Goodbye MIC?

The MIC gave up its Port Dickson seat to Umno in a by-election last year and now it seems the party is set to give up the Cameron Highlands seat to Umno in the by-election slated for Jan 26 this year.

If the MIC can just give up two parliamentary seats to Umno, then one can conclude that we may have to write the obituary of the party.

Nobody could have anticipated the sad and miserable fate of the party that was formed in the immediate aftermath of World War 2 to represent the Indian community.

The formation of the party was a concrete manifestation of Indian nationalism and the felt need to provide political representation for the community.

During the early years after independence, from 1957 to 1969, the MIC was one of three principal components of the Alliance party, the coalition that governed the country.

For more than 60 years, under different historical periods, the MIC provided representation for the Indian community largely composed of Tamils.

During its heyday, the party obtained a fair share of parliamentary and state seats. Once, it had two full ministers and a few deputies and some state legislative seats.

The party’s political decline began after the 1969 racial riots with the formation of a larger ruling coalition called Barisan Nasional and the simultaneous rise of the power of Umno.

It was the relentless pursuance of the Malay hegemonic agenda by Umno in the 1970s and beyond that sowed the seeds of the decline of non-Malay political representation.

The MIC, in the absence of a strong economic base, was the most affected party.

Until a decade ago, despite the rise of other Indian parties and parties that sought a multiracial representation, the MIC was considered the sole representative of Indians. Despite this status, the party could not provide the necessary representation due to its leaders’ overdependence on Umno for meagre handouts.

Thus, it was a matter of time before the party lost all semblance of representation and could not prevent the drift of Indians to parties such as the DAP and PKR that provided hope for Indians in a reformed Malaysia.

The last election was the straw that broke the camel’s back for the MIC; it won two parliamentary seats but no state seats.

There is no way that the MIC can make a political comeback under the changed political and social circumstances.

Now that it is set to give up the Cameron Highlands parliamentary seat as well, after giving up the Port Dickson seat, it has virtually surrendered its role to articulate the larger concerns of the Indian community.

It cannot even perform the limited role of an opposition party.

Thus, for all intents and purposes, the MIC is a party that is neither dead nor alive. The Indians in the country who had pinned high hopes on the party have lost hope and have moved to support other parties.

For the hundreds and thousands of Indians who sustained the party through thick and thin, the MIC might become a distant memory; a memory that might not be pleasant.

The MIC lost its role not so much due to its ethnic representation but because it did not have the right kind of leadership. The leadership over a period of time became alienated from the rank and file by its slavish dependence on Umno.

The MIC’s days are over. Perhaps the time has come to not reminisce over the good old days of the party, but to consider how and in what ways the future political representation of Indians as Malaysians should proceed.

Nobody could have anticipated that the cool and serene hills of Cameron Highlands would signal the political oblivion of a party that once modelled itself after the Congress party of India.

P Ramasamy is Deputy Chief Minister II of Penang and a DAP leader. -FMT