tue: We refer to the letter by Dr Ananthan Krishnan (Free Indians from political trance, Jan 23).

It was Ananthan himself together with I, Dr Subramaniam and lawyer Manogar who had jointly signed a memorandum titled "Fair and Equitable Distribution of Parliamentary and State Seats for the Malaysian Indian Community under Parti Keadilan Nasional" on July 21, 1999, appealing for, amongst others, at least to be given the pleasure of defeating all the seven MIC parliamentary and 15 state seats (also as an election strategy not to upset the Indian voters and to assure them that the status quo stays for the already under-represented Indians (by 65 percent).

Ananthan and a delegation met Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, Dr Chandra Muzaffar, Marina Yusoff, Tian Chua and many other Keadilan leaders while the others avoided wanting to hear us out and told us instead to see Irene Fernandez (another Umno-style political stance).Chandra said that it would be difficult to consider our request as a Malay candidate stood the best chance of winning. So much for preaching multiracial politics and Keadilan being a multiracial party!

When the time came, it turned out that no Keadilan Indian candidate was chosen for Parliament. Instead, Keadilan seconded two subservient and docile Indian candidates to contest under the DAP ticket (although there was a pool of over 100 dynamic volunteer Indian lawyers who helped out Anwar Ibrahim and the reformasi demonstrators, especially at a time when they were needed most).

When the Indians in Keadilan protested at this ketidakadilan we were branded as having the BN mindset. We wondered whether Keadilan (the party and concept) was only for one ethnic group at the expense of the minority Indians’ their right to representation.

We have today been blessed with zero opposition Indian representation in Parliament and any state assembly, thanks to the “multiracial” Keadilan.

If Umno (which we wanted out) thought the same way, then the Indians would have no representation at all.

Who then is fairer? Umno or Keadilan?

This is despite the fact that the Indians have the most social, economic and political problems, thus requiring more, if not most, representation as Indians would best understand and relate to their community’s problems.

Because of the sidelining, marginalising and their being discriminated against in Keadilan under Chandra, more than 10,000 hardcore opposition Indians quit Keadilan to form Parti Reformasi Insan Malaysia (Prim) which later sought to join the Barisan Alternatif and to continue the cause of the opposition without washing dirty linen in public. But, we were turned down.

From the word go, the Indians were never really wanted in Keadilan. When one vice-president and two other Supreme Council members were chosen from among the Chinese (at a time when there were 20 times more Indian support), only one Supreme Council member was chosen from the Indians.

After much protest and the matter being highlighted in the press, three Indian "invited participants" (toothless tigers) were seconded to the Supreme Council. Even when vice-president Marina resigned, an Indian was not appointed as VP and neither was the Supreme Council position held by Zainur Zakaria (appointed VP) given to balance the under representation.

It may be interesting to note that an internationally renowned leader like Chandra preaches this brand of "multiracial" politics at a time when US President George W Bush actually practises it by appointing Colin Powell as the all-powerful secretary of state and Condolesa Rice as the key national security adviser and even an immigrant, Elaine Chan, can be appointed employment secretary.

The President of Singapore is an Indian, HE Nathan. Alberto Fujimori, the former president of Peru, is a Japanese. The President of India was once a Sikh (Zail Singh) and then a Muslim (Faqharuddin Ali Ahmad). This is truly multiracial politics in practice.

Keadilan is basically pulling wool over the Indians' eyes and people should stop being blind followers or their cronies as it runs counter to the true reformasi spirit.

Petikan Malaysiakini.com