The mainstream media is muted and generally extremely biased towards any Indian Malaysian based achievements because Indians here in general, outperform their quota (in good or bad deeds). There is an innate fear that highlighting these achievements will propel their abilities as a human in Malaysia. My words are chosen carefully.
The Chinese media, has a loud voice and highlights Chinese Malaysian achievements because it has the volume in following (I think the older Chinese still reads the MCA owned toilet papers) to support it, and of course, the financial clout to reward them. The Malay media only seeks to propagate the racial divide, probably due to "instructions" from it's political masters. Besides, highlighting the other races' achievements almost always reflects the abysmal performance of its own notwithstanding the crutches. The Tamil media has a small following (no urban Indian of self worth reads (if he can) it anyway)....only the "estate" folks do, if they can read) and cannot even make the "noise" the Chinese media can. A whimper at best.
It's pretty much the way our civil (and uncivil) society has been structured in the past 64 years. There is an analysis floating around that shows the comparative status of Indian Malaysians between 1950's and now - shocking to those who didn't know. I recall the Indian (then 10% of population) made up almost 40% of the (British controlled) civil service then. There are many "firsts" in Malaya like lawyers, QCs, doctors, electricity providers that were Indian Malayans. These have been buried by our education system that now recreates a Malay "first" history, to the point of corrupting truth to it's side.
The Indian now has to leap 3 times higher (maybe that's why only 2 Indians...oops "Muslim" now, reached Everest first) to be considered par with the Chinese (who now has to leap 2 times higher) and Malay (who is almost always artificially propelled with full societal aids).
Don't even talk about appearing in TV/movie Adverts......besides Deepavali (and maybe some stereotyping Shopee ads), you won't find a "brown" face in our ad media. There's extreme injustice against Indians in Malaysia (and the death toll in prison also reflects this). And one has to be an Indian here to understand (and feel) the "pain" of the systemic sidelining. Maybe that's why the Indians here are over represented in the legal (and medical) system - simply because we need the numbers here to help "our" kind who is the most "tertindas" (sidelined). This is not a racist statement but a realistic (and uncowardly as many won't say it for fear of retribution) reflection of the real situation in Malaysia. This may apply somewhat to Singapore also where the roles of the Chinese and Malay are reversed....but the Indian nevertheless ends up getting the shortest ended stick. Lose-lose in both countries for the machan.
Now you understand why many people of Indian origin from these 2 countries leave and find fame/glory/wealth in the US, Australia, UK, Sweden, Switzerland and elsewhere. Look it up, in every country, they form the highest group (in comparison) of median income, professors, doctors etc in those countries. While there are racial prejudices, they are not necessarily directed against the Indians in general. The whites probably (I say probably) discriminate against anyone who's not white...like yellow, brown, red and black. But if you are "good", this inborn racism easily diminishes in their societies. They say education helps to bridge the gap - but it cannot correct stupidity in Malaysia. Just look at our "highly" educated cabinet/lebais for evidence of this maxim.
When I first penned the above, someone said that I was being negative and pointed out the successful Indian origin Singaporean ministers and GLC heads there. I asked him if he would rather be an Indian origin in Malaysia or Singapore. He didn't answer: He is Chinese.
As I'd said earlier, you have to be an Indian here to understand the type of daily challenges we face in the system. Or you can pretend that there isn't an elephant in the room?
As many great people have opined before, "to look away from injustices, makes one complicit in the commission"...something like that lah.
To the many who always tell me to keep quiet because we cannot change the system, paraphrasing Kennedy...."We must speak up not because it is easy but because it is HARD"
You get the drift.
