A Solution to the Blueprint-Manifesto ‘spat’

It is also very evident that pre-election promises are seldom kept by politicians from both sides of the political divide. As such HINDRAF feels that it is all the more important that a binding agreement is in place so that history does not repeat itself.

Paraman Subramaniam

There has been much heated debate going on in the reluctance of PR to have a binding endorsement with HINDRAF regarding its 5 year blueprint. The HINDRAF blueprint which is based on social justice as the foundation had proposed a specific, pointed and targeted program of rehabilitation measures, quite similar to existing Felda settlers program, to a specific group of community, Displaced Estate Workers (DEW).

This covers proposal for intervention in 6 major problem areas that transcends racial and religious barriers:

1) 800,000 internally displaced estate workers.
2) 350,000 stateless people.
3) The denial of adequate and equal educational opportunities.
4) Unequal employment and business opportunities.
5) The impunity of the Royal Malaysian Police.
6) The standards of Human Rights practices.

PR leaders had agreed in principle to the blueprint but fell short of giving a binding agreement citing certain wordings and languages need to be reviewed. HINDRAF had reciprocated by not only agreeing to go through with the PR team to review these issues but were even willing to debate allocations of the necessary budget to be allocated for the realization of the various programs in the blueprint proposal. Ironically PR till date has failed to come forward to iron out these details with HINDRAF.

Recently Anwar Ibrahim had to do a damage limitation exercise of claiming that PR will include specific details of the Indian community’s needs into the PR manifesto. This was in response to pressure from mainly HINDRAF leaders who slammed the manifesto for leaving out specific concerns of the Indian community while mentioning almost all other races. Anwar claims that PR will now include 5 points into the manifesto:

1) Resolving the ‘long standing issue of stateless people’ in Malaysia, without excluding Indians, in the first 100 days of Pakatan’s administration.
2) Technical training and job opportunities for school leavers, stressing the major beneficiaries to be the Indian community.
3) Ensuring all Tamil schools will be fully funded and infrastructure comparable to the national educational standards.
4) A government National Housing Board to build affordable homes that includes focus on helping build freehold homes for ex estate workers around the country.
5) The setting up of the Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC).

These points appear to have been taken in part from the HINDRAF blueprint but are not comprehensive in nature. It also does not explain how it will be implemented considering the huge ‘BTN brain washed UMNO bureaucracy’ hurdle that it will need to overcome to do so. On the other hand the HINDRAF blueprint spells out clearly how to overcome this.

Both PR and HINDRAF are not willing to give in regarding the requirement of a binding agreement of the HINDRAF blueprint to bring about a political electoral pact in the coming General Elections.

HINDRAF particularly are aggrieved that for the Tsunami that they created for PR in 2008, there has not been even a single attempt by PR in the past 5 years to engage with them into drawing up plans for the grouses of the 1.5million marginalized Indians that they represent.

It is also very evident that pre-election promises are seldom kept by politicians from both sides of the political divide. As such HINDRAF feels that it is all the more important that a binding agreement is in place so that history does not repeat itself.

A solution to this predicament lies within the PR’s Buku Jingga itself which PR claims is their comprehensive and holistic policy document. It proposes a set of policies to lead the nation to a new and better future.

A clause under the heading ‘Prosperity, solidarity and social justice with PR’ clearly states that PR will ‘set up a council of experts to formulate and change existing national policies with regard to key economic, political and social challenges’. The HINDRAF blueprint falls well within this jurisdiction and as such PR must activate the clause within the Buku Jingga and accept it as after all PR leaders have already claimed to have accepted it in principle. Failure to do so may invite doubts of credibility on the very foundations of the Buku Jingga. PR will also be able to prove to the nation that it has raised the bar in its credibility to its election promises.