The National Registration Department’s Director of Births, Deaths and Adoptions said in Hindraf’s meeting with him on Aug 13 that out of 84 outreach events they had organised, only 80 Indian stateless applicants had shown up. He is implying that there is no big statelessness problem in the country among the Indian poor.

Then we would like him to explain the following:

1. Without launching any sort of campaign but just by word of mouth we – Hindraf/HRP were able to bring together over a month’s period over 40 such stateless people from around Penang. How is it we are able to do it so easily when the NRD says these people do not exist?

2. Many of these same people would have been in the vicinity of the NRD outreach events, yet the NRD campaign could not get through to them. What is the effectiveness of NRD’s campaign? Do they represent the real world out there?

Are the NRD campaigns really designed to be effective or is it just ‘activity’ to show that something is being done? Or does it just reflect the competence of the NRD?

3. If we extrapolate what we saw in Penang last weekend throughout the country, especially into the interior and smaller towns, we believe the problem is much, much more acute. And the problem affects at least two generations of the Indian poor – the generation that got pushed out from the estates into urban slums in the 70s and 80s and the generation of their offspring.

The problem has clear historical roots. The NRD has, however, concluded rather hastily that the problem arises because of ignorance of the law, unregistered marriages and domestic problems. They do not want to accept that this problem could be a direct result of past Umno policies that caused exactly these conditions - ignorance of the law, unregistered marriages and domestic problems - that they now give as causes of the problem. Why after so many years do they still have this superficial understanding?

Hindraf/HRP’s standpoint is that it is not in Umno’s interest at all to understand the historical nature of the problem – that their race-based development policies is what has caused this problem. Taking action based on this paradigm would be tacit acceptance of Umno’s responsibility for causing the problem in the first place.

They rather let the problem fester and become endemic. Umno still indulges in this kind of regressive petty politics instead showing leadership and addressing the problem squarely. Bloody shame. Bloody shame. What a country we are becoming.

Hindraf/HRP is not going to get off Umno’s back till it takes ownership for this problem. This problem of statelessness amongstthe Indian poor must be eliminated and it must be done now. If the Umno government picks up enough will, it can eliminate the problem in three months. We will persist till we see an end to this problem of statelessness.