– Dr. S. Ramakrishnan (Former Senator), November7, 2017.

As expected, Indian leaders in the BN who are beholden to Prime Minister are predicting that the Indian community will support UMNO-BN in the coming GE14.  Prime Minister Najib too praised the Indian community for its contribution to the country.

In 2013, the Prime Minister promised to raise the Indian equity to 3% but it still remains the same 1.3% and it has been so for the last 60 years. Indian employment in government services has been reduced drastically over the past 50 years to 4.1%, including Tamil school teachers. The Malaysian Indian Blueprint (page 126) points out that only 1.7% of Indian applicants succeeded in becoming civil servants. 11% of youth held in prison are Indians. 70% of gang members are Indians. Only 54% of Indian students passed the UPSR examination while the national average is 66% and only 44% of Indian students passed SPM examination while the national average is 55%.

In spite of the Indian contribution to the country as attributed by the Prime Minister, their socio economic progress is pitiable. A deeper look at the overtures of the Prime Minister to the Indian community only shows empty promises with nothing in terms of rights as Malaysian citizens. It is all handouts, promises and hopes of betterment on condition that the Indian community supports BN.

In the 60 years after independence, Malaysian Indians were nudged out of government policies. Systematically Indians were removed from various departments, education and hospital services by the racist UMNO. Even for allocations to Tamil schools, the prime minister’s goodwill is needed. Such is the predicament of Malaysian Indians. All these took place while MIC and the other Indian based parties were part of the BN coalition.

While the Indian community is being systematically sidelined and marginalized, these Indian parties in the BN keep singing praises of the Prime Minister and UMNO leaders. Now they are blaming Dr Mahathir for not helping the Indians. But when he was in power, MIC leaders said he was the best Prime Minister for the Indian community.

Such is the hypocrisy and self-centeredness of the MIC and BN Indian parties. Even unskilled foreigners who come to work are turning petty businessmen but for the Indians even this is an impossible dream!

The UMNO government conveniently passed all Indian matters to the MIC and not to the relevant ministries. Matters of education, employment, loans for education or even businesses for Indian community were passed on to MIC and are not handled by the government.

The MIC became the middleman between the Indian community and the government. The UMNO-BN government just gave pittance to the MIC and left the community in the lurch to fend for itself. UMNO has surely and slowly denied many rights to non-Malays and non-Muslims despite the support of all these Indian parties in BN. UMNO still uses race and religion to divide and rule. Racial discrimination is still part and parcel of the official policy of UMNO-BN.

A country that discriminates its own citizens can never progress. Racial and religious discrimination only encourages nepotism, inefficiency, incompetence and corruption. Malaysia’s own history is testimony to this fact. It’s time to change our destiny which is in our hand.