FMT LETTER: From Manickam Muthuvelan, via e-mail
I’d like to respond to the many articles written by Senator Ramakrishnan of the DAP beginning early 2012. With the election nearing and the recent internal fighting for DAP seats which ended with the public humiliation of Penang’s DCM II, Prof Ramasamy, Ramakrishnan has again thrown his hat in the candidate ring by attacking the PM in order to impress his DAP masters and warlords.
As we are not DAP warlords like Lim Kit Siang, his son, Lim Guan Eng, as well as Karpal Singh, his sons Jagdeep Singh and Gobind Singh, we are not going to be taken by this and will examine his arguments.
While the NEP has not brought progress to the Indians as it has done for the Malays, the race-blind policies of the DAP in Penang have also absolutely brought no benefit to the Indians. The one outstanding Indian problem in Penang relating to the Kg Buah Pala residents was left unresolved despite face-to-face promises from Anwar Ibrahim just prior to GE12 and even after the DAP took the Penang Government four years ago in March 2008.
They have done nothing, and once again the PM stepped in finally to resolve the issue as reported by the Malaysian Insider. I have never been a fan of BN but the fact is that Najib has given real substance to his commitment to be the Prime Minister for all Malaysians. He reaches out to all groups of Malaysians directly.
There is nothing wrong with the leader of a country reaching the people directly. While before Senator Ramakrishnan accused the Indian community of selling their votes for hampers, he now accuses the Indian community of simple-mindedness. He has effectively charged that the simple naïve Indian community confuses direct engagement by the PM with division.
He must remember that he owes his position as Senator to the Indian community and not the DAP and therefore should stop implicitly running down the Indian community at every opportunity he gets.
Across all major and mature democracies in the world, national leaders consistently engage directly with various groups making up that country’s society. Everyone wants to be recognised and everyone wants to also hear directly what the leader of a country’s vision is for his or her community. Ramakrishnan does not want the PM to be close to the people because he conforms to the old-style top-down approach to politics in Malaysia.
Ramakrishnan understands that the DAP is a Chinese party with symbolic non-Chinese warlords in the form of Karpal Singh and his family. Elsewhere in the DAP, Indians have been decimated in the party elections, as in the case of Kulasegaran and his battle against DAP Perak warlords in the form of the Nga-Ngeh cousins.
Indians have also been publicly humiliated as in the case of Prof Ramasamy, who has now been effectively disowned. If Indian politicians have no standing in the DAP and therefore can never do anything for the Indians by being in the DAP, why would Ramakrishnan deny Indians from being served directly by a sitting Prime Minister?
Even his charge that the MIC is not at all involved in the Indian community is completely consistent with his traditional stand of belittling all Indians. Ramakrishnan has done nothing compared to MIC leaders, even those at division level. The truth is that 10% of MIC leaders who are dishonest, insincere and ineffective have spoilt the name of the whole party. Ramakrishnan knows this but for political ends, he is content to paint all leaders including hardworking, honest and dedicated ones as useless.
The MIC is also far more involved in substantive matters related to the community compared to the time under the feudal leadership of Samy Vellu. Ramakrishnan knows this, as I am sure he reads the blogs and online newspapers but for political ends, he would rather beat up Indian leaders in his writings.
We all know the current MIC president, G Palanivel, has been tasked with leading the Indian community’s ETP Unit which brings Pemandu’s transformation programme and more economic opportunities direct to the Indians. This unit is co-headed by Idris Jala, the minister in charge of Pemandu. Furthermore, Dr Subramaniam, the MIC deputy president, heads the Special Implementation Task Force that has resolved thousands of cases of IC and citizenship issues, amongst countless other issues, faced by members of the Indian community with the full cooperation of government agencies and ministries.
The MIC has also organised three mega events last year involving tens of thousands of all segments of the Indian community that was also attended and supported by the PM. At all of the Prime Minister’s events with various groups in the Indian community, MIC leaders were fully present.
Despite all his accusations of sidelining the MIC, the fact remains that it was this Prime Minister who appointed two MIC leaders to his Cabinet, a move that none of the last three PM’s had done. A move that the Selangor state government has also failed to replicate, content to only have YB Xavier, exco member in charge of handouts, in the Selangor state government leadership.
According to Ramakrishnan, Indians can be bought and Indians are simple-minded people. Furthermore, according to Ramakrishnan, Indian political leaders are useless. Add to this list of insults the fact that Ramakrishnan has effectively accused the leaders of countless Indian NGOs, which do a lot of good honest, work in schools, temples and other community centers of conspiring with the PM to divide the Indian community.
Ramakrishnan has effectively accused these leaders, who sacrifice everyday to reach the community where the government has not served, of dishonestly dividing the community. For a politician like him who gives the impression that he represents the Indian community, Ramakrishnan surprisingly does not think at all highly of the Indians.
He completely ignores how the events post-Hindraf have galvanised the community into pushing past so many barriers and achieving much since the last election. He assumes that just because he has not done anything, that other leaders in the community have also done nothing. That is wrong and it appears that Ramakrishnan, and not the community, is simple-minded. He forgets that he would be not be a Senator if it weren’t for Hindraf and the trends that followed. The DAP would simply have appointed a Chinese Senator instead of him.
The shallowness of the Senator’s arguments and the rushed manner in which it was written shows that Ramakrishnan just wanted to tick his box this month in terms of shoring up support for him amongst the DAP’s warlords. That he wants to be a candidate is clear for all to see. I hope he has the courage of Prof Ramasamy to stand up and be counted, instead of just being a stooge of the Lims and the Karpals.
