Mitra failing marginalised Indians despite millions allocated, says author

Marginalised Indians, especially estate workers, have been left out of government programmes meant to uplift the community despite millions allocated to the Malaysian Indian Transformation Unit (Mitra), an author claims.

Janakey Raman Manickam, 78, in his latest book, Malaysian Indians: Impact and Pain: Narration of an Unending Saga of a Marginalised Community, questioned how Mitra could claim to have uplifted the community when many of its most vulnerable members remained excluded.

“These vulnerable, weak sections of the Indian community were never a part of Sedic or Mitra,” he wrote, referring also to the government’s former unit for socio-economic development of the Indian community (Sedic).

“How could one miss the elephant in the room (when setting) up an affirmative action plan and proclaim that the plan will reach all Indians?”

Janakey, who previously helped his family to tap rubber and later worked as a menial labourer, has spent decades documenting the history and struggles of Malaysian Indians.

He has also been involved in community work and writing, publishing The Malaysian Indian Dilemma in 2009 and The Malaysian Indian: Forgotten History of the Colonial Era: Sweat, Blood and Tears in 2016.

His latest 500-page offering, launched this month, took three years to complete.

In it, Janakey claimed Mitra’s original purpose had been undermined by political organisations, unscrupulous politicians and questionable bureaucrats.

“Mitra’s allocated millions were spent on various organisations and business enterprises that never benefitted the community,” he wrote.

He said many Indian students struggled to pay tertiary education fees, entrepreneurs could not secure business loans and others remained unemployed despite Mitra’s annual RM100 million allocation.

“Why can’t Mitra reach them to help?” he asked.

Janakey also questioned the effectiveness of Mitra-funded training programmes, citing a 21-day hair salon course costing RM94,089.60 for 30 participants in Batu Caves in 2022.

“At the end of the training, the participants were given a certificate. What the 30 participants gained after the training was not mentioned there,” he wrote.

He also cited a five-day manicure training programme costing RM187,940 for 125 participants across Negeri Sembilan, Kuala Lumpur and Penang, saying he was unsure whether it had been successfully conducted.

Janakey said changes in Mitra’s leadership had brought little improvement.

“I am of the view that nothing has changed drastically in Mitra. The personalities involved in the unit had changed,” he wrote.

“Indians in this country are not that gullible!”

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