Kuala Lumpur – Former member of Parliament of Teluk Intan (Perak), and DAP stalwart M.Manogaran continue to criticize the Malaysian Indian Blue Print (MIB) as an election gimmick because of its timing. However several quarters have also hit back at Manogaran, saying opposition has failed to address the problems faced by the Indian community and that opposition leaders’ criticisms are baseless and arise out of fear that they might lose precious Indian votes in the forthcoming GE-14 because of the impact MIB has created in Malaysian Indian community.
The following is the press statement released by Manogaran today, in response to criticisms leveled against him on his comments:
“As a member of the opposition I will continue to be critical of the gimmicks by the government which suddenly has become aware of the sorry state of affairs of the Indian community in Malaysia. I reiterate that the Malaysian Indian blueprint 2017 (MIB) is nothing but an election gimmick bearing in mind the timing of the launch of MIB on the eve of the coming General Elections (GE) which must be held by May 2018.
I am not alone in my criticism of the MIB. Non DAP members have also criticised the MIB including Mr.P.Uthayakumar, the real Hindraf leader who has been quiet since his release from prison after serving jail term for 24 months for sedition.
The current member of Parliament for Sungai Siput Dr. Michael Jayakumar (pic) described the MIB as a lot of hot air in his interview with the radio station BFM last week.. Surely MIC cannot attack Mr.P. Uthayakumar and Dr Michael Jayakumar and draw a parallel to the typical opposition members especially from the DAP of being ever critical of the so called government’s efforts to help the Indian community.
I will be the first person to be happy if any effort, be it the government or the opposition, is made to enhance the position of the Indian community in this country, but the effort must be sincere and not time and again to dangle the carrot in front of the beleaguered community just before the GE.
I would like to state here that there were several blueprints, special task forces, special committees, special programmes and so on since the last few decades including the 1974 MIC Blueprint for the Indian community. And now the Prime Minister (PM) is saying that the 1974 blueprint is vague which means the framers of the 1974 blueprint also did a gimmick!
Why we are supporting Mahathir? Because he is not from UMNO now!
It is ironic that the MIC is criticising me for associating with Tun Dr Mahathir whom the MIC claims had neglected the Indian community for 22 years during his premiership. Let me remind MIC that Tun Mahathir did that to the Indians when he was UMNO president and not as a leader of Pakatan Harapan.
In 2008 Tun Mahathir himself declared that the then MIC president Samy Vellu never really fought for the Indians. So who did Samy vellu and MIC fight for?
Of course Tun Mahathir championed Malay rights then as he was the president of UMNO then but what was MIC doing? Samy Vellu always said he and MIC will sink or swim with UMNO and BN. And swim they did pawning Indian rights as well as the community’s pride and dignity along the way and in the process enriching themselves.
Of course we support Tun Mahathir now as he is no more with UMNO. We will support anyone who is no more with or against UMNO/BN. Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim was once with UMNO and we did not support him then but now we support him as he is in Pakatan Harapan.
It is not Tun Mahathir who let down the Indian community but the MIC which always claims to represent the Indian community that has consistently let the community down and betrayed us. This betrayal cannot be forgiven nor forgotten. Generations to come we must keep telling and reminding our children how MIC and BN betrayed the community.
MIC used to sing praises for Tun Mahathir for many years and we remember the huge cake cutting ceremonies MIC used to host for Tun Mahathir’s birthday every year. It is shameful that MIC did so much of boot-licking at the expense of the community’s pride and dignity. It is no wonder that UMNO members look down upon the Indian community. The MIB is yet another condescending act of UMNO on the Indian community.
MIC speaks and defends the PM Najib but our criticism is not just Najib but UMNO,BN and the government. The MIB is many years late. The MIB is a clear acknowledgement that the UMNO led government has failed the Indian community and has yet again come up with another blueprint to hoodwink the community. The simple question is why a blueprint now after 60 years of independence, is it an admission that MIC has failed for the past so many years?
Problems of stateless persons
Take the example of stateless persons. According to the MIB it will take 5 to 10 years to solve this problem. By that time many would have passed away as many are in their twilight years. Thousands of Indians have lost out on being a citizen of this country. They were denied their basic right to vote and were denied other basic rights. You give blue IC to a seventy year old man for what? Another eighty year old lady from Klang laments and hopes that she will be given her blue IC so that she can travel without hindrance to visit her relatives overseas. What about his or her ‘lost years’, where their prime years was lost due to government apathy or neglect.
Even when a person’s constitutional right is denied he can get compensation in the form of damages, for example wrongful arrest and confinement by the police. So what about the constitutional right to citizenship, who is going to compensate these thousands of stateless people? Can MIC or the government compensate all the people given MyKad after many years of waiting who had lost their prime years without the blue IC or MyKad?
MIC is asking Pakatan Harapan to show the number of stateless persons in the states Pakatan is ruling. Citizenship, birth registration and death registrations are under the Federal government ie. the Home Ministry and MIC should know this.
Criticising Blue Print before it takes off
MIC also laments that even before the MIB takes off we have criticised it. However our criticism is justified because we are not convinced of its genuineness simply because the government has failed the community repeatedly and this time is no exception. The community is not prepared to be fooled again except for die hard MIC and BN members. Remember the boy who cried wolf. We also have not forgotten MAIKA holdings where RM100 million of poor Indians money went to total waste. MyNadi came up with a blueprint for Tamil schools and Tamil education a few years ago and we have not heard anything about it after that.
Even if the MIB is not an election gimmick it does not show how the B40 group will benefit from the initiatives. The community is suffering from a dis-proportionally high number of single mothers but there is no mention of this group at all.
The various funds SEED, SEDIC and so on does not trickle down to the B40 group as most of it is sucked up by event organisers, hosts and middlemen. In other words the various programmes only enrich the already well off middle class while the majority of working class and poor Indians are still languishing.
No amount of blueprints, special committees and task forces can solve the Indian problem when UMNO has in the first place has got no inherent respect for the Indian community.
When UMNO continuously supports people like Zakir Naik (and gives him PR in a wink of an eye and now he is applying for citizenship which he will surely get and can MIC stop that?), calls us ‘Pendatangs’ and thinks that we live in this country at the sole pleasure of UMNO, we cannot believe any of their antics whichever leader there is.
In the year 2000 the millennium conference was held at the Istana hotel by some prominent Indians, many who were connected to the MIC and nothing came out of it. Their second meeting was held at Club Med in Kuantan and then ended up at the Selangor club and nothing happened after that.
Blue Print not discussed in Cabinet?
The MIB Blueprint is not strictly a government document as the Cabinet has not discussed and endorsed it. It is a product of one man namely the PM who desperately needs Indian votes for the coming GE. And MIC in their desperate attempt to be relevant grabs this opportunity to cheat the Indians again.
MIC and the PM must understand that we are not against efforts to help the Indian community but you should just do it rather than coming up with another blueprint. The eleven five Malaysian plans, numerous outline perspective plans (OPPs), Wawasan 2020 and with Federal power with you for 60 years and the community is still backward and how do you people in MIC expect us to buy your story again and again?
Indians in Malaysia by and large have simply lost faith in the MIC and the government and that is why they have voted against the BN in 2008 and 2013. MIC could not stop the demolition of the Kg. Jawa temple in 2007 and allowed UMNO have its way and paid heavily in the 2008 GE, thanks to Hindraf.
When we criticise the MIB 2017 we are not criticising for the sake of criticising but are echoing the concerns by a large cross section of the community who simply do not believe the MIC and the government anymore.
What we do in Penang and Selangor?
It is a shame that every time we criticise MIC and the government, MIC will question what we have done in Penang and Selangor. If the people in Penang and Selangor are not happy with Pakatan why is it that Pakatan’s popularity in these two states is still high?
When we criticise the MIB 2017, MIC should come out with their defence of the MIB instead of firing at us blankly. Pakatan Harapan has more Indian MPs in Parliament than BN. MIC has only 4 MPs but Pakatan Harapan has 10 MPs. Our Indian state assemblymen far outnumber MIC’s state assemblymen. Therefore Pakatan has more legitimacy to talk about Indian issues than MIC has.
When opposition Indian MPs and leaders speak out against the government we legitimately represent a far bigger section of the community than what MIC represents. Our share of Indian support stems from the dissatisfaction, marginalisation and oppression of the Indian community.
The MIC and the government should take our criticism in their stride and take it as a challenge and prove us wrong instead of employing cyber troopers to attack us in the hope of neutralising our criticisms.
In conclusion Dr Jayakumar was absolutely right when he said that the MIB is nothing but a lot of Hot Air. There is nothing in the MIB to show how the target group of B40 will benefit directly from the MIB. The MIB like its other predecessors is doomed to be failure as it is not premised on genuine or truthful concern for the Indian community but is more of an election gimmick, something the MIC is so used to doing the community in.
