MIC leaders flogging a dead horse

Even MIC’s traditional window-dressing role in the Cabinet and government is at risk.

COMMENT

Whatever is going on in the Malaysian Indian Congress at the moment is a Tamil version of the Malay comedy, Pi Mai Pi Mai Tang Tu, now and then getting into the English media to provide a little entertainment.

At times, there are even shades of the melodrama from Tollywood in MIC. These tear-jerkers don’t elicit any sympathy at all but simply further hoots of laughter at what the late Singapore statesman Lee Kuan Yew would have described as the antics of pitiful clowns and gluttons for punishment!

Whatever happens moving forward, it’s noteworthy that even the ulama in PAS endorsed the Pakatan Rakyat position that the Barisan Nasional (BN) wasn’t at all about genuine power-sharing in government with non-Malays.

Patently, to digress a little, this goes back to Frank Swettenham who laid the cornerstone of British policy in the peninsula: “The Malay is an arrogant creature. He will not hesitate to harm you even if he were to suffer even greater harm in the process. We need to protect the Malay from himself.”

When the British were leaving, they encouraged the formation of the Malaysian Indian Congress, the Malaysian Chinese Association and the United Malays National Organisation to continue Swettenham’s policy and protect British interests as well in the process. Ironically, MIC was initially concerned along with other Congress parties in Fiji, South Africa and elsewhere only with the independence of India.

The advent of independence in 1957 saw MIC and MCA solely concerned with looking after their vested interests by striking deals with their Umno political masters. Their politics were never about the masses.

The People’s Action Party (PAP) tried to fill this void but the MCA prevailed upon Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman to expel Singapore from its merger with Malaya. It was left to the successor DAP to carry on the torch for a Malaysian Malaysia. We saw the result in 1969, and again since 2008.

MIC and MCA lawmakers generally win in Malay seats, endorsed by Umno, to window-dress the Cabinet. There are no ethnic Indian-majority seats in any case.

MIC and MCA leaders continue to claim in government that they represent their communities but the reality on the ground is that they had to represent the people who voted for them, the majority being Malay and Orang Asli.

Enough was enough and Hindraf Makkal Sakthi emerged in 2007 to claim the 350,000 stateless and 850,000 displaced estate workers as their constituencies. These were people never represented by MIC. The party never even paid them lip service. They were focused totally on Swettenham’s policy.

The latest we hear, albeit from the other side, is that G. Palanivel is no longer MIC President by virtue of the fact that he went to Court for a Judicial Review against the Registrar of Societies (RoS). Does it really matter who is MIC President and who isn’t? The Indians couldn’t care less!

In any case, let’s belabour the issue for the sake of belabouring the issue. Palanivel didn’t take MIC to Court. If he had done that his goose would have been cooked as per the party Constitution. Going to Court for a Judicial Review against the RoS doesn’t remove the party membership of the President. The other side probably knows that as well but nevertheless wants to mislead the media and the people to get a little cheap publicity and live to fight another day.

It’s an open secret what the warring camps in MIC are fighting for in going at each other hammer and tongs. Privately, with Umno, they claim to be better able to hoodwink as many Indians as possible into voting for BN. In return they hope to collect the proverbial crumbs from the Umno table for themselves and their circle of loyalists. How this kind of politics translates into anything for the community is anybody’s guess!

It’s clear that MIC is a party with no political ideology. Just looking after the vested interests, as they have done since independence, is no ideology and they will no longer be able to get away with it as they have done since 1957 until 2008.

Palanivel blames Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak for the current woes in MIC, meaning the problems that he’s facing with the RoS. It would be kinder not to comment on this. If not Najib, Palanivel would look for another scapegoat. It’s a wonder that he didn’t blame former MIC President S. Samy Vellu. Samy appears as a bigger “culprit” than Najib.

The question: What is Palanivel and the other side trying to sell?

If they have nothing to sell to the people, except to Umno, they have no reason to be around. Already, Najib is reaching out to the Indian community through various NGOs, effectively sidelining MIC in the process.

Najib did a number on Hindraf after the last General Election. It’s unlikely that he would be able to go back to them even though they are probably the only organised movement in the country that can make Indians upset with Umno and BN. The result in 2008 was that BN could collect only 15 per cent of the Indian votes counted.

In 2013, BN had a better outing when it collected 45 per cent of the Indian votes counted. The extra 30 per cent was the result of the BN-Hindraf RM4.5 billion Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). Najib abandoned the MOU as quickly as he signed it and Hindraf Chairman P. Waythamoorthy had no choice but to quit from the Senate and the Prime Minister’s Department within a year.

Come 2018, Najib if he’s still around or his successor, would have to think about how to woo Indian voters away from the Opposition. BN does not need Indian votes to secure a majority in Parliament but it does need them to help regain the coveted two-thirds majority.

In all this, MIC does not enter the picture. We can’t be entirely sure that they are even assured of their traditional window dressing role in the Cabinet and government under the BN which may exist, come 2018, only in Sabah and Sarawak except for Umno in the peninsula.