http://www.tranungkite.net - Red faces in the battle of the Indian presidents

THE IPF PRESIDENT, DATO' M.G. Pandithan, lied to the King, screamed the MIC president, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu. He nominated a Tamil news editor, amongst others, for an award from the King aka Yang Dipertuan Agung. The MIC chief had stalked him for year, and now he had him hoist on his own petard. The editor is not the IPF deputy president but an MIC branch member. So he lied. The National Front (BN) and MIC closed ranks, and asked how this could be. This is a blot on Malaysia. The usual flurry of police reports - this to show how serious they are, not with any hope the police would look into it - followed. It was downhill for him from then on. The editor, Mr Athi Kumanan, said he is not an MIC member since he did not renew his subscription, he has not decided if he would accept an offer to be IPF deputy president. Two days later, he accepted it.

Of his dato'ship, there is no word. The Prime Minister's Department, which vets nominations for awards, decided not to award it. Dato' Seri Samy, as the leader of the Indian community, would have known of it, since he is privy to all awards to the community. That he knows does not allow him to make it public for that is an official secret, on pain of a mandatory one year in jail. One can understand why he is so angry. Mr Kumanan is aligned to his hated deputy of two decades, Dato' S. Subramaniam. Dato' Pandithan is close to the man. The Subra faction, as it is known in MIC, is, like Dato' Pandithan's IPF, forced into a corner because it would not take the initiative to take on Dato' Seri Samy. It would not, like IPF, leave the BN and negotiate from strength. More than that, Dato' Seri Samy is so insecure that he sees ghosts with every wave of he wind.

Now it is Dato' Pandithan's turn. He now wants to lodge a police report against Dato' Seri Samy for revealing an official secret. He should know, after 24 years in office, what is an official secret. The BN leaders, including several cabinet ministers, who rushed to the MIC president's aid, did not notice it, and must be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. In short, they lent themselves to knowingly - they are in office, they should know, and even if ignorance of the law is no defence - commit an offence. The newspapers had reported it in detail: the days when the other view is deliberately ignored are over. Too many factions are at work in the national media, that the truth, such as it is, would reveal itself. The BN and MIC leaders have no choice but to grin and bear it. Dato' Pandithan and Dato' Subra won this. It revealed to the MIC how naked it, and he, is. And new alliances are in the making.

Dato' Seri Samy has not said what MIC stands for in the Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi epoch. He must. But can he? First he must repair fences. All he shows of that is how sycophantic he can be, and how distasteful it is to exchange a Mahathir sycophancy for a Pak Lah one. And he is not sure if he stands a chance. Pak Lah looks elsewhere for the Indian in his cabinet. Dato' Seri Samy has a problem. The Indians, especially the young, think they are better off without the MIC. The IPF and the People's Progressive Party are in no doubt about that. So moves, with the MIC's consent, to build alliances so it could cross the next hurdle at the general elections. Like every party in the BN, the MIC springs to life within months of the general election, and show how strong they are. But politics in Malaysia has moved on, and many - not only in the Indian community, but in the Malay and Chinese, too - do not see why they should continue to vote BN.

Is this then the end of the road for the MIC? I am afraid so. It can re-invent itself if only it could. But when it is riddled, from top to bottom, with scroungers, cronies, the irrelevant and the deadwood, no attempt to rid them could work. It has to be as dramatic as the MIC congress in 1954 when an unknown estate owner from Perak, V.T. Sambandhan, stook up to challenge the North Indian domination of the party. He revealed then the ills which makes change the only course. The MIC leaders have lost their way, and only a new group, untainted by the ancien regime could bring the party back on its rails. [But once in office, he became of the same mould he had to be forced out in 1974 by his deputy, Tan Sri V. Manickavasagam, whose untimely death had something to do with his deputy, one S. Samy Vellu wanting him out. Today, Dato' Seri Samy Vellu is caught in his own helplessness.

Since the non-Malay party leaders can rise no higher than where they already are, they should have moved to realign their communities by a constant renewal of leaders and ideas. That way, the communities could have had a position in Malaysian social and cultural life and be an important cog in the Malaysian wheel. That is not to be. The non-Malay leaders decided they should be lapdogs to UMNO, and depended on UMNO to ignore their own communities. The MCA leader is where he is for the support he gets from the UMNO and its president. He had to go when that was withdrawn. So it now turn out in the Indian community. That the MIC should rise up in high dudgeon because and Indian party nominated a man for a dato'ship reflects all that is wrong with the MIC. But none in the MIC or BN can see that.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my

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Terbitan : 20 November 2003

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