In K Kabilan's article Tamils schools at crossroads: end in sight? , he appears to have fallen for the grand deception orchestrated by the MIC last Saturday to fool Malaysians that the Indian Malaysian community supports the move to teach Mathematics and Science in English in Tamil schools. Some of his comments were inaccurate, as he was probably not aware of the behind-the-scene manipulation by the MIC during the symposium.

I would like to clarify. Firstly, there was no real debate nor is there any evidence to suggest that 90 percent of the 600 participants at the education symposium supported the proposed language switch from next year.

MIC president S Samy Vellu opened the symposium, warning and intimidating the participants that they have no other choice but to support the proposal.

Participants who wished to speak were told to fill a form before the debating session started. They were required to give their names and state their views briefly.

When the debate started, only speakers planted by the MIC and a few others who favoured the move were allowed to speak. About 40 people spoke and most of the time they praised Samy Vellu instead of discussing the issue at hand.

Only one participant spoke strongly against the plan. Later I learnt from the participant that he got a chance to speak because he deceived the fox at its own game. He had written on the form that he was in favour of English just to get the opportunity to speak.

During the tea breaks, many participants were seething in anger at being deliberately denied a chance to speak even though they came well prepared with facts and figures.

A vote was never taken at the end of the day. So, it is inaccurate to say that 90 percent of the participants supported the plan.

What this proved was that the symposium was sandiwara (playacting) staged by Samy Vellu to convince the cabinet (today) that the Indian community is behind him on this plan.

It is not accurate to suggest that opposition was coming only from minority voices. It takes time for information to seep down to the Tamil masses as the MIC leadership has blocked the normal news channels. But I believe the Tamil organisations and PTAs have awakened from their slumber as the independent Tamil newspapers such as Makkal Osai and Malaysia Namban are beginning to carry the people's views on the issue.