Commentary Mustafa K. Anuar

FOR the last 13 years, M. Indira Gandhi has been clutching at hope, no matter how brittle it could be, to survive amid the ordeal of “losing” her youngest daughter to ex-husband K. Pathmanathan.

It is, therefore, no wonder that the successful reunion between single mother Loh Siew Hong and her three children recently gave renewed hope for Indira, who has not seen her daughter Prasana Diksa, then a 11-month-old baby, ever since she was abducted by her father.

One could imagine the sight of the Loh family’s happy reunion triggering a measure of deep sadness in Indira, who had been to hell and back, in her relentless pursuit of her beloved daughter.

What is also disturbing for Indira is that Prasana has since been unilaterally converted to Islam by her father Muhammad Ridzuan Abdullah, the name he assumed upon becoming Muslim – a conversion that has become a bone of contention for the divorced couple as well as interested parties.

As most parents would acknowledge, a mother’s love for her children is in her bones and knows no bounds, which explains why Indira had tolerated the run-around given by the authorities even after the court had granted her full custody of Prasana.

To be sure, she had gone in and out of Ipoh High Court to gain her full custody of Prasana as well as quash the unilateral conversion.

Apart from the police, she also had sought the help of Malaysia’s Human Rights Commission in her desperate search for answers to the plight she is in. Suhakam reaffirmed the stand taken by the Federal Court, that the conversion of a minor must require the consent of both parents.

Indira had done almost everything and anything any doting mother would have done in order to reunite with Prasana, who by now is in her teens. In so doing, she must have also ridden an emotional roller coaster along the way.

It must have been very agonising for the 46-year-old mother to have missed the crucial growing up years of Prasana, including the babbling, the running around and the incessant curiosity, which form part of the joy a mother (and also father) cherishes.

The long suffering of the single mother as well as Prasana’s two siblings also largely reflects the kind of society we are. Some of us seem to lack humanity and compassion, as well as a crucial sense of justice.

For one thing, Indira’s prolonged agony suggests that some people in power, particularly women politicians and ministers, do not feel the grinding pain of a mother whose breast-fed baby had been snatched away from her for a very long time.

Hence, for example, the absence of public expression of concern, let alone an offer of assistance, by Women, Family and Community Development Minister Rina Mohd Harun over this matter sends a worrying signal. Surely, the minister should be attentive to the needs and concerns of vulnerable women and families, irrespective of their ethnic, religious and class backgrounds.

It also begs the question whether certain government agencies have lost their moral compass and have committed a dereliction of duty as far as Indira’s case is concerned.

Ridzuan and his ilk may want to be reminded that the Islam one embraces does not take kindly people who knowingly severe precious ties between mother and child. To do that is an unkind cut. 

Maternal love has its moral claim. – February 27, 2022.