KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 23 - It will be one year ago on Tuesday that Hindraf rallied on the streets here, as dissent and anger among the Indian community exploded into a groundswell which helped turn the political tide against the Barisan Nasional.
But some of that anger and frustration is now beginning to be directed at Pakatan Rakyat (PR) state governments, which are being perceived as dragging their feet when it comes to resolving Tamil working-class issues.
This development was readily admitted by participants at a forum in Parliament on Friday that was chaired by Klang MP Charles Santiago and attended by a disparate group of about 30 people.
These included NGO leaders, several DAP MPs and councilors like Ipoh Barat MP M. Kulasegaran, PKR leaders S. Sivarasa and Dr Xavier Jeyakumar, a few lawyers, business people and even individuals who manage orphanages and charities.
Others include Dr Denison Jayasooriya and SUHKAM commissioner Siva Subramaniam.
One participant privately lamented that instead of elected leaders telling what they have done for the Indian community since winning state power on March 8, the forum became a general discussions more on what is the problem and not how to solve it.
Problems being faced by the Tamil working class communities are not new. They range from abject poverty to low skills, urban squalor, low wages and lack of upward mobility and the related ills that include wife beatings to single parenting, crime, alcoholism and drugs.
All these were dredged up during the forum but with little understanding of the core issue - neglect by the state especially by the MIC and the BN government in the last few decades when Tamils in the estates were uprooted and thrown out in an improper, unplanned manner and ended up as urban squatters.
In 1980 81per cent of Tamils lived in estates and rural areas. After 2006 over 80per cent are living in urban centres, according to government statistics.
The forum also dangerously and erroneously slipped into "us" against "them" debate with "us" being Indians and "them" Malays although some participants tried to qualify "them" as "Umno Malays."
Several participants argued that poverty cuts through race and that the way to understand the dilemma is to look at it as a problem of the exploited working class.
They said Indians should discard their "it is our right" approach and work with the poor of other races to right the wrongs and stop the rich from hijacking the national wealth.
However several participants openly took a racial approach and demanded to know what the Pakatan Rakyat had done for the Indians since riding on Indian anger to win.
They argued, erroneously as the case may be, that it was the Indian vote that brought victory for Pakatan Rakyat.
One participant even said that some of the newly elected MPs, unless they resolve the Tamil miseries, would end up as one term MP.
Dr Xavier, the sole Indian exco member in Selangor, was the star attraction and the man in the hot seat.
Dr Xavier cut a cheerless figure as he listened to the arguments, the problems and the accusations pile up.
When he spoke up he shocked the participants with a narration of the "horrendous" task he faced trying to help resolve Tamil woes.
He did give some solutions that are gestating in the pipeline but his narration of his woes was also a litany of all the ills that the Tamils face.
One setback, he said, is that Indians in the state make a beeline to him and not to the other exco-members or government departments, resulting in a situation that constantly overloads him.
Tamil school headmasters, many of whom are MIC leaders, don't attend meetings, nor do they participate in problem solving and work with the state government.
They look to the Education ministry for direction and the ministry does not encourage state-headmaster co-operation.
"The Nov 25 rally unleashed huge expectations and the demands are very high. They expect change in the next 48 hours, it is impossible. We are talking about a 50 year old delivery system that has its own way of doing everything," said Dr Xavier.
Indians too have a strong attachment with temples and temples are mushrooming everywhere in the state without regard to rule or law, he said, adding it is emerging as a huge problem.
The community's main emphasis is on temples and Tamil schools and not breaking free of the cycle of poverty that is gripping them, he said.
"For the first time in history the state has allocated RM4 million to Tamil schools but headmasters refuse to turn up to collect the money," he said adding federal officers had also refused them permission.
Politically he said huge and unregulated demands on the state government and the entrenched, Malay-dominated bureaucracy could alienate Malay voters who had also made March 8 possible.
"We are up against an entrenched, 50 year old system. We cannot change in nine months or even in nine years," he said. "It takes time but I am afraid if we don't satisfy the huge expectations we might end up as one term MPs," Dr Xavier said.
With his eyes on the clock Charles Santiago hurriedly summed up saying "it appears that there have been efforts made to change" under the PKR state governments but that "there is a long way to go."
"It is too short a period to judge," he said.
Baradan Kuppusamy
malaysian insider
23/11/08
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