The Chinese Malaysian community has been branded as anti-Malay and ungrateful for not supporting the BN in the last general election. Vernacular schools have been threatened with closure. The non-Malays are often termed ‘pendatang’ and are reminded they have to be grateful for being given an opportunity to live in Malaysia.
I have personally perused thousands of original pre-Merdeka documents and during the negotiations for Merdeka. Tunku Abdul Rahman and Abdul Razak Hussein, who led the Alliance party to make representations before the Reid constitutional commission, never used the words ‘pendatang’ or ‘social contract’. Social contract is a non-existent word and was probably created along the way by conniving politicians to maintain the racial divide in the country.
It must also be remembered that pre-independence vernacular schools included the Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan known as Malay schools. It was only after independence that these ‘Malay schools’ were converted into Sekolah Kebangsaan and the Chinese and Tamil schools were maintained irresponsibly by the government as vernacular schools with limited funds and discriminated a against.
I can vouch that Indians and Chinese were not liabilities to the then-Malaya, but were instead an asset to Malaya as the Malayan economy 10 years before and after independence was dependent on both the Indian and Chinese communities.
The Indians were almost 80 percent of the labour workforce in the plantations industry which contributed almost 70 percent of the export income; whereas the Chinese contributed to a further 29 percent income in the Malayan revenue in the form of tin exports.
The British ruling government, together with the then-Malay rulers and politicians, recognised the contributions of these two communities and understood the need to maintain and settle these communities in Malaya permanently in order that Malaya could sustain itself economically. Had the Indians and Chinese left in 1957, I can personally say Malaya would have been bankrupted instantly. I say these based on the documentary evidence I have seen and possess.
The government leaders and the people at large have to understand that after 57 years of Merdeka and being born in Malaysia as a fourth generation Indian, I am entitled to be treated as an equal citizen.
I and millions of Indians and Chinese have settled in Malaysia for more than 100 years and I wonder how long more would government leaders deceive themselves that we are ‘pendatangs’, conveniently forgetting the large influx of Indonesians into Malaya in the 1920s and the recent migrant Indonesian, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis who are given citizenship and enjoy the status of bumiputra whereas we remain second class citizens. The continuous lies and distortions of historical facts have to end. The people will not fall for the ‘Joseph Goebbels lies theory’.
Declassify documents pertaining to Merdeka
It is time for the government to declassify all documents pertaining to Merdeka and let the entire Malaysian community see for themselves what was originally intended and agreed on by our forefathers and how Tunku Abdul Rahman went against his own promises to work on a multi-racial basis before the Reid constitutional commission, and then months later colluded with the British government to short change the non-Malays by rewriting the constitution to suit his agenda.
Persatuan Hindraf Malaysia urges leaders like Khairy Jamaluddin to stop reminding the non-Malays of “our promises” but to look into history and see for themselves how the constitution had been manipulated and crucial provisions guaranteeing fundamental rights of citizens conveniently ignored and diluted to protect a particular race and religion.
The rhetoric of Malay Supremacy has to end with a modern all-encompassing society where the wealth of this nation should be shared by all citizens. Only then would Malaysia progress and society live in peace and harmony.
P WAYTHAMOORTHY is chairperson, Persatuan Hindraf Malaysia.
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