Three steps backwards for MIC
The MIC's election results on Saturday show three clear trends that are a step backward in time.
While those elected say the results, almost 100 per cent in favour of party president Samy Vellu, show that the party is strong and united, it also show the absence of alternative views competing in dynamic tandem with the official line.
Instead of a discourse, the intellectual space in the MIC is now dominated by a single, autocratic monologue.
First, the result has killed dissent within the party's top policy-making body. Delegates elected Samy's choices for the three vice-president's post and 23 Central Working Committee seats, almost to the man, and with overwhelming majorities.
Challenger and incumbent vice-president Muthupalaniappan only polled 586 votes, losing by a huge majority.
Another challenger, former Kapar MP Dr Leela Rama, wanted to make history as the first woman vice-president but was rejected outright by the voters, most of them males. She received only 385 votes out of a potential 1,500. Besides all the people elected on Saturday were males. So much for gender sensitivity in the MIC.
Second, the results have planted the seeds of petty rivalries between second echelon leaders.
Incumbent vice-president G. Palanivel, who scored the highest votes in the 1997 election and soon thereafter regarded as Samy Vellu's protg, slipped to second position on Saturday. He polled 1,072 votes as against S.Veerasingam from Perak who received 1,077 votes. K.S. Nijhar came in a close third with 984.
It is only a matter of five votes more for Veerasingam, a kinsman of Samy Vellu, but for the rank and file it could mean that another contender for the title of "protg" had arrived. Palanivel was tipped to take on S.Subramaniam for the deputy president's post. This is Palanivel's first "bitter pill" since his meteoric rise after switching from press secretary to MP in 1990.
Veerasingam is a soft spoken and likable fellow, always avoiding controversies and totally unadventurous. He would make an ideal "Yes, sir" deputy for Samy if the president is tired of Subramaniam, his deputy for two decades.
(In a well-rehearsed and predictable charade, both Samy and Subramaniam were returned unopposed, as they had been for most of the two decades they have been together).
The MIC's election results on Saturday show three clear trends that are a step backward in time.
While those elected say the results, almost 100 per cent in favour of party president Samy Vellu, show that the party is strong and united, it also show the absence of alternative views competing in dynamic tandem with the official line.
Instead of a discourse, the intellectual space in the MIC is now dominated by a single, autocratic monologue.
First, the result has killed dissent within the party's top policy-making body. Delegates elected Samy's choices for the three vice-president's post and 23 Central Working Committee seats, almost to the man, and with overwhelming majorities.
Challenger and incumbent vice-president Muthupalaniappan only polled 586 votes, losing by a huge majority.
Another challenger, former Kapar MP Dr Leela Rama, wanted to make history as the first woman vice-president but was rejected outright by the voters, most of them males. She received only 385 votes out of a potential 1,500. Besides all the people elected on Saturday were males. So much for gender sensitivity in the MIC.
Second, the results have planted the seeds of petty rivalries between second echelon leaders.
Incumbent vice-president G. Palanivel, who scored the highest votes in the 1997 election and soon thereafter regarded as Samy Vellu's protg, slipped to second position on Saturday. He polled 1,072 votes as against S.Veerasingam from Perak who received 1,077 votes. K.S. Nijhar came in a close third with 984.
It is only a matter of five votes more for Veerasingam, a kinsman of Samy Vellu, but for the rank and file it could mean that another contender for the title of "protg" had arrived. Palanivel was tipped to take on S.Subramaniam for the deputy president's post. This is Palanivel's first "bitter pill" since his meteoric rise after switching from press secretary to MP in 1990.
Veerasingam is a soft spoken and likable fellow, always avoiding controversies and totally unadventurous. He would make an ideal "Yes, sir" deputy for Samy if the president is tired of Subramaniam, his deputy for two decades.
(In a well-rehearsed and predictable charade, both Samy and Subramaniam were returned unopposed, as they had been for most of the two decades they have been together).
Third, the "new" crop of leaders elected are really the same old coat-tailing Aya-Samy's (Yes-persons) and intervention-wise, are unimaginative and unlikely to engage in a dialogue to help some of the most marginalised minorities within the Indian minority. At the local level they will be active in temples, culture shows and Tamil schools. But dynamic engagements to rectifying hardcore poverty, urban squatters and youth violence are far beyond them.
The MIC took up, and the Cabinet has agreed, that plantation workers will get "monthly wages" by the end of the year. Currently their work is either daily- or piece-rated. For plantation labourers, "monthly wages" is a magic word as they have fought for monthly wages for over 100 years and had been denied until now.
At the MIC conference, Samy Vellu said that "monthly wages" is a new sunrise for estate workers.
The fact is plantations are a sunset industry now driven by cheap imported foreign labour. The MIC's "victory" comes decades too late for the Indian estate worker. Many huge plantations have disappeared into cities, towns, housing estates and golf courses turning workers into urban squatters.
Let's not fool ourselves that "monthly wages" will free plantation workers from the cycle of hardcore poverty, debt and exploitation. Much depends on the size of the basic wage, size of the annual increment, bonus and profit sharing, retirement benefits, promotion and other such labour benefits that we take for granted.
Besides, "monthly wages" is not entirely a MIC "victory". The much-maligned National Union of Plantation Workers also fought for "monthly wages" for five decades. Later, many individuals and NGOs took up the banner and kept the issue alive. These forerunners had thawed the field and planted the seeds for the MIC to come now and claim the harvest.
In terms of policy changes, very little came out of Samy Vellu's presidential speech. Samy's message is the same as before: "Please help us, Mr Prime Minister".
And the reply from Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad: "We have always been helpingwe have done our best. Don't forget the government has to help all the communities."
Mahathir revealed some data that showed the middle-class among Indians had expanded, mainly through education, that their income had improved and these advancements were reflected in the increase in Indian investment in the share market and government securities.
What is left out is the sad story of working-class Indians, many uprooted from estates, whose daily life is a struggle. They live in squatter colonies or in "temporary" longhouses, marginalised, neglected and lost. They need help.
K. BARADAN is a former journalist.
