The role of the community is critical in helping the poor who mostly comprised of Indian Malaysians. And the much-publicised meeting on "The Malaysian Indian in the new millennium: rebuilding community" set for June 1-2 in Kuala Lumpur, is certainly an opportunity for the middle and upper classes to flesh it out.

But in no way should the community take on the role of an elected government. In its own way, the Indian Malaysian middles classes must find a way to involve the government and improve the governance structures related to poor in this country, no matter which ethno-community they come from.

The 'rebuilding community' meeting can help contribute to greater sensitivity and to establishing institutionalised intra-community linkages. This really means that the middle and upper classes, the academic and professional Indian Malaysian communities need to institutionally engage with the community-at-large and with particularly the poorer sections of community.

(Incidentally, there is a popular negative image of the Indians as incapable of forming a real self-supporting community, as it is the behaviour of one Indian to pull down another who is trying to climb up the ladder!)

A critical component of community development is creating 'a future' for the poorer or the lower middle class sections of the community, particularly the poorer youths. That is the key to both governmental and community interventions.

When young people have a handle on their future, know what they can become in five or 10 years and know what they can do in the future, the knowledge and the possibility alone offers a positive direction. Thus, an important part of the deliberation at the meeting must be discussions about creating "realistic and possible" futures for our young people, as for all young Malaysians.

In this context, it is important for the meeting to reflect on the question of university admission. Certainly, the more our youths go through the educational process and receive university education, the more our chances of overcoming the problem of gangsterism, at least in the next generation.

But examine what is happening to local university admissions. Even those who are eligible are not offered that opportunity (forget about what happens after one receives a university education and starts to look for a job in our ethnically 'sensitive' corporate environment).

As a close friend likes to suggest, we have a "meritocracy system without merit". How can you have a merit system when there is no level playing field, when there is no common university entrance examination or when there is no transparency in the admission and examination process? A meritocracy system will work only if the idea and the practice of it are sound. We hardly have a sound idea or a sound practice.

Serious problem

On this issue, it is important to understand the perception of the community. The feeling of being 'cheated' by their own government and of being not fairly treated by their government particularly where their young are concerned is really a serious problem for the community.

Among everything else, it creates helplessness. And a 'no future' outlook. This seriously affects the poorer sectors or the middle and lower middle classes. And here, we sow the seeds of anti-social behaviour (as much as legal activism in some quarters).

To return to the inputs from the middle and upper classes, the intra-community linkages can be fleshed out institutionally and financially, in the form of democratically-governed foundations and firms, supporting the preparation of the young educationally within a national context, helping them in their education-related employment and contributing to the development of their careers. Even while critically examining community efforts that have failed, the group must also situate the role and spell out the contribution of the government, not as an option but as a necessity.

Certainly, philanthropic and self-help traditions of the Indian Malaysian community can be recovered and systematically developed and fleshed out as foundations sustaining initiatives around key issues — education, health, community-owned economic ventures, cultural development, etc. Astro Vannavil, for instance, can play a more imaginative role in this effort than being just a market for entertainment products from India.

Importantly, such efforts need to carefully keep party or sectarian politics out for it seems to be simply inimical to the proper functioning of community efforts. Financial and management support is also certainly required for improving the facilities in Tamil schools and Tamil education.

One of the things that must be urgently developed is some sort of a 'social technology' to work as an 'early warning and opportunity determination system'. The direction in which the community is moving needs to be examined, through research and observation of local, national, regional and global trends. This is certainly an opportunity for academics and professional researchers to become institutionally linked to the needs of the community.

Early warning system

Observation of negative and unsustainable social trends needs to be urgently addressed. As part of the early warning system, there must be 'social impact assessment' and 'social risk assessment' of national policies, i.e. determination of unsustainable trends that can ensue from national policy that affects individual and collective rights of communities in general and of poor communities in particular.

There should also be a strategy of early response, with an integral government involvement. Such a facility within the Indian Malaysian and the national community will go a long way in preventing the development and inter-generational continuation of serious social problems.

An early warning system along with a comprehensive response strategy, with the support of the government, could have set in motion a definite long-term solution of the problem of gangsterism and drunkenness. Today, the Indian Malaysian community has another serious problem — suicides. We had better start looking at this problem.

In addition to an early warning component, there must be an 'opportunity determination' component. Such a component will help shape and define futures, and direct attention at prospects for the Indian Malaysian community. How can globalisation, for instance, help the community? This is a potential area for exploration beneficial to the community though, at the moment, it seems to only benefit the middle and upper classes.

In this context, it is equally important to look at the potential of the 'Indian diaspora' (again a highly fragmented one, with many diasporas within a single diaspora). How can, for instance, the global organisations of the middle and upper classes such as GOPIO (Global Organisation of People of Indian Origin) contribute to the problems of poor Indian Malaysians? These aspects must certainly be one of the focuses of the "rebuilding community" meeting in June.

While we are still examination opportunity determination, one important area to consider is 'competency profiling'. We need to carry out a 'competency profiling' exercise of the community, which must also involve simultaneously a detailed assessment of the kind of competencies that are required in Malaysia to run its organisations (firms and others) today and in the specified years ahead in this millennium.

Community competencies

It is important that we recognise the competencies the community has and those that are few in numbers or those that are needed. With such knowledge, not only can the community fit into the future but also develop in a conscious manner. With such knowledge, the interests of the young can be directed in a more realistic manner.

This is, for instance, happening to an extent with IT education. But it needs to be more organised and given a wider coverage. Certainly, the middle class representing the "rebuilding community" can contribute to this critical activity, again without forgetting the role and responsibility of the elected government.

This emphasis on cross-class, cross-caste, and cross-community strategy for Indian Malaysian community development to be initiated by the middle and upper classes has a tremendous potential. But it also comes with limitations.

Recognition of the boundaries of middle class action and their limitations with focus on the prospective potential of collaboration with definite institutional remedies and development will certainly make the "rebuilding community" meeting a more worthwhile effort, both in addressing the problems of the Indian Malaysian community and in rebuilding it. Among those that need immediate attention is taking to task such newspapers as The Sun which make inaccurate reports and reinforce a prejudiced image of the community.

See Part I — The 'hot-headed' Indian and the new millennium

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.