Samy Vellu and MIC Have Long Past Their Use-By Date. They Should Be Taken Off the Shelf

From Malaysiakini: Read here article by Ganesan Doraisami

Excerpts: Read here full article

Samy Vellu, Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) President for 30 Years

It is strange that Samy Vellu is defending the Government’s actions AGAINST Hindraf on Al Jazeera.

Samy Vellu was lying through his teeth when he said that the British High Commission is closed on Sundays. Staff of the British High Commission were there on Sunday to accept the petition.

MIC has been a member of the coalition government for 50 years and under Samy Vellu’s leadership for almost 30 years.

In those 30 years, Samy Vellu’s personal wealth and that of his cronies have increased. In these same 30 years, the Indians’ growth and wealth have DIMINISHED.

Samy Vellu claims that he has often voiced his unhappiness towards certain government decisions.

The truth (about Samy Vellu and MIC) must be told.

Voicing your opinion is NOT the same as delivering results to the Indian community.

Samy Vellu, in his 30 years with MIC, spent MORE time and energy making sure NO ONE challenges him.

Whatever energy and time he had left was used to bring agreeable people to power within MIC. Today, MIC has become nothing more than a venue for the few to enrich themselves.

When was the last time MIC was able to change government policies that marginalise the Indian community?

He was not even able to stop the government from demolishing a 100-year-old temple.

Samy Vellu has become a spokesperson for the government. It is a sad day when Samy Vellu is defending the government instead of the Indian community.

But here is a man who claims to voice his opinions whenever he is not happy. Getting your opinion published in Tamil Nesan does not mean you have done your job.

Samy Vellu claims that MIC submits a report to the prime minister every six months.

What is this report? How long has he been submitting this report?

At least share with MIC members what this report had requested from the government or what problems of the Indian community had been addressed.

The Indian community has the right to know.

Without traceability, accountability and means to monitor progress, all we are left with are words.

Samy Vellu is the reason Indians lost ground in the last 28 years.

After 28 years, the time has come for Indians to look elsewhere for leadership.

There are many outside MIC who are more capable of leading a fight on behalf of the Indian community.

Samy Vellu is NOT the only hope we have for the future. Samy Vellu may think he is, but his time has passed.

In MIC presidential election cycles, Samy Vellu claims that he is running because he has unfinished tasks to accomplish for Indian Malaysians.

What kind of leader stays in power for 28 years and STILL has UNFINISH business?

Indians in Malaysia need leaders who will defend the Indian community from further erosion caused by bumiputera policies.

MIC's Hot Line

Now Samy Vellu is going to set up a toll-free hotline. He will personally answer calls from us, take detailed notes and present our case to Parliament.

A HOTLINE is more a FALSE HOPE to buy time until elections are over.

Most of us remember Maika Holdings and how Indians WOULD prosper by investing their money there. We also remember how buying lottery tickets WOULD provide funds for educational scholarship for our children.

Who will answer calls at the end of the MIC hotline? Who decides which issue is worth moving up the list? What will be the turnaround time for the resolution of problems?

Setting up a hotline may give us the illusion that our fearless leaders are doing something for us. But if we analyse carefully, setting up a hotline is not what we want. We want RESULTS.

Looking Beyond Samy Vellu

The time has come to look beyond Samy Vellu and his cronies. Samy Vellu became MIC president in 1979. It has been 28 years.

Samy Vellu has marketed himself and the MIC as the only genuine representative of the Indian community.

In essence, he and his cronies have given the community a FALSE choice. MIC is a membership-based political party. The president is elected (lately, crowned) by members of the MIC. In this club, Samy Vellu has wielded an environment in which he becomes the undisputed president.

Samy Vellu Not Answerable to Indian Community At-Large

Samy Vellu is NOT answerable to the Indian community because to be president, all he has to do is to make sure members are in check.

He only has to control MIC members, NOT the general Indian population. Anyone who disagrees with the Samy Vellu faces disciplinary action, up to and including membership termination.

The Indian community should decide if MIC represents them in Malaysian politics. It is NOT for MIC to decide that it represents the Indian community in politics.

The only positive legacy Samy Vellu has is that he is the longest-serving MIC president.

Beyond that, there is NOTHING POSITIVE about his Leadership.

The Indian community has to look beyond MIC because what is left of MIC’s leadership today is Samy Vellu.

And after Samy Vellu, what is left of MIC’s leadership?

Relevance of MIC to Malaysian Indians' Well-Being

The time has come for MIC to be made irrelevant in our lives. The only way Indians can have a permanent political solution to their socioeconomic problems is to deny MIC the opportunity to represent them.

For any coalition to take place, the Indian movement has to start from scratch and negotiate a better future. Otherwise, all we will get is the likes of Maika Holdings and hotlines.

If Malaysian Indians’ lives do improve in the next 10 years, credit should go to Hindraf and those who participated in the Nov 25 rally.

Samy Vellu deserves NONE.

Related Article:

Malaysian Indians are Worse Off than the Malays

Excerpts: Read here for more in Malaysiakini

"... Monitoring Sustainability of Globalisation director and researcher Charles Santiago said the recent remark by a deputy minister that the Indians were doing better than the Malays, gave the WRONG impression.

Deputy Rural and Regional Development Minister Zainal Abidin Osman told the Dewan Rakyat that the household income:

for Indians in 2004 was RM 3,456,

for the 'Malays' was RM2,711 and

fo the chinese, RM4,437

So are the Indians better off as claimed by Zainal Abidin?

Zainal acquired his facts from the 9MP in which the income per capita indicator had shown that the Indian household income was higher than the BUMIPUTERA.

Santiago when met yesterday stressed:

"This is NOT true.

He must have acquired his facts from the Ninth Malaysian Plan (9MP) but I can tell you that Zainal's method of approaching the issue was INCORRECT ."

Santiago noted that the key word here is the term 'bumiputera'.

He said the bumiputera category included non-Malay bumiputeras like the natives in Sabah and Sarawak and the Orang Asli.

" Their (non-Malay bumiputera) income is one of the lowest in the country.

Of course if you categorise them as a single bumiputera ethnic group, the income index for the well-off Malay bumiputera will be lower than the Indians because the non-Malay bumiputera population is considerably HIGH."

This "WEIGHTED down the per capita income of the well-off MALAY bumiputeras," he added.

The 9MP's Employment by Occupation and Ethnic Group chart from 2000 to 2005 also showed that the Indians were economically the worst of the three major races in this country.


(Image courtesy of Malaysiakini)
In 2005, for the low-wage labour sectors like plant, machine operators and assemblers, Indians constitute the highest number at 20.8 %, compared to bumiputeras (15.5 %) and Chinese (11.1 %).

Indians also dominate the lowest-paid non-production employment sector such as janitors and cleaners, with16.3 % compared to bumiputeras (9.9 %) and Chinese (8 %). [See chart below]

Another startling fact was that under the 9MP, a total of RM64 million had supposedly been allocated for 525 Tamil schools but only a total of RM2 million was given, which means that each school will only get a total of RM24,780 for a five-year period.

There are 148 Tamil schools which are fully aided while the remaining 396 are partially aided despite a Social Science Foundation's study showing that Tamil primary schools performed much better than national schools.

Apart from the schools issue, about 70,000 Indians born in this country do not have identity cards or birth certificates.