Statelessness among Indians a gov't priority, says Harapan caucus

PKR vice-president Xavier Jeyakumar is confident that the Pakatan Harapan government will strive to resolve citizenship issues affecting the Indian community within its first 100 days in office.

He told a joint press conference with some 20 Harapan Indian lawmakers today that the coalition had promised to do so in its election manifesto.

"Harapan have set a target of 100 days to change the red identification cards (MyKad) to blue identification cards.

"We are now working with the whole group and we hope to get some results within the 100-day mark," he said.

Xavier pointed out that although Harapan made a list of 25 promises to the Indian community, only the citizenship issue has been targeted for implementation within the time frame.

"I don't know how we are going to mark the 100 days, but it is a moving target, and I think by the end of it we will get there,” he said, adding that the group has been engaging with the relevant ministry and government departments.

The group had earlier met to discuss proposals on how it could assist the government to deliver on the 25 promises.

When met later, Klang MP Charles Santiago said he had personally discovered that citizenship issues are not only faced by the Indian community but also Malaysians of all races.

"My office in the last three weeks opened up (registration) counters and we received not only Indians but also Malay, Chinese and others," said Santiago who noted that there were various circumstances which could eventually render a person as being stateless or unable to convert their permanent residence status into a citizenship.

"What is required when it comes to the citizenship issue is for the government to open up some space, follow the law, and accept their applications.

"It is time for Home Minister Muhyiddin Yassin to open up the process and not be a ‘ministry of barriers’ to the people,” he stressed.

Santiago said addressing the issue of citizenship among Indians was key to achieve the government's larger goal of empowering the community as it had denied them of their basic rights to education as well as other opportunities in life.

Former premier Najib Abdul Razak had previously dismissed the then federal opposition claims that there were some 300,000 stateless Indians in the country as of late last year.

At the time, Najib said the government he led was committed to solving the issue of Malaysian Indian citizenship and had set up the Special Implementation Task Force (SITF) under the Special Unit for Socio-Economic Development of the Indian Community (Sedic) which has been implementing the MyDaftar initiative since 2011. - Mkini