TWO days ago, when my granddaughter, Anita Balasubramaniam, came to dinner, she showed me a TikTok video of a young Indian girl at a Penang forum asking Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim a question.

The child in the video tried to place her question in context with an explanation, as was the right thing to do

To my shock and horror, the prime minister cut her short several times and told her to cut to the chase. This was a young student, in a hall full of people, who had the courage to ask a question of the prime minister. What harm would it have caused for the prime minister to reciprocate with courtesy and listen to her ? The forum was titled a dialogue and in my book, dialogues are discussions between people and not a one-way street.

However, my real source of distress was how the prime minister lectured the child during his reply. Instead of answering the question directly and moving on, he gave a political answer that ranged from the existence of an unconstitutional social contract to how his party would lose the election if the quota system were to be abolished. He also told her to learn how to ask a question correctly.

My grandparents moved from Ceylon to Malaya for a better life. I grew up in Petaling Jaya and I am proud to say that my children, their children and I have a good life, relatively speaking. The child on the phone also wants a good life and has the right to ask questions and a right to fair answers. Lecturing her and then assaulting her with politics opened old wounds in me and hurt me to the core. I dare say the poor child is now traumatised and terrified of ever speaking in public again.

At tea yesterday afternoon with my fellow retirees, the child was the hot topic. Someone mentioned an NGO called the Parent Action Group for Education, or PAGE, which promotes meritocracy for scholarships and university admissions. The ladies were aghast that this group is defending the prime minister’s response to the child. I might have only taught science and mathematics in a school in Petaling Jaya, but I know there is no rule of etiquette that prevents dialogue from being prefaced with an explanation. For PAGE to contradict itself on what it has championed smacks of hypocrisy too.

What transpired in Penang and the actions of the prime minister, whom we all thought would make a difference have disheartened, demotivated and demoralised me and the ladies at tea.

Once again we are reminded, by the prime minister, no less, that we are a minority he can ignore and vilify at his whim. We will sit out these state elections to teach the administration that you cannot traumatise a young student so nonchalantly and not pay a price. The price is our vote, or lack of it, and now we ignore you. – August 8, 2023.

* K. Vasantha reads The Malaysian Insight.