By Raghavan Nair
Well said Mr K Arumugam, the evergreen advocate of human rights in Malaysia. Years of toiling as a human rights advocate, has indeed taken a toll.
I totally understand your delayed reaction to the blueprint. You have had your plate full with so many issues, especially your rejection of English usage for Maths and Science in Tamil schools.
Again your analysis of the Malaysian Indian Blueprint (MIB) is too little too late. Much water has flowed under the bridge. It was launched more than a month ago with a new unit in the Prime Minister’s department being set up with 58 staff.
Is it not a massive and concerted political agenda of action? Is it not a structural change? If not, what is? Please enlighten us.
If you had the time to digest the MIB, you would realise the basis of MIB was to steer away from ad hoc allocations and to build them into a policy framework. Not to appease the Indian masses with short-sighted initiatives.
What astonishes me is the sudden influx of Indian centric issues brought forward by opposition personalities lately. We know the Indians are the kingmakers come election. BN has been consistently wooing the Indians since Najib came into power, but we have yet to see a single initiative from the opposition.
Yet, there was once a glimmer of hope called the “Gelang Patah Declaration”. Maybe before pointing out why a document that was just released will fail, one should mention the progress of the 14 points highlighted in the declaration, which was announced almost five years ago. Perhaps you could ask your comrades within Pakatan?
On the Hindraf memorandum, it is not the government which failed but Waythamoorthy himself.
He joined BN and even became a deputy minister. He was in a position to do something about the Indian problems. But what did he do? He abandoned ship and said the government cheated him.
Sadly, we trusted Hindraf to deliver on its promises but it killed our hopes and buried our trust.
We Indians do not need Indian leaders alone to safeguard our welfare and uplift the community anymore. Prime Minister Najib Razak has made his move with the MIB. Where art thou Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Anwar Ibrahim and Lim Guan Eng?
Mr Arumugam, you mask your true identify by inferring your neutrality with your involvement in Suaram, but we are not blind to see where your loyalty lies. We understand that GE14 is around the corner and you aspire to march towards the Parliament.
If you have the Indian community at heart, you have to do better then just being a stooge for Pakatan Harapan who has now joined hands with the person who single handedly caused the decline of the Indian community over a span of 22 years.
Raghavan Nair is an FMT reader.
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