Malaysiakini : The last thing the Indian community needs is another political party.
Indian political parties have always existed as proxies for the
establishment anyway.
When independent parties or voices crop up, they are either co-opted
by mainstream parties or vilified, hence an Indian party without
significant demographic support would be just another target for
Umno/Harapan.
This is not to say that certain Indian opposition
politicians have not attempted to address certain issues -
statelessness, for example - and navigate the extremely tricky terrain
of mainstream racial politics, but rather any “issues” that do not have
mainstream appeal with regard to the current Malay-Sino dialectic gets
very little attention.
This is not to say there have not been genuine Indian political operatives - former Penang deputy chief minister P Ramasamy being one of them and former Klang MP Charles Santiago.
Here
is Charles pushing the education hot button - “Such discriminatory
practices that deny children a better future just because of their race
would only end up sowing hate and animosity amongst the different races.
“So,
instead of lamenting about the state of education, (then education
minister) Mohd Radzi (Md Jidin) must instead create a system that’s fair
to all Malaysians irrespective of race or religion.”
Vulnerable targets
PN
really does not care about the Indian community, other than
understanding that their support especially in close races could be
crucial, and they are also the low-hanging fruit for religious
assimilation, especially disenfranchised Indians.
The Department
of Islamic Development Malaysia (Jakim) has programmes targeted at
disenfranchised Indians and has independent Indian preachers who
specifically target vulnerable groups.
This is what young
disenfranchised Indians are dealing with in this country as are Indian
activists who do not get air time on the mainstream, supposedly
independent English press.
In other words, the system is
specifically targeting vulnerable Indians, with the agenda that
assimilation would give them better lives. This is what people are
dealing with. So it is not as if Indians are sitting around throwing
pity parties.
Anecdotally speaking, I know many young Indian NGOs
who want nothing to do with political operatives who come snooping
around attempting to use them as grassroots propagandists.
They
understand the system is against them and that political operatives are
part of the system. Besides, as one of them told me, they are too busy
filling up forms and moving through an overtly racialised bureaucracy to
help their Indian clients canvas for votes.
It is strange,
though. For decades, Anwar Ibrahim for a myriad of reasons enjoyed
extremely healthy support from the Indian community.
But these
days, as prime minister, he and Harapan are slowly but surely losing
support from the community. These days, Anwar seems more interested in bullying a young student who asks him genuine questions about educational opportunities in Malaysia or presiding over a conversion ceremony of a young Indian convert.
This
is exactly the state of play that disenfranchised Indians have always
found themselves in. Indians, however they identify, should strive to be
as independent from the system as humanly possible.
Indians,
especially disenfranchised Indians, do not have the luxury of engaging
in partisanship nor can they indulge in the numerous political outfits
that claim to champion their cause.
There is no true course for
the Indian community. Our fate shall be the same as that of all the
non-Malays but it is just that we will get there sooner.