Dr. Jeffry Kitingan briefed that Orang Asli, Kadazan Iban and Malay poor are better off than the Indian poor – womb to tomb exclusion of IndiansDuring the three hour meeting at the HRP Headquarters yesterday P. Uthayakumar had briefed the Common Interest Group, Malaysia (CIGMA) that the exclusion of the Indian poor from the national mainstream development of Malaysia by the UMNO controlled Malaysian government is literally from womb to tomb, beginning from an estimated 150,000 even fifth and sixth generation Malaysian born Indian children maliciously and deliberately being denied even their birth certificates.
They are also excluded from skills training colleges, elite MRSM, residential schools, universities, scholarships, to which Dr. Kitingan conceded that the East Malaysian natives do not really have a problem. Also civil service, GLCs’ and corporate sector especially senior positions, licences, permits, business opportunities, tenders and projects are almost wholly excluded to the Indians.
Uthayakumar also highlighted the fact that the poor Orang Asli, Iban, Kadazan and Malays are richer than the Indian poor as they have their ancestral land and villages. The Malays have their kampongs to fall back on. The east Malaysian natives have their ancestral lands to fall back on. The Chinese have their new villages to fall back on in difficult times. But the Indians do no have the luxury of these ancestral land or villages which acts as their social safety net.
The feeling of, at worst, having a hut over your head but in your own ancestral land is in itself and in effect adds on to the quality of life of these Orang Asli, Kadazan and Iban communities. Further these communities can open up as much unused land around their ancestral land and kampongs as they want for agricultural purposes with very little hindrance, which options are not at all available to the Indian poor. Within weeks, if not within days, their farm land buildings and cultivation activities would be forcibly stopped and their farm houses demolished by the local authorities or enforcement agencies.
The Indian poor have a fixed monthly cost of at least RM 400 or so being the rental they have to pay for their homes during the worst of times. The poor Indians do not have a village to go back to or fall back on as a social safety net. Whereas the poor Chinese have their Chinese New Villages to fall back on when in dire straits and make do until they recover.
The picture in today’s The Sun 15/4/2010 of a picturesque orang asli village in Hulu Selangor is testimony (see pictures below). These orang asli and East Malaysian poor like the Indian poor may be uneducated but they have the land base safety net and do not have the RM 400 per month commitment for the monthly rental.
The orang asli poor on top of having this non monthly payment commitment land and village safety net also have the traditional family and community support (See Sinarharian 16/4/10 at page N12 and BH 16/4/2010 at page 24 below). Which the poor Indians have lost or longer have. Almost all their relatives are more or less in the same predicament and are in no position to help their friends or relatives in despair. The orang asli have their Jabatan orang asli to watch over them the Malays have the Jabatan Zakat, Jakim, Welfare Departments, the Sabah and Sarawak natives have 25 + 31 MPs to speak up for them, the Chinese poor the business and corporate community. The Indians have no one except for the wayang kulit showed by MIC, PKR, DAP and PAS Indian mandores.
This tip of the iceberg example is as per The Sun on 13/4/2010 at page [ ], which reported that an Indian poor single parent with two children could not even afford to pay RM 124 per month rental and soon they would become homeless.
To all other poor in Malaysia including the Kadazan, Iban, Malay, Orang asli and even the Chinese poor the issue of slipping down the poverty line to being reduced to become homeless does not arise because they all have their kampongs, ancestral land, or the Chinese new villages.
So what options these poor Indians have? Suicide option? The suicide rate among the Indians is 600% higher than in the Malay community, and the single parent rate is 500% higher than in the Chinese community, all because of poverty, poverty related lack of opportunities.
But in our cities, almost all the “multi-racial” minded english educated elite Indians, let alone the Malays and Chinese or the UMNO led Malaysian government, refuse to acknowledge this matter, what more address at least this critical Indian problem. The middle class educated elite Indians are embarrassed that that their poorer cousins are discriminated and marginalised by the other races, who are their own working colleagues, or part of the system! They refuse to see the problem. Like the mamaks, they are embarrassed to be Indians and be associated with the problem of the community.
In a grotesque form of the Stockholm Syndrome, they praise and glorify the ones who demean and marginalise their very own poorer cousins, all in the name of a twisted and farcical understanding of multi-racialism and free competition.
Instead the blame their own poor cousins, advising that they should ‘work hard’, stop consuming alcohol, not to watch astro movies, etc. Such pedestrian, frivolous and pedantic advice shows their intellectual and moral bankruptcy, underlining that they do not understand the problem, that Indians do not have the opportunity to ‘work hard’ and succeed as they are denied land allocation, denied places in universities, denied scholarships, denied prospective employment and career advancement, denied loans, denied licenses and permits, denied the same credit terms in business as given to other races, denied and denied and denied!
Dr. Jeffry Kitingan raised the issue of HRP supporting Dato Zaid Ibrahim in the Hulu Selangor by elections. P. Uthayakumar had again reiterated HRP’s earlier position that the party will remain neutral unless the 98 Tamil schools in Selangor are all alienated ten acres of land each, and this is to be in black and white from the Selangor Menteri Besar.
P. Uthayakumar
