THE Indian community’s long-simmering anger over the wealth gap with other races and ethnic discrimination erupted in public a decade ago, with a massive rally by the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) in 2007 but a decade later, the minority group’s problems remain as glaring as ever.

Continued dissatisfaction among Indian Malaysians, who form about 8% of the population, stems from three main concerns – the high cost of living, public corruption and the lack of job opportunities and low wages – a researcher and findings by the Invoke Centre for Policy Initiatives show.

Of 17,107 voters who completed Invoke’s survey, 1,110 were Indians who registered 47.66% as those concerned over the rising cost of living – higher than other groups at 47.64% among Malays and 29.12% among Chinese.

The survey conducted from June 5 to July 14 also looked at other voter concerns ahead of the 14th general election. 

It found that 13.65% Indians are worried about corruption, while 15.14% Chinese surveyed are concerned and only 9.92% of Malays feel similarly.

Indians are also the most dissatisfied with the lack of job opportunities and low wages at 10.37% of those surveyed, while Malays (6.57%) and Chinese (4.89%.)

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia’s (UKM) Dr Denison Jayasooria said the Indians, along with other Malaysians, felt the high cost of living acutely, and did not feel confident with the government’s promises or advice to cope because there was “no parallel shift in political leadership”.

“The political leadership (is not showing) that it is also accepting cuts, so it does not instil public confidence.

“If political leaders say they are cutting salaries, cars, airplane travel, then you will see a corresponding confidence that political leadership or big businesses are also cutting down (on their cost and expenditure). You are not seeing that,” said Denison, who is UKM’s Institute of Ethnic Studies (KITA) principal research fellow.

The scandal involving state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) also exposed the lavish lifestyles and spending habits of some political leaders.

“It is not just about political leaders declaring their assets… these kinds of revelations (of corruption) involve large sums of money and do not instil confidence,” he added.

The Hindraf rally in November 2007 saw between 10,000 and 30,000 Indian Malaysians protesting on the streets of Kuala Lumpur, triggered by demolitions of illegally built Hindu temples, but also over a host of other issues ranging from the lack to educational opportunities and jobs for Indian youth, to “body-snatching” cases and broken families resulting from conversions of one spouse to Islam.

In April, the government unveiled the RM1 billion Malaysian Indian Blueprint aimed at improving the lives of the Indian community, to be implemented by 2027.

While the blueprint included a RM500 million allocation to the Permodalan Nasional Bhd unit trust investment scheme for low-income Indians, Denison said structural issues, such as providing more job opportunities for youth and specific targets, needed better planning.

“If you want to target specific groups, like unemployed youths, then you have to find those youths and that requires a certain amount of skills and institutions which have not been set up.

“You need intervention at two levels – the macro level and at the specific level of the target groups.”

Indians came to Malaya as labourers under the British and worked as traders, policemen and plantation labourers, while others worked in the colonial administration because of their good command of the English language.

Many remained in plantations and rubber estates and became displaced as urbanisation took over, ending up as urban poor. They form a significant number of the B40 category or bottom 40% of households earning not more than RM3,855 a month.

An estimated 695,000 Indians out of a 1.7 million population are in this category.

Denison said the impact of the current economic downturn would be greatly felt by the B40 group which was already struggling to make ends meet, in part because of the loss of jobs to cheap foreign labour. This was an example of a structural issue affecting the Indians which the government has failed to tackle.

“I think the government through the Indian blueprint is addressing some of the concerns but the macroeconomic issues that have to be addressed are structural ones, such as our over-reliance on foreign workers and low wages,” he said. – August 7, 2017.