By Saiful Bahri Kamaruddin
Pix Abd Raai Osman

BANGI, 18 Jan 2016 – A new book has been launched,  documenting the history, contribution, issues, challenges and prospects of a minority community in Malaysia, especially the bottom 40%.

Titled Contemporary Malaysian Indians: History, Issues, Challenges and Prospects, it describes contemporary Malaysian Indians representing a collection of 29 papers presented at three workshops held in 2014 at the National University of Malaysia (UKM).

The book of 29 edited chapters was sponsored by Institute of Ethnic Studies(KITA)  at UKM and Yayasan Pemulihan Sosial (YPS), whose Chairman Datuk Seri Utama S. Samy Vellu was present at the joint launch here, coincidentally on Ponggal Festival on 15 January.

KITA Principal Fellow of the  Datuk Dr Denison Jayasooria and Prof Dr K.S. Nathan co-edited the Magnum Opus which examines the key issues of Ethnic Indians of Malaysia.

Dr Denison, who is a social activist, said the work represents the aspirations of its contributing writers who wanted to document the plight of the Indian minority in the country, especially those still stricken by poverty.

“This was part of a process on which we wanted to look at, so we had a series of workshops in 2014, discussing all the key issues and concerns regarding Indians. So we had a workshop, where we identified 40 different writers, people from government, as well as activists from civic society and academics, to look at economic and contemporary issues, socio-economic, history, education – all contemporary issues.

“One of the major reasons for this (book), is because we already had several works, but nothing of this size, almost 650 pages. It’s almost like taking stock of what had been done. This fits in to the 11^th Malaysia Plan, as well as achieving the Sustainable development Goals (of the United nations),” Dr Denison disclosed to the UKM News portal.

Samy Vellu, in his brief address at the ceremony, said YPS had worked in three projects earlier.

“ We examined the impact of the 10th Malaysia Plan on Indians, hosting a symposium in 2015 in which two reports were published as input to the 11^th Malaysia Plan, and a series of academic workshops in preparation for this book.

“I’ve done 195 appeals as a minister to all the Prime Ministers I worked with, and all of them agreed that the country is for all.

“Every year we (YPS) spend about RM55 million (on various projects). For this one, we invited UKM for field partners to research,” he declared.

Also present at the launch was the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Industry and  Community Partnership) Prof Datuk Dr Imran Ho Abdullah and KITA Director Distinguished Professor Datuk Dr Shamsul Amri Baharuddin.

The book was offered at a discount of RM100 a copy at the launch only, but the actual retail price is RM139.