Who is the current Indian representative, Tun Dr Mahathir?

Before the election you told the Indians that you will give special attention to the marginalized Indian community but you have proved that you are a common politician. Till today you have not taken any initiative to lift up the Indian community.

Dr. Padma Shanti

In 2007 many Indians came to the street to show their dissatisfaction towards the previous ruling government (Barisan Nasional). Poor and marginalized Indians were sidelined. Around 7 percent of Malaysia’s 26 million people are ethnic Indians, whose forefathers were brought to the South east Asian country as labourers by British colonial rulers.

Indians have been passed over for jobs, education, and business due to an affirmative action policy that favours the majority Malays for 60 over the years. The 95% of the frustrated Indians voted for Pakatan Harapan to have a change of policies and be more liberal in their governance.

The racial divide is the New Economic Policy or NEP which was originally designed to eradicate poverty, irrespective of race, create wealth and ensure economic equality. But, in implementation, Malays benefited over other races – including in preferential employment, education, scholarships, business, access to cheaper housing and assisted savings. Unfortunately, the same discriminatory governance has been carried over by Pakatan Harapan and till today there is no way Indians in Malaysia see any light that racial division will be eradicated.

The previous Hindraf leaders demanded 18 points to the Barisan Nasional government. Those were the primary demands to ease the Malaysian Indian life. Unfortunately everything has been rejected by Barisan Nasional and we do not see any initiative taken by Pakatan leaders.

In the past there were only a few Indian leaders in Parliament but today we have quite a number of Indian MPs in the parliament but who is really representing the marginalized Indians? Although YB. Kulasegaran is a minister too but in his latest speech he said, to address Indian issues, people should go to their MPs. Similarly YB. Waytha said the same. Although he is in charge of MITRA but he is a minister for National Unity. Waytha is not an Indian representative minister. Waytha is busy with Orang Asal Issues but who will solve Indian issues?

Tun, you have been appointed as a PM by Pakatan Harapan for more than a year. Before the election you told the Indians that you will give special attention to the marginalized Indian community but you have proved that you are a common politician. Till today you have not taken any initiative to lift up the Indian community.

Funds were given directly to MITRA.

Pakatan Harapan has been ruling Malaysia for nearly 1.5 years now. Around 100 million were allocated for Malaysian Indians by Tun for 4 years. If 1.5 years is past at least 33 Million should have reached the Indian marginalized community. Have the Pakatan leaders taken any initiative to check if Indians were helped? Why do we need MITRA? Can’t the PM himself empower Indians in the national programs? Why are we ruling this lovely country in a racial way? Why don’t we rule it in a proper way as the first world countries are doing? Are we still planning to continue the racial segregation and discrimination under Pakatan?

YB. Waytha himself signed an MOU with the previous PM, Najib Razak, to uplift the B40 Indian group. Is he materializing the points which he requested with the previous government? It seems no one is serious about the Malaysian Indians. Every politician is using Indians just as a vote factor. Apart from that there is no seriousness in uplifting Indians. There is not even 10 ringgit reaching the marginalized Indian community. The B40 group is just working to earn their money as till today there is no help. So where is the 100 million which was allocated?

Will Pakatan come out and say that they failed during these 1.5 years to uplift the Indian community?

We, Indians are not asking for the Malay’s piece of cake, we are asking the government to empower our community for upliftment. At the end, we don’t need any mandore kind of people to misuse the community. We need a serious answer from Pakatan leaders regardless race and religion. This is not a matter of Race or Religion. It’s a matter of inhumane discrimination which has continued for too long a time. We should stop this now.