BY: KARTIK SUBRAMANIAM

In the past, history points out that Hindu mythology spawned a caste and class system in India, which the British colonialists tried to eliminate and now Malaysia as well seem to have adopted this degrading segregation and classification of the rakyat.

By placing Malaysians and classifying them as B40, M40, T20 and the elite, it has become obvious and apparent that people in this country are being pigeon-holed and the poorer classes are stigmatised and ostracised.

While the elite enjoy the spoils they have gotten, this system of classification is quirky for a democratic nation as the B40 and M40 are labelled as basket cases and living hand to mouth respectively.

When did this need to divide and rule Malaysians come into existence, and a system such as this once strengthened and fortified, will make it harder for the lower categories of people to break out of their classification and move up in society.

Similarly, it sets in motion the process by which the T20 and elite get richer because they have links and opportunities to gain much needed capital and as the saying goes, ‘it takes money to make money’.

This vicious cycle is then set to witness the fact that there will inevitably be an inequitable distribution of the country’s wealth and therefore there is a need to have an ‘open’ classification and the blurring of lines to the present classifications.

-THE MALAYSIA VOICE

** The views expressed on this opinion is of the writer and not the publisher