Invalid Islamic conversion of Indira’s three children
MCA/Gerakan should stop politics of opportunism/hypocrisy
Lim Kit Siang
MCA and Gerakan leaders have not learned the message of the March 8 “political tsunami” last year, when both parties were thrashed in the parliamentary and state general elections.
In the past 11 months, MCA and Gerakan have lost even more public confidence, which was why, according to the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz, the Barisan Nasional only secured 11% of the Chinese votes in the recent Bukit Gantang by-election, causing Nazri to remark that Umno must go on its own to regain the support of non-Malay voters and not depend on other Barisan Nasional component parties.
Shared with Gerakan’s by-election efforts and giving MCA the benefit of the doubt as to who wielded greater influence with the Chinese voters in Bukit Gantang, this means that MCA could only influence at most six per cent, and Gerakan five per cent, of the Chinese voters!
Why is this so?
The answer is very simple – the people can see through the continuing hypocrisy and double standards of the MCA and Gerakan leaders.
The latest example of MCA and Gerakan’s continuing unprincipled politics of opportunism and hypocrisy is the recent Cabinet decision on “common religion” for children in controversial unilateral conversion cases – that the civil marriage has to be settled by the civil court and the religion of their children be the common religion at the time their parents were married at civil law.
This Cabinet decision arose from the latest case of controversial unilateral conversion where Ipoh kindergarten teacher Indira Ghandi’s three children Tevi Darsiny 12, Karan Dinish 11 and year-old Prasana Diksa were converted by her husband K. Pathmanathan, now known as Mohd Ridzuan Abdullah, without her consent.
