MGG Pillai Commentary View

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Malaysia apologises to India, but what caused it?

THE ACTING PRIME MINISTER, DATO SERI Abdullah Ahmad Badawi now admits the Royal Malaysian Police is a law unto its own hands. He had no choice. When the police in Kuala Lumpur's Brickfields district, with immigration officials, went on a rampage and detained, ill-treated and harassed 160 Indian IT professionals, it had repercussions beyond Malaysia's borders. All had valid work permits, most worked for Malaysian companies or companies linked to Malaysia's Silicon Valley, the Multimedia Super Corridor. But they were treated like common criminals, and raised Cain in New Delhi.

The RMP insisted it was all above board, refused to accept it could do wrong. But it treated the IT professionals like common criminals, humiliated and mistreated them that many had, on their release, left the country. New Delhi reacted in heat, threatened to suspend Indian purchase of palm oil, cancel the billion ringgit road projects Malaysians companies had been awarded, disallow the Malaysian carrier, MAS, from flying to new destinations inn India, put bilateral discussions on hold. Malaysian cabinet ministers arriving for meetings with their Indian counterparts landed in a storm.

The political fallout was worse. New Delhi insisted UMNO Youth had a decided pro-Pakistan bias, and out to rub India's nose into the ground. It was not helped by the chairman of the National Front (BN) Backbenchers' Club, the association of BN backbenchers, to accuse the opposition DAP of 'supporting' foreigners when an MP raised the matter in Parliament. Worse, when five Pakistanis were amongst those held without valid permits, the police treated them like long lost brothers. The others were handcuffed, humiliated, made to squat and treated like common criminals. When they produced their valid work permits, the police defaced them. The conflicting and contradictory statements of ministers and officials to what happened made it worse.

Horrifying, the immigration officers could not determine if the work permits were valid, and the police thereupon scratched the permit to see if they were legal. I have seen a few passports that were. A coin was used to deface the work permits, and the eyes scratched out. And the immigration officers then said they would have to pay for fresh valid permits. Even the Indian high commissioner, Mrs Veena Sikri, was insulted. Wisma Putra was impotent to do anything about it. New Delhi was incensed. But it was a bungle we have now to expect from the police. If the police and immigration behave as execrably with those with a valid right to stay, is one then surprised how abominably they deal with those without?

Pak Lah could not but eat humple pie. As home minister, he backed the official police line that its actions in Brickfields was above board. Home ministers and the RMP insist only what it says is the truth, all else lies to castigate the police and bring it into disrepute. A Malaysian cannot break through this official view, and unless he has the patience and stamina to bring the police to account, he is left to smoulder in private. But police over-reaction, especially against 'enemies of the state', anyone who opposes the government or the ruling National Front (BN), is why it conducts itself as a bull in a china shop. It creates mayhem and anger. If the RMP lost its compact with the people, it was in its highhandedness during the Reformasi demonstrations after the then deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, was arrested and beaten up by no less than the Inspector-General of Police.

But with bilateral ties at stake, and Malaysia standing to lose billions of ringgit in trade and business, Pak Lah had no choice. When police and immigration officers swooped into the Palm Court condominium in Brickfields and harassed scores of Indian IT professionals on Sunday, 09 March 2003, But in Malaysia it raises dangerous propositions. Did the Brickfields Police and federal Immigration went on this caper on its own bat, as often happens when control slips from the government? Or to show Malaysians and the world Pak Lah is unfit to be succeed Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed as prime minister and UMNO president? Was this caper part of a larger conspiracy in which high officials in the government and the cabinet were involved? Or a combination of all these and more?

In the circumstances, Pak Lah took the high ground, and comes out with his honour intact. He got Malaysia out of a sticky wicket. But he would face other pressures like these before he becomes prime minister. But would he act against the Brickfields Police and others who gave Malaysia a black eye? Could he? Brickfields Police has not apologised to the IT professionals they mistreated. The IT professionals, mostly from the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, as a rule, look down upon Malaysians and others, and the extreme treatment they got had something to do with their attitude. That is no excuse to what happened. But it takes two hands to clap.

Why is not far to seek. Malaysian foreign policy now is only to ensure how great a statesman the Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir is. Wisma Putra is a pale shadow of its past. When responsibility for bilateral ties shifts from Wisma Putra to, in the case of India, to the works minister and MIC president, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu, the needless confrontation between Kuala Lumpur and New Delhi was one waiting to happen. Curiously, he was no where around when this crisis unfolded. No doubt he would soon come and inform Malaysia his behind-the-scenes role in bring bilateral ties on tack. When Malaysia insists on shifting goal posts, at its option, what happened must happen.

Add to this the unjustified belief that it can do as it likes, in what is characterised as 'Malaysia Boleh!' (Malaysia Can!), which is then seized upon to highlight any deviation from the norm. Every minor advantage was praised to the skies as earth-shattering, and in this hype, Malaysia leaped into the unknown, destroyed long-established norms and codes of conduct and defied the laws of economics, fiscal probity and ignoring that what goes up must come down. Now Malaysia must pay the price. And it cannot understand why. Shades of Malaysia Boleh! again!

The Mahathir years destroyed the Malaysia before he came into office 22 years ago. His mistake was not to have a system in place which replaced what he destroyed. All he had was good intentions and a mishmash of half-baked ideas and plans, which he implemented as the mood fits him. He superimposed unworkable changes to overload a system that had stood the test of four decades. He brought near ruin instead. And revealed a rogue state, in which sections of the government took the law into their own hands, to reveal a society in ruins. It is how many an African and third world country is brought to its knees by its leaders. If Malaysia is not careful, that is what she can look forward to. As he prepares to depart, the seeds he planted when as Prime Minister now comes to haunt him and his successors. In all this, the Brickfields Police and federal Immigration is but one strand in that. By no means, the only one.

[I wrote this for my column in Harakah in its next issue, 01-15 April 2003]

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my