As an Indian, I have been watching the spat between Former Klang MP Charles Santiago and Deputy Minister of Entrepreneur Development and Cooperatives R. Ramanan with a degree of interest.
It all began when PAS started making overtures to the Indian community during their recent party assembly. Naturally, Ramanan — one of the highest-ranking Indians in government — felt compelled to respond. If you ask me, I found his response to be rather innocuous and mild: all he said was the opposition was simply following the example of the Madani government in reaching out to Indians.
What he said was so harmless and mild, that not a single opposition leader bothered to criticise him. They let it pass.
Oddly, the harshest response came not from PAS or Bersatu, but from Santiago, a former three-term Klang MP who belongs to DAP, one of the most, if not the most, steadfast allies of PKR, the party that Ramanan belongs to.
“When you have somebody like this guy telling our leaders that everything is fine, then nothing can happen,” Santiago not only snapped at Ramanan's rather mild and innocuous statement, he also dismissively referred to Ramanan as “this guy,” as if he was so very angry with Ramanan that he couldn’t even bring himself to say Ramanan’s name.
Santiago, it seems, has taken such deep aversion to Ramanan's view, simply because in Santiago’s view, PAS wasn’t following PH’s example — it was courting the Indian votes because it can “smell Putrajaya” — in other words, Santiago believes that PAS is interested to harvest the votes of the Indian community, because the Indian community feels neglected by PH, and because it believes it will be able to exploit the support of the Indian community to topple the Madani government.
Frankly, I find this to be an odd reading of the situation. Ask any ordinary Indian on the street and it becomes clear: the community is nowhere near supporting PAS. If anything, PAS’s direct outreach to the Indian community is likely a sign of desperation and frustration rather than confidence or strength. Having lost faith in its partners like Bersatu, Gerakan, and MIPP, PAS has taken it upon itself to do what its allies cannot. Only Santiago seems convinced that this act of frustration and desperation by PAS is the sign of an imminent opposition takeover.
Ramanan, for his part, responded by challenging Santiago to define what it really means to “neglect non-Malays,” while listing what the government has delivered: nearly half a billion ringgit under the Entrepreneur Development and Cooperatives Ministry, almost RM1 billion each through Sumbangan Tunai Rahmah (STR) and Sumbangan Asas Rahmah (SARA), and more than RM1 billion for Tamil schools benefiting over 400 institutions.
While he was at it, he also questioned Santiago’s achievements during his long tenure as MP.
In response, Santiago is today (27 sept) complaining that Ramanan has “missed the forest for the trees.”
The real question, according to Santiago, does not revolve around how much money has been set aside, but why so many Indians are still being deprived of their most basic rights nearly seven decades after independence.
Why, Santiago is asking, are Tamil schools still struggling, Indian youth denied opportunities, Indian children still without the right to education, jobs, and healthcare, and even citizenship — along with a whole lot of other why’s that made me feel like I was peeling an onion while watching a tear-jerker of an Indian mega-serial.
Honestly, I think it is Santiago that is missing the forest for the trees. For no good reason he is getting melodramatic and beating his chest in lamentation unnecessarily, while assuming that the real question is not about how much money has been set aside for the Indian community.
To be absolutely blunt, the problem with the Indian community has to do with money. I don’t know what basic rights we have been deprived of 70 years after independence — it is not like we can’t vote, or have to sit at the back of the bus, or use a segregated bathroom — we have enough rights in this country. There are some rights that are an issue to us, which lie mostly in the domain of religion and involve a minority of cases such as those involving Indira Gandhi or Loh Siew Hong — but otherwise, rights-wise, we are fine.
What affects most of us is the fact that we don’t have enough money, which in turn is depriving us of the resources, platform, access and opportunities that we need to take care of ourselves. If we had more money, all the problems that Santiago stated, even if they are as significant and definitive for the Indian community, would not even be a problem in the first place. If we had money, access, resources and opportunities, we could create the educational institutions, jobs, healthcare services that we can use to take of not only ourselves, but other races . Heck, if we had the money, we might even not find it difficult to get our people citizenship for our stateless members — after all, how hard can it be to find citizenship for a member of an educated, rich, skillful and well-endowed community?
As for his record, Santiago responded vaguely by saying that his record was not about chasing allocations but about consistent advocacy for institutional reforms, grassroots empowerment, and genuine equity.
Although he is making it sound like what he did for us is more important than getting us the money, platform, access, opportunities and resources that we need, I am quite sure that the Indian community begs to differ.
When he says that he was focused on things like institutional reform or genuine equity, I am quite sure that most of us are just hearing that he has done nothing tangible or noteworthy for the community, other than perhaps “voice out” or “talk” about issues that affect the community. Talking and voicing out matters is all fine and well, but at the end of the day, what matters is how much meat did you bring to the table.
After saying that, Santiago would even claim that he is done with Ramanan, and that he ““will not waste any more time in a tit-for-tat with a deputy minister who mistakes government spending for personal achievement,” as if it was Ramanan that was the one who attacked him for no good reason, instead of the other way around.
If I can agree with Santiago, it is in that yes, I also think that Santiago should stop this pointless bickering. He is the one that started it, so it is right that he is also the one that stops it, even if Ramanan’s camp decides to have the last word.
Also, as an Indian, I feel that Santiago needs to be aware of two things that the community expects from its representatives.
The first is that unlike what he thinks, he should focus on the money. If he wants to represent the community to the government, instead of criticising Ramanan, Santiago should emulate Ramanan and focus on getting more money, resources, opportunity, platform and access for our community. Instead of expecting Ramanan to focus on “advocacy for institutional reforms, grassroots empowerment, and genuine equity,” whatever that means, it would be much better if he could learn to be more like Ramanan and focus on getting the money, access and resources for the community. This is what the community expects from our representatives. That is why we put them in position and power in the first place.
The second is that he should learn to work together with other Indian politicians in power and position, instead of trying to bring them down for no good reason. It is because our politicians keep trying to bring down the Indians who have position and power for no good reason, that we have a situation where we can’t be united, gain power or obtain sufficient money, opportunity, platform or access for our people. This crab mentality has to stop, and if Santiago really can't get us any money, the least he should do is be an example on how to stop the crab mentality from perpetuating in our community , instead of encouraging it.
We understand it might be hard for a PH veteran like Santiago to be in a state of limbo, while an upstart like Ramanan has climbed so high up the PH ladder so quickly, but rather than indulge in self-pity or begrudge the good fortune of Ramanan, we hope that Santiago will instead concentrate on working together with other Indian politicians, especially those who hold power and position like Ramanan, to not only raise himself up, but more importantly, get our people the money, resources, opportunities, access, and platform that we need to better ourselves.
TheRealNehruism (nehru.sathiamoorthy@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
The User Content (as defined on Newswav Terms of Use) above including the views expressed and media (pictures, videos, citations etc) were submitted & posted by the author. Newswav is solely an aggregation platform that hosts the User Content. If you have any questions about the content, copyright or other issues of the work, please contact creator@newswav.com.
