One is repeatedly harangued by words, justice, freedom, human rights, save the constitution. But suddenly the fine words fall silent over one dead Elangesvaran Benedict. Here, below, is to explain the failure of politics over a dead body and what this might mean.
ON the North-South Federal Expressway, you are certain to miss Parit Buntar. On the old federal north-south Route 1, the town is the last out of Perak state and before you enter Nibong Tebal in Penang.
Elangesvaran Benedict rests in the Parit Buntar district hospital dead – by one account, he killed himself – and still stuck between two religions, two courts, and between a family seeking a Hindu burial and two inept governments. The two religions are Hinduism and Islam; and, one court is Syariah or Islamic and the other is civil and secular.
Elangasvaran’s case, excepting for the details – how he supposedly came to convert, whether he was Muslim until death, and the degrees of agony of a wife and family seeking the body – is not new. Before him, there was Moorthy, a decorated soldier who climbed Mt Everest. In between there were numerous other cases that, to all intents and purposes, centred on the fundamental issue: who has right of way? Who has the last say for someone to be Muslim or Hindu or Christian?
Common-sensically, it would be the individual. But not always in Malaysia, and not especially if Islam is at stake.
The court cases over Lina Joy, Subashini, et al, although they vary again in details, were hardly definitive. Moorthy’s case and those of others had paved the way for Elangesvaran in an acute sense because the person at stake is dead. In Lina Joy’s case, she is alive and the State still had the final say, a point already reaffirmed by the highest court of the land. What more then in Elangesvaran when dead?
Now, under the state – the word here to mean a unit of a federalist government – would be the various religious departments. The departments report to the various state governments and are financed by them. In Moorthy, Subashini and Lina Joy – to cite the most controversial – the various Islamic departments were seemingly free to pursue their religious agenda as they pleased. Both they and the state governments were heavily criticised. Critics would not challenge the Constitution for being self-contradictory and, therefore, defective.
The critics came in many shades, but mostly they were on a campaign against the government of the day, at both federal and state levels. At both levels the governments were run by the National Front coalition parties of prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. Among the critics too were numerous bloggers, pining over human rights violations and loss of religious freedom and unconstitutionality, things that parallel the opposition politicians making the same criticisms.
Today and after March general elections Penang and Perak are run and governed by the same group of critics – in particular, the opposition politicians from the Democratic Action Party (DAP). Penang is especially noteworthy because the DAP has swept the state and Elangesvaran converted in Penang. Hence, the demand to bury the man came from the Penang Islamic department while in Parit Buntar, it is the hospital authorities that have refused to let go the body.
Here then is the farce. While families and the state fight over dead bodies and individual beliefs – expending enormous amounts of money and emotional energy at the same time – opposition campaigns over the fight were given an ethical flavour. Let the people go. Free the people. These were the implications. The critics and the opposition especially made such conversion/Islamic issues into a political issue by sidetracking the underlying problem in the constitutionality. And, of course, the courts exploited the problem to the hilt.
The politics was especially virulent because the causes in such cases were traced back to the government, especially to the state that had legal, financial and authorial jurisdiction over the Islamic departments. If the state had stayed its hands, there would be no court fights. In other words, if the religious departments were to just live and let live, everybody might just be better off. After all, what’s a dead body worth or the lives of a handful who wanted to visit another god?
But now that the state governments – Penang and Perak – are under the opposition, one finds silence all round. It is not difficult to guess why, for a number of reasons, the two governments are inept in dealing with the body of Elangesvaran. Still, the ultimate effect remains unchanged. Earlier, in this site, the question was asked if the DAP will pass the dead man’s test. The answer is this, the DAP failed. They had implied promises to sort out matters, they got voted in and they failed. What then is the difference between a state run by the Pakatan Rakyat, to which the DAP has the largest share in each of the two governments, and the National Front?
There’s worse. The DAP’s silence extends to their cohorts in their political blogs, in particular Malaysia Today, People’s Parliament, Elizabeth Wong, Susan Loone – the list is long, very long, and a few of whom are now in positions of relative power.
Silence in the DAP blogs: Lim Kit Siang, Jeff Ooi, M Kulasegaran, Fong Po Kuan, Chow Kon Yeow. All five serve Penang and Perak states and were elected there. No time for a dead man? Busy over Bala?
Extracts from a newspaper report, dated Jul 5, 2008:
GEORGE TOWN: A dispute over the right to claim the body of a man between the religious authorities and the deceased’s family has taken on a new twist.
The matter was supposed to be decided at the High Court here yesterday afternoon, but the religious authorities jumped the gun and obtained a declaration from the Parit Buntar Syariah Court in the morning.The Syariah court declared that the deceased, Elangesvaran Benedict, was a Muslim.
The matter was decided by the court despite the fact that Elangesvaran’s wife, who had been named as a respondent in the case, was not present in the Syariah court. This raised the wrath of Elangesvaran’s family who had gathered at the High Court here.
Karpal Singh and R.S.N. Rayer, who represented Elangesvaran’s family, expressed outrage over the underhanded manner the case had been handled. They raised the matter with High Court judge Datuk Balia Yusuf Wahi when the case was heard in his chambers.
“We made it clear that it is not proper for them (the religious authorities) to have gone to the Syariah Court in the morning, knowing very well that this matter is going to be heard at the High Court in the afternoon,” said Karpal.
More details on Elangesvaran and precedent cases here.
