Kuala Lumpur : In Malaysia, the country’s three Tamil newspapers are known for their diverse political backgrounds and policies, never coming together or joining hands to emphasize a common point of view.
However, over the past few days, not only these three Tamil dailies but also the Tamil internet media have joined together voicing their condemnation against Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, regarding his recent cabinet appointments.
Since independence, this is the first time a cabinet with no Tamil-speaking minister has been formed. Anwar Ibrahim is criticized for achieving this, as highlighted in the Tamil dailies. The Tamils comprise 85% of the Indian community in Malaysia.
In Penang, after the state assembly elections this year, Tamil speaking Deputy Chief Minister for 3 terms, Prof Dr P.Ramasamy was abruptly replaced by Jagdeep Singh Deo, who is from the Sikh community. Although there were another two other Tamil speaking state assemblymen from DAP and another one from PKR they were by-passed.
Another point of contention was that Jagdeep Singh was from late Karpal Singh family. Although Karpal Singh is often revered by the Indian community for his sacrifices and tough stand on issues of rule of law, Malaysian constitution and human rights, there is widespread discontentment that his family members are dominating DAP in the name of his father, when comes to party and government positions.
Newly minted Deputy Chief Minister II, Jagdeep’s two other brothers are also members of Parliament representing DAP. Gobind Singh represents Damansara parliament in Selangor while Ram Karpal Singh represents Bukit Gelugor parliament in Penang. Ram Karpal was a Deputy Minister until recently. He resigned to pave way for his brother Gobind Singh Deo to become the Minister for Digital Ministry.
Criticisms are hurled because of these appointments.
During the recent Cabinet reshuffle by Anwar, A Tamil speaking Minister V.Sivakumar was dropped to pave way Gobind Singh Deo. Another criticism of the Indian community against Anwar is that Tamil speaking Kulasegaran who was appointed as a Minister for Human Resources in 2018 under Tun Mahathir’s cabinet, is now relegated to the post of Deputy Minister. Kulasegaran is also heavily criticised for accepting the position. However he defended himself by saying he is only abiding by the party’s decision.
Thus Anwar Ibrahim’s recent cabinet appointments have become a prominent topic of discussion among Malaysian Indians, with active debates unfolding on various social media platforms.
The debate extends beyond traditional Tamil newspapers, reaching into the realm of Tamil internet media, reflecting concerns within the Indian community about the lack of Tamil-speaking representation and potential issues of nepotism because of domination of certain families when comes to government positions.
