What’s fuelling Malaysia’s temple land disputes and does Anwar face ‘no-win scenario’?

Land disputes over “illegal” temples are resurfacing long-standing questions of identity politics, and putting Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim under fire, say analysts.

KUALA LUMPUR: For 40-year-old business owner R Arindran, the Sri Uchimalai Muniswaran Temple was more than a hilltop shrine in Rawang, Selangor. It was the centre of his world.

He does not know when the temple was built or who built it, but he remembers the daily ritual as a schoolboy of balancing on the back of his father’s motorbike as they navigated the red earth path through a sea of green landscape, the only “road” to reach the shrine. 

His late father - a rubber tapper - became a caretaker of the site in 1995. In those days, the temple served the rubber tappers who worked in the estate, seeking guardian deity Lord Muniswarar to protect them from the dangers of the wilderness, which Arindran said included snakes and black leopards.

But today, he is the one looking to try and protect the guardian deity. 

When CNA visited the site on Feb 23, a bright yellow police line had encircled the structure after a self-styled enforcement group allegedly took a backhoe to its walls earlier that month without informing local authorities or engaging temple management.