We were moved by the Tamil Nesan news report dated July 22 on one Murali, 35, who was declared a bankrupt because his identity card got lost and was misused for a RM36,000 loan.

Murali is an asthma patient and his wife is a breast cancer patient having gone through eight treatments. He has four children aged between five and 14 years. He gets a Socso pension of only RM368 per month and RM100 per month from the welfare department for his school-going child.

His total income per month is RM468 which is way below the Malaysian hardcore poverty line index of RM687 per urban household of five.

The average household income for an Indian family has been declared in the Ninth Malaysia Plan Mid-Term Review as RM3,799.

Murali’s family and thousands of other Indians and, in fact, at least 85 percent of the Indians do not earn RM3799 per month. This RM3,799 per month figure certainly does not reflect the ground reality and appears to be merely speculative.

Murali out of desperation has decided to sell his kidney to raise funds for capital to start a new business. Murali’s case is just the tip of the iceberg as hundreds of thousands of Indians are in Murali’s shoes.

Baitulmal, Pusat Zakat, Yayasan Islam, the various ‘badan amal’ and ‘badan kebajikan’ etc. will not help him. TV3, Utusan Malaysia, NST, The Star and Berita Harian will not help publicise the serious Indian plight according to it’s gravity.

Umno, PKR, DAP and PAS will not campaign for the very serious Indian poverty issues.

Felda, Felcra, Risda, Kejora, Kada, Project Agropolitan will not give Murali a business license to run a bus-stop kiosk nor will the Umno Federal Territory branch give him a taxi license.

What alternative does Murali have besides selling his kidney? Should he and his family lie across the railway tracks and kill themselves as what happened to an Indian family in Seramban last year?

Incidentally, the Indian suicide rate is 800 percent higher than that of the Malays because of poverty and poverty-related issues.

Unlike the Malays, Orang Asli, the natives of Sabah and Sarawak who have their inherited villages and even the Chinese who have their New Villages to fall back on, Murali and hundreds of thousands of other Indians have no where else to go to. Almost all the Indians do not have a village to fall back on or as a safety net.

We hereby propose that the Umno-led government set up a Pemudah like high-level task force geared for action-oriented results in a short space of time to seriously address critical Indian issues as per our 18 point demand to the prime minister dated Aug 12, 2007.

This task force should be co-chaired by the chief secretary to the government and Hindraf’s legal adviser with panel members comprising the secretaries-general of the finance ministry and women, family and community development ministry and the directors-general of the Economic Planning Unit and the prime minister’s department.

Social scientists nominated by Hindraf should also be included in this task force which should be allocated a budget of RM35 billion annually.

This special task force should eventually be replaced by a Race Relations Commission (to eliminate all forms racism and religious extremism) and an Equal Opportunities Commission in furtherance to Article 8 of the Federal Constitution (equality before the law).

The writer is Hindraf chairperson.