PUTRAJAYA, WED:
Contrary to what its critics claim, Malaysian Indian non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are with the MIC and not working against the largest Indian-based political party in the country.
Federal Territories Deputy Minister and MIC Information chief Datuk M.
Saravanan said some quarters were saying that Indian-based NGOs were not supportive of the MIC and this wrong notion was “fabricated through the media”.
“These people believe that by saying NGOs and the community are not with MIC, they would be able to destroy the party. Let me remind them that they cannot at any time destroy the MIC, they can only destroy unity of the community.” The deputy minister said this after meeting representatives of 47 Indian NGOs, which have formed the Federation of Malaysian Indian Organisations, at the ministry, here, today.
He said while the party’s critics were trying to turn away the community from MIC, they did not realise that their actions were causing disunity among the 1.8 million Malaysian Indians.
On the two-hour meeting, Saravanan said the NGOs wanted to work with the government, especially with the Federal Territories Ministry as many of these NGOs were headquartered in Kuala Lumpur.
“They raised a few issues like employement in the public sector, business opportunites for Indians, housing, licences and land for temples and Tamil schools. The ministry will look into all matters raised.
“Primarily, we are happy with the response from the NGOs. Their presence here proves that the people still look to the Barisan Nasional for help despite the opposition making a headway in certain states.
“What we want is to use their national network. Most of their claims are also reasonable and community-based. I promised that the Ministry would work closely with them and fulfil their expectations within the provisions of the law,” he added.
Saravanan said the meeting today was the first of its kind since the March 8 general election, and more such meetings were planned.
“We believe this is a good start. We do not want to politicise issues. We rather sit down and work towards getting the problems solved for the good of the people,” he said.
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