V. T. Sambanthan

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Sambanthan, with the intention of creating a more cohesive and unified Indian community, organised the Perak United Indian Council in 1953, the same year he was elected Perak MIC chairman.

However, the event that helped catapult Sambanthan to the forefront of MIC politics was a visit by Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, the younger sister of the then Indian prime minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Sambanthan had befriended her when he was involved with the Indian National Congress while studying at Annamalai University.

On his invitation, she visited Malaya in 1954 and despite the ongoing communist insurgency, visited Sungai Siput where she officially opened the Mahatma Gandhi Tamil School. The meeting between Sambanthan and Vijaya Lakshmi in 1954 helped push the former into the limelight and then on to the party president's position in 1955.

In the same year, he was elected member of the legislative council for the Kinta Utara constituency. The constituency was renamed in 1959 as the Sungai Siput seat.

In the post World War II period, the Indian professional elite was largely held together by the unifying ideology of Indian nationalism. In 1946, the Indian of other ethnicity in Malaya formed the MIC. For the first eight years, the MIC leaders were either North Indian or Malayalee, representing a minority among the Indians. The majority of Indians (90%) in Malaya at that time were South Indians, mainly from the labouring class.

The Emergency (declared by the British in 1948 to battle communist insurgency) regulations and new trade union legislation also led to the leadership of the trade union movement passing from the Chinese, who were much better organised, to the Indians. This dilution of the MIC's objectives affected the status of Indian plantation workers in the Malaysian economy then and its repercussions are still being felt today.

In 1954, there were serious debates within the MIC as to whether the partys should join the UMNO-MCA Alliance that was emerging as the leading political movement in the country, following their successes in local elections. The MIC had aligned itself with Datuk Onn Jaafar's Independence of Malaya Party and later Party Negara, and there was a rethink within the MIC leadership during this period.

According to Rajeswary Ampalavanar, author of The Indian Minority and Political Change in Malaya 1954–1957, the MIC leadership was quite eager to join the Alliance but there was some resistance within the party's broader membership. They were willing to support the move if the party could secure some concessions from the Alliance on inter-communal issues, particularly on education.

Then MIC president K.L. Devaser came under heavy criticism from the Tamil media for not addressing the pressing issues facing the community. While he was quite outspoken, his influence was largely among the urban-based Indian elite and he lacked wider grassroots support.

Some in the party felt that there was a need for a leader with a stronger relationship with the party's grassroots. In March 1955, reports in the local daily Tamil Murasu urged Tamils to boycott the MIC.

Sambanthan, then a state MIC leader, emerged during this period as an alternative candidate for the party leadership. Going by historical records, he was literally coerced into taking up the presidency. Another candidate, P.P. Narayanan, was approached by party leaders but turned down their invitation because he wanted to concentrate on union activities.

Sambanthan initially declined but following some pressure from the Tamil leaders agreed to take on the party leadership. He was duly elected the fifth president of the MIC in May 1955. Sambanthan was also acceptable to the Malay leadership because he played down political (and to some extent, economic) rights in favour of cultural and language rights.

The MIC's main challenge was to reconcile the political aspirations of the middle class with the poverty and needs of the labouring class, who in 1938 comprised 84% of the plantation labour force. Sambanthan started a recruitment campaign among plantation workers, relying on patronage of Hinduism in its popular South Indian form, increased use and fostering of the Tamil language, and Tamil cultural activities.

But the MIC under Sambanthan failed to reconcile the needs of labour with the political aspirations of the middle class. The traditionalists and the lower middle class strengthened their hold within the party, while the upper class professionals and the intelligentsia moved away from it. Subsequently, two paths to leadership emerged among the Indians – political and trade union – with very little interaction between them.

Under Sambanthan's leadership, the MIC effectively became a Tamil party. Sambanthan served as president of the MIC from 1955 to 1971 and was largely responsible for the transformation of the party from an active, political organisation to a conservative, traditional one, emphasising Indian culture, religion and language.

It was also the weakest of the three main political parties. It had the smallest electorate – 7.4% in 1959; and it had little support from the Indian community at large.

Since the Indian community was geographically dispersed and divided, it comprised less than 25% in any constituency. Therefore, the MIC's over-riding concern was to remain a partner in the Alliance (the UMNO-MCA-MIC Alliance that had won the first elections in 1955, and that was subsequently renamed Barisan Nasional) and obtain whatever concessions it could from the dominant UMNO. In the process, political and economic rights of workers were sacrificed.

Sambanthan, while as MIC president, helped strengthen the party economically by selling about half of his father's 2.4 km2 rubber estate to help the Indian community as well as to provide financial strength to the party coffers.

Sambanthan took over the mantle of the MIC during a period of turmoil in the party in 1955, barely months before the first federal elections, and over time strengthen the party and consolidated its position in the coalition. He did not always please his members, but was able to gradually unite a party that had considerable internal splits.

The year 1955 was a milestone for Malaya's advance towards self-governance. The British colonial administration had agreed to hold the first federal elections in July 1955 and Sambanthan was instantly thrown into the cauldron of electoral politics.

He met the new challenge and following negotiations with the Alliance leaders the MIC was allocated two seats – in Batu Pahat, Johor, and Sungai Siput, Perak. Sambanthan Thevar contested the Sungai Siput seat and won comfortably.

The Alliance swept 51 of the 52 seats, the exception being a seat in Perak. Following the election win, Sambanthan was appointed to the Cabinet and sworn in as Labour Minister in the Alliance government.

The coalition decided to push for a quicker transfer of power and an Alliance delegation went to London in January 1956 to hold talks on a range of issues, including independence, with Secretary of State Alan Lennox-Boyd.

Earlier, in 1956, Sambanthan led the MIC delegation in the negotiations between the Alliance parties in drawing up a memorandum to be presented to the Reid Commission.

Sambanthan was a pragmatic negotiator and worked hard to secure the interests of the Indian community, while at the same time being sensitive to the broader interests of the Alliance party's diverse membership.

He was at times criticised by his party members for conceding on certain issues, but Sambanthan was faced with the need to find a suitable balance to the various sectoral demands and sought to take a middle path in the negotiations. For taking such as position, he was praised by the Tunku.

The final constitutional negotiations in London in May 1957 also saw a personal transformation in Sambanthan. While in London for the constitutional talks, Tunku Abdul Rahman decided that Sambanthan needed new attire.

Sambanthan had caused some controversy when he wore a dhoti upon being elected into the Federal Legislative Council – a practice deemed taboo during the British period. But Sambanthan defended his choice, arguing: “It makes the average man feel happier.” Even after the elections in 1955, when he was appointed Minister of Labour, his traditional Indian attire remained intact.

Thus when in London, Tunku decided that something must be done. As the Tunku describes in his book Looking Back: “When walking with me in London, he was always trailing behind because he could not step out far enough to keep pace with me; or perhaps I walked faster on purpose. One day when we were out for a walk, I led him into Simpson’s men’s store in Piccadilly. On reaching there, I said: ‘Come in; I want to choose a new suit’, so he followed me inside.

”I asked the tailor to fit Sambanthan with a good ready-made suit. He protested, but only briefly, accepting the inevitability, and came out a new man in a new suit – West-End tailored, new shirt, new tie, new shoes and socks.”

The Tunku noted that after that incident, Sambanthan was not satisfied with just one suit and secretly went out to buy several more.

During the debate on the draft Constitution at the Federal Legislative Council on 10 July 1957, Sambanthan urged greater co-operation between the communities, reminding them that Malaya was a plural society. He told the council:

The MIC's success in the early years was due to the close personal friendship between Malaysia's first prime minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj, and Sambanthan. For his part, Sambanthan ran the MIC as a largely informal party, in deference to UMNO, rather than as a political party with definite programmes.

In effect, it became a vehicle for distributing patronage (senate and legislative votes, nominations for decorations and awards, licences) to supporters, furnishing the Indian Malaysian vote, and an instrument for the leadership to entrench its role. But patronage was always in short supply and, eventually, rising dissatisfaction with Sambanthan led to a prolonged leadership crisis in the party.

When Tun Abdul Razak Hussein succeeded Tunku Abdul Rahman as Malaysia's prime minister, the MIC was forced to become much more responsive to the dictates of UMNO. This was following the May 13 Incident and Razak was more assertive than the Tunku to demonstrate Malay Supremacy or Ketuanan Melayu.

Sambanthan, by now bearing the title "Tun", was forced to retire in favour of V. Manickavasagam in 1973. This intervention is an indication of the inertia that had gripped the MIC following Sambanthan's rise to leadership in 1955.

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