THE prime minister announced that the government is finding ways to grant Indian-Muslims the much-desired Bumiputera status. As a 30-something Indian-Muslim with a quasi-Bumiputera wife and children, I am not terribly excited at the prospect of being made one of the “chosen ones”.

As a community, Indian-Muslims have been somewhat in a grey area in the government bureaucracy. On one hand, we are Indians, and on the other, we are Muslims, so bureaucrats are not quite sure how we should be handled since there is the widespread assumption in this country that one needs to be Malay in order to be Muslim.

Article 160 of the Federal Constitution defines a Malay as someone who professes the religion of Islam, habitually speaks the Malay language and practises Malay customs. This allows many of my brethren to be so-called “constitutional Malays”, as most of us fit this description. But, this standard is not uniformly applied across the community.

One’s status ultimately boils down to the discretion of the bureaucrats we deal with, and how individuals from the community choose to be identified. It all starts from the day an Indian-Muslim child is born, do the parents register him or her as an Indian-Muslim or as a Malay?

Sometimes, the parents make the choice, sometimes, it is the friendly lady at the National Registration Department (NRD) counter who decides to classify the child as “Melayu/Bumiputera”, and sometimes, it is the grumpy man with a kopiah at the same office who says, “India-Muslim bukan Bumiputera”, and registers the child as a non-Malay.

Parents who are determined to have their child registered as a Malay will go to great lengths to do so. I have known of parents who are selective of which NRD branch office to register their child at, simply because the officers at such-and-such branch will be more flexible in allowing the parents to choose the child’s race during registration.

I know of a child who born in Penang, but was registered in Kuala Lumpur because her parents, from experience, knew that registering her as a Malay in KL was much easier. It is said that it is quite difficult to pull it off in Penang, as NRD personnel there are not very flexible in this matter. I, myself, do not know of the veracity of this, but if the parents are quite willing to pull this off, they must be quite experienced or reliably informed on this matter.

Why all the hassle? A very glaring illustration can be seen in the area of education. Every year, when Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia and Sijil Tinggi Persekolahan Malaysia results are released, schoolleavers apply for precious university places via the centralised government university application portal, known as UPU. It is common knowledge that choice places are reserved for Malay and Bumiputera applicants, even if the government claims the system is meritocratic.

I have cousins who have straight As, yet were denied a placement of their choice because they were not Bumiputera. In the same year, I also have “Malay” cousins who did not do as well as their non-Malay ones, yet got a much-coveted spot in a foundation programme at a local public university. I have seen this happen far too many times within my extended family.

My siblings and I were registered as Indian-Muslims at birth, and were disadvantaged when it came to public university placements. We weren’t straight-A students, and that added to our disadvantage. But, we managed to get a tertiary education, thanks to the sacrifices of our parents.

It would have been great if we got one of our stated choices when we applied for a place in public universities, but we saw it as normal and found other options. It was not particularly easy and straightforward, but we all got our degrees and entered various professions.

My father refused to register us as Malays when we were born. “Why call yourself a donkey when God made you a horse?” he would ask us.

His refusal was not out pride, but a matter of principle. He refused to conform to what he saw as an unjust system. Today, we, his children, are glad he took such a stand.

My wife and her siblings, on the other hand, were all registered as Malays and have benefitted from the system.

They attended MRSM boarding schools, received Mara scholarships and convertible loans to study overseas or got desirable places in local public universities, and have all gone on to very good jobs in the corporate sector, government-linked companies and statutory bodies.

Before you accuse me of taking a potshot at my in-laws, I am not undermining the academic and professional achievements of my wife’s family members. They are brilliant people who worked hard to get to where they are. After all, one can be given all the advantages in the world to move ahead but such opportunities can still be squandered. I am merely pointing out how people in my community and family who are “Malay” and those of us who are not, are treated differently.

There are advantages as to why many of my folk “masquerade” as Malays. It is an obvious way to take advantage of and get ahead in an unfair system. They know that if they don’t, they will have to queue up with the rest of the non-Bumiputera hoi polloi for whatever scraps left by the system.

In fact, some will go to ridiculous lengths to fit in. Children will pretend to not understand Tamil during their MRSM days. I even have a relative who benefitted tremendously from the Mara system and refuses to be seen speaking Tamil in public, despite it being his mother tongue. I am no Tamil-language snob myself, but this is an utter shame. Language is an integral part of one’s identity. But many see this as a price worth paying in order to benefit from the system.

So, our soon-to-be-granted Bumiputera status should give us advantages as far as education and business opportunities go, and we can stop pretending and basically be ourselves. Then, why am I opposed to being recognised as a Bumiputera?

Because I strongly believe that the Bumiputera policy represents all that is wrong with this country. A consequence of this policy is that Malaysians are divided into two de facto classes of citizenship. The premium class being Bumiputera, while non-Bumiputeras are the second-class citizens of this country. While many within my community may rejoice over this new development. I think it is a step back for the nation.

Instead of figuring out ways to recognise certain communities as Bumiputera for the sake of political expediency, we need to start figuring out ways to dismantle this policy and enshrine the concept of equal citizenship and equal opportunity for all citizens. Perpetuating the Bumiputera policy by expanding its franchise will do more harm than good.

Firstly, this will engender resentment towards the Indian-Muslim community from other non-Bumiputera communities. This also reinforces the notion that one may benefit from the system by being Muslim. We are already seeing some cases of this. And what will happen when this policy is set in stone through a gazette or administrative order?

This year, we celebrate 60 years of independence, and it is an utter shame that after six decades, we are still treated differently according to the colour of our skin.

Malaysia has lost some of its best and brightest people to other countries simply because they feel that they do not have the same opportunities here to get ahead. The sad reality is that most of the people who left are non-Bumiputeras who felt they did not have a choice. They want what is best for their children, and for many, this comes in the form of equal opportunities and a fair chance to succeed.

It is unfair to say that they left because they do not love this country anymore. Malaysians are a generally patriotic and sentimental lot. We love our country, our climate, our food and way of life. These are things which most of us are quite reluctant to give up. However, many are forced to because they do not have a choice.

If you ask Malaysians abroad why they left, they will say, “Because we feel like second-class citizens in our country”, or, “Our children have better opportunities abroad”, or, “As a non-Muslim, I feel there is no future for me in Malaysia”.

Mind you, these people are doctors, engineers, consultants, information technology specialists, university professors, research scientists and so on.

These people have skills and expertise we cannot afford to lose, but we keep bleeding talent. Why is that? The answer is obvious.

What this country needs is not an expanded class of Bumiputera citizens, we need a meritocratic system where those who work hard for the opportunities available earn them fair and square. When this happens, people will stay and contribute to the country, one way or the other. They will feel that they to have a stake and we all stand to benefit as a whole.

As for the Indian-Muslim community, I say that given our strong tradition in commerce and an expanding professional classm coupled with our unrelenting work ethic, we are more than capable of competing with the rest, fair and square.

In fact, ending up as Bumiputeras will slowly kill off our competitive spirit and blunt our work ethic. People who see privilege as a birthright rather than something you earn will become complacent and, eventually, uncompetitive. They will then start depending on handouts and forever think they are incapable of walking without a crutch.

We have seen this happen to other communities. I do not want to see this in my own. – July 21, 2017.

* A.A. reads The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight.