On May 16, The Sun carried a headline, the "Hot-headed Indians". This makes interesting reading not so much about the character of Indian Malaysians as much as about the reality of headline sensationalism, prejudice construction and inaccurate and insensitive reporting in this blessed country of ours.

The issue is yet again gangsterism among poor "Indians" (from squatter colonies). This time around there is an interesting though careless observation by the police, "as if violence and bloodshed are second nature to Indians in the district". The prejudice seems to have gone deeper.

A lot of Malaysians love to talk about gangsterism among the "Indians" on a periodic basis. Probably, it feels good to do so. In fact, it has become the second nature of these Malaysians! Sadly, a socio-pathological condition that afflicts us as a nation is the well-developed ability to see the wrong things. Note: The attention is on "violence" not on "poverty". The attention is on "effects" not on "causes". The attention is on "Indians" not "Malaysians".

Let me take a petty issue to reveal a prejudice and insensitive reporting in the cited headline. Why don't we have headlines such as "Cheating Chinese" ("the Chinese who will do anything to make that extra buck") or the "Lazy Malays" ("the Malays who live off the Malaysia created by the sweat and toil of Chinese and Indians and other minorities in this country")?

If you keep your ears to the ground, the kind of prejudicial statements that you will hear about the Indians (not so much the other ethno-minorities), the Malays or the Chinese are incredible. They are so revolting that I simply cannot bring myself to mention them here.

But where does this kind labeling or "community character assassination" get us to as a national community? Really nowhere. And besides, it puts the whole issue in a wrong perspective. It is rather sad to know that a newspaper, which must practise some restraint and wisdom, has resorted to irresponsible headline sensationalism. Social myopia seems to continue to afflict this tabloid.

Highly segmented

Consider the category of "Indian" as it appears in the headline. The community is highly segmented on the basis of class, caste, religion, region and language. Among others, the Chinese and the Malays have their own segmenting faultlines. The group specifically addressed in the news item cited above is probably those from the poorer sections of the (male) Tamil/Indian Malaysian community. So, why not a headline in racial tone — "Hotheaded poor Indians" or more accurately "Hotheaded poor Tamils"? But, really why not a headline in non-racial tone: "Hotheaded poor Malaysians"?

Carefully constructed, racism can be made to be exciting, sensational. It seems to have become something that sells. And our business ethos: "If racism sells, let us sell racism....Oh, never mind the Indians!"

The issues of drunkenness or gangsterism are problems that have been affecting the Tamil/Indian community (largely) for quite some time now and have become an intergenerational problem. I suppose all Malaysians have seen a drunk "Tamil/Indian" doing that "drunken dance" on a roadside as he walks listlessly and aimlessly. Quite a tragic, but certainly a symbolic representative, image of the status and future of the community in this country. This tragic image belongs to the adult labouring community and has a working class history.

Today, however, this has developed a "greater texture" as it has gotten tied up with drug abuse and gangsterism, and has reached the (poorer) youth. This also indicates how equitable and sustainable our national development has been. The mixture of drunkenness, drug abuse and gangsterism has become the backbone of an explosive, intergenerational, antisocial popular culture of poverty.

Actually, the Tamil/Indian community (largely) has already lost a few generations of their young people and will continue to lose them. It is time we realised that we are no longer dealing with a criminal here and one there but a whole sub-culture that is producing them, like a devil's factory.

Against this background, let me also intervene in the much publicised event about the meeting on Indian Malaysians — "The Malaysian Indian in the new millennium: rebuilding community". This event, a middle-class intervention, is set to take place June 1-2 in Kuala Lumpur.

Issues to be addressed

I suppose the group that is going to meet will have to address issues such as the ones indicated above — both the prejudicial representation of the community in the media and the social problems faced by the community — in addition to looking for some corrective and/or developmental action.

Before considering the issues of poverty and gangsterism, it is time we considered categorising ourselves inclusively as "Malaysians" not exclusively as "Indians". So a proper reference to us would be achieved by use of "Indian Malaysians" rather than "Malaysian Indians". It is important that we talk about our problems and our futures as an ethno-cultural group in the context of an inclusive category, "Malaysian".

This nomenclature is nothing new as many ethno-cultural groups in many multi-cultural societies around the globe adopt it. It has a long-term political advantage of consolidating the more sustainable politics of difference and diversity in a multi-cultural society like ours. Let us be recognised with rights as Indian Malaysians. Let us rebuild the community as Indian Malaysians.

Another important issue that needs to be addressed at the meeting is the prejudiced media representation of the community. A media monitoring body addressing the issue of prejudice construction would go a long way in dealing with "racial prejudice" in Malaysia. The issue needs to be addressed and brought into serious legal discourse in this country as even the Malaysian Human Rights Organisation (Suhakam) which has recognised all other forms of discrimination, has carefully excluded racial discrimination on its list. The middle class is best suited to bring this up. Media monitoring can go along with developing and encouraging cross-cultural sensitivity.

Returning to the key issue, certainly the meeting will have to address the problem of poverty faced by the community in general and the poor youth in particular. We must refuse to think of our poor youth as just "Tamil/Indian" youths but as (Indian) Malaysian youths.

Rebuilding community

This positioning draws not only the community but also, more importantly, the national government to address the problems of our youths. We must break that habit of the government to turn national issues into communal issues. This is perhaps a very critical intervention in rebuilding community, so that the idea of "rebuilding community" is achieved in two ways — rebuilding the Indian community as much as rebuilding the Malaysian community.

An important issue that needs to be addressed is of course the reference made in The Sun — gangsterism. Gangsterism is a very serious and practical concern to the police. Very understandable.

But the fact is that the Malay-majority police force interacts periodically with the "Indian community" in perhaps one context and with one group of Indians — the poor Tamil/Indian male youth and "violence and bloodshed". How can prejudice not be formed? (Perhaps, if the police force spent more time with our doctors and engineers or our teachers, they may not find us that violent after all!) Perhaps the event on rebuilding the Indian Malaysian community can address the issue of cross-cultural sensitivity by getting important institutions involved.

To continue, the police seem to be holding talks with the community and its leaders to deal with the problem of gangsterism, even while responding to gangsters in the most punitive manner. If one examines the relationship between the community and the police with reference to gangsters, it only indicates attention to effects rather than causes. This certainly throws up more questions then solutions.

The police, both in terms of resources and institutional focus, cannot solve the problem of drunkenness or gangsterism in the Tamil/Indian Malaysian community. In fact, with them addressing the issue, the problem of gangsterism will continue to be represented as a "law and order" problem affecting general "public order", which is and must be the concern of the police.

This misrepresentation of the reality of gangsterism will continue to lead to solutions that are punitive and piecemeal. The "gangsterism of the poor" among the community is really a serious social and political problem and requires greater attention of the MPs at our parliamentary sessions, the Education Ministry, the Welfare and Social Development Ministry, to name a few key national institutions.

Generally, only a serious, committed national political can make the culture of poverty — antisocial or otherwise — leading to drunkenness, domestic abuse, drug abuse and/or gangsterism go away.

See Pt II — Rebuilding the Indian Malaysian community

M NADARAJAH is a sociologist by profession. He works on sustainable development issues and is presently the deputy co-ordinator of a virtual organisation called the Asian Communication Network, anchored in Bangkok.