PETALING JAYA:

Until he was 12, Nalvin Dhillon had no idea he was stateless. He had both a passport and a birth certificate, and nobody had indicated to him or his father that anything was amiss.

The son of a Filipino woman and a local Punjabi man, he was in for a rude awakening when he went to the National Registration Department to get his IC, only to be told he was ineligible because his mother, who returned to the Philippines shortly after his birth, was not a Malaysian.

“If I wanted to list my problems, I could do it all day,” he said, with rights many take for granted just out of his reach.

Unable to access government loans for his education, apply for a driver’s licence or even set up a bank account, Nalvin has had to work around the limitations, such as getting family and friends to provide transport and sharing a bank account with his father.

“The most important thing for people is their health, but I can’t get any free medical service (from government clinics), I have to pay over RM100 just for registration, not including medication.”

With his case now before the courts, he said there needs to be a pathway to citizenship for the thousands of stateless people who are trying to get a citizenship.

“Many times when I fell sick, I didn’t go to the hospital because they may ask questions and we have to pay extra. My aunt works in a pharmacy, so she will help me get Panadol or antibiotics so I can recover at home.”

With police questioning and hostility a constant threat, he would try to minimise contact with law enforcement as much as possible.

Despite his best efforts in engaging NGOs and any politician willing to listen, progress has been hard to come by.

Without a step-by-step process to achieve citizenship, similar to that seen in other countries, Nalvin said he and many like him were left with few options regardless of how valid their claim might be.

Nalvin’s case is currently before the courts.

He hopes that not only will he get his IC and the rights that come with it, but that he’d also be the catalyst for change for the hundreds of thousands like him without the means to fight for themselves.

“It’s not just about myself. There is no point solving one man’s problem and leaving thousands of them out there suffering.

“I hope the government can resolve all these issues for stateless people. I don’t want anyone stateless to feel like they are a mistake in Malaysia.”

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I don’t want anyone stateless to feel they are a mistake, says man fighting for citizenship

With his case before the courts, Nalvin Dhillon hopes to get his IC and be the catalyst for change for the hundreds of thousands struggling to get citizenship.