By IANS
Kuala Lumpur : Malaysia’s parliamentary opposition has urged Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmed Badawi to head a task force to study problems facing ethnic Indians, citing a fall in the number of government jobs they hold.
The demand came on Wednesday even as a lawmaker belonging to the Barisan Nasional, the ruling coalition, disapproved of use of force by the police against a rally of Tamils on November 25.
Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang, who represents Ipoh Timur in parliament, told the media in the parliament lobby that the cabinet should set up a special task force headed by the Prime Minister to resolve the problems faced by the Indians, The Star newspaper said.
“The cabinet should come out with a new policy for a new deal to end this,” he said.
“The number of Indians in the civil service has also plunged in the past 34 years, from 17.4 percent in 1971 to 5.12 percent in 2005,” he added.
Another lawmaker Datuk Zaid Ibrahim has disapproved the use of force by police on a rally of ethnic Tamils on November 25 and has urged the government to do “fresh thinking” on allowing dissent.
Member of Parliament Ibrahim, from Kota Baru, told a Rotary Club meeting on Wednesday that peaceful demonstrations were part of the democratic process.
“It is actually a small thing to me and I wish that after 50 years of independence, we will be able to manage this thing quite easily. To demonstrate and protest in a peaceful way is part and parcel of a democratic country,” he was quoted in The Sun Daily on Thursday.
Ibrahim, who belongs to Barisan Nasional, said he expected ethnic and religious issues to be among the serious issues to be discussed in the next general election.
He said that among them would be the issues raised by the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) demonstration in Kuala Lumpur on Nov 25.
The rally, that attracted an estimated 10,000 persons, was declared illegal by police that dispersed it with water cannons. Thirty-one persons are being prosecuted for participating and attacking policeman on duty.
Ibrahim added that the police could have told the people which road to take and how the organiser should control and limit the crowd so that the demonstration can be properly managed.
He said “using force and power”, the Internal Security Act or revoking the protesters’ citizenship would not help the situation or address the real issues faced by the people.
“We have to remember that we are a multi-cultural and multi-racial country and if we, all the time, see it as a Malay, Chinese or Indian issue, we are not going to see the real problem.
“Somebody said the Malays are worse than the Indians as only 2.9 percent of the Indians are poor, compared with 8 percent of the Malays who are poor. It is not going to help to say who has the problems. So why are we are still responding to the issues in such a negative way, why do we need to remind ourselves and start comparing ourselves as Chinese, Indians and Malays?” he asked.
“Let’s not talk about race and religion. Let’s just see things as what they are, economic issues and the sensitivity of the people.”
Ibrahim said the nation needed a people-oriented government, which he described as one which would listen to even the most ridiculous demand from the people.
“But our response has always been ‘No’, he said adding that even the Bar Council had abandoned the walk to celebrate International Human Rights Day next Monday.
The Bar Council had taken the decision by majority as there was no unanimity on taking the required police permission to be able to stage the walk.
“I was part of the walk last year and the year before. It was just a walk. We were just walking around the Lake Garden and it was good exercise,” he said.
Ethnic Indians constitute eight per cent of the Malaysian population of 27 million. They are predominantly Tamils, 75 per cent of whom are Hindus.
The other Indian groups are Tamil Muslims and Christians, Malayalees of all religious denominations, Sikhs and immigrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.