REALISING the crucial Indian vote in the state elections especially in Selangor, Perikatan Nasional (PN) has appointed former Home Minister Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainuddin to head a special committee to look into Indian needs.

However, Pakatan Harapan (PH) on the other hand ignores the Indians and takes their erstwhile support as a guarantee that it will continue in the upcoming state elections.

Nothing can be further from the truth for PH and the coalition is going to get an electoral shock in Selangor.

Most Indians had hoped that the Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim (PMX) administration would continue and even enhance the programmes by Barisan Nasional (BN) - especially those schemes by former premier Datuk Seri Najib Razak - to help the Indian poor.

It has been seven months since the PH government assumed power yet there is hardly anything for the Indians who helped the coalition win in multi-racial constituencies.

Indian suspicions about Anwar are coming true. He will not help Indians and Indians will have to look elsewhere for their demands and needs to be met.

PH needs to understand that since the HINDRAF Rally in 2007, Indian voting trends have seen a sea change.

Indians will not hesitate to dump any party or leader who betrays them. PH can be sure only of the Chinese votes.

The Indian vote swing can have a telling effect in Selangor’s multi-racial seats. Frankly, Selangor Menteri Besar (now in caretaker capacity) Datuk Seri Amirudin Shari had done nothing for the Indians during his term in office. Only when the election season is around the corner does he come out with sweeteners to fool the Indians.

Indians to regret wiping out MIC?

Many Indians feel that they have been taken for a ride by PH in Selangor with the so-called “equal opportunities for all” campaigns with enticing slogans and messages.

DAP, too, has been a party to this deception of the poor quick-trusting Indians. In comparison, BN was so much better; despite some discrimination, at least there were genuine programmes to help the community.

Even Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad during his short stint in his second premiership appointed four Indian ministers who could be of much help in formulating programmes for the poorer sections of the Indian community.

Now there is only one Indian Cabinet minister but he is a lame duck since the manpower ministry came under a corruption probe by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).

He hardly raises any issues about Indians. The only Indian leader who has in-depth knowledge of Indian issues is Penang’s caretaker deputy chief minister II Prof Ramasamy Palanisamy.

It has been seven months since PMX took over and he is only focused on government servants and revision of pay and pensions, FELDA, JAKIM, funds for maintenance of Home Ministry buildings, halal issues and the like.

He is not even bothered by his own reform programme on which PH was elected. The cost of living is killing the B40 class but neither PMX nor his ministers have any pro-active programmes to overcome it.

His Cabinet ministers, as the Americans say, have risen to their level of incompetence and have nothing new or beyond what they have now. He has hardly anything for the Indian and Chinese communities and is fully focusing on the Malay community hoping to win them over in the upcoming state elections.

Even on Anwar’s domestic tours around the country or even to foreign countries, there is hardly a single Indian in his entourage. Indians may regret wiping out the MIC and leaving themselves orphaned without any representation in government.

They will realise this deeply later in the future. At least during the BN days, Indians were allocated various quotas which enabled the community to get a small share of the socio-economic cake. Now, Indians do not get anything as a matter of right.

Only in the Indian community do we have two distinct groups - the first being the educated, earns higher income and are more altruistic about transparency, good governance, accountability, human rights but not about bread-and-butter issues or caring for the suffering of their poorer brethren.

The other group which makes up 40%-50% of the Indian population is made up of poor, semi-literate individuals with some facing abject poverty in this so-called land of abundance.

If there is one good thing that the former can do during the upcoming six state elections, it is not to entice or persuade the poorer group into supporting political parties like PH that make false promises during elections.

Indians number about two million in the country and if they vote smartly, they can have effective leverage on the government. - July 19, 2023

V. Thomas is a reader of Focus Malaysia. 

https://focusmalaysia.my/ph-has-done-nothing-for-us-indian-suspicions-about-anwar-coming-true/