Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia's disgruntled ethnic Indian community marked one of Southeast Asia's biggest Hindu festivals in muted fashion on Wednesday, with members divided over a national racial discrimination row.
The Thaipusam festival is normally a boisterous, crowded affair, but attendance this year was markedly down at the main venue, the Batu Caves temple complex atop a steep hill on the edge of the capital.
Members of the Hindu community are divided over the temple management's behaviour last year during violent protests involving thousands of ethnic Indians demonstrating against racial discrimination.
As expectations grow that the government will call early elections by March, the protests and temple row have the potential to divide Indian voters, who, despite making up just 7 per cent of Malaysia's 26 million population, can sometimes influence marginal constituencies or policy.
Rowdy protests by more than 10,000 members of the community last year were stopped only by police using water cannon, batons and tear gas. Many ethnic Indians were outraged when Hindu leaders at the Batu Caves complex handed to authorities dozens of protesters who had sought shelter there.
Although no specific group demanded a boycott, domestic media have said a campaign waged by telephone text messages and Internet blogs fuelled the antagonistic sentiment.
"I have seen a smaller number of people this year," said S Manikavasagam, a spokesman for the Hindu Rights Action Force that organised November's protest, but which denied having called for a boycott. "The people have shown their protest against the government and the temple management by staying away."
A spokesman for Works Minister Samy Vellu, the senior Indian leader in Malaysia's ruling coalition, dismissed claims of fewer visitors, saying that temple officials expect one million Hindus to have visited the shrine by the end of Wednesday. "Today is a public holiday for the first time, so it is less congested with traffic than usual," said E Sivabalan.
"(Also) The entire area has been redesigned to provide additional space for people to move about, so it is not as cramped as usual." Visitors said there were fewer vehicles in the usually crowded streets near the temple, while officials seeking donations received just a sprinkling of one-ringgit notes, and shopkeepers said they had done less business than usual.
Around 7 per cent of Malaysia's 26 million people are ethnic Indians whose forefathers were brought to the Southeast Asian country as labourers by British colonial rulers.
Many complain of racial discrimination and some accuse the government of trying to wipe out their culture by imposing Islamic laws and targeting Hindu temples. For some, the row was not enough to stop their devotions.
"The god doesn't care which temple you go to, but I came here because I don't want to break the family custom of many years," said Kartik Manimaran, a slim 26-year-old garbed in yellow, who carried a semi-circular wooden shrine up 272 steep stairs.
"But many of my friends have decided to go to other temples because they felt the temple management acted unfairly."
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