YOURSAY | 'Indian M’sians must become a single voice or else be sidelined.'
COMMENT | Why Indian Malaysians mourn wrong heroes
Prominority: There is no sincere interest group or strong ethical political party representing Indian Malaysians in the policymaking body.
The community is like a headless chicken.
Until Indian Malaysians organise themselves into a single voice and a cohesive society, policy designers will not be inclusive and will sideline them until the kingdom comes.
Indian Malaysians should organise themselves before finding fault with the ruling government.
Many pundits can list all the problems faced by Indians, but no one gives strategies for elevating the standard of living.
No satisfactory solutions in sight.
Falcon: Call it whatever you like, be it the Madani plan, the 13th Malaysia Plan or another plan.
The fact remains that nothing is going to change for Indian Malaysians from cradle to grave!
Be they life's challenges, systemic prejudices, racism or a place at the bottom of the social and economic barrel and food chain?
More so, when those claiming to represent Indian Malaysians only enrich themselves every which way!
What awaits is natural death, illness or, to some, death in a hail of bullets from assassins?
Former Klang MP Charles Santiago, please do not act naive or self-righteous. You should know, after all, you are a politician yourself!
A Little Bit Crazy: Alamak Charles! Don't depend on the government or anybody else to help the local Indian community.
We Chinese have learned the lesson hard, we help ourselves, we donate, and take our savings to help our community, culture and schools.
Start with small donations, here and there, build your schools, teach your youths, and advise your Indian gangster leaders not to ruin your own people.
Tell them to change their ways. Chinese politicians in small towns used to be gangsters; now, after 60 years, they are almost completely gone.
Don't depend on other races, especially Malay communities, to help you. They have their own problems and no time for you.
YellowFalcon7173: The problem with Indians in this country is that there is no unity amongst them.
The Tamil community here do not want to assimilate with the other Indian communities such as the Telugus, Sindhis, Bengalis and Malayalis. They even chant slogans to that effect.
Even in India, the different communities assimilate and consider themselves Indian first and only then their different communities.
In Malaysia, this division is even reflected in the political parties, which only want to propel Tamils (even then, based on caste).
If you cannot speak Tamil, you do not have a chance in political parties. So the other Indian communities shy away from politics.
Even then, if you see the majority of poor Indians, they are from the Tamil community.
This shows how the political parties have failed their community, whilst the other Indian communities have focused on business and education and established themselves.
Get rid of this ego, get rid of identifying yourselves based on your community and then see how it will propel the Indian community.
A good example is the Chinese. Even though there are Hokkiens, Hakka and so on.
When it comes to business, education and politics, they identify themselves as Chinese.
Spinnot: @YellowFalcon7173 yes, although the Chinese community here have many clan associations based on dialects, regional origins and even surnames, guild associations, state Chinese Chambers of Commerce, state Chinese Assembly Halls, they are all under a national umbrella body, Hua Zong (The Federation of Chinese Associations Malaysia), which is non-partisan.
RR: Each community leader must take care of their own community.
The Chinese are a good example.
Nonetheless, in a multiracial, multireligious nation, there must be a sincere commitment and political will of the government of the day to assimilate all races as Malaysians by giving equal and equitable opportunities to all and ensuring that no section of the people is left behind.
This should be the ideology and policy of a truly democratic government and country.
Chefoo: Which Indian leader genuinely cares for his community?
The Indian community have the highest number of political parties in Malaysia, and every one of these so-called leaders is fighting not to uplift the community but for their power and positions.
Don’t blame the government, but blame yourself for being backwards and harping on the government for handouts.
The Chinese have shown how they can progress without much help from the government.
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