I have been working with the poor, including Indian Malaysians, since 1984. I wrote this article below on May 20 after I read a student's letter in one of the websites catered for Indian Malaysians. He had thought the STPM was very much harder and it would be better to study at a private college. But his parents forced him to enrol for the STPM. He regrets it now because he sees no future in it.

I had written my article and sent it to friends and the Indian website (Vettipuchi) picked it up, made some adjustments to it before publishing it. Since then, I have received 13 letters, all from Indian Malaysians. They wrote about the discrimination they faced as an Indian Malaysian, even as an Indian Muslim and how the community can't come together to get out of the poverty rut. I was also moved to send you this article after reading Indian Malaysians struggling in an uneven playing field by S Nagarajan and Dr M Nadarajah.

The article I wrote was as follows:

Indian Malaysians are the second poorest in this country (the poorest being the Orang Asli). Forty percent of them are in prisons throughout Malaysia yet in total, they make up less than 10 percent of the population. Almost every poor Indian Malaysian has great difficulty getting a birth certificate because their parents were too poor or illiterate to get one when they were born. They have to prove that they were actually born here; whereas it's common knowledge that during elections Indonesians or some Muslims from other countries can easily get a Malaysian identification card.

The poor Indian Malaysians have great difficulty in getting aid from the Social Welfare Department because the department has a bumiputra quota to fill first. Even if the poor Indian Malaysian has a disabled child or is a single parent looking after seven children it is an uphill task to get some form of welfare aid from the government.

Compounding all these is that the education system further oppresses them. They start school in poorly equipped Tamil schools and even if they make it to secondary schools they have to struggle through discrimination (from teachers and other students) and cope with the Malay language.

The families of these children do not have the resources to send them for tuition nor are they able to coach them themselves. These families have to struggle to earn a living just to feed their families. Both parents work and most of the time they are poorly educated. With their parents out at work, the children receive little guidance at home. Growing up in poverty-stricken and crime-infested areas, it is no wonder that these children wander into drugs and crime. This is the cycle of poverty. Usually education is the key to break this deathly cycle.

Education should be a right for all and not any 'privileged' group or class. It is a right no one should be denied. It is the duty of this nation to build proper schools be they Tamil, Chinese, Punjabi, Telugu or Orang Asli or any other mother tongues. It must recognise that the marginalised groups like Indians, Orang Asli and Orang Asal (Ibans, Kadazans and others) have a right to education in their own mother tongues and must provide sufficient funds for the running of these schools. Mother tongue education is a right that this nation cannot deny its citizens of that right. Because families of marginalised groups struggle to live, the government of a nations must provide proper facilities and funds for the education of these people.

The other issue is university education. If ever the people in these marginalised groups can reach university level it is because they had worked very, very hard against all odds and I mean all odds. They need this education to break that cycle of poverty, but the ruling government fails to see this. It is only able to see only one group, the bumiputra, needing assistance. But it fails to see that the poor need to be given opportunities and that the quota should be for them irrelevant of race or class.

Unfortunately, in this country and like anywhere else, education is always a political issue and not a social one. Perspectives are lost when education becomes a political issue. It must be clear that education is for all and not for any one class or race.

It is sad to see the smart youngsters who work very hard in their STPM get good results and yet are shunned by the universities.

A person's right to education which he/she worked so hard for is being trampled on. This is a travesty of justice. It's no wonder that people are angry, frustrated because they have taken almost three decades of discrimination and it has become intolerable!

Enough is enough. When the 'meritocracy' system was implemented for this year's university intake and the public reacted angrily, the Education Minister said, "... they should not react like this". Yet how would you react when students who are properly qualified are shunned and in the name of 'meritocracy' but using a questionable entry format?

The universities and the public system are so ingrained with the bumiputra quota system that the bureaucrats in it will do anything to maintain it, even by hanging up a lie. It's a wonder how they can believe their own lies? Political ambitions and motifs colour the vision to attain the purity of education. This is why education should never enter the realms of politics. If education is treated as a right for all, it becomes easier to have a clearer vision.

Is there a solution to this meritocracy lie? I cannot hope for much. The way the government handled the segregation issue in schools was disheartening — the public does not believe the report commissioned by the Education Ministry concluding that there is no segregation in schools (the actual words said were "proof of segregation is not strong"). There is a great deal of discrimination which swells day to day.

What will become of this 'meritocracy' issue and all those studying very hard now to do their STPM? It is unfortunate that the government does not want to face realities until something drastic happens and only then would it take action and not necessarily the correct one.

These social realities did not come about suddenly but after years and years of the discriminatory quota system. I say discriminatory not only to non-bumiputra but to the bumiputra themselves.