The March 8 general election has come and gone, leaving a political tsunami in its wake. The MIC and the other component parties of the ruling BN are still licking their wounds after having been battered and badly bruised by the opposition. Wither the MIC? Is the current re-branding exercise enough? How will they deal with a hostile alternative media and even more hostile Indian NGOs? Will merely changing the party logo and uniforms and entering the world of blogging at this late stage save the day or at least postpone the evil day of reckoning? Is it a case of too little, too late?

What an organisation like the MIC needs is an Indian ‘nationalist’ to lead it if it wants to continue as a political party and remain relevant. There are serious issues besetting the Indian Malaysian community and the effects can be felt in the 67-odd parliamentary seats in Peninsular Malaysia where the Indian voter is the king-maker. This has become diehard opposition territory after 50 years, in a mood to punish governments, and cannot be expected to change anytime soon. A watershed has been reached. Therein lies the crux of Malaysian politics, a case of the proverbial tail wagging the dog.

I first met party president S Samy Vellu in late 1979 when I was assistant editor of the Asean Review and had to interview him shortly after he became deputy president of the MIC. Is Samy Vellu a ‘crook’, as they all say? Maybe. Aren’t they all ‘crooks’ in politics? It’s not for me to judge. Let him who is without sin in politics cast the first stone. Or, let the courts decide after they, as promised, are cleaned up

Should Samy Vellu head MIC as a political party? No. Should he head MIC if it re-emerges as an NGO? Why not? Did Samy fail the Indian community as the head of MIC ? Yes. Otherwise, Hindraf would not have emerged and taken to the streets of Kuala Lumpur in their tens of thousands after several failed attempts to meet with the prime minister.

Should MIC continue as a political organization? It would not be a good idea in the wake of the Hindraf phenomenon as demonstrated by the March 8 political tsunami. What should MIC be then? MIC should turn itself into an Indian NGO and work with other Indian NGOs in Malaysia and with the Indian diaspora. MIC can re-emerge as a parallel government for the Indian community in Malaysia. In short, a community government.

Should MIC continue as a member of BN? Why not? Should MIC contest in elections as a member of BN? Again, why not? What would replace MIC as a communal Indian political party? Hindraf and the other Indian political parties.

Should Umno and MCA emulate MIC and become NGOs? That would be for the better so that the race factor can be taken out of mainstream Malaysian politics. Mahathir, for example, could even return as an Umno leader since he’s obsessed in retirement with ‘the fate of the Malays’.

Mahathir was prime minister for 22 years and Malaysia has been under Malay prime ministers for the last 50 years since independence. Why there still this concern about ‘the fate of the Malays?’

If MIC, Umno and MCA etc all become NGOs, what will happen to the Barisan Nasional? The BN will re-emerge, under current Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, as a multiracial political party in its own right.

The MIC, Umno, MCA and others can be associates or affiliates of BN. The BN should equal Hindraf on its turf for equal rights; PKR on its turf for Ketuanan Rakyat; DAP on its turf for a Malaysian Malaysia; PAS on its turf for a Islam which eschews racialism; and the parties in Sabah and Sarawak on their turf for the restoration of regional autonomy and an equal share of the federal government.

What will happen if all the above is not done? The BN will be history sooner rather than later and MIC, Umno, MCA etc will all end up in the dustbins of history. They will not even be footnotes in history.