Mahathir and his selective memory
Malaysiakini.com
Mar 27, 2008
Rajadurai 

I refer to the Malaysiakini
report Mahathir: Samy stifled Indian voices.

I don’t think anyone in his right or wrong frame of mind should pay much heed to the ‘Rip Van Winkle’ Dr Mahathir Mohamad. After all he has a selective memory as he evidently revealed at the Lingam tape royal commission inquiry. Unless he was also sleeping at the cabinet meetings, like his successor, Mahathir’s fading memory is failing him even more he never heard S Samy Vellu bringing up matters, rightly or wrongly.

What irked me most to write this (and not to jump to the defence of S Samy Vellu) was his contention that the Indians should have said: ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you!’ for having contributed during his tenure towards enabling Indians - who only make up nine percent of the population - to account for 40 percent of the doctors in the country.

Would Mahathir care to tell everyone just how many Indians were admitted to public universities in the country to pursue medicine during his tenure? How many Indian students become doctors at the taxpayers expense? Even if they were, there is nothing to thank him for and if they had been qualified to be admitted to local universities, then they deserved it. Why should tax payers be grateful to politicians like Mahathir?

The point that I would like to make is that this ageing former premier missed out entirely that the 40 percent of Indian doctors largely came about by parents sending their children (like me sending my son) abroad to become doctors by spending their hard-earned savings or mortgaging or selling their houses to the tune of RM250,000 to RM450,000 which is their OWN money.

What was the contribution of Mahathir or the government towards this high proportion of Indian medical doctors in the country? Absolutely nothing! And to make it worse, you have the Health Ministry trying to undermine the efforts of these parents by trying to selectively de-recognise overseas medical colleges because there are just too many Indian Malaysian children pursuing a career to become doctors!

I think the media should just let this ageing former premier fade way unnoticed with his venal sins to regret rather than providing an opportunity for him to redeem himself by running everyone down, excepting himself.

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