Broad statements of intent are not 'goals'

COMMENT Today is the eleventh day of my Hunger Viratham. I continue to feel weaker, with each passing day. The variety of visitors is broadening and among the visitors yesterday were several politicians.

I would like to thank all the politicians who visited me to show their concerns for my condition during my viratham (fast).

However, what I would also like to tell all my politician friends is that the time spent in coming all the way to the temple in Rawang to visit me can probably be better spent in lobbying their respective political parties to endorse the Hindraf Blueprint.

This is the best way for them to show concern. The conditions for my going off the hunger strike are very clear:

1. The Malaysian government led by Najib Abdul Razak must endorse Hindraf's five-year blueprint in a binding manner to commit to a plan of implementation of all the six proposals in the blueprint for as long as the BN remains the government;

Or,

2. The Pakatan Rakyat coalition government-in-waiting led by Anwar Ibrahim must endorse the blueprint in a binding manner and commit to its implementation, should it form the next federal government.

Help us realise our blueprint

My request to my politician friends is to help us to realise the blueprint.

Today, in this Part 6 of my commentary, I would like to lay out some of my thoughts on the Buku Jingga and Hindraf's Blueprint.

First of all, it is a lie to say that the Buku Jingga covers the proposals laid out in the Hindraf Blueprint.

I would like to make mention here an incident with one PKR politician, Dr Xavier Jeyakumar, who visited me yesterday. When asked by one of the well-wishers visiting me as to why Pakatan was reluctant to sign the blueprint, Xavier replied with a question of his own: ‘Why should we sign your blueprint when it is all in our Buku Jingga?"

The well-wisher then requested Xavier to show where exactly in the Buku Jingga are the Hindraf Blueprint proposals covered. Total silence. That was what she got as the answer.

We are left wondering if Xavier had made that long trip to convince me to drop our demands for Pakatan to endorse the blueprint. Isn't it making a mockery of my basic purpose for the hunger strike, since Xavier made this the occasion to visit me?

He, being a professional politician, just came for the photo opportunity, that is all. If he really felt as he answered, then there clearly was no other purpose for his visit.

In any case, I would like to make it very clear that the Buku Jingga consists of the Common Policy Platform of the parties representing the interests of the Chinese and a section of the Malays, and the Pakatan Agenda, which covers eight broad areas and a 100-day action plan.

No need to lie

What you get in all these, other than broad statements of intent, are some targets. There is no serious discussion in the Buku Jingga about the plans for realising any of these goals.

The broad statements and goals in Buku Jingga cannot cover the specific proposals of the Hindraf Blueprint. Pakatan politicians have to stop lumping together what is logically incompatible. No need to lie.

There is no way any Pakatan politician can answer the lady yesterday, who asked Xavier to show where in the Buku Jingga are the blueprint proposals covered. They just are not.

The New Economic Policy (NEP) contains a stated goal of poverty eradication and economic restructuring to eliminate the identification of ethnicity with economic function.

The NEP policy document, much like the Buku Jingga, merely states intentions in broad statements - and we all know now how much of a lie the NEP has become.

The NEP became a vehicle for hijacking the national resources - sapu bersih (by making clean sweeps). In fact, the NEP was initiated in 1970, just as the massive displacements of the Indian plantation workers began.

Instead of eradicating poverty among the Indian plantation workers, they were pushed deeper into a poverty trap by the development plans arising from the NEP. A total of RM1.1 trillion was spent on 10 development plans in the name of NEP.

How much of this tremendous sum of money went to eradicating poverty among the displaced estate workers? What a lie the NEP is about! Eradicating poverty!

Similarly when the Felda programme was started sometime in 1956, then prime minister Abdul Razak Hussein said Felda would provide land to the landless and jobs to the jobless. We all now know that he did not mean what he said.

There was no land for the landless non-Malays and there were no jobs for the jobless non-Malays. And now, saying the Buku Jingga will do this or that based on broad statements and broad goals can only turn into another great lie.

All one can say is that we really do not know what the Buku Jingga will finally pan out, since it does not state exactly what the programmes of action are.

In preparing the Hindraf Blueprint, we considered all these possibilities for distortion and that is why we developed it as a set of very concrete proposals - not only in terms of the specific interventions but also in terms of the realisation mechanism by way of a Minority Affairs Ministry.

Therefore, we are effectively talking apples and oranges. No matter how hard you search for apples in a heap of oranges, you are not going to get any apple. So, Xavier, stop the lying.

Broad statements of principle or broad goals effectively become a cover for non-delivery. The broad statements and goals in Buku Jingga just do not cover the Hindraf Blueprint proposals and Pakatan politicians must stop repeating this lie.

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P WAYTHAMOORTHY is chairperson of Hindraf.