Stateless Indians a political ploy at the expense of the poor: A firsthand experience of the 12.12.12 rally

BN has long been accused of not adequately addressing the issue of statelessness amongst Malaysians irrespective of race, religion and creed. Recently, N Surendran has been actively pursuing his 300,000 figure of Malaysian Indian stateless tirelessly with vigour. He, however, has not been able to produce a list of stateless Indians be it 30, 300 or 3,000.

Surendran this morning claims that the issue of statelessness should not exist in this day and age but the issue of statelessness is a global phenomenon and cannot be resolved even if Surendren is able to oust Padang Serai MP incumbent, N. Gobalakrishan.

Taking MP for Kapar, Manikavasagam’s, argument this morning that his late mother and mother-in-law were victims of statelessness, though his father-in-law ironically happens to be an MIC stalwart, is in itself cumbersome to consume.

Latifa Koya that was observed this morning inquiring from her ‘informers’ if there was a police barricade that she and her comrades could barge through, stems questions of her actual motives.

To most of the protestors and Indian bystanders that were there today, the major drawback was that Anwar Ibrahim or Nurul Izzah were not there today. To add some ethnic diversity to the PR entourage, Chua Jui Ming appeared just before the crowd was entering JPN. Interestingly, PAS also did not show their support for the stateless Indians cause. Latifa had a hard time trying to pacify the mainly Indian crowd to bring down their party flags without the assistance of Mat Sabu and Unit Amal.

At the JPN foyer, the police was able to tackle the belligerent attitudes of the opposition leaders though scuffling ensued as the media was not given enough material to the opposition’s advantage.

A couple of hours later, Charles Santiago mentioned that Chua Jui Meng was manhandled by MIC youth leaders. A few minutes later, he was ‘corrected’ and it was then suggested that a PPP member was the one that shoved Chua Jui Ming. Sivarasa claimed that it was nothing serious and he (Chua Jui Meng) will ‘handle’ it.

It took Raveen, Charles Santiago and Manikavasagam a good five years to realise that stateless Indians in Malaysia are an issue. Interestingly, Surendren managed to gather 300 people from all over Malaysia to protest in front of JPN and only 68 out of the 300 held red identity cards.

An eyewitness that day