PKR veep: PM's Indian gifts are a dabble in dreams

PKR vice-president N Surendran described the raft of measures for the improvement of the lot of Indian Malaysians announced by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak as "dabbling in Bollywood-style theatre, rather than dealing with the sorry realities on the ground".

The human rights lawyer, who heads his party's campaign to enable several thousand stateless people in Malaysia obtain the citizenship papers vital for their right to education, employment and healthcare, said:

"When thousands who are eligible for citizenship by virtue of the operation of the law do not have the basic papers enabling their entry into civil society, what is the point of the prime minister's pledges of increased equity and more funding for Tamil schools?"

Surendran (right) said Najib was resorting to lulling Indian Malaysians with pledges of socio-economic advancement in the future to gain their votes for his survival as PM in the coming general election.

"The sordid realities on the ground for thousands of Indian Malaysian cry out for immediate improvement, changes that could be worked with a stroke of the prime ministerial pen," Surendran said.

"But we don't see that.

"Instead, we hear pledges that refer to a future that cannot mean much to thousands of people who exist in a helpless zone, wholly removed from the realm where they could access the promises pledged by the prime minister."
Surendran said this in an immediate response to Najib's raft of measures for Indian advancement, announced at a Ponggal gathering at Dataran Merdeka last Saturday night.

A blot on criminal justice system

Surendran said Najib "must put first things first by seeing to it that thousands of the stateless in Malaysia are given the right of initial access to the basic goods of education, employment and healthcare."

"This is the pressing need of the hour, especially after revelations at the ongoing royal commission of inquiry into how illegal migrants in Sabah have obtained citizenship, which renders the situation of the stateless elsewhere in the country wholly intolerable," argued Surendran.

The lawyer also claimed that the continuing saga of deaths in custody was "a blot on our criminal justice system that largely impacts on Indian Malaysians".

Surendran has in recent years been prominent in taking up custodial death cases such as the A Kugan case and, in the last fortnight, the C Sugumar case in Hulu Langat, both of which drew national media attention.