At last a blueprint for Malaysian Indians

I REFER to your report “MAICCI: Blueprint a positive milestone for Indians” to drive the community’s progress ( The Star, April 23).

I laud the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak for drawing up a national Indian Blueprint to alleviate an estimated 695,030 Malaysian Indians who are in the B40 category or bottom 40% of households with a monthly household income of up to RM3,855. This amount is insufficient to manage a family in an ever-increasing cost of living standard currently.

Indians who form about 2.1 million of the 31.7 million of our nation’s population feel politically, economically and socially backward as the old action plans of the MIC to uplift the community were labelled as “too vague” and the party was more plagued with infighting.

Over 800,000 Indians were, displaced from the estates in the 70s with promises that they would be re-skilled and given outplacement programmes which did not take place. This resulted in a huge increase in urban Indian squatters and a rise in gangsterism - about 71% of our jails are filled with Indian gangsters due to limited job opportunities and poor career counselling.

Now some of the youths have the opportunity under the MySkills Foundation to bring about life-changing improvements through education rather than indulging in gangsterism in schools, as we witnessed recently at a school in Taman Sri Andalas, Klang, with the arrest of 13 students.

Now the Prime Minister has pledged to personally to appoint a director-general to implement, monitor, measure the progress of the comprehensive action plan.

This in-depth research which was shared by leading academics such as Datuk Dr Denison Jayasooria, a principal research fellow at the Institute of Ethnic Studies in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, and Prof Mahendhiran Mair from Monash University Malaysia who provided valid input for linking the Indian Blueprint to the socio-economic development which will impact a million Malaysian Indians as part of the National Transformation 2050 programme.

The National Blueprint for Indians is a framework that will, among others, address the plight of the estimated 300,000 stateless Indians born in this country but do not have valid documents, and be more inclusive of the displaced community especially the 40% who lost their enthusiasm after being treated as “third class” citizens in their homeland.

The credibility of Indian leaders are at stake. If the promises are not kept, they will lose the trust of the people and if this just an election gimmick, it will derail the National Transformation plan also.

C. SATHASIVAM SITHERAVELLU Seremban