An Open Letter That Must Be Publicized.
Just as I had posted the entire open letter to Pak Lah by Jacqueline Ann Surin some time ago, here I publish another open letter, this time to the Indian Prime Minister, by a fellow blogger whom I've never heard of till just now. Because of its relevance, the entire unedited post by Sharanya Manivannan is published here.
An Open Letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Dear Dr. Singh,
I write this to you not only as a citizen appealing to the leader of her nation, but as a non-resident Indian outraged and frightened by the atrocities committed against her heritage and religion – and the heritage or religion of millions of others – in the nation of her residence.
The past few months have brought with them a rash of demolitions of Hindu temples in Malaysia. By "rash", I mean an indeterminate but sizable number. By "rash", I indicate a deliberate official concealing of the actual figure.
The official excuses for these run along the lines of clearing areas for highway development and the lack of proper licences. But the sheer enthusiasm by which these demolitions are carried out – demonstrated by their rapidly increasing number and frequency as well as the unnecessary measures often undertaken, such as the torching of the temple structure and the defacement of statues of deities within – negates them. A suspiciously mute media further contradicts such pretexts.
Most of these attacks have occurred by dawn, literally ambushing worshippers within. At least one attack – on the 60-year old Sri Balamuniswarar Alayam in Setapak on June 8 2006 – resulted in the arrests of people who attempted to stop the demolition. This same attack resulted in injuries for some of the arrested – injuries which they were later forced to confess in writing as having been self-inflicted. A priest in that temple suffered a heart attack from the sight of it being desecrated.
This is the story of only one temple.
I cannot tell you how many temples, or stories, there are, because no one knows the real number. No one, perhaps, but the authorities carrying out what is clearly a secret, sinister agenda.
I ask you this: what excuse do you give us for your silence?
The Government of India has thus far taken no official stand on the issue. This is not for lack of knowing. Although the available information about these demolitions remains little, almost all the non-Internet media that has picked up on the situation has been from India. These are state-sanctioned demolishings, not the work of small factions of zealots. The Government of India has a responsibility, particularly because of its relationship with the Government of Malaysia, to respond.
When the Taliban destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001, the Indian government, along with academics and former state officials, responded with the outrage demanded of the situation.
Some months back, the Government of India sent an official criticism to the Government of Denmark regarding the publication in a Danish newspaper of cartoons insulting the Prophet Muhammad, resulting in the cancellation of Danish PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen's official visit to India at that time.
Denmark and India have a strong history of bilateral relations, from Prime Ministerial visits to Copenhagen in 1957, 1983 and 2002 to total, direct Danish investment inflows to India since 1981 having reached approximately US$148 million at the end of September 2005 (according to the website of the Indian embassy in Denmark).
Malaysia and India, too, have had many successful bilateral exchanges over the decades. By an interesting coincidence, themanufacturing-based foreign direct investment from India to Malaysia now also amounts to US$148 million (according to Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister Dato' Mohd Najib Tun Abdul Razak at an India-Malaysia CEO forum in Mumbai on June 9 2006).
As simplistic as it sounds, it's almost as if all those millions of US dollars from Denmark – a country whose religious insensitivity India officially condemned – were poured straight into Malaysia – a country whose religious despotism India is curiously, confoundingly silent on.
The rights of ethnic Indians and other minorities in this country are crumbling, like our temples, as I write this.
2.05 million people of Indian descent may be a tiny number, when compared against the 1 billion and counting whom you, as prime minister, are officially responsible for.
But I ask you this: when temples that stood for over a century are destroyed, what really dies? Not stone and statues. Not bells and prayers. Not – thankfully and thus far – people. You see, what frightens me is not the loss of these temples themselves, though architecturally speaking, that too is often a disappointment. What frightens me is what these temples are taken to represent, and by extension, what their demolitions therefore represent.
As I write this, I am grasping in the dark as to the actual number of temples that have been demolished, torched or otherwise desecrated in the past six months alone. Numbers I have read range anywhere from 10 to 20. Why are these numbers so nebulous? If the authorities carrying out these attacks are doing so with fully defendable reasons, why the secrecy? Why the media blackout, through which only wavering, surreptitious glimpses insinuate at a growing crisis?
I write to you because I feel as though the country in which I live, and in which 8% of the population trace their roots back to India, is teetering on the brink of religious and ethnic calamity. I write to you in an atmosphere darkened by the shadow of the pre-genocidal.
I write to you because I am afraid.
Yours sincerely,
Sharanya Manivannan
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
June 13 2006
(End of Post)
For updates on this subject from her blog, click HERE
**** The Malaysian too has written on this subject on several occasions, the recent one being Temple Demolitions - An Excellent Example Of Super Efficiency. Also please refer to What Does This Report Tell You About Religious Freedom?
An Open Letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Dear Dr. Singh,
I write this to you not only as a citizen appealing to the leader of her nation, but as a non-resident Indian outraged and frightened by the atrocities committed against her heritage and religion – and the heritage or religion of millions of others – in the nation of her residence.
The past few months have brought with them a rash of demolitions of Hindu temples in Malaysia. By "rash", I mean an indeterminate but sizable number. By "rash", I indicate a deliberate official concealing of the actual figure.
The official excuses for these run along the lines of clearing areas for highway development and the lack of proper licences. But the sheer enthusiasm by which these demolitions are carried out – demonstrated by their rapidly increasing number and frequency as well as the unnecessary measures often undertaken, such as the torching of the temple structure and the defacement of statues of deities within – negates them. A suspiciously mute media further contradicts such pretexts.
Most of these attacks have occurred by dawn, literally ambushing worshippers within. At least one attack – on the 60-year old Sri Balamuniswarar Alayam in Setapak on June 8 2006 – resulted in the arrests of people who attempted to stop the demolition. This same attack resulted in injuries for some of the arrested – injuries which they were later forced to confess in writing as having been self-inflicted. A priest in that temple suffered a heart attack from the sight of it being desecrated.
This is the story of only one temple.
I cannot tell you how many temples, or stories, there are, because no one knows the real number. No one, perhaps, but the authorities carrying out what is clearly a secret, sinister agenda.
I ask you this: what excuse do you give us for your silence?
The Government of India has thus far taken no official stand on the issue. This is not for lack of knowing. Although the available information about these demolitions remains little, almost all the non-Internet media that has picked up on the situation has been from India. These are state-sanctioned demolishings, not the work of small factions of zealots. The Government of India has a responsibility, particularly because of its relationship with the Government of Malaysia, to respond.
When the Taliban destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001, the Indian government, along with academics and former state officials, responded with the outrage demanded of the situation.
Some months back, the Government of India sent an official criticism to the Government of Denmark regarding the publication in a Danish newspaper of cartoons insulting the Prophet Muhammad, resulting in the cancellation of Danish PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen's official visit to India at that time.
Denmark and India have a strong history of bilateral relations, from Prime Ministerial visits to Copenhagen in 1957, 1983 and 2002 to total, direct Danish investment inflows to India since 1981 having reached approximately US$148 million at the end of September 2005 (according to the website of the Indian embassy in Denmark).
Malaysia and India, too, have had many successful bilateral exchanges over the decades. By an interesting coincidence, themanufacturing-based foreign direct investment from India to Malaysia now also amounts to US$148 million (according to Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister Dato' Mohd Najib Tun Abdul Razak at an India-Malaysia CEO forum in Mumbai on June 9 2006).
As simplistic as it sounds, it's almost as if all those millions of US dollars from Denmark – a country whose religious insensitivity India officially condemned – were poured straight into Malaysia – a country whose religious despotism India is curiously, confoundingly silent on.
The rights of ethnic Indians and other minorities in this country are crumbling, like our temples, as I write this.
2.05 million people of Indian descent may be a tiny number, when compared against the 1 billion and counting whom you, as prime minister, are officially responsible for.
But I ask you this: when temples that stood for over a century are destroyed, what really dies? Not stone and statues. Not bells and prayers. Not – thankfully and thus far – people. You see, what frightens me is not the loss of these temples themselves, though architecturally speaking, that too is often a disappointment. What frightens me is what these temples are taken to represent, and by extension, what their demolitions therefore represent.
As I write this, I am grasping in the dark as to the actual number of temples that have been demolished, torched or otherwise desecrated in the past six months alone. Numbers I have read range anywhere from 10 to 20. Why are these numbers so nebulous? If the authorities carrying out these attacks are doing so with fully defendable reasons, why the secrecy? Why the media blackout, through which only wavering, surreptitious glimpses insinuate at a growing crisis?
I write to you because I feel as though the country in which I live, and in which 8% of the population trace their roots back to India, is teetering on the brink of religious and ethnic calamity. I write to you in an atmosphere darkened by the shadow of the pre-genocidal.
I write to you because I am afraid.
Yours sincerely,
Sharanya Manivannan
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
June 13 2006
(End of Post)
For updates on this subject from her blog, click HERE
**** The Malaysian too has written on this subject on several occasions, the recent one being Temple Demolitions - An Excellent Example Of Super Efficiency. Also please refer to What Does This Report Tell You About Religious Freedom?
posted by The Malaysian. at 6/23/2006 11:29:00 PM
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