‘Indians, take a bold step’

WargaAman is calling on Indian voters to turn their backs on BN and vote for change instead.

PETALING JAYA: Casting their ballots for Barisan Nasional over the decades is the root cause of all the Indian community’s woes.

And WargaAman, which made this allegation, is calling on the Indians to take a bold step and vote for change this time around

The NGO’s secretary-general S Barathidasan said the time has come to shift from racial politics to non-racial politics.

“The nation must prosper as one nation, one country not Umno for Malays, MCA for Chinese and MIC for Indians and so forth. Indians must take a bold step in order to break the status quo…

“Indians must understand that what we need today is a system, a system that can guarantee that our lives and the lives of our future generation are taken care of,” he added.

Barathidasan said while leaders come and go, there is however a need to put in a place a proper, effective, fair and trustworthy system of governance, which will ensure that all Malaysians will be able to live a decent life.

“Today we must beg the government for assistance, be it children’s education scholarship, business loans, job opportunities, opportunities for government contracts etc. Why are we facing this situation after almost 56 years of independence?” he asked.

Barathidasan claimed that BN has taken the people’s support for granted and became too comfortable, and during this period, both cronyism and nepotism thrived.

“Malaysia is rich with an abundance of natural resources and commodities such as oil and gas. The national income and the wealth of the nation can actually make all Malaysians live a decent life.

“But due to BN, whose intentions sound nice and good in policy but not in implementation, the rakyat have become frustrated and want change.

“So let us make a significant change by voting Pakatan Rakyat to form the next federal government and with God’s grace, pave the way for [opposition supremo] Anwar Ibrahim to become the seventh prime minister of Malaysia,” he said.

MIC has failed

Barathidasan said that the Indian community has been neglected and marginalised since independence.

“What is more dreadful is that the sole political representative of the community [MIC] and its leader of 31 years [S Samy Vellu] during this period did not make any serious, far-sighted, effective, trustworthy measures even as the party stands as No 3 in line within the BN coalition.

“On the contrary, scandals, power tussles and many other negative elements filled the Malaysian Indian political leadership during the nation’s golden economic era. It will be apt to say that this was the dark age of Malaysian Indians,” he added.

Barathidasan pointed out while other parties of the same era and even those that came after MIC have new and impressive buildings, the MIC headquarters remains in the same place.

“This is a disgrace to the community, especially since when the top leader of the party held the Works Ministry portfolio for a long period,” he said.

On the same note, Barathidasan also dismissed Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s nambikkei or trust slogan.

“The best and only solution in order for the Indian community to stay and remain relevant in the development of nation building is to establish a government that is non-racial in essence but which is fair and provides equal treatment to all Malaysians,” he added.

MIC, which suffered its worst ever electoral setback in the 2008 polls, is still struggling to regain lost ground.

This time around, most of its candidates are locked in multi-cornered fights, with even president G Palanivel being forced to do battle with four others for the Cameron Highlands parliamentary seat.

His deputy Dr S Subramaniam is also in a predicament, having to face PKR’s Chua Jui Meng.

MIC is also concerned that Najib’s decision to field the controversial Perkasa vice-president Zulkifli Noordin as a candidate will lead to a backlash from Indian voters.

Zulkifli had insulted the Hindu religion and labelled Indians and Chinese as illegal immigrants. He has since apologised.