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Church Missions and the Indian Community

Church Missions and the Indian Community

THE recent Ops Cantas by the police to crack down on secret societies once again highlighted the fact that many of those involved in gangs come from the Indian community.

In a paper "Indian Gangsterism: A Brief Introduction", Pastor Gabriel Jabanathan who heads the NECF Tamil Commission, collated statistics and news reports to update Tamil churches on the issue and to call for action. He presented his paper at the One Prayer Youth Conference on 22 Sept 2013 at FGA KL and also tabled his paper to the NECF Tamil Commission.

 
Pastor Gabriel’s call to the Malaysian Church is to reassess its outreach to the Indian community

Police statistics reported by the media show that 5,505 people were arrested in the first three weeks of Ops Cantas. Police also listed 49 gangs with a total membership of 40,313, with over half of them being Indian. Their crimes included armed robbery, theft, vehicle theft, extortion and narcotics. Overall, Indians comprised 70% of those in gangs, Chinese 25% and Malays 4.7%. Past statistics also show that while the Emergency Ordinance was still in effect, 63% of those detained under this law were reportedly Indians.

There is no denying that the Indian community is vulnerable to gangsterism, with even cabinet ministers and Indian political party leaders admitting it.

The solutions, however, go beyond policing. The vulnerability of the Indian community is closely linked to larger and inter-connected socio-economic factors. In many other unfortunate areas, the community has the highest rates for mortality, school dropouts, alcoholism, drug use, criminal convictions, suicide and begging - relative to its population size. They also score the lowest in life expectancy. In terms of economic equity, Indians are still below 3% with the bulk of wealth held by elite businessmen.

In schools, poor performing students risk being ignored by teachers, are labelled as problematic and as low achievers. This perpetuates a cycle of stereotyping, alienation, poor grades and delinquency.

Poverty, as Pastor Gabriel puts it, is the "seed-bed for gangsterism". Secondary schools have become recruitment grounds and a "supply" for potential gangs.

The roots of poverty and social deprivation lie in urbanisation and industrialisation policies which saw many rural Indians migrate to urban centres, and those working in plantations to move to towns after the plantations were acquired for development. Faced with a lack of options, many ended up in slums and in low-skilled, low-paying jobs.

While the social problems afflicting the Indian community are clearly interwoven with poverty, the authorities' response has so far been largely punitive, for example, police have declared a "war" on gangs and secret societies.

How can the Malaysian Church respond? Pastor Gabriel highlighted four areas for the Church:

  • Critically re-evaluate missions to Indians - where has the Church failed?
  • Prioritise slum ministry - have we long ignored those in the slums of our own city?
  • Secondary school ministry - are we reaching Indian students in secondary schools? Are Christian young people taught to reach out to Indian students in their schools?
  • Educational support - can the Church do more to help with poor pupils and slum children through tuition programmes and other means?

 

While it is the Tamil Commission that has raised this issue, it is by no means for Tamil churches to labour alone. Can the churches of other language groups, particularly the resource-rich ones, see themselves as partners in reaching out to fellow Malaysians long neglected?

 



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