Ethnic Tamils in Malaysia

Tamil community, one of the oldest community with a recorded history going back to two millennia living across the world in India, Srilanka, Malaysia, South Africa, Singapore, mauritius, Canada, United States, Australia and Europe.
The condition of Tamils living in Malaysia is not exposed to outside world until the recent outbreak of HINDRAF group on November 2007. Tamils compose about 70% of ethnic Indians (8% of the Malaysian population) is the poorest community in the country.

In the 12th Malaysian general elections held on March, 2008 ruling BN coalition failed to get two-thirds of majority. One of the reason for this was the issues related to the ethnic Tamil community. On one side, steady growth of the country under the leadership of the Prime minister and the other side oppression against the ethnic Tamil community. Malaysian Indian Congress, which represents ethnic Indian communities suffered a major loss in the last general election including its leader Samy velu losing his seat after holding it for 34 years. Ethnic Indian voters, frustrated with the MIC's slavish acceptance of UMNO's 'bumiputra policy' and doubts about integrity of MIC's leadership, appear to have withdrawn their electoral support of the MIC.

Closure of Tamil schools, demolition of Hindu temples, restriction to religious freedom, encroachment, discrimination in education and job were some of the problems faced by the ethnic Tamil community.

HINDRAF, hindu coalition group has led many agitations against these and on behalf of Malaysian Indians they filed a suit at The Royal Courts of Justice in London to sue the UK government for bringing Indians as laborers into Malayasia and thereafter failing to protect them after independence. Since they could not afford the legal fees, HINDRAF organized a rally on Sunday, 25th November 2007 to submit a petition with 100,000 signatures at the British High Commission, but Malaysian police refused to grant permission. An estimated 20000 people gathered to organize the rally in a peaceful way in the capital. The rally was oppressed and the police dispersed the crowd with tear gas and water cannon.

Even though the rally was crushed, it was a huge success for the ethnic group as this was the first major open protest and also the message was sent across the world. Thanks to you tube revolution, where videos of the protest was uploaded otherwise the real situation would have not been known by the outside world.

This first open protest was an eye opener for the international community, especially India to help the ethnic Indian community in Malaysia.

References: web, you tube, wikipedia

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