Statelessness – the bane of the indian poor

I have spoken of Mariappen in my articles on Marginalisation sometime earlier this year. After almost a year and a half of working with him and the NRD office in Kulim, we were able to finally make the submission necessary to get Mariappen and his wife their ICs. The submissions have been accepted at the Kulim NRD office , and I will tell you this was no easy task . Consider that there are so many poor indians out there who do not know how to read and write and who surely do not know the ways of officialdom.  Now the submission goes to Putrajaya and then what will happen there,we do not know. Your guess is as good as mine.
The constitution clearly states and let me quote:
1. (1) Subject to the provisions of Part III of this Constitution and anything
done thereunder before Malaysia Day, the following persons born before Malaysia
Day are citizens by operation of law, that is to say:
(c) every person born within the Federation after September 1962, of
whose parents one at least was at the time of the birth either a citizen
or permanently resident in the Federation, or who was not born a
citizen of any other country;
Mariappen’s and Pechai’s parents –all deceased, were clearly citizens of the country and they had all their documents of identity well in place. They got all theirs done when they lived in an era of stability – they lived their early years in the estates, before they all got dislodged lock stock and barrel, at around the time of Mariappen and Pechai.
By operation of the law Mariappen and Pechai  are citizens -period. They have been summarily denied this basic right by the UMNO government and UMNO established Administration of the country. Watch the video and know for yourself.
This is the bane of the Indian poor in our country
Naragan