COMMENT For a time, Indian Malaysians in PKR looked like they had a case worthy of serious consideration, whenever they went berserk over perceived slights and wrongs against them in the party.
But the public sympathy they had - even from former MIC head S Samy Vellu - seems to have dissipated after the recent PKR polls. Their bluff has been called and their continued antics are driving Indian voters back into the gleeful arms of BN, if not the MIC.
It's difficult to believe that the Indian community now wants to give the BN one last chance before writing off the ruling coalition for good. They seem to have quickly forgotten the 50-odd years the community has suffered under Umno and MIC.But it's also hard to blame the voters. They see PKR as no better than MIC, which they ditched in numbers during the 2008 general election.
This is the reason why the so-called 40 percent Indian members in PKR - a figure cited in a Bernama report by former supreme council member S Manikavasagam - were nowhere in evidence during the party elections. As a result, not many Indians made it through the leadership ranks. So, those in PKR are now in no position to demand anything on the basis of being Indian or anything else for that matter.
Suspicion is rife that many PKR Indian leaders had simply copied names from the electoral rolls to pad their membership figures in the party. This appears to be a credible charge which should be investigated by the leadership to verify whether the party really has a membership of 400,000 as indicated in its register.
Those responsible for this scam should be summarily dismissed. The party would be better off without such dubious characters who stop at nothing to further their personal agenda at the expense of the people.It's because of their reverse defection to BN that Indian voters will be urged by Hindraf Makkal Sakthi to abstain from voting in all but the 15 parliamentary seats and 38 state seats they have targetted in peninsular Malaysia.
This, according to Hindraf's London-based chair P Waythamoorthy (right), will send a dual message in the general election.The winners will know that they won because the Indians stayed out. Likewise, the losers will know that they lost because the Indians stayed out.
This baptism of fire, according to Waythamoorthy, is the only way that everyone in politics will sober up vis-a-vis the Indian community.If Pakatan does not give way and allow Hindraf to contest the '15/38' seats under its banner, there will be three-cornered fights which will only result in BN winning them by default, he says.
Think ahead
It is high time that the Indians in PKR shed their MIC-like habits and stop demanding anything on the basis of race. They appear to have a fixation with posts, candidacy and projects, and all this is because they still have the ringgit sign in their eyes.Two wrongs do not make a right. Just because others are slavishly demanding something for themselves on the basis of who they are and not what they are, it doesn't mean that the Indians too must follow suit.
Rather, they should work for a system which swears by the brightest and best so that others will shed their entitlement- and proprietorship-mindset and culture.They should ask themselves what they can contribute to the party and its agenda for change and reform without asking anything in return. Politics is not for us but for the children, grandchildren, the unborn and future generations. It's all about the difference that we can make for the better.
It's not true or necessary that one must have a party post before one can contribute to the political struggle. Also wrong is the thinking that only Indians can look after Indians. It's more important to study the system and work out how best to navigate one's way through it.
Source : http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/151324
JOE FERNANDEZ is a freelance writer based in Sabah.
No comments:
Post a Comment