THE Indians are fast losing their political power in the national landscape due to its past leaders’ failure in uplifting the community, said Arunachala Research & Consultancy Sdn Bhd (ARRESCON) principal consultant R Paneir Selvam.
“In my view, the past Malaysian Indians leaders have failed the community tremendously. If you look at the Indian-based political parties from the 1950s, it’s always been about power struggle and little on planning for the community’s future.
“It’s was Tun VT Sambanthan vs Tan Sri V Manickavasagam, later Manickavasagam vs Tun S Samy Vellu and then Samy Vellu vs the late Tan Sri S Subramaniam. In the process, the Indian community got isolated and fragmented from mainstream development,” he told FocusM.
Paneir Selvam said this following the PKR party polls, which saw almost no Indians getting elected to its central leadership team despite being touted as a multi-racial party.
Of the ones that got elected to its supreme council, only actor-director Hans Isaac, an Indian-Serani, won a spot.
Touching on the plight of the Indians, Paneir Selvam said the community itself was small, lacking political clout to muster any positive changes to their predicament.
And the matter was made worse when the supposed Indian leaders got too busy jostling for power, leaving the community to fend for themselves most of the times with little Government aid.
“Although Indians do act as ‘kingmakers’ in certain constituencies, we are losing that too given our shrinking population size.
“Right now, we consist about 6% of the total population and there are reports indicating that the number will shrink to below 1% in 30 years-time,” Paneir Selvam noted.
Shameless leaders
He then claimed that with Indians losing prominence, many political parties from both sides of the aisle have chosen to trivialise the community’s needs.
“At the height of Barisan Nasional’s (BN) reign, do you remember how the MIC and People’s Progressive Party (PPP) were treated by UMNO? That tells us all we need to know,” Paneir Selvam quipped.
On a positive note, the analyst said that Indians have come to realise that they were on their own and have started making something out of their lives using their own effort.
“So, I urge some of our Indian leaders who like to tout their so-called contributions on social media to reflect on their failure and stop taking credit for the community’s success, which came mostly from their own hard work and perseverance,” Paneir Selvam remarked. – July 24, 2022
