BANGKOK: A prominent member of Thailand’s Indian community is fighting efforts to force him out the country for joining anti-government protests and appealed yesterday to King Bhumibol Adulyadej for help in finding justice.
Publishing company owner Satish Sehgal was born in what is now Pakistan in 1943 and came to Thailand as a five-year-old boy. Thailand has been his home ever since but he has never taken citizenship.
“I am not going anywhere, this is my home,” Sehgal said in an interview in an upmarket Bangkok hotel coffee shop. “India is my country of birth but this is my home.”
Sehgal is an ardent royalist, and says it was his appreciation for what the king has done for the Thai people, and for Thailand’s minorities, that drew him into the protests aimed at ousting Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
His case touches on some of the underlying and largely unspoken tensions in Thai politics. A slim man with grey hair and three telephones buzzing and beeping on a table in front of him, Sehgal denies any political affiliation and defends his participation in the protests and his speeches at rallies extolling the king.
“Whatever I have done is because I feel I owe the Thai people and His Majesty the King,” Sehgal said, emotion briefly choking his words.
Sehgal said he told rallies that everyone loves the king: ethnic Chinese, ethnic Indian and “farang,” or Westerners. “But there are some Thais, I don’t know what they think,” he said, citing his speech.
Sehgal knows Thaksin, andsays he acted as an adviser for members of Thaksin’s government and travelled with him twice on delegations to India.
Chalerm Yoobumrung, the minister overseeing a state of emergency, said that Sehgal had led protesters to government buildings that resulted in damage. Reuters
