Estimated 99% Indians excluded from and schemes meant for the poor and landless Malaysians

Under Najib’s One Malaysia, an estimated 99% of even the pre-existing Malaysian Indian plantation workers as at Independence were denied opportunities in these Felda, Risda and Felcra (also Fama, the various state government land schemes and later the Agropolitan land schemes).

We are only aware that immediately after independence, only about 1% of the Felda Land schemes were allocated to the Indians. In the last 20 years we have hardly heard of in particular any Indian being granted these land ownerships schemes.

In the latest Agropolitan land ownerships schemes, we have yet to hear of a single Indian poor and landless being granted the opportunities. The UMNO controlled Malaysian government should make public at their websites the list of the poor and landless beneficiaries with their names and other details to prove One Malaysia and non-racism against especially the Indians.
UMNO has never done so as it practices open race-based politics and policies but otherwise preaches One Malaysia.

The aforesaid ‘RM 202.2 Million in dividends to Risda smallholders’ and the ‘90,000 hectares under two (recent) planting schemes involving more than 43,000 settlers’ as stated by Prime Minister Najib and Risda Chairman has obviously excluded an estimated 99% of the deserving poor and landless Indians.

Najib said ‘we want to transform Malaysia into a high income population but this must be planned carefully’ ‘Instead of relying on foreign workers to keep costs low, we want to focus on new ways and activities to raise people’s incomes’. (But again the Indians are excluded.)

An estimated 99% of the deserving Indian poor and landless are excluded from the benefit of this RM 202.2 Million, 90,000 hectares and 43,000 settlers. An estimated 99% of the poor and landless Indians even after 52 years of Independence have been excluded from the national mainstream development of Malaysia so much so that the Tamil papers repeatedly reports that Indian mothers are so poor that they cannot even afford to buy milk for their babies and instead feed them with tea and rock sugar water, stop their children from attending even primary schools because they cannot afford the school bus fare and are so backward and illiterate that they are deliberately denied even birth certificates for their children.

This critical Indian poverty could be solved by the stroke of Prime Minister Najib’s pen if only Najib and UMNO also included these poor and landless Indians on the National Policy and Agenda and include them into the aforesaid land schemes and be transparent about it as opposed to the playing politics using UMNO’s supervisor (mandores) system by creating impressions, perceptions and mere promises as has been done for over the last 52 years of independence. The only difference today that it is now under P.M Najib’s ONE MALAYSIA BUT TWO SYSTEMS.

By Thiagarajan Sasayapillai