Why is there even ONE stateless Indian?

YOURSAY 'It's shocking that the BN government, after more than 50 years of independence, is still processing their status.'

PM: Stateless Indians figure wildly exaggerated

Louis: Whether it is 300,000 or 9,000 stateless Indians, it does not matter. What matters most is that these Indians should not be stateless in the first place.

Indians, together with other immigrants, worked hard to build Malaysia, then known as Malaya.

The jobs others would not want to do, like rubber tapping or building roads in the hot sun, the Indians did.

They should have been the first to be given citizenship after independence, and it is shocking the BN government, after more than 50 years, is still processing their status. Shame on BN.

Bumiasli: It is okay to dispute figures given by the opposition. The figures may not be 100 percent accurate. But can Premier Najib Abdul Razak dispute the truth that this is happening in Malaysia?

The truth that Indians are sidelined, tortured in jail, shot dead on the roadside, and not given their rights as citizens of this country?

It's simple, just appoint an officer from the National Registration Department (NRD), have a table specially for the stateless Indians at the NRD office and then count the number of Indians who come there daily.

If the MIC had done its job well, this exercise should have been complete by now.

Najib should not offer MyKads and citizenships to people only when threatened with a defeat in the coming elections. Walk your talk and then let's see.

Dood: The question is; why is there even ONE stateless Indian?

Anonymous #01428088: If the figure 9,000 is correct, why can't the government give them citizenship now? The government had given hundreds of thousands to Indonesians, so why not the Indians?

Dr Suresh Kumar: Najib, mobilise your NRD staff. Establish a special task force to find these people in every nook and corner of the country. Leave no stone unturned.

And when you find them, instruct your BTN-trained officers to make life easy for them to register, (remember the guy with his family who camped outside the Sultan of Perak's campus?).

An Indian Malaysian girl was detained in Brickfields two years ago, and was about to be deported to Sri Lanka, even though she spoke fluent Malay and explained to the officers that she was from Perak, and even told them her mother's address in Perak or maybe Kedah.

However, she was detained and forced to give birth in detention. It took an NGO to get her details from her former school and got her freed; it took only a couple of phone calls. This is the job of the government officers, not NGOs or Hindraf.

Your officers throw heaps of forms at their faces to fill up and then give them the runaround to discourage them from coming forward.

Pemerhati: Most of the stateless Indians, whether their numbers are in their thousands or hundreds of thousands, are the descendants of the Indians who most probably came to Malaysia before the Indian ancestors of former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad and the former minister of women, family and community development, Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, and helped to develop the country by being actively involved in building the roads and working in plantations.

But due to the religious bigotry of Umno, these people have been cruelly marginalised and treated like dirt.

It is noteworthy that the children of the Indians who became constitutional Malays and leaders in Umno, were able to steal millions or even billions of the people's money.

Anonymous_4031: "Honesty and integrity", wrote Madam Chan King Nui, about her father, Chan Wing, in her book ‘From Poor Immigrant to Millionaire' (page 137) .

You may wonder what millionaire Chan Wing has to do with stateless people?

Plenty. My friend, Chan, was his nephew. He was stateless; and thus worked as a clerk/helper at Shaw Commercial Institution, Jalan Tun Perak. He went for an interview to apply for citizenship.

One question in BM was: "What is the word in BM for armpit hair?" He could not answer.

I am sure many citizens would have failed to give a correct answer. Just imagine, his uncle once owned the Istana (called the "Big House" by the author), which faces the Klang River; and yet he could not get his citizenship.

He got fed up and did not bother to apply any more. Poor man, he died stateless.

Yet thousands, if not millions, especially from Indonesia, got blue ICs in Sabah. And this illegal immigration issue is a hot potato every time elections come round.

Starr: Najib, the issue is not about the number of the stateless, but the willingness and sincerity to deal with the issue in fairness and equity.

Leecheowhee: I know of people born and brought up in Malaysia who have been applying for years and years, going in and out of the Immigration and NRD offices time and again at great expense, with no results.

Suddenly, before an election a few of them will be magically given citizenship and these will be headline news in the mass media. They forget to mention that some of them are already in their 60s and some are even on their deathbeds, when it is no longer meaningful.

In sharp contrast, see how fast the Indonesians who just stepped off the boat get their citizenship. With rights to vote, too. So go ahead and vote BN again so that they can promise you the same thing in the next election.

Pemerhati: Najib's criticism of Pakatan regarding Kampong Buah Pala (KBP) is valid. Penang CM Lim Guan Eng handled that problem very badly.

Although the KBP problem was created by the BN crooks and their public servants, Lim when challenged to a debate by former CM Koh Tsu Koon, so that the whole truth on the matter could be revealed, chickened out and refused to reveal all the facts.

This gave rise to the strong suspicion that Lim had something to hide because of some blunder he had made or some other reason.

But BN's wrongdoings such as corruption (e.g. RM400 million kickback for Scorpenes), theft (e.g. the RM250 million cow-and-condo scandal) and criminal actions by its leaders (e.g. Altantuya Shaariibuu's murder and the rape of Indonesian maid) are many times more serious and worse than what Pakatan did in the case of KBP.

That is why when it comes to casting a vote for the next general elections the obvious choice is Pakatan, even though it is not completely free of wrongdoings.

Rajakera: How about all the churches that have been doomed to operate from third floor of shophouses and not on the allocated land when Putrajaya was planned?

Why 50 years later, is Umno-BN being so generous and willing to give citizenship to the disowned Indians?

I am sure most of them have passed away and their stateless offspring are 'earning' their living through thuggery and gangsterism.

More importantly, I would like to call upon everyone who has had their applications to develop their places of worship on their own land and rejected by the BN government, to come forward and let the world know about it.

And why isn't there 30 percent ‘second wave' bumiputeras (Chinese, Indians and ‘lain lain') holding positions in the government?

Multi Racial: Indians have been taken for a ride by MIC just like what MCA did to the Chinese. It is time for the Indians to do the right thing.

Ferdtan: Najib, whether it is 300,000 stateless Indians - the figure projected by the opposition it is not important. We all recognise that it is a big problem and we know the number can run to thousands.

So once you have accepted that fact, why didn't you acknowledge the dilemma of the stateless citizens, especially the Indians?

Then you should follow up with the time-frame of the solution that you may offer (if any). Isn't that what a leader, if sincere enough, should do?

Anwar Ibrahim, your opposing counterpart, has made his firm commitment by giving one month to resolve the problem on taking over Putrajaya.

We have noticed often that you are good at evading controversial issues by making ambiguous platitudes. You conveniently sidetracked the issue by talking about inconsequential matters, like disputing the number of the stateless.

This shows that Umno is not serious in solving one of the core Indian problems. - Malaysiakini