Comment by YB Prof Dr P.Ramasamy, Deputy Chief Minister II, Penang, on the issue of demolishing of temples in Kedah
If MIC needs to be banned for trying to incite people over Hindu temple demolitions and pointing to the failure of Kedah PAS government to allocate funds to Hindu temples, then what should be the punishment meted to PAS.
PAS is not only a extreme religious party but a racial one too. Most of the time, despite high philosophical talk, the party leaders find it difficult to separate religion from race. PAS by portraying itself as pious Islamic party knows that championing Islam in Malaysia means also championing the Malay race.
While there is nothing wrong in championing the rights of a race or religion, PAS cannot hypocritically deny basic fundamental constitutional rights to non-Malays or non-Muslims.
As a matter of fact, the Kedah Menteri Besar Sanusi Md Nor should not bark up the wrong tree.
As far as Indians are concerned, MIC is neither dead nor alive. No one party is going around inciting Indians to gain popularity.
This is simply the wild and careless imagination of Sanusi who has proved himself to be an ineffective leader in Kedah. Sanusi couldn’t even the tell difference between cholera and Covid-19 let alone contain the pandemic in his state.
Indians are upset and angry simply because more temples have been demolished in the state in comparison with the earlier BN and later PH governments. If the authorities can go demolishing temples some of them more than hundreds years old, you expect Indians to offer the proverbial other cheek.
Sorry, Indians are not the reincarnation of Gandhi.
Some months, a Hindu temple that was older the railway station was demolished in the basis of its illegality to make way for road expansion.
A huge, majestic tree, hundred of years old, was cut down as it was considered a holy tree by Hindus. What happened to the road By expansion? No road expansion, but they allocated the site where the temple was located as motorcycle park.
So much for the honesty and integrity of the Kedah PAS leader and the present big-mouth Menteri Besar, Sanusi.
To date, a number of non-Muslim places of worship has been demolished, and I was told, more sites have been identified for demolition.
Sanusi should be the last person to talk of law and order or the illegality of non-Muslim places of worship.
If successive governments have not discriminated against non-Muslims, why is there a need to build temples on state or private lands.
If the state had provided land and financial allocation for non-Muslim places of worship, the present situation might not have arisen in the first place.
I don’t think the non-Muslims have nothing better to do than mischievously plan and build places of worship on state or private lands.
It was the BN government that was mainly responsible for marginalising the non-Muslims in the country to the extent that even they cannot pray or worship without being worried about their places being torn.
If temples could exist over hundred years, even before the country became independent and long before the birth of PAS, why are they suddenly considered illegal and marked for demolition.
Sanusi should not overact, but should carefully look into the history of non-Muslim places of worship.
He asked a question that if Muslims have no problem in building their mosques and surau with permission from the local authorities, how come Hindus could not do this. Sanusi might be suffering from axbad amnesia, he conveniently forgets that Muslims being Bumiputera enjoy a pre-eminent position in the country politically, economically and culturally.
But over the last 60 years or so, the rights of non-Muslims have gradually whittled away by governments embarking on aggressive racial and religious extremism.
PAS is mainly responsible for religious extremism in the country.
It is strange that you deny non-Muslim their rights to establish their places of worship but yet deny them land and approvals.
As though approvals for their places of worship are just waiting to be delivered on a silver platter!
In the final analysis, the Indians nor the MIC are not at fault on the present state of affairs regarding temples in Kedah.
It is the mind-set of the PAS that is the present cause of misery amongst non-Muslims in Kedah.
