Fifty years ago it was necessary to talk of racial politics and even religion for the formulation of an effective and fair pre-independence (Merdeka) social contract between the major different races living in Malaya then. This was resoundingly achieved and we won the Independence.

But now 50 years later, our politicians have firmly consolidated their racial positions in politics with the racial parties - Umno, MCA and MIC - formed before Merdeka. The liberal and farsighted Onn Jaafar, the founder-president of Umno, too, failed miserably in his attempts to set up a multiracial party system because the then leaders of race-based parties exploited his good intentions by playing up racial sentiments.

During its 50- year-rule, the Barisan Nasional coalition has been unable to reduce the racial polarisation in all sectors, whether in government, private or education. In fact, the schools and the universities have suffered the worst in terms of race polarisation. Therefore, good and progressive thinking politicians within BN should now, for the good of nation building, demolish their racial parties and retain a single party with fair and progressive principles and policies.

With these fair and progressive principles and policies, we can bring about development for all citizens cutting across race and to where the need is most demanding or seen. It is obvious now that those who benefit from the many government projects are firstly those party chieftains and their kith and kin and secondly, those below them who have the connections. The ordinary people however, largely fail to benefit as they have no connections whether for business projects, contracts, scholarships or whatever. It is a question of 'who you know' and not 'what you know'!

Look at what is happening at the Ijok by-election. Race is again used to the fullest extent. For the rakyat, it is the service after the election that is most important and not the handouts before and during an election. Whether PKR's Khalid Ibrahim wins or BN's K Parthiban wins, the winner has to take care of the continuing needs of the people there.

One of these is that there are thousands of Indians without proper identity cards and citizenship in the rural areas and plantations in the country even though their ancestors were born here. They did not apply for these documents out of sheer ignorance. They are stateless in their own land of birth. The National Registration Department will just ignore them even if their apply for these documents with the excuse they don't have birth certificates.

Only the MIC, which is part of the ruling government, can solve this problem but it has not done much in this crucial area because their leaders, too, get shooed away at the National Registration Department.

If the MIC wants to win all their seats at the next general election, they should take this crucial matter to the cabinet level and deal with it effectively. This will prevent a lot of Indian boys from becoming gangsters and robbers as with citizenship, they can secure jobs for themselves. If the MIC leadership cannot do even this job effectively, then it is best they wind up their business of politics.