Indian capacity to ‘create trouble’ endless

 

Joe Fernandez

Carpet dealer Deepak Jaikishan has now let on that Rosmah Mansor, the wife of Bugis-origin Prime Minister Mohd Najib Abdul Razak told him once that “90 per cent of all problems in Malaysia are created by ten per cent of the Indian community”. Call it either super efficient utilization of human resources or not enough trouble being created.

The last time we heard any such thing, it was Adolf Hitler blaming the Jews in Nazi Germany, “for creating trouble”, before sending the scapegoats to the gas chambers.

Sabahans must be heaving a sigh of collective relief to learn that the 1.7 million (2005 figures) illegal immigrants in their midst, except for the MyKad-seeking minority from the Indian sub-continent, are a figment of their imagination. Any perception of trouble-making in their nation by other illegal immigrants is mere hallucination.

The statistics cited by Rosmah must be “true” since the Indian Nation in Malaysia has been given the short end of the stick for the last 56 years. Even so, ninety per cent of the Indians in Malaysia, in the reassuring words of the Prime Minister’s wife, are meekly accepting their miserable lot and are not trouble-creators. This is the peaceful crowd led like lambs to slaughter by MIC leaders since 1957.

There are no prizes for guessing who are among the ten per cent of Indians who are considered trouble-creators by Rosmah.

It’s not about crying wolf once too often

It's simple for an Indian to make it to Rosmah's List of Indian Trouble Creators in Malaysia: "just fight back against anyone -- usually not an Indian -- who creates trouble for them".

Rosmah, in taking it personal, no doubt has entered private eye and former Special Branch operative P. Balasubramaniam in her List since he reportedly had the temerity, like murdered pregnant Mongolian wannabe model Altantuya Shaariibuu, to keep asking for monies allegedly promised to him for whatever reason.

In the first place, she probably chose him for whatever task she had in mind in her mistaken belief that “no one will believe an Indian”. It’s not about crying wolf once too often.

Apparently, Indians are not known to be into the Gospel Truth unlike others who are congenitally incapable of telling lies. Then there’s the little matter, as age-old wisdom holds, of sparing the snake momentarily and killing the Indian first. Rosmah herself is Truth Personified. Of course, dead Mongolians tell no lies either.

Now, Deepak has certainly been added as well to Rosmah’s List of Indian trouble- creators in Malaysia and no doubt at the very top just next to Bala, the one “who no one will believe”. The shocking Statutory Declaration I vs the infamous Statutory Declaration II. We can rest our case.

Rosmah’s List, obviously drawn up when she was not too busy pronouncing impotency in cases referred to her for expert medical opinion, might be a little too biased.

Police work really hard to keep the peace in the country

We can concede that Indian gangsters can sometimes be real trouble-creators and especially if they inconveniently make off with a luxury car or two which belong to a Datuk and sell them for a song to the Triads. Then the Police would have to take it really personal and beat the you-know-what out of the first Indian they meet near the scene of the crime in order to get at the truth. We have to hand it to the Police. They work real hard to keep the peace in the country.

Still, the Indian gangsters are not bigger criminals than the white collar types -- not Indians of course -- and the still drinking mother's milk Datuk -- again not Indians --who routinely put their hands in the National Cookie Jar at our expense. Just take a look at the burgeoning National Debt Burden.

Meanwhile, Rosmah’s List of Indian Trouble-Creators reportedly excludes the real trouble-creators like former Prime Minister and Huguan Siou of the Illegal Immigrants Mahathir Mohamad: May 13, the killing of Indians in Kampung Medan by illegal immigrant mercenaries from Madura, doing a number on the Indians, Sabah illegals, electoral rolls, Forex losses, Maminco, mispricing of government contracts, Danaharta, Sodomy I, Sodomy II etc etc

Surely Mahathir, whose family hails from Kerala, southwest India, should top her List. He’s the architect of institutionalized discrimination over 22 years to give the Indians in particular and Malaysians in general, the short-end of the stick.

All Malaysians will be on accord that Mahathir’s capacity to create trouble is infinite.  

In order to lay the groundwork for his trouble-creating activities, Mahathir wrote “The Malay Dilemma”.

The on-going Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) in Sabah has revealed that Mahathir tried to steal the country from the Orang Asal – Dusuns including the Kadazan or urban Dusun and the Muruts – and hand it over to the riff-raff from neighbouring countries and even from as far away as the Indian continent, his grandmotherland, in exchange for votes.

Hindraf Makkal Sakthi, run by P. Waythamoorthy and his elder brother P. Uthayakumar, may be removed from Rosmah’s List soon if they are willing to play ball, whatever it means.

The ad hoc apolitical human rights movement was even outlawed until recently on the grounds that it was functioning like a terrorist organisation and probably was either inspired by or was in cahoots with the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. This romantic notion of terrorism a la the PRDM (Polis Raja Di Malaysia) falls apart once we realise that there’s really no love lost between the Sri Lanka Tamils and the Indian Tamils whether in Sri Lanka or Malaysia. Of course, to the Malaysian Police, a Tamil is a Tamil no matter where he comes from.

Waytha in the habit of playing with fire

Still, it can’t be denied that Uthaya looks like a trouble creator all the same but not everyone will agree that Waytha is in the same boat as his brother in Malaysia.

The younger brother is more noted for creating trouble for the country abroad by drawing unwelcome attention to the country’s shoddy human rights record. This includes the overwhelmingly Malay police asking Indian policemen to join them in beating up Indian youths in custody.

He’s also in the peculiar habit of “playing with fire”, to quote the Home Ministry’s favourite phrase, by pointing out that Article 153 in the Federal Constitution makes no mention of any Special Privileges, is confined to only a reasonable proportion in four areas – civil service, institutions of higher learning, scholarships, business opportunities – and besides covers non-Malays as well.

Uthaya has the annoying habit of demanding to know why local authorities are denying even cendol licences to Indians. Uthaya must be racist if he wants to enjoy cendol sold only by Indians.

He has also been pointing out that 5,000 Indian scrap metal dealers, all unlicensed, are at the mercy of the local authorities who keep fleecing them over their status.

If only Uthaya could accept that it’s not nice to throw sand in the rice-bowl of others. If the scrap metal dealers are all licensed, it would indeed be difficult for those in enforcement at the local authorities to keep their families in the style they have become accustomed to ever since the advent of scrap metal.

In the case of the straight A Indian students denied government scholarships and places in local universities, Uthaya should know that there are “too many Indian lawyers and doctors in the country”. He should accept that there are others who want to be doctors and lawyers as well even if they are not straight A students.

Indians love their MIC leaders too much to let them suffer

It's strange that only ten per cent of the Indians are fighting back and that the rest, including 350,000 stateless people, are living in the hope that “some nice things will happen to them someday with no effort on their part”.

Meanwhile, they want to keep a good distance from the Hindraf trouble creators especially since they love their MIC leaders too much despite these gutless wonders squatting on them all these years. MIC leaders are human beings too and could do with the scraps and crumbs that come their way now and then from the powers-that-be in return for delivering Indian votes en bloc.

It’s no coincidence that the Hindraf brothers are lawyers, noted trouble-creators from among Indians.

In any case, this bad habit among lawyers will soon be a thing of the past since the Certificate in Legal Practice (CLP) has been ingeniously designed to weed out future trouble-creators. The Indian lawyers are kidding themselves if they take others for fools. Any Tom, Dick and Harry can be a lawyer – the thrust of the CLP -- as long as trouble-creators can be weeded out.

Therein the challenge facing the ten per cent of Indians in the country addicted to trouble-making as the nation heads towards the 13th General Election.

Joe Fernandez is a mature law student, among others, who loves to write.  He feels compelled, as a semi-retired journalist, to put pen to paper -- or rather the fingers to the computer keyboard -- whenever something doesn't quite jell with his weltanschauung (worldview). He shuttles between points in the Golden Heart of Borneo formed by the Sabah west coast, Labuan, Brunei, northern Sarawak and the watershed region in Borneo where three nations meet.