Malaysian-Indian businessmen and professionals have carved a niche in the society, but it is the economically disadvantaged segment of the community who have been in the news lately — and for unflattering reasons.

Statistic show that though they make up only seven percent of Malaysia's 18 million population, Indians comprise 63 percent of people detained for criminal activities, 41 percent of beggars and 14 percent of juvenile delinquents.

The plight of this particular community of Indians came to the fore in this multi-racial south-east Asian country after six people were killed in clashes between Indian and Malay gangs in March last year in Kampung Medan, an urban squatter community here.

Since then, there has been a spate of reports in the media about Indian criminal activity and poverty, a development that has irked the Indian middle class and moved them into action.

Earlier this month, Indian businessmen and professionals gathered at a posh city hotel to discuss the plight of the less privileged members of their community. The group consisted of lawyers, doctors, engineers, accountants, professors, business executives and religious leaders.

Completely cut off

It is this very segment of the Malaysian Indian population, who for years have steered clear of their own underclass. "The problem is ours and ours alone. We are all Indians," said Professor C.P. Ramachandran, a medical scientist and a convenor of the conference in his opening address.

"Today not only have the poorer Indians emerged as the nation's underclass but they are almost completely cut off from their middle class brothers," he added.

The so called Malaysian-Indian community came to the Malay peninsula more than a century ago in two distinct waves. The British brought low-caste illiterate South Indians under the infamous indentured labour schemes to work in the rubber plantations they were setting up.

A later wave of "Indians" were actually brought in from Sri Lanka — mainly Tamils — to work in the building of railways, in the civil service and in commerce.

The latter have done well in Malaysia, most of their descendants climbing the professional, business and social ladder in this country where the indigenous Malay Moslems dominate the politics and the Chinese the commerce. But it is the descendants of the indentured Indian labourers that have become Malaysia's underclass today.

Tarnished image

They have the highest school dropout rate in the country, the lowest life expectancy rate (67.3 years compared to the national average of 71.2 years), the highest incidence of alcoholism and the highest number of prisoners in proportion to the population.

It is these figures often quoted in the media and public discourse, which have tarnished the image of the Malaysian Indians in the eyes of the public here and spurred the Indian middle class into action.

"The middle class record so far in helping poor members of the community is dismal," noted Balan Moses, deputy editor of the New Straits Times , in a commentary on this month's conference. "The Indian middle class has been in virtual self-denial on the issue."

"More than a century of being kept out of the economic mainstream and largely in estates, has left many Indians on the periphery, in an almost permanent haze not of their making," says Moses.

The Indian underclass of today is a result of the dismantling of the plantation economy in the last decade. "It is mainly due to the migration of the rural population from plantations to the urban areas," argues Dr M.S. Maniam, director of Urban Poor Community Care, a local NGO.

Special assistance

"They need some special assistance from the government, especially in housing and education," he told IPS.

In May, the president of the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) and the Minister for Public Works, Sami Vellu warned the government that if the displaced Indians living in urban slums are not helped in an organised way, the situation could get worse.

The MIC, a component party of the ruling Barisan Naional government of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, has already spent RM1.8 million (US$473,600 ) of the RM2.7 million (US$710,500) provided by the government to set up projects nationwide to help low-income families, squatters and others affected by the reforms to the plantation economy.

"To what extent this is enough is yet to be seen," says Maniam, while Dr Denison Jayasooria, director of MIC think-tank Yayasan Strategik Sosial (YSS) argues that the impact of this new environment has been underestimated.

The changes to the plantation economy in the last decade have seen rubber estates being developed into industrial or housing estates, or turned into less labour intensive palm oil plantations. This has forced many Indian families to move to the cities and into squatter camps such as Kampung Medan.

Jayasooria points out that even though they were underpaid, there was a structure of social care and control in the plantations. Since management of the estates had also provided housing, medical care and schooling for the children, the group remained a close-knit community with strong family support.

When people moved, work patterns also changed from a normal routing of plantation work to shift work in factories, which meant that youngsters were left at home without parental supervision in environments that were rife with drugs and gangs.

A senior city police officer, A. Paramasivam warned delegates at this month's community conference that crime statistics among Indian youth were alarming. "They are mostly between 14 and 40 years of age," he said. "Wherever there is a concentration of Indians, you will find Indian youths there involved in crime," he added.

Paying the price

The Indian community is already paying the price for this. A recent survey done by the YSS among Indian youth found that many of them have been denied jobs when their prospective employers found out that they were from high-risk neighbourhoods or have been picked up in anti-crime swoops.

Paramasivam argued that at the root of the problem is poverty and lack of education. As most of the Indian middle class agree with him, they decided to set up a foundation funded by Indians to help their community. They also plan to set up an umbrella group of Indian non-governmental organisations to coordinate common resources for the benefit of the poor Indians.

Dr Jayasooriya argues that criminal activity among Indians is not in the name of any cause but it is a major draw for Indian youth. Thus, it has to be tackled seriously and cautiously.

He says a particular group's involvement in crime colours people's perception of the entire Indian community and "that is a dangerous development". — IPS