Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad wants Indians united under the MIC to strengthen the governing Barisan Nasional coalition, that "If they don't unite, there is disunity."

Or, to put it another way, if they unite, there is unity. So, the MIC vetoes the Indian Progressive Front's attempt to join the BN. Its president, S Samy Vellu, wants the IPF dissolved and its members join it instead. This, they believe, would unite the Indians under the BN.

Would it? Then the MCA and the Gerakan ought to reunite under Ling Liong Sik. Since the People's Progressive Party is, to all intents and purposes, an Indian party, the PPP should also with MIC. If Gerakan and PPP are multiracial, not racial, parties, than they should unite instead.

It looks silly, does it not? But then also Mahathir's hopes. A community is not united because it backs one political party. It is not politics which unites but culture. But every racial leader in the BN insists it is. It also believes that if there only one communal body to represent it. It does not.

A community unites under a clash of opinions that clarifies what it must do to move ahead. When it is alienated from its leaders, as now in the BN, it will not return to allow the leaders to continue to insult it.

Pandithan played his cards wrong in pledging loyalty to the BN. He will not lead his IPF into the opposition. So, the BN. And little he can do. But the BN cannot let him go either. His all-too-important vote bank of Indians can throw up more Lunas typhoons.

Mahathir is so besotted with his grand view that he forgets the essentials. How does a community unite, politically or culturally, when it is allowed only one worldview, that of its leader? The MCA and MIC presidents are quick to expel any serious contender with a different view of how the community should progress.

When a community is faced with an intractible problem, like Vision Schools and Indians in estates, the leaders keep mum. Leaders are discouraged from the ranks; the ruling coterie selects them. Basic issues and problems are forgotten, and widens the gap between community and political leaders.

Alienation from leaders

The ground leaders spend more time on how they can go up the political ladder than find out why they, and their leaders, are spat at. The supercilliousness amongst leaders, strengthened each time they speak, makes what they say more important than what they do. And what they say is often a pie in the sky.

Umno General Assemblies are so well choreographed that it becomes a spectacle not where serious issues can be aired. The MIC president challenges to a fight those who disagree with him at its annual conferences. The MCA president speaks but no one listens, so popular is he.

This cannot change if disparate groups unite under a weak leader. The MIC absorbing IPF will not unite Indians, nor would Chinese if the MCA and the Gerakan come together. The communities are alienated - from each other and from their leaders. The leaders ignore their communities as the government their concerns and problems.

But leaders emerge amongst them who owe no political loyalty, work with it to articulate their concerns and fears. This puts them into conflict with the political leaders. This is what happened in the Vision Schools and the Damansara new village school fiascos. The political leaders have to run to catch up - and cannot. Power needs the powerless to survive. But the powerless seek a power base of their own. The BN misses an important rule of thumb: a community is stronger when its leaders emerge from amongst it.