Before the break of dawn on Sunday, I received a SMS informing me that thousands of Indians had gathered at the Batu Caves temple in Kuala Lumpur and truckloads of Federal Reserve Unit (FRU) personnel were also there. My blood chilled.

Debates on why I would walk and why I wouldn’t be walking became irrelevant. It was why I HAD to walk.

Around 8am, by the time I had arrived at the heart of all the excitement, scores of Indian men drenched by the water cannons were heading away from Jalan Ampang. It appeared that the authorities had started their peacekeeping duties very early.

People whizzed along on motorcycles, the police presence was overwhelming and the anxious protestors were mostly upbeat.

As I walked along Jalan Kia Peng, I experienced, for the first time, the stinging sensation of tear gas. Prior to this, little did I realise how painful and nauseating it would be. And this was not even a fresh blast. It made me wonder how I would handle being in the thick of things-if that were to happen.

And It happened, not too far away.

The lethal cocktails were fired liberally as people scurried about to escape the choking fumes. Between tears and dribbling saliva, I continued my march through the city’s business heartland.

Like all species subjected to constant persecution, the protesters too soon became immune to the warnings, threats and chemical attacks. They kept their resistance and played the game to the end. There was the Queen’s figurehead on one banner and numerous posters of Mahatma Gandhi – I couldn’t help smiling as I thought of how some of my more posh friends, Indians included, who would sneer at such imbecilic measures.

Leaderless, but not clueless

But back to the Great Indian March! The crowds were obviously leaderless but clueless they were not.

Eavesdropping on sporadic bits of random conversations was the best way to get into the pulse of this long suffering race. Something neither Nat Tan or Haris Ibrahim could have achieved, I assumed. But something both would have been proud to be part of.

When Haris did make an appearance (as a Bar Council observer, not a participant mind you), he was treated like some sort of a hero – going by the way a small crowd thronged towards him and his mates.

The clear embarrassment on the lawyer’s face was evidence of how desperate the crowd was.

I was gratified to learn that the protest was not about the money, the queen or even the world learning about their plight. It was simply an act of breaking the shackles, which was something the average Malaysian who had never experienced life as a marginalised, ignored, economically, educationally and socially deprived Indian, could understand.

Against the backdrop of the gleaming, iconic twin towers, thousands of Indians had gathered, a sight never witnessed by our nation’s capital before. The few women present were mostly middle-aged, dressed not in the least like the swanky Klites.

It was quite painful to stand there and watch these women being hauled up and pushed into police trucks, with a look of fear etched on their faces – not unlike stray dogs rounded-up by local council officers.

If this was the treatment meted out in public imagine what they must have faced back in the police stations.

Police and thief

Rows and rows of FRU personnel, plainclothes police officers, fire engines, dog units, red cross teams, low flying helicopters and thousands of defiant, I must say resilient, protesters played cat and mouse for a good six hours.

Some protestors even resorted to flinging the tear gas canisters back to where they came from, much to the shock of those who had fired them. This brought back childhood memories of playing police and thief, but this time around, it was not clear as to who were the good guys and bad guys.

At about 1.30pm, the march drew to an end with the appearance of P Uthayakumar who delivered a short, but stinging speech, declaring victory for the poor.

The poor, who he said have had their places of worship destroyed by the dozens, whose economic share had dwindled, whose number of vernacular schools had dropped, whose enrollment in institutes of higher learning had reduced and whose participation in the civil service had nosedived.

Now which other race in Malaysia could say the same? I would love to hear the PM’s answer on this, especially after his utterly lame response of ‘there are poor people amongst all races…”.

True, but which other race faces this much of marginalisation and discrimination?
Even more galling is the PM’s pledge to continue working with the MIC .

Are you Mister Prime Minister too stung and blinded by the overwhelming use of tear gas by your loyal faithfuls?

But really, why did I walk on Sunday? To compare events as they happened and as reported by the mainstream Malaysian media was one agenda of course.

I also did not want to be filled with questions and doubts when reading postings on the electronic media, which many members of our ruling elite accuse of being ‘full of lies’.

Nevertheless, the reason closest to my heart was simply to be there in flesh and spirit for my fellow Malaysians.

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GEETHA K is a Kuala Lumpur-based freelance writer.