JULY 13 — The Malaysian Indian Blueprint was launched on April 23, 2017 at PWTC by the then prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak. From 2017 to 2018 May, we worked hard in charting the implementation strategy of the Malaysian Indian Blueprint.

The MIB envisioned four core strategies namely:

i. Number one, the fulfillment of the fundamental necessities faced by Indians, including the eradication of poverty, welfare support, income enhancement and other issues like housing for the poor.

ii. Number two was to realise the full potential of all children to obtain a total and holistic education right from preschool to university level while removing the obstacles which were denying any particular segment of the society from achieving their full potential.

iii. Number three was related to the economic uplifting of the Indian community across all layers of society which included skill training, entrepreneur development, business support, increasing the availability of capital and increasing the equity ownership of the Indian community.

iv. The fourth one was looking at the broader aspect of the social identity of the community and included issues which affected the community's role and social inclusion within the Malaysian nation. It also included issues pertaining to religious and linguistic freedom, documentation and statelessness. It highlighted issues pertaining to dysfunctional youths and the challenges associated with them. Importance was given to the development of community bonds and to support the development of community-based ecosystems.

Under these four main threads there were multiple subheadings which detailed all the current problems inflicting the community, its source and provided suggestions for effective solutions.

When the MIB was initially conceptualised, it was meant to bring out long term policy changes to solve the historical problems faced by the community. From the onset, we were aware that its full implementation would require a very serious political commitment from the government. Many policy changes will be required to facilitate this implementation. Unfortunately, when the Barisan National lost the 2018 election, we were unable to continue with the implementation of the MIB.

The Pakatan Harapan government was more engrossed with witchhunting and did not proceed with the implementation of the Malaysian Indian Blueprint. Moreover, Sedic, which was restructured as Mitra, was relocated and put under the purview of the minister of National Unity and Social Wellbeing. This was a wrong decision as it removed the direct involvement of the prime minister in the implementation of the MIB. The issues raised in the MIB cuts across many ministries.

The Jabatan Perdana Menteri will be the ideal centre to coordinate the responsibilities of each of these ministries in its implementation. The Ministry of National Unity is ill equipped to do that. With the change of the government in March 2020, Mitra has continued to be under the Ministry of National Unity. The only difference being, it was initially under YB Waythamoorthy and subsequently it has come under the purview of YB Halimah Sadique. On April 13th2021, the Minister of National Unity, Halima Sadique announced that the government was going to review and strengthen the Malaysian Indian Blueprint. Subsequently, the Ministry of National Unity appointed a team of academics from USM under the leadership of Prof Sivamurugan Pandian to review the Malaysian Indian Blueprint and come up with an implementation strategy

The team met me about ten months ago .I had a two hour discussion with them. I was quite forthright and told them what was needed was not another study but the political commitment to implement it. I'm told that the USM consultants have completed their review and will be presenting their recommendations as Pelan Tindakan Masyarakat India or (PTMI 2021) to the government. They have in their proposal preserved the four-core thrust of MIB and added a new thrust on women welfare. We should welcome this inclusion.

The most significant recommendation should be to place the Implementation Strategy Unit in the Jabatan Perdana Menteri (that's the Prime Minister's office) and under the direct view of the Prime Minister himself.

Putting it under the purview of the Ministry of National Unity or under the Minister in charge of the Economic Planning Unit is not going to facilitate the total implementation of the recommendations under the Malaysian Indian Blueprint.

I would like to highlight how the prime minister's direct involvement in policy reforms facilitated two very far-reaching strategies from 2011 to 2017.The matriculation stream as a tool to enter the university was originated by the government as a Bumiputera agenda with the aim of increasing the number of Bumiputera students going into our local universities. After repeated requests and pleas from the non-Malay communities to the then government led by Tun Mahathir, 10 per cent of the seats were given to non-Bumiputera students to enter the matriculation stream. From this 10 per cent,very few Indian students were able to get into the matriculation programme and use that as a route to university. In our deliberations in the Cabinet Committee for Indian Affairs, we had identified that one of the ways in which we can increase the number of Indian students getting into our local universities was by allowing them into the matriculation stream. When we proposed this to the then prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak, he agreed to the proposal and was primarily responsible for making modifications to the existent policy which then allowed more Indian students to enter the matriculation stream. Initially, Datuk Seri Najib announced the allocation of 1500 seats for Indian students under the matriculation programme and subsequently in 2017 increased it to 2200 seats.

Similarly, there was also an unwritten rule within the Ministry of Education that the number of Tamil schools in the country was fixed at 523 and cannot be increased at all.

Relocation of existing schools from one area to another area was allowed, but building a totally new school was never allowed. As a result of the changing demographics and the urbanisation of the Indian community, there were many new urban centres with a high population of Indians who were yearning for a Tamil school in their vicinity. We made repeated pleas to Datuk Seri Najib and it was his direct involvement which allowed us to obtain the approval for seven new Tamil schools. With this increase, the total number of Tamil schools in the country increased from 523 to 530. These two examples exemplify the need for the Prime Minister to be directly involved in the implementation of the Malaysian Indian Blueprint.

The current PM should reactivate the Cabinet Committee for Indian Affairs and chair it on a regular basis. He should intervene when there is a bureaucratic obstacle in implementing the recommendation and also review any current policies which are standing in the way for the Indian community to fully avail itself of all opportunities within the government. In short, there must be a strong political will to implement the total recommendations of this Blueprint and that political will should come from the prime minister himself.

* Tan Sri Dr S. Subramaniam is former president of MIC.

** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.