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Yes, Hindraf Sold Out ... But to the Indian Poor!

Posted: 23 Apr 2013 12:27 PM PDT

All these programs are pointed and targeted to cater to the Malaysian Indian poor and greatly contrasts trickledown economics methodology.

Paraman Subramaniam

April 18th 2013 will go down in the books of the marginalized Indians as a truly historic moment where the PM of Malaysia humbly apologized to the Indian poor for past lapses and the BN coalition signed on the dotted lines to correct the effects of those lapses.

This has set the stage for a new era for the Indian poor. It was a culmination of their struggle that began with the November 25th 2007 uprising that brought almost 100,000 Indians to the street and made HINDRAF a household name.

BN is waking up to the fact that there had occurred a transition of the vast majority of Malaysian Indians from plantation estates to towns and cities over a period lasting 4 decades as a result of the Government's development policies and that this had not been directly and adequately addressed by other necessary Government policies to avoid the negative socio-economic effects on them.

BN now desires to correct the chronic socio-economic problems that have resulted, in a comprehensive and permanent manner, recognizing that the program of intervention should be based on a focused and targeted approach with commensurate commitment of Government resources. They have decided the best route to that was with a partnership with Hindraf.

The MOU signing by the BN Secretary General, on behalf of the BN coalition with HINDRAF leadership was the result of this commitment. No Malaysian Government, caretaker or not, has ever signed anything like this in full public view.

The MOU document lays out the specific Government interventions necessary for the improvement of the socio-economic status of the Malaysian poor over the period of the next 5 years of the next Parliament from 2013 to 2018.

These 4 major areas are:

1. Uplifting Displaced Estate Workers (DEW), synonymous with low income Indian households.

2. Addressing Statelessness among the Malaysian Indian poor.

3. Increasing Educational Opportunities from Pre-school to University.

4. Increasing Employment and Business Opportunities.

Programs to uplift DEW:

a) Double the mean monthly family income of all Malaysian Indian families earning less than RM 3000 by 2020.

b) Providing 100,000 affordable houses for 100,000 households with taking into account the socio-cultural needs like places of worship, burial grounds, community halls and playgrounds shall also be provided as part of this infrastructure.

c) Programs to retrain and re-skill DEW youth like providing easy and attractive placements with pre-requisite preparations and appropriate financial support to draw these youth into 176 GIATMARA Centres and 78 Community Colleges as well as other skill training institutes across the country. Thereafter TEKUN program itself can be extended to provide to support newly retrained and re-skilled Malaysian entrepreneurs. A budget of RM 100 million shall be allocated over a 5 year period in aiding these measures.

d) An official Government recognized Council of Hinduism and Hindu Temples comprising religious elders shall be set up to address challenges related to DEW places of worship and burial grounds and to permanently eliminate the problem of land for temples and burial grounds by 2018.

Statelessness among the Malaysian Indian poor shall be addressed by the following programs:

i) Identify all Stateless ethnic Indians as ethnic Indians without Birth Certificates and Blue Identification cards and those with Red Identity Cards.

ii) Develop Common Sense and transparent proposals to address the problems of Malaysian Indians who claim to have been born and raised in Malaysia but who do not have any documentary evidence whatsoever of their birth and residency.

iii) Develop policies including those that may allow defined local persons of repute who are given official standing to issue Statutory Declarations conveying their opinion that a said stateless person was indeed born and raised in their locality in Malaysia.

iv) Develop streamlined and transparent policies to resolve the large problem of all persons who only hold Red Identification Cards.

v) Differentiate a system that can differentiate legitimate from non legitimate citizenship applications from ethnic Indians in Malaysia.

vi) Ensure that the common sense and transparent proposals developed should strictly adhere to the provisions of the Federal Constitution.

Programs to increase educational opportunities from pre-school to University:

a) Allocate adequate funding to relocate, upgrade and build new facilities towards ensuring that all Tamil schools are brought up to the standard of National Schools by 2020.

b) Convert all Tamil Schools, that are willing, to be Fully-Aided Government Schools.

c) Establish specific programs of improvement for the performance of SJK (T) s.

d) Reserve 7.5% of places in specific courses for IPTA and other Public Tertiary Institutions and to achieve 7.5% overall admissions in 5 years.

e) Reserve 10% places in Government Polytechnics for Malaysian Indian students.

f) Reserve 7.5% places in existing Residential Schools as well as in Government Matriculation and Skills Training Institutes.

g) Setup 9 new mixed residential schools with a minimum Malaysian Indian enrolment of 20%.

h) Reserve 7.5% of JPA as well as other Federal & State Scholarships for Malaysian Indian students.

i) Setup a new scholarship fund amounting to RM 25million annually to fund tertiary studies of Malaysian Indians based on academic excellence and socio-economic need.

Programs to increase employment and business opportunities:

1) Allocate RM 500 million towards achieving a Malaysian Indian equity ownership target of 3%.

2) Develop quotas for Government funded small business loans and micro-credit allocations of up to 7.5%.

3) Develop quotas for Malaysian Indians in terms of Government licenses and permits of up to 7.5%.

4) Develop quotas for Malaysian Indians in terms of Government controlled franchises of up to 7.5%.

5) Reserve 7.5% of all jobs created and or required by the Civil Service and Statutory Bodies for qualified Indians.

6) Reserve 7.5% of all jobs created and or required by GLCs for qualified Indians.

7) Commit an additional RM 200 million in TEKUN loan funding reserved for Malaysian Indians over the next 5 years.

8) Reserve Government micro credit allocations for Malaysian Indians.

The methodology of how it would be planned and eventually implemented from Jan 2014 onwards is outlined in the MOU. Interesting to note that all these programs are pointed and targeted to cater to the Malaysian Indian poor and greatly contrasts trickledown economics methodology.

Memorandum of Understanding between Barisan Nasional and Hindraf – Part 1

Posted: 23 Apr 2013 12:21 PM PDT

Much has been said about the signing of the MOU, and a lot of what was said has been in the realm of conjecture as well as emotional reactions to the signing. Hindraf finds the reactions understandable, though it does not share them, which should be just as understandable to the reader.

Hindraf Economic Unit

This is the first of a series of articles which will be released heading up to the Polling day and beyond. The articles are targeted towards Malaysians in general and Indian Malaysians specifically.

The main purpose of these articles will be to set a standard of reference for what needs to be done to uplift the Indian poor. Along the way, the articles will also try to give Hindraf's perspective on why the MOU has been chosen as the way forward.

Indians make up 7.3% of Malaysia's population according to the Department of Statistics.

We all know that except in crime statistics, Indian Malaysian do not have a 7.3% share of any cake in this country, be it as a part of the annual budget for education, or job opportunities or business licenses.

If the fact that Indian Malaysians are usually allocated about 1% of the total annual education budget (excluding higher learning) seems fair to you, then read no further. But if it seems a tad unfair, then ask yourself this question: How can this be challenged, and changed?

The same applies to all areas where the Indian Malaysian citizen has been excluded from, or has been deprived of.

How can this unfair state of affairs be challenged, and changed?

This does not only apply to the areas which fall under the control of the federal and state governments, but also in the private sector. As a quick exercise, imagine yourself to be an Indian Malaysian youth, of between 19 to 22 years of age, who is looking for some suitable part time or temporary employment. Now go to a popular job site like asiaparttime.com and see for yourself what percentage of the hundred odd new jobs advertised on that site daily will even accept an application from an Indian Malaysian like you.

The only area where an Indian Malaysian is automatically an equal to any other citizen in this country is when it is time to vote. An Indian vote is counted as one, just as a Malay or a Chinese vote is.

And it is from that position of equality, namely the vote, that Hindraf challenges and changes what is wrong, to what is right.

Now, some of you may say that it is the individual that determines his or her success in life, and not the circumstances that surround the individual's particular race.

To this, we ask you to do another simple mental exercise. Give away all your possessions, empty your bank accounts and liquidate your investments, sell your properties and start from zero. But before you start, also burn your birth certificate and diplomas and degrees, destroy your passport and mykad and driving license. Once you are standing there with no document which identifies you as so and so, with no money or wealth, with no right to apply for a bank account or a driving license, to make a police report when someone assaults you and leaves you for dead, no means to obtain medical care in even a government clinic, no right to marry or have children, unless you want your children to share your fate, no way to enroll in school or apply for a job, with no right to property or security.

Once you stand there just like a stateless Indian Malaysian does, please show us how you will achieve everything you have achieved so far in life.

Even Einstein would have become a beggar, if he had been born as a stateless Indian Malaysian in this country.

This brings us to the first point from the MOU which we will address.

Statelessness among the Malaysian Indian poor shall be addressed by the following programs:

i) Identify all Stateless ethnic Indians as ethnic Indians without Birth Certificates and Blue Identification cards and those with Red Identity Cards.

iv) Develop streamlined and transparent policies to resolve the large problem of all persons who only hold Red Identification Cards.

v) Differentiate a system that can differentiate legitimate from non-legitimate citizenship applications from ethnic Indians in Malaysia.

vi) Ensure that the common sense and transparent proposals developed should strictly adhere to the provisions of the Federal Constitution.

Point number three simply means this. A retired headmaster, or some other figure of local repute, can make a Statutory Declaration, which can lead to the stateless Indian Malaysian being released from the nightmare that is his nameless condition.

Now, we issue a real challenge to the reader who believes that Pakatan Rakyat is the salvation for Malaysia. Can you guarantee that Pakatan will at least match the criteria listed above, and eradicate the problem of the stateless Indian Malaysian once and for all?

We in Hindraf are not interested in your curses or your personal attacks. The people that lead and make up Hindraf are fighters, and we will take full responsibility to hold Barisan Nasional to what has been agreed in the MOU. What we are interested in is whether all of you who believe that there exists both the political will and moral backbone within the Pakatan Rakyat coalition to address the question of statelessness among the Indian Malaysian, to hold Pakatan Rakyat to the same standards by which we in Hindraf now hold Barisan Nasional.

If you cannot see the pragmatism that is the basis for the question above, then let it be forever beyond you. But if you understand the import, are you then prepared to shoulder the responsibility of ensuring that Pakatan does what is right? If your answer is no, then please find other matters to occupy you, and leave the task of bringing the Indian poor to the mainstream development of Malaysia, to those that can.

Kredit: www.malaysia-today.net

Rabu, 24 April 2013

Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News

Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News

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