LETTER | Just because there were only 2,500 applicants for Malaysian citizenship, does not tell us anything about the number of Indians who do not have citizenship in the country.

Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak cannot dismiss the number of 300,000 stateless Indians just because there were only 2,500 applications.

You can't reject this figure as a gross exaggeration by just dismissing it.

Malaysian Indians would want to know how many are there in the country without citizenship.

Well, if the 300,000 figures is a gross overestimation, then it only behooves on the government to provide the correct figure.

If it takes more than 60 years for Indians born before Independence to get their identity papers, then one can imagine the extent of the problem.

Najib should not know that the problem is not about the figures, the problem is about the lack of political will on the part of the government to resolve citizenship woes of Indians who were born and bred in the country.

The National Registration Department is simply unprepared to think of ways of resolving the backlog of cases that could have been resolved years back.

Without the push exerted by those top leaders in Umno, the citizenship woes of Indians and others will continue for some time.

Giving out citizenship to Indians to a few hundred Indians now and then, especially before the general election, is hardly the way to resolve the long-standing issue of identity for those who are qualified and entitled.

Surely, Najib with all the government agencies at his disposal could have arrived at an estimated figure of those who do not have citizenship in the country.

Rather than doing this, he lambasted the opposition for grossly exaggerating the number of stateless Indians.

My question to Najib is, tells us how many Indians are without citizenship in the country. Until a figure is arrived at, it does not make sense for him to dismiss the 300,000 figure given by the opposition.

Najib should not dismiss the figure, he should give us an approximate figure of those who do not have citizenship.

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