V. T. Sambanthan

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Tun V.T. Sambanthan was the fifth President of Malaysian Indian Congress and one of the Founding Fathers of Malaysia. He was the MIC President from 1955 to 1973, when he was ousted by party members.

He is credited with three important developments in Malaysian political history: the consolidation of the Malayan (now Malaysian) Indian Congress, its transformation into a mass-based party, and its integral role as a partner in the current ruling alliance.

The finest hour was achieved on Aug 31, 1957 when Independence was achieved under the Merdeka Agreement, to which Sambanthan was a signatory.

1 Background
2 Political Career
3 Ministerial Posts
4 Contributions
5 References

[edit] Background

V.T. Sambanthan's early childhood and experiences as a student in India prepared him for his future role as leader of the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC).

Sambanthan's father was a pioneer rubber planter in Sungai Siput, Perak - where Sambanthan was born in 1919 - who ran his estate along enlightened lines. When his father died, Sambanthan took over the estate and followed his father's philosophy of improving the welfare of his workers.

As a student at the Annamalai University in then Madras during the turmoil of India's battle for independence, he was greatly influenced by Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence.

Not surprisingly, he become involved with the Youth Wing of the Indian National Congress. The ethnicity and sectionalism in Indian society troubled him and this was to influence his later advocacy of racial tolerance, harmony and cooperation in Malayan politics.

[edit] Political Career

The young man was drawn towards politics in Malaya following his experiences in India. 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 elite 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 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.

His gamble paid off and he was elected MIC president in 1955. He 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.

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. 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 overriding 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 served as president of the MIC from 1955-71 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.

The MIC's success in the early years was due to the close personal friendship between Ma-laysia'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 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. Sambanthan, by now bearing the title "Tun", was forced to retire in favour of V. Manickvasagam in 1973. This intervention is an indication of the inertia that had gripped the MIC following Sambanthan's rise to leadership in 1955.

[edit] Ministerial Posts

As president of a party that was a component of the ruling Alliance Party, he was appointed Minister of Labour (1955-57), Health (1957-59), Works, Posts and Telecommunications (1959-71) and National Unity (1972-74).

After resigning as president of MIC, he was appointed chairman of the National Unity Board (1974-78) that replaced the National Unity Ministry. Throughout his political career, which spanned 25 years, he had preached and practised the doctrine of unity amidst diversity. Appropriately enough, in the Malaysian context, it was to national unity that he devoted the last few years of his life.

[edit] Contributions

In his own way, Sambanthan instituted some reforms among Indian plantation workers. For example, he promoted education and thrift among Indian workers, lobbied for the introduction of English language instruction in Tamil schools in Perak and for the transformation of the South Indian Immigration Labour Fund into an education fund for the children of plantation workers.

The greatest challenge that MIC faced during his presidency was the fragmentation of estates, the livelihood of almost all Indian workers. In a bid to help the fragmentation, the party sponsored cooperative efforts to acquire estates and prevent displacement of the workers.

In 1960 Tun V.T. Sambanthan touted the idea of a social co-operative to help plantation workers during the British land sell off. Tun Sambanthan and K. R. Somasundram worked closely to purchase their first estate at Bukit Sidim in that same year. The co-operative was later called National Land and Finance Co-operative Society (NLFCS).

He toured rubber plantations to persuade workers to buy shares in the cooperative; a worker with a registration fee of $2 and a share costing $100 (payable in instalments) could buy a stake in a plantation.

At the time of his death in 1979, the cooperative had bought over 18 estates, totalling 12,000ha and had a membership of 85,000 workers. The Malayan Plantation Agencies administered the estates on behalf of the cooperative.

Somasundram has since taken over the Chairmanship of the company upon the death of Tun Sambanthan and is still actively involved in the co-operative. Today NLFCS has 19 estates totalling 35,000 acres, as well as investments in Palm Oil, Property and Banking.