Screenshots

UPDATED VERSION. ”Do not meddle in our affairs. This is Malaysia, not Tamil Nadu ... lay off.”

Those words were from Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Nazri Abdul Aziz, who November 28 rebuked Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhiafter our minister learned of reports that Karunanidhi had written to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh urging him to take immediate and appropriate action to end the “sufferings and bad treatment” of Tamils in Malaysia.

Nazri's statement along the Parliament lobby two days ago had induced some reverberation in India.

Karunanidhi, who the chief of the DMK party that forms the Manmohan coalition government, has since said he was not to get into a tit-for-tat with Malaysia's Nazri, but emphasised that "it is my duty to defend Tamils".

The Economic Times of India, which said Nazri's comments has caused an uproar in the Parliament of India, carried several stinging letters to its editor, including three written by the Indian diaspora from USA:
- Thank you for speaking up on this issue. Malaysia is a wonderful but...
- India should sent the army to Malaysia
- Malaysia is a Muslim country

According to a dispatch by Press Trust of India (PTI) carried by The Hindu, the Indian Government on Friday told the Rajya Sabha (Parliament of India) that New Delhi was taking up the issue with Kuala Lumpur.

This contrasts starkly against a report in The Star yesterday that India’s Parliament has rejected a call to discuss the Hindraf demonstration.

Quote from PTI/The Hindu:

"The matter is being taken up through diplomatic channel," Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Suresh Pachouri told the House during Zero Hour.

He was responding to the concerns of members who took strong exception to a senior Malaysian minister asking Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi to "lay off" from the happenings in that country.

Terming as condemnable the ill-treatment being meted out to ethnic Tamils, Pachouri said that after the matter was taken up with the Malaysian authorities, the External Affairs Minister would make a statement in the House.

Raising the issue, R Shanmugasundaram (DMK) drew the attention of the Governnment to the statement of the Malaysian Minister on the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister. "This is highly condemnable as the Malaysian Minister has no business to talk like this. The Governnment of India should take appropriate action," he said.

S S Ahluwalia (BJP) demanded that the Malaysian envoy to India should be called to explain.

B S Gnanadesikan (Cong) expressed serious anguish over the manner in which the Chief Minister was snubbed by the Malaysian minister. He was joined by his party colleague V Narayanaswamy.

UPDATES. Bloomberg reported today, timelined New Delhi, that lawmakers in the Parliament of India were debating for the second consecutive day over the treatment of ethnic Indians in Malaysia by police.

Manmohan Singh 'forced to react'

The Times of India followed up with a story quoting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was addressing a joint press conference with EU president, Portuguese PM Jose Socrates, that his government was concerned over the plight of ethnic Indians in Malaysia.

The newspaper said Manmohan's UPA regime may not have spent sleepless nights over agitating Indians in Malaysia, but after a Malaysian minister took on UPA partner (Tamil nadu Chief Minister) M Karunanidhi, the government has been forced to react.

Diplomatic alert has heightened a little when foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee made a suo motu statement in both Houses of Parliament, proclaiming that, "We are in touch with the Malaysian authorities and the matter is being taken up."

The newspaper carried two Op-Ed pieces -- a view saying New Delhi should react, and a counter-view saying that it's Malaysia's problem.

There are now about 260 items indexed by Google News about India's reaction to Nazri's statement.

Indian TV channels have shown graphic images of police action on the protesters and newspapers splashed comments from Nazri who asked the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister to "lay off" after he complained about the incident, Reuters reported.

Be warned: 'From Gandhi to VP'

November 29, P. Ramasamy, former professor of history at University Kebangsaan Malaysia who is now a research fellow at ISEAS, gave an interview to India's Daily News & Analysis (DNA) by saying that, if the Indian minority's 'genuine grievances continue to be ignored' in Malaysia, soon the portraits of Mahatma Gandhi -- a symbol of non-violent struggle -- will be replaced by that of (Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers leader) Velupillai Prabakaran.

You should read the interview given by Ramasamy, who was appointed by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to its Constitutional Affairs Committee in 2003, as he connected the dots that link the Tamil diaspora in Malaysia (which accounts for most of the Indian population there) to the Tamil Eelam movement in Sri Lanka.

Interestingly, the New Jersey-based India Daily said the Indians' situation in Malaysia is far graver than understood. India faces another erupting ‘Sri Lanka’ in Malaysia, the daily said.

In reacting to Malaysia's policy on Indians, the daily suggested fiscal, trade and diplomatic boycott as the first step.