'Consider views by Indian panelists on 'Interlok' issue'

Jaishree Balasubramanian
Kuala Lumpur, Mar 20 (PTI) The Malaysian Indian Congress,
has said it wants the government to take the views of the
three Indian representatives on a panel looking into a
controversial book, which is soon going to be part of the high
school curriculum, seriously.
"Whatever they have put forward are the feelings of the
Indian community," MIC president G Palanivel said referring to
the various amendments the ethnic Indian community wants
before a Malay language novel "Interlok" can be made part of
the high school curriculum.
A section of ethnic Indians in the country feel the book
has words which are offensive and has factual errors on
geographical, sociological and historical issues.
"It has to be given serious consideration," he said in a
statement.
Palanivel, president of the country's largest ethnic
Indian party had met two of the representatives Uthaya Sankar
and G Krishnabahawan along with Prime Minister Najib Tun
Razak's special officer P Ravin at the MIC headquarters
yesterday.
He said the three were willing to work together to
resolve the controversy over the novel, written by national
laureate Abdullah Hussain.
"I have been briefed on what had transpired at the
emergency meeting on Wednesday," he said, adding that MIC had
also received a report from them.
The Indian representatives had walked out of the
independent panel looking into the controversial novel on
Wednesday over disagreements on amendments to the book.
They claim that the other panellists only agreed to the
word "pariah" being removed.
When contacted, Uthaya said the three were willing to
have a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin,
who is also the Education Minister, to put forward their
reasons for wanting certain amendments to the book, which has
been set as a literature text for secondary school students.
"Palanivel said that he would try and arrange for the
meeting with Muhyiddin," he said, adding that they were not
rejoining the panel.
Uthaya in his blog, reported that the three still
maintained the stand taken at the meeting, that the amendments
must be made to the book, as agreed to at a March 4 meeting.
"If the amendments are not done as proposed, the Interlok
book must be withdrawn," he said.
The National Interlok Action Team (Niat) said it will
launch a nationwide campaign today to seek the withdrawal of
the controversial novel.
Its spokesman Arun Dorasamy said 220 NGOs would be
organising nationwide awareness prayers, seminars, forums,
meetings and hunger strikes on the day.
"The objective is to create awareness among concerned
Malaysians and seek the Government's intervention to drop the
novel from the school syllabus," he said.