Govt and Umno respect the Indian community: Najib

LABIS: Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak said today the government as well as Umno respect the Indian community and want it to progress together with the other ethnic communities in the country.

He said the government, at the same time, needed the support of the people, including the Indian community, to enable it achieve its agenda of a major national transformation.

“Who says we do not respect the Indians? That’s not right. We want the Indians to have rights under the 1Malaysia concept,” he said when addressing the Indian constituents of the Tenang state constituency, here. Some 1,780 voters of the 14,753 electorate in Tenang are Indians.

Najib said the Indians should not be concerned about an SMS purportedly saying that Umno did not respect the community.

“Do not be concerned about the SMS which attempts to incite the Indians by saying that Umno does not respect the Indians. That is not correct. We respect the Indians and want them to progress together with the other communities,” he was quoted by Bernama.

Najib said the government, in striving to advance the Indian community, had set up a committee which had resolved various problems and issues such as those relating to citizenship, identity card and birth certificate as well as construction of temples and Tamil schools.

The Human Resources Ministry had also made available various skills training schemes for the benefit of Indian youths, he said.

“For those in the plantations, I have asked companies like Sime Darby to provide more houses and adequate water supply,” he said.

In the by-election on Jan 30, Najib said, the Indian constituents should support the Barisan Nasional (BN) and not gamble with their future.

“We must give a clear signal for Tenang to emerge as a stronghold of the BN,” he said.

Nomination is on Jan 22 in the by-election necessitated by the death of the assemblyman, Sulaiman Taha of the BN, on Dec 17.

Cabinet to discuss Interlok

Meanwhile, in another development, a meeting was held at the Education Ministry today on the controversial “Interlok” issue, attended by 22 people who included six MIC-appointed representatives.

Deputy Education Minister Dr Mohd Puad Zarkashi chaired the meeting, which lasted for about four hours from 9am.

Mohd Puad told reporters later that the meeting proceeded smoothly in a cordial atmosphere and the participants discussed the matter in an intellectual manner.

“Interlok”, a novel on the integration of the Malays, Chinese and Indians in then pre-independence Malaya written by national laureate Abdullah Hussain, had sparked controversy as it allegedly contained words deemed sensitive to the Indian community.

The book is being used as a required text for Malay Literature in Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) beginning this year.

Mohd Puad said the ministry officials, including Director-General of Education Abdul Ghafar Mahmud, listened to the reasoning of all quarters comprising the representatives of the MIC-appointed panel, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and academicians.

“We proceeded with the dialogue in a cordial and intellectual manner without getting emotional because the ultimate objective as agreed upon was to come up with suitable recommendations and a solution to the issue,” he said.

He said a report on the meeting would be handed over to Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin later today for presentation to the cabinet.

He also said that the contents of the report could not be revealed as yet because only the cabinet could make a decision on the matter.

Mohd Puad said that at the outset of today’s meeting, the ministry officials explained how the novel had been selected as the required text for Malay Literature for Form Five students.

-Bernama