The Indian Malaysian community's gains under implementation of the New Economic Policy (1970-1990) were "not due to genuine efforts on the government's part", according to a university lecturer.

Dr K Anbalakan of Universiti Sains Malaysia's School of Humanities said any benefits have merely trickled down as part of the spillover from pro-bumiputera policies.

"If the government has been serious about helping the community, then some attention should have been paid to poverty in the plantation sector," he said in a paper presented at a recent seminar on 'The Bumiputera Policy: Dynamics and Dilemmas' in Penang.

He said the majority of Indians were languishing in poverty in the estates and that "it is not that the government did not know of it".

Community leaders have on several occasions brought the plight of estate workers to the government's attention.

Insufficient attention

"It must be noted that about 35 per cent of the budget of all economic programmes has been allocated for rural development," Anbalakan said.

The estimated development expenditure for rural and agricultural development was RM2.28 billion under the Second Malaysia Plan. In the next three Plans, the allocations was significantly increased to RM6.45 billion, RM7.89 billion and RM11.8 billion respectively.

However, the bulk of the money was used for the eradication of rural poverty specifically among the Malays.

At two economic seminars organised in 1974 and 1980 by MIC, the government had been asked to include estates under the purview of the Rural Development Ministry.

"The government up to now has been somewhat disinclined to consider this proposal using the old lame excuse that the plantations are private properties and (thus) it is for the estate owners to cater for the well-being of their workers," he said..

Even within this scenario, he alleged that the government has not taken any action to even try and coax the estate managements to improve social amenities for their workers.

"(Using) the same justification, the government has also been refusing to absorb all Tamil schools in the estates as fully-aided government schools," Anbalakan said.

He said, unless the government was willing to change its perception and formulate affirmative action policies to alleviate the Indian Malaysian community's economic misery, they "are going to remain a marginalised group".

"And, this in turn, will continue to create an environment for more social (problems) among the youth of the community," he said.

Continued deterioration

Indian Malaysians make up about 10.7 percent of the population in Peninsular Malaysia, compared to Malays (52.7 percent) and Chinese (35.8 percent).

But the community's share of total equity has stagnated at one percent throughout the duration of the NEP, even as the economic position of Malays and Chinese improved significantly.

The Malay stake rose from only 1.9 percent to 20.3 percent, while the Chinese stake doubled from 22.5 percent to 44.5 percent.

Anbalakan said the NEP had worked against the interests of the Indian community in all sectors of employment.

"The acclaimed objective of abolishing the identification of a race by its vocation has not at all been effective in the case of the Indians," he noted.

This was largely due to the fact that the Indians remained identified as labourers even at the end of the NEP.

"Thus, if in 1970 they were associated with the estates, now, after 20 years of social engineering by the government, they have an added label as the proletariat, largely engaged in menial odd jobs in the urban and semi-urban sectors," he said.

In the post-NEP period, the National Economic Consultative Council (NECC) formed in 1985 did recognise the Indians' economic position as needing assistance.

The council expressed its concern and even came up with recommendations, but not all of these were accepted by the government.

The Second Outline Perspective Plan (OPP2) made mention of the government's awareness of the community's economic backwardness, but "that was about all".

"It must be understood that the aim .is not to take issue with the government's initiative to help the bumiputeras, but rather to point out that the interests of the Indians - perhaps also of the Chinese - have consistently been neglected in all of the government's five-year economic plans," he said.

Such neglect, he added, has contributed to continued deterioration of the Indian Malaysian community's economic status under the National Development Plan and the National Vision Plan.