This is because most Tamil communities still live in rural areas, attend Tamil schools and are unable to communicate with other races well in the city, according to political economist Professor Hoo Kee Ping.
He said the Tamil-educated were not sought after when it came to jobs, unlike the Chinese-educated who were able to get employed because many employers wanted Mandarin-speaking staff.
“Tamils who grow up in urban areas will continue to be professionals. They are hardworking and smart people. But the rural Tamils will continue to be a major problem for the country,” he told FMT.
He said there were about 800,000 Tamil-speaking rural households in Malaysia. Youths from these families often came to the cities looking for jobs but became frustrated after failing to get one, he added.
They were then lured into gangsterism, a major problem in Malaysia, he added.
“They have taken over from the Chinese. They control the ex-Chinese gangster areas. But unlike the Chinese triads, the rural Tamil gangsters are violent. It’s a different kind of gangsterism,” he said, adding that most of the previous Chinese gangsters had moved up the ladder were now running karaokes and other businesses.
“It is a big problem because more of these Tamil youths are coming to the cities seeking economic gains.”
The British brought in the Tamils in the early 19th century to tap rubber in estates and carry out infrastructure construction work, while the Malayali’s were brought in to manage the estate workers. The Punjabi’s served as security guards or joined the police force or sold milk.
The Sindhi’s were involved in trade, and lived in the towns and cities.
The rural Tamil community built their own schools, became busy with rubber tapping and were not exposed to city life, except in later years. By that time, the other Indian communities in urban areas had completed national school education, spoke English and Malay and were employed in the civil service. Many went on to become engineers, doctors and lawyers, said Hoo.
He said the MIC was supposed to look after the welfare of the Tamils. However, politically the community was divided between the DAP, Keadilan, and others, and this had significantly weakened the role of the MIC in the community, he said.
He said most of the rural Tamils still supported the Barisan Nasional, and it was due to this that Prime Minister Najib Razak’s administration allocated RM100 million for the welfare of the community.
“The Chinese community also got the same amount, even though the Chinese population stands at 15 per cent as compared with 7 to 8 per cent of Indians. Since it is the same amount, the Indians would get a bigger slice of the pie. But they are still not progressing,” he said.
For the rural Tamils to progress, he said, they needed to become fluent in English as, with globalisation, Malaysia needed more English-speaking people. He said having English would empower them to seek work in foreign countries too.