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How we fail the Malaysian Indian poor.

In a previous post, I spoke about the Good and Bad of our affirmative action plan – NEP. I noted that we missed the Malaysian Indian poor. This article elaborates it further.

I was happy to read in the article ‘Najib vows to address Indian ‘legacy issues’’ published by the various media on July 4^th, that PM Najib is looking at the Indian community and that he spoke about overcoming their legacy issues and contemporary challenges.

After fifty four years as a country, it is unfortunate that a lot of non-Indian Malaysians do not yet know the Indians. For example, a lot of Malaysians still do not know the difference between Punjabis and Bengalis, and in some instances in recent years this confusion has been the topic of public discussion.

With all due respect to the Tun Abdul Razak administration which created it, one of the main reasons why some parts of the Indian community is still stuck in the trenches of poverty are because the NEP was not extended to help those in the estates. While the NEP helped the Malays and Bumiputera out of poverty and managed to create a group of middle class Malays, it overlooked the needs of the real composition of Indians.

The NEP was designed based on the per capita income of the Malay, Indian, Chinese and foreigner population. At the time, the Chinese had the highest percentage of per capita income, the Indians second, the Malays had the lowest. However, as for the Indians, because we did not understand them, we grouped all of them in one big group.

What we did not realize is that the Indians are not a homogenous group, but made up of different groups that came in several batches. While there are a small group of Indians who were wealthier, about 10 million of them came to Malaya as buruh kasar.

Based on the average between the incomes of the small group of middle class Indians and the larger community of poor Indians, the statistics drawn were inaccurate. It shows as if the Indians were doing okay, but in reality a big cluster of them were as poor as the Malays and Bumiputera.

It is sad that because we do not really understand our Indian brothers and sisters, we have allowed their poverty problem to continue as a legacy until today. Now that our PM has vowed to address this issue, it is important that we know who they are, where they are and where they are going. I recommend a book by Muzafar Desmond Tate called ‘The Malaysian Indians: History, Problems and Future’.

Here I will pick up some important points from the book.

As I mentioned earlier, the Malaysian Indians are not all the same, but are made up of different smaller communities. One major way the Malayan Indians were divided were the separation between Hindu and Muslim. Another thing was social division into four major class groups:

‘(1) The elite, consisting of professionals, high government officials and senior executives in leading private firms;

(2) an upper, English-educated middle class consisting mainly of government servants;

(3) a lower, vernacular-educated middle class, comprising merchants, school teachers, journalists, smallholders, all largely outside government service;

(4) labourers in government service – the PWD, medical services, railways, the docks and the municipalities of large towns – and in private employ, particularly on estates.’

Tate writes that the Indian community remained highly compartmentalized as there was very little interaction between these groups, and hardly any social mobility existed for them.

A large number of Tamils who arrived in Malaya during the British colonial period were drawn from the lowest ranks of Tamil society and came as contract labourers for tin mines and agricultural estates. They were ‘virtually debt slaves’ from the point they came to Malaya, having to work off the costs of their passage and recruitment under the contract system. Their wages were so meager that this would take them their whole term of service.

Besides this large group of Tamil labourers, there was also a small group of upper-class Tamils who came by their own resources. These were men of trade, commerce and finance, and Tate writes that this upper class, though small in numbers, were very significant as they ‘exerted an influence out of all proportion to their numbers’.

After Merdeka, the rift between the more affluent middle class and the larger number of Indian estate workers who ‘hover on the borders of poverty’, continued to exist. The middle class was doing fine, dominating certain professions like law and medicine. The enrolment of children into primary and secondary schools also remained the same. But for those in the rural areas, especially in the estates, the problem of poverty seemed intractable.

At the same time, the greatest shift that happened post-independence is urbanization, which brought new social problems with it. This was the ‘new poverty syndrome’ of the rootless Indians in the town. While the strategies of the NEP brought growing industrialization, the Indian workers who left the estates found that they were in no position to compete in the towns. They were uneducated and had no command of English, they lacked technical skills and were once again forced to live under squalid conditions.

The NEP, on the other hand, did not extend its benefits to the estate workers. The official rationale was that these workers were employees of the private limited companies who owned the estates, and thus they did not fall under the scope of the NEP.

In reviewing the Second Malaysia Plan (1970 – 75), the authors of the Third Malaysia Plan concluded that the aim of eradicating poverty in the plantation sector did not make progress. Two-fifths of the estate workers were still living below poverty levels and unemployment was high. Even at the end of the term of the Third Malaysia Plan in 1980, very little progress had been made towards the eradication of poverty. In other words, Tate concludes that due to the segregation between the middle class Indians and those in the estates, and the failure of the NEP to support the Indians below the poverty line, essentially, the major problems of the Indian community remained the same in 2000 as they were before 1957.

This problem of poverty has become the legacy issue that we have to urgently deal with, along with the contemporary issues of the social problems of the urban squatters.

To really move to help the Indian poor out of poverty, any action taken cannot be a once-off thing. We need to define a target, the same way we implemented the NEP with specific goals.

There are several mechanisms we can put into place. Education is the first thing we need to look into. We can open up boarding schools like Maktab Sains MARA to make sure the children are provided a level playing field in education. We can provide channels for skills-based training and open up job opportunities. For those who are not able to read and write, we can perhaps provide vocational academies for them to learn the basic skills they need.

To help the poor Indians, there needs to be provisions for the whole process from homes to schools to jobs, so that within one generation we can reduce poverty among the Indian poor and move them into the middle class via education and support, just like what we did for the Bumiputera under the NEP.

We must remember and take to heart that the Malaysian Indian poor problem is not an Indian problem, but a Malaysian one.

This article is linked to The NEP: The Good and the bad

Political Polarisation by Dr. Chandra Muzaffar

There is a new, powerful divide that confronts 1Malaysia. It is a political divide that separates the BarisanNasional, and its supporters, on the one hand, from the Pakatan Rakyat, and its followers, on the other.

There are other divides in Malaysian society: economic, social, cultural, religious, geographical and territorial. A divide by itself is not a threat to a nation’s unity or solidarity. It is when a divide causes serious polarisation that it becomes a matter of deep concern.

The BN-PR political divide is polarising society. It has gone way beyond the usual loyalties associated with competing political parties in a democratic system. Among its obvious consequences are the following:-

1) A blind, almost fanatical attachment to the interests and views of one party or coalition which disregards or dismisses completely the position of the other party or coalition.

2) A total inability to see the wrongs committed by one’s own side and a complete unwillingness to appreciate the positives on the other side.

3) A rapidly declining engagement in rational, balanced discourse on national issues on both sides of the divide.

4) The visible shrinking of the middle ground in national politics as rigid dogmatic partisan positions are adopted by individuals and groups in both camps.

5) A dramatic increase in vile, vulgar epithets and foul, filthy language on online newspapers, websites and blogs associated directly or indirectly with one side or the other which are employed against individuals who are perceived to be on the other side of the divide.

There are those who argue that the political polarisation that is happening, however adverse its consequences, is not a big problem because it does not have communal overtones. This is true but only to an extent.

The undercurrents in this BN-PR polarisation are communal. Though the BN is an established inter-ethnic coalition, it has been portrayed as an UMNO dominant entity that has marginalised the non-Malay parties and communities. This crude portrayal of the BN and its predecessor, the Alliance, actually began in 1964 and was spearheaded by Lee Kuan Yew, then Secretary-General of the People’s Action Party (PAP), the forerunner of the DAP. It has now reached a peak point which is one of the many reasons why parties like the MCA, Gerakan, MIC and PPP lost considerable support in the 2008 General Election. It also explains to a degree the current consolidation of the Chinese position on ethnic issues around the DAP.

While the BN is perceived in some Chinese circles as Malay, there is a growing sentiment within a segment of the Malay community that PR, though drawn from different communities, is actually controlled by the DAP, the party with the most number of parliamentary seats within the PR. How PAS has yielded to the DAP on the question of an “Islamic State”, its defining ideology, and related issues, and how PKR has tailored its politics to enhance its appeal among the Chinese electorate are offered as evidence of this alleged subservience. There is thus an ethnic dimension to popular perceptions of both the BN and PR which makes political polarisation a graver challenge than it already is.

What are the causes of this political polarisation? The intensification of the struggle for power at the federal level is undoubtedly the main factor. Because of its creditable performance in the 12^th General Election in 2008, and its victories in 8 out of the 16 by-elections since then, the PR parties, each with its own agenda and goal, are convinced that they will capture Putrajaya in the 13^th General Election. The BN is, of course, determined to remain in Putrajaya, hoping toregain its two-third majority in the Federal Parliament, and re-take some of the states it lost to the Opposition in the last election.

Political polarisation arising from this intense, often aggressive contest has been exacerbated by the cyber media. With the advent of a variety of channels of expression from the website and blog to facebook and the tweet, millions of citizens are not only articulating their opinions on a whole range of social and political concerns --- which is a laudable development ---- but are also ventilating their communal biases, their religious prejudices and their personal frustrations as never before. Since cyber communication allows anonymity, quite a few are slanderous and vicious in their comments. When freedom is exercised in such an irresponsible manner, it is inevitable that political polarisation will increase.

In this regard, elements within the mainstream print and electronic media are also culpable. There have been occasions when their stark or subtlebiases have reinforced polarising tendencies in the larger society. The authorities have not checked these tendencies.

The expanding NGO community which utilises the media to the hilt has also contributed to polarisation. Most politically oriented NGOs are aligned to one side or the other. Sometimes they adopt stances on political issues that are more communal than political parties. Even some professional bodies tend to incline towards this or that political party on certain controversies.

It does not help that a number of intellectuals have also become blatantly partisan in outlook. Instead of fostering a balanced discourse through their writings some of them are rabidly biased to a point that they refuse to acknowledge the positive elements on the other side. They have tarnished their own intellectual credentials by presenting complex political challenges in stark black and white terms, often camouflaging their communal inclinations, and thus aggravating political polarisation.

Can we overcome, or at least reduce, political polarisation? It is unlikely that appeals to both sides to dialogue and to reconcile will have any impact. It is perhaps the 13^th General Election that will resolve the polarisation--- if it produces a decisive winner.

BERSIH 2.0 – The Police Story (part 8) - Finale

Summary

1. Q & A

Here's the videos:

Bersih: The police story_part 8_1/4

Bersih: The police story_part 8_2/4

Bersih: The police story_part 8_3/4

Bersih: The police story_part 8_4/4

For those who missed Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6 & Part 7

BERSIH 2.0 – The Police Story (part 7)

Summary

1. Water cannon and tear gas at Tung Shin

Here's the videos:

Bersih: The police story_part 7_1/4

Bersih: The police story_part 7_2/4

Bersih: The police story_part 7_3/4

Bersih: The police story_part 7_4/4

For those who missed Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 & Part 6

BERSIH 2.0 – The Police Story (part 6)

Summary:

1. Were there instigators to get the police to react?

Here's the videos:

Bersih: The police story_part6_1/3

Bersih: The police story_part6_2/3

Bersih: The police story_part6_3/3

For those who missed Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 & Part 5

The NEP – The Good and the Bad

What is the NEP?

In a simple definition, the New Economic Policies is Malaysia’s socioeconomic affirmative action plan. The goal of the NEP was to eradicate public poverty and restructure the economy so that we could eliminate the identification of economic function with ethnicity. The idea was based on a theory referred to as “expanding pie theory”, where as the economic pie grows, the Bumiputera community will increase their share of the national wealth without taking from the share of other racial communities.

What was the distribution of the economic wealth at that point?

At that point of time in the 1970s, the Bumiputera had 2.4% of the national wealth whereas non-Bumiputera Malaysians had 33% and the foreigners had 63%.

What was the target for the NEP?

The target was set in 1971 that the ratio of economic share should be 30%-40%-30% for the Bumiputera, non-Bumiputera and foreigners respectively. It was the late Tun Ismail, the one Taman Tun Dr Ismail was named after, who came up with this target.

Tell us more about the background of the NEP.

A lot of people do not know that there actually is a historical context to the NEP. Starting from the colonial days before Merdeka, the Malays had already been given special privileges in education and civil service. At the same time the NEP had to be created because the way the British ran the economy caused economic imbalances between the ethnic communities, mostly because we lived and worked in different locations and did different jobs.

Why was the NEP so important?

I see it as important because the needy must be helped. It is like playing golf; a person who is a beginner at golf must be given a handicap. If people think there is no chance for them to win or achieve anything, they would not even try. So it was good for the government to provide a helping hand. That is why affirmative action is a very important program for any country. Ours was called NEP 1970 - 1990.

Socio-economically, nobody should be left behind. I see this as very important, because if there is a segment of community who is left behind economically, there will be unrest. It is important for every society to have affirmative action plans, but it must be planned carefully. In many ways, the NEP was successful because through it we bred a very big chunk of middle class Bumiputeras who are now be able to fend for themselves..

What were the good things that came from the NEP?

There have been many. I will try to outline five or six here:

1) We reduced absolute poverty. Some data say absolute poverty was reduced from more than 50% to 6.8% and some say it was reduced from 70% to 5%. That’s a big reduction of absolute poverty.

2) We removed unrest caused by economic uncertainty and regulated a peaceful tenure in society;

3) We created a large section of middle class Bumiputeras, thus changing our society; and

4) We restructured the economy.

5) After the NEP, businesses are no longer exclusive to the membership of their own ethnic group. In fact, many people do not realize this but prior to the NEP, businesses not only employed people from their own ethnic group, they also limited employment to those within their clan, for example the Hokkiens employed the Hokkiens, the Cantonese employed the Cantonese, even among the Gujeratis and others. If you go to Penang, where I’m from, you will find there are Hokkien foundations, for example. We tend to see the NEP from an inter-racial angle, rather than intra-race. But it’s very interesting, since the NEP there has been a shift. Companies now employ people from almost every background.

6) Of course I see the best point about the NEP is that millions of families were saved from the clutches of poverty and that is something that we all need to celebrate.

What were the failures of the NEP?

One of the biggest failures of the NEP was many non-Bumiputeras who deserved to benefit from the NEP but we missed them out. For example, let’s talk about the Indian poor, especially those who were uprooted from the estates. This is one community which deserved to be helped but the NEP missed them out. We should have helped them too. If we had, things like HINDRAF wouldn’t have happened for example. In such an affirmative action plan, we cannot allow any group of people to be missed out.

At the same time, there has been some abuse which we do not want. We must make sure the rich who are able to fend for themselves should not be able to take a ride on the NEP. I think that’s the part many Malaysians are very angry about.

How did this abuse to happen?

I see the reason why this happened is because we did not make it clear enough. At the point when we design a plan, we must state what we want, and we must also state what we do not want. For example, you say you want to eradicate poverty, at the same time you must say you don’t want rich people to get it. We have to make it very clear.

And we had to define it clearly enough to make sure that it shouldn’t turn into a permanent crutch. Its like playing golf -- as we get better our handicap becomes lesser and lesser. We need to make sure that the newer economic models proposed do not repeat the same mistake of breeding a group of people who always have a subsidy mentality.

Why were some segments of Malaysians neglected?

The main group that was neglected was the poor Indians. I see that this happened because the data for the Indian poor were not really captured carefully because most Malaysians who are not Indian do not understand the Indians. I’m lucky, having grew up in Penang I know Indians are not one single community. There are Indians who are very, very rich and many who are very, very poor. The data used for the NEP did not capture that. So because we did not capture that, when it came to the NEP, a big chunk of poor people, especially the poor Indians, were neglected.

What were some other shortcomings of the NEP?

The third thing that I see we need to worry about is that our children in school are too young to understand the socioeconomic big picture, why we needed to do something like the NEP. So as they enter school, immediately they feel, “hey, there’s a difference between these two groups of people”… they may not understand. We need to really deal with that. We need to make it clear, especially to the younger generation, that we are not setting precedence for a country that differentiates between two groups.

One more area that I see the NEP seems to have missed is the public sector, the civil service. We did not go through the same vigorous restructuring. I think we need to ensure that our public sector is better represented by all the ethnic groups in this country. In our national schools students should be able to look at their teachers and see good people teaching them from various races. Our civil service should be seen as reflective of the colorful Malaysian people.

What went wrong with the planning of the NEP?

We should not have had it as a twenty year plan. When you set such a big goal to implement such changes for people, it takes a long process. When you try to do something like that in a short time, you tend to cut corners. I see that as one of the main roots f the problems of the NEP - that it was done in too much of a hurry to increase the share of wealth for the Bumiputera that we might have taken a short cut in doing it.

The good and bad considered, did the NEP achieve its purpose?

I see many good benefits stemming from the NEP. Let’s talk from a very micro level. By targeting the majority of rakyat, the Bumiputera which is 65% of the population, the NEP covered a large chunk of our citizens. So it is not an elitist program, it’s not helping a small group of people who are already rich. We actually targeted a large chunk of Malaysians both from the Peninsular and Sabah and Sarawak - because of that the impact is very wide ranging.

The country as a whole benefited because we made sure that millions of people got out from poverty and millions of people can fend from themselves, millions of people got a chance to an education, things like that. One of the biggest benefits is that we have lived peacefully since its implementation. Our per capital income has grown manifold, seven to eight times since 1970.

Should affirmative action plans continue?

I see it as important that every society must have affirmative action plans. But we need to learn from our experience and take corrective measures. Whatever happened to the NEP that was problematic, we need to really correct it. We need to make careful research, to identify segments of poor Malaysians who need to be helped, regardless of race. We must plan it carefully to make sure that anyone in need must not be left behind.

What are some corrective measures we could take based on our experience with NEP?

Our population is getting more and more urbanized and we need to study a little bit more about the urban poor. We have done quite well in dealing with the rural poor. Now we need to focus on the urban poor. The configuration of what needs to be done will be different again.

In urban communities it is no longer one ethnic group, it’s a multi-ethnic group - we have Malays, Chinese, Indians, Kadazans and so many others. All are moving towards urban populations and we need to deal if that. If we don’t, urban social problems will continue to rise. Housing and other issues are really important. If we pack too many people in small areas, they go crazy.

What’s the status of NEP now, after its targeted end at 1990?

One of the most important things that I see we need to understand is that from 1970 - 1990 we had a focus. The focus is we had this thing called the NEP, we had a target set at 30 -40-30 distribution of wealth, and the entire nation had an agreement – the idea was proposed, and all agreed to it. But after 1990, we are still not clear where we are going. Actually the NEP ended in 1990, and now we have NDP, NNP and our Prime Minister has announced the New Economic Model.

But what is happening now is that we have a nation in transition. We have one side of the country who says affirmative action should stop - another side says, no, it should not stop. One side has data which says we have achieved the target, and another side has data which says that we have not achieved the target.

How should we deal with this situation?

I see a real need for us to sit down again and re-write another affirmative action plan. Now, we have to realize that whatever we agree on may not be perfect, something we agree on for the next thirty years might not happen as ideally as we imagine it. Malaysia is now in transition, politically and socio-economically. I don’t know whether others would feel that way, but I see that as the issue - we don’t know what is going to happen next… what are we going to do? So let’s sit down, re-write a plan, and agree - now this is what I want, this is what you want, let’s agree to work something out.

We need to agree on some goals. It may not be the most fantastic, well-written idea, but we need to have something to agree upon so that we can say, let’s move on.

In your opinion, what is the single greatest impact in NEP and how has it affected Malaysians as a whole?

I see that we have created a society which, to a large extent, is based on the NEP. So we are all products of NEP, whether we have received the help of the NEP or not. We all need to really spend time thinking about what we have right now and where we are going to go next.

If we have not yet done it, we must accept what has happened in the past; and to accept it doesn’t mean we have to agree with it. Accepting it means saying, ‘alright, this is where we are, there are good points and bad points in the NEP. But what’s important is let’s talk about where we are going next.’

What should Malaysians do to understand affirmative action plans like the NEP better?

I see the need for Malaysians to read more. We should read good, academic books on the NEP. Do not just read those with a political angle to it, or just blogs and comments, we should all go and find real information. You can even ‘google’ it; there should be pages with information on the NEP.

Get books without a political twist, written by non-politicians. Look at the real numbers, then you can see the real reason and bigger picture behind the NEP. For example many people would be surprised to learn that in 1970, the Bumiputeras had only 2.4% of the nation’s wealth.

On the personal side, those who can afford it might want to implement your own affirmative action plans. Perhaps you can help your family members, your brother, your cousin, your colleague, your neighbor. Sponsor the education of those who need it; for example, if you have a neighbor or someone working in your office - maybe the cleaner, or maybe your maid – you can sponsor their children’s education. That’s NEP at the ground level. When you do that you, your family and your children, will really understand how affirmative action plan works.

What about the two sides of those who oppose and those who support NEP?

I see the need for Malaysians to learn to look at things in a balance. We cannot say it is totally wrong, and we cannot say its totally good. Nothing is perfect, nothing is completely imperfect. We need to always look at what are the good points of the program and what are the areas that need to be improved. We can do a SWOT analysis – realize the strong points and demand improvements in areas that are not good enough. We need to look at NEP from a totally balanced angle and plan from there.

What are some of the questions we need to think about to move on?

What do we do next? How are we going to help the poor in this country? How are we going to restructure society to become a more peaceful or prosperous society?