Indians Can Change Their Destiny
by Richard Teo

I fail to agree with Samy Vellu’s assertion that the 3% equity for the Indians had been on the national agenda for a long time and that nothing had been planned and implemented for the community. The failure to reach that equity level lies not wholly with the govt but with the MIC leader which Samy leads.

The dilemma facing the marginalised Indian community will continue as long as they are led by the current MIC leaders. For 25 years the Indian community have been led by these leaders and in many ways the trust bestowed on them have been repeatedly betrayed.

The pitiful and marginalised position the Indian community are enduring would not have occurred had their leaders placed community above self, service and sacrifice above greed.

Partly to blame for this current dilemma are the Indian community generally and the MIC members specifically. Like the proverbial sheep been led to the slaughter house, they had faithfully placed their trust to these same leaders who had deemed fit to plunder the wealth meant for the poor and destitute in the Indian community.

During Dr. Mahathir’s reign, a man not known for his generosity, a few million Tenaga Nasional Bhd newly public-listed shares were allocated to Maika, the investment arm of MIC. The shares ostensibly for Maika would indirectly benefit the many rural Indians in estates and other low category jobs if equity in the form of unit trust shares were taken up by the community.

MIC members went on a frantic campaign to encourage the poor Indians from the rural areas to invest in Maika for a slice of the economic cake. It was like manna from heaven and the poor uneducated Indians got the bait together with the hook line and sinker.

They ploughed their hard-earned savings meant for their children’s education in Maika shares with a promise of a return many-fold their original investment.

The TNB shares never reached Maika. Somewhere along the way to Maika the TNB shares were hijacked to another entity.

Subsequently, Maika shares went into a tail-spin and wiped off millions from its value. The hard-earned savings of thousand of poor Indian investors were left clinging to the valueless Maika shares.

The extent and untold hardship and misery this episode had on the Indian community can never be measured in monetary terms. In many poor Indian households, the dreams and aspirations of young ambitious children were destroyed forever.

Today, we see jobless, uneducated Indians whose only option is to turn to a life of crime in order to survive. The govt. has not opened its door in the civil service for them and the private sector will continue to remain elusive for the unqualified.

The plight and fate of the Indian community will continue to remain bleak and diminish if it places its faith in the same MIC leaders which had hoodwinked them for the last 20 years.

They have no one else to blame but themselves if they persists in choosing the same faces in the MIC leadership which have brought them nothing but despair and despondency.

Through the present MIC leadership, the Indians are now a marginalised community. Only the Indian community can make a change for the better, failing which they will have to endure another 20 years of destitution.