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Let this year’s Deepavali celebration mark the reinstatement of the Indian community to the mainstream of the nation’s development   Deepavali Message by M Kula Segaran (Petaling Jaya, Thursday): Let this year’s Deepavali celebration mark the reinstatement of the Indian community to the mainstream of the nation’s development  I wish all Malaysian Hindus a Happy Deepavali.   Though the festival of Deepavali is associated with several legends, the underlying message is the same, the victory of light over darkness.   However, it is a real paradox and great injustice that although Deepavali is a festival of lights, many who celebrate it appear to be living in ‘darkness’, largely alienated from mainstream national development.   Despite over four-and-a-half decades of Malaysian nationhood, the Indian community, sadly, still suffers from political and social-economic marginalization; denied its rightful share of the nation’s wealth and prosperity and plagued by social ills such as domestic violence, serious crimes and juvenile delinquency.   Although Malaysian Indians comprise about 9 percent of the national population, they enjoy a mere 1.5 percent share of the nation’s corporate wealth with many Indians remaining trapped in a vicious circle of poverty and feeling as if they are third class-citizens.   It is imperative therefore that the government takes urgent measures which are long overdue to arrest the backwardness of Malaysian Indians and uplift their social-economic status to ensure that the community is not left behind in the country’s spur towards a developed nation.   Let this year’s Deepavali celebration mark the reinstatement of the Indian community to the mainstream of the nation’s development so that Malaysian Indians can truly feel proud to be full citizens of their country instead of being made to feel as if they are an underclass.     (23/10/2003) *  M. Kulasegaran,  DAP Deputy Secretary General