Indians need new political arrangement for progress
The voters in the four estates in Bagan Pinang (Ladang Atherton, Siliau, Ladang Bradwall and Sua Betong) cast their votes overwhelmingly for the Umno candidate. This was one of the reasons for Mohd Isa Samad’s increased majority from 2,333 to 5,435. A swing of 1,500 votes to BN of which at least 400 of these came from these four estates.
Well, today the day after, normalcy will return to these estates and life will go on for all the people there with very little changing after this. The Umno candidate goes away to continue with his usurpation of the national resources while the poor Indians go away to their miserable lives.
The pundits of the country will have us believe it is because of their attitude, their lack of desire, that they find themselves in this state. This is rubbish. This theory takes the focus away from the real reasons for this state of affairs. The ‘mandors’ perpetuate this theory further – just listen to them.
This is no accident of history either. This is occurring by design. It is a devious design. It is an Umno-charted design. It is a design of systematic neglect. A whole ecosystem has been developed to institutionalise this neglect. This system of neglect can be best understood when seen against a contrasting situation - the Felda scheme
What started as a modest programme in 1956 today has become a giant organisation. The schemes it manages covers an area of two million acres and more than 530,000 people. Felda's role is to open up new land areas for agriculture and the relocation of low-income and landless rural inhabitants. It doesn’t say Malay only but the fact is that the Felda programme is almost entirely for the Malays.
We have no problems with the Malay poor being given the opportunities. What we have a problem with is the systematic and wholesale exclusion of Indians from this programme. Nowhere in the federal constitution does it say that programmes like this must exclude Indians. This is the contrasting situation that I want to portray, to show the systematic neglect of the Indian poor.
This is very clearly basic Umno policy. It helps it take care of its core constituency, the rural Malays. It divides the citizenry up. It becomes a platform for patronage that has been developed and honed and fine-tuned over the last 50-plus years, and it provides the necessary opportunities for the accumulation of wealth for the growing appetites of the Umnoputras.
The 2005 results of Felda show a total turnover of RM12 billion. The profits alone are over RM700 million. See the scale of things – enormous.
A recent mainstream media supplement on Felda very clearly shows the many and varied human development programmes initiated and supported by Felda. Just in the last few years, the programs and initiatives launched by Felda included a RM120 million Maktab Rendah Sains Mara in Trolak, Perak. Just for one school, RM120 million.
Compare this with the recent promise of an allocation of RM100 million by the prime minister for 523 Tamil schools in the country, which, anyway, has not yet been disbursed in spite of it being so many months since the announcement.
Felda supports the education of the youth from Felda with Aircraft Maintenance Engineer training programmes with Malaysia Airlines, designer training programmess in the Limkokwing University, nurse training programmes in Nilai College and scholarships for overseas university courses in the UK, Australia and the United States in the fields of biotechnology, actuarial sciences and various engineering programmes.
Felda has now launched a new generation skills training programme and has put out over 24,000 graduates since 2005.They have a budget of RM50 million annually for this programme. Contrast this with all that has not been done for the Indian youth in this category. We can go on and on. The story is long and sad.
If the estate residents like those in the four estates of Bagan Pinang had been part of such programmess, today the situation with them would be very different. Mind you again, this is only one of the hundreds of such programmes that are going on in the country and it is zero for the Indian poor in all of these programmes.
This is really the situation that we must change. The electoral system must be used to bring about changes to the political arrangement in the country so the Indian poor can be systematically brought into the mainstream of national development.
Every programme of the government must include Indians fairly and there must be a designed effort to bring Indians into this mainstream of national development. Because Indian youth today are blocked from such legitimate opportunities, they tend to choose the path of crime in search of upward mobility.
So Umno, the culprit has to go, no doubt at all about that, if this state of affairs is ever to change. They cannot reform themselves to do the things we talk about here. And they will try very hard to hang on, as we can see from all the jostling they have been doing recently. They just have to go.
Even though the Indian votes went to the Umno candidate in the Bagan Pinang by-election, it doesn’t change anything. This is only a by-election. But a message has been delivered.
The message in the vote swing is very clear. If Pakatan does not come out openly and significantly and start addressing Indian poverty and inequality issues in areas where they do have authority, they are not going to get the Indian vote as completely as they did in the last general elections.
MK
20/12/09
The voters in the four estates in Bagan Pinang (Ladang Atherton, Siliau, Ladang Bradwall and Sua Betong) cast their votes overwhelmingly for the Umno candidate. This was one of the reasons for Mohd Isa Samad’s increased majority from 2,333 to 5,435. A swing of 1,500 votes to BN of which at least 400 of these came from these four estates.
Well, today the day after, normalcy will return to these estates and life will go on for all the people there with very little changing after this. The Umno candidate goes away to continue with his usurpation of the national resources while the poor Indians go away to their miserable lives.
The pundits of the country will have us believe it is because of their attitude, their lack of desire, that they find themselves in this state. This is rubbish. This theory takes the focus away from the real reasons for this state of affairs. The ‘mandors’ perpetuate this theory further – just listen to them.
This is no accident of history either. This is occurring by design. It is a devious design. It is an Umno-charted design. It is a design of systematic neglect. A whole ecosystem has been developed to institutionalise this neglect. This system of neglect can be best understood when seen against a contrasting situation - the Felda scheme
What started as a modest programme in 1956 today has become a giant organisation. The schemes it manages covers an area of two million acres and more than 530,000 people. Felda's role is to open up new land areas for agriculture and the relocation of low-income and landless rural inhabitants. It doesn’t say Malay only but the fact is that the Felda programme is almost entirely for the Malays.
We have no problems with the Malay poor being given the opportunities. What we have a problem with is the systematic and wholesale exclusion of Indians from this programme. Nowhere in the federal constitution does it say that programmes like this must exclude Indians. This is the contrasting situation that I want to portray, to show the systematic neglect of the Indian poor.
This is very clearly basic Umno policy. It helps it take care of its core constituency, the rural Malays. It divides the citizenry up. It becomes a platform for patronage that has been developed and honed and fine-tuned over the last 50-plus years, and it provides the necessary opportunities for the accumulation of wealth for the growing appetites of the Umnoputras.
The 2005 results of Felda show a total turnover of RM12 billion. The profits alone are over RM700 million. See the scale of things – enormous.
A recent mainstream media supplement on Felda very clearly shows the many and varied human development programmes initiated and supported by Felda. Just in the last few years, the programs and initiatives launched by Felda included a RM120 million Maktab Rendah Sains Mara in Trolak, Perak. Just for one school, RM120 million.
Compare this with the recent promise of an allocation of RM100 million by the prime minister for 523 Tamil schools in the country, which, anyway, has not yet been disbursed in spite of it being so many months since the announcement.
Felda supports the education of the youth from Felda with Aircraft Maintenance Engineer training programmes with Malaysia Airlines, designer training programmess in the Limkokwing University, nurse training programmes in Nilai College and scholarships for overseas university courses in the UK, Australia and the United States in the fields of biotechnology, actuarial sciences and various engineering programmes.
Felda has now launched a new generation skills training programme and has put out over 24,000 graduates since 2005.They have a budget of RM50 million annually for this programme. Contrast this with all that has not been done for the Indian youth in this category. We can go on and on. The story is long and sad.
If the estate residents like those in the four estates of Bagan Pinang had been part of such programmess, today the situation with them would be very different. Mind you again, this is only one of the hundreds of such programmes that are going on in the country and it is zero for the Indian poor in all of these programmes.
This is really the situation that we must change. The electoral system must be used to bring about changes to the political arrangement in the country so the Indian poor can be systematically brought into the mainstream of national development.
Every programme of the government must include Indians fairly and there must be a designed effort to bring Indians into this mainstream of national development. Because Indian youth today are blocked from such legitimate opportunities, they tend to choose the path of crime in search of upward mobility.
So Umno, the culprit has to go, no doubt at all about that, if this state of affairs is ever to change. They cannot reform themselves to do the things we talk about here. And they will try very hard to hang on, as we can see from all the jostling they have been doing recently. They just have to go.
Even though the Indian votes went to the Umno candidate in the Bagan Pinang by-election, it doesn’t change anything. This is only a by-election. But a message has been delivered.
The message in the vote swing is very clear. If Pakatan does not come out openly and significantly and start addressing Indian poverty and inequality issues in areas where they do have authority, they are not going to get the Indian vote as completely as they did in the last general elections.
MK
20/12/09
1 comment:
BN sodomizes the Indians but PR is held responsible for the well being of the Indians. As for the stupid anehs in Bagan Pinang who voted for UMNO, I say the anehs deserve being oppressed by UMNO. PR have not even been in power for one term and you want the Indians to expect miracles from PR. Go ahead vote BN again and allow UMNO to sodomize your aneh rear for another 50 years. Many Malays in the urban and semi-urban areas realise that for all the imperfections of PR, a strong PR opposition is better than no opposition. Yet here you are telling the anehs to not vote for PR if PR cannot pander to all the wishes of the Indians in PR held states. You conveniently gloss over the deliberate withholding of development funds by the Federal UMNO bastards meant for PR held states. With friends like you the Indians do not need enemies.
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