I read with jubilance when Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad announced that entrance to public universities would be based on merit beginning this year. He certainly put us one step closer on the long road towards a more just Malaysia.

Unfortunately, MIC, a core component member of Barisan Nasional, is bitterly opposing it. Its president, S Samy Vellu, said, as published in The Star Online :

"We want the Cabinet to make a ruling on this as the percentage of Indians entering the universities has been reduced by nearly three percent,'' he said, adding that this was an "urgent matter."

Samy and his supporters should realise that competition is for real in the globalised world and that their energy would be better used to raise funds and awareness of education to improve the community's lot.

I do not deny Indian Malaysians — as a community — are more marginalised in terms of educational opportunities, partly because of poverty. I am not saying it is not right to do something about it, but it is no solution to provide a short-term solution to a long-term problem!

Samy may have good intentions but he will betray his brethren in the long run. To ask that Indian Malaysians be given university places by quota is to lead them back on the same dangerous path paved by the nationalistic Umno leaders.

One of the reasons the party leaders are mulling the withdrawal of affirmative action for bumiputra in education is their realisation that it has not achieved its aims and that it is time for the bumiputra to learn to compete on an equal footing.

It is an irony that MIC now wants to enjoy the dubious privilege in the more globalised economy and turn the clock back for the Indian community.

I am aware that critics may dismiss or at the very least write me off as someone who do not understand the plight of Indian Malaysians. I beg to differ. I am a Chinese Malaysian who did my bachelor's degree in a Malaysian public university in the 1990s. My previous statement spoke for itself.