I fail to agree with MIC president S Samy Vellu's assertion that the 3% equity for the Indians had been on the national agenda for a long time and that nothing had been planned and implemented for the community. The failure to reach that equity level lies not with the government but with the MIC leader which Samy is.

The dilemma facing the marginalised Indian community will continue as long as they are led by the current MIC leaders. For 25 years, the Indian community has been led by these leaders, and in many ways the trust bestowed to them has been repeatedly betrayed. The pitiful and marginalised position the Indian community are in would not have occurred had their leaders placed community above self, service and sacrifice above greed.

Partly to blame for this current dilemma are the Indian community in generally and the MIC members particularly. Like the proverbial sheep being led to the slaughter house, they had faithfully placed their trust in these same leaders who had deemed it fit to plunder the wealth meant for the poor and destitute in the Indian community.

During Dr Mahathir Mohamad's reign, a man not known for his generosity, a few million Telekom Malaysia shares, then just publicly listed, were allocated to Maika, the investment arm of MIC. The shares, ostensibly for Maika, would indirectly benefit the many rural Indians in estates and other low category jobs if equity in the form of unit trust shares were taken up by the community. MIC members went on a frantic campaign to encourage the poor Indians from the rural areas to invest in Maika for a slice of the economic cake.

It was like manna from heaven and the poor uneducated Indians took the bait hook, line and sinker. They ploughed their hard-earned savings meant for their children's education into Maika shares with promise of a return many folds their original investments. But the Telekom shares never reached Maika. Somewhere along the way to Maika, the Telekom shares were hijacked to another entity.

Subsequently, Maika went into a tailspin and millions was wiped off from its value. The hard-earned savings of thousand of poor Indian investors were left clinging to the valueless Maika shares. The extent of the untold hardship and misery this episode had on the Indian community can never be measured in monetary terms. In many poor Indian households, the dreams and aspirations of young ambitious children were destroyed forever.

Today, we see jobless, uneducated Indians whose only option is to turn to a life of crime in order to survive. The government has not opened its door in the civil service for them and the private sector will continue to remain elusive for the unqualified.

The plight and fate of the Indian community will continue to remain bleak and diminish if it continues to place its faith in the same MIC leaders who have hoodwinked them for the last 20 years. They have no one else to blame but themselves if they persist in choosing the same faces which have brought them nothing but despair and despondency.

Through the present MIC leadership, the Indians are now a marginalised community. Only the Indian community can make a change for the better, failing which they will have to endure another 20 years of destitution.