Minority ethnic Indians are fighting a “losing battle” for equal rights in Malaysia, and their fledgling protest movement against the Muslim-dominated government is likely to die soon, a protest leader said.

Ultimately, only the Government - not the people - can bring about real change by giving concessions to ethnic Indians, said P Waytha Moorthy, chairman of Hindu Rights Action Force group leading the Indian movement.

“We are fighting a losing battle, we know We try our level best but if we don’t succeed, we have to call it a day, isn’t it?” Moorthy said in an interview in the London suburb of Hounslow, where he is living in self-imposed exile.

Ethnic Indians form about 8 percent of Malaysia’s 27 million people, and complain that the government denies them opportunities in jobs, education and business.

The Government denies this and says all Malaysians have benefited from the spectacular progress of the export-driven economy since independence in 1957.

“I don’t understand why the government is not conceding? We are not asking for super rights, we are asking for basic rights.”

Ethnic Indians, most of them descendants of 19th century plantation workers from southern India, also accuse the government of turning a blind eye to the destruction by local civic authorities of Hindu temples.

Malaysia’s majority Malay Muslims, who are 60 percent of the population, control the Government, while the ethnic

Chinese - who are a quarter of the population - dominate business. The Indian frustrations took public shape for the first time when Hindraf organized a massive rally on November 25, 2007 where 30,000 people gathered in defiance of a government ban.

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