THERE IS A TRITE SAYING that the Indian community in Malaysia must blend with the other races if it is to survive. Trite because the party that represents the Indians here do all it can to separate the Indian community into Tamils, Malayalees, Sikhs, Bengalis, others. The Malaysian Indian Congress, which once represented the Indian community in the governing National Front coalition, has done its job badly in representing the Indian community that the People's Progressive Party – which in its previous life was the opposition and multiracial Perak Progressive Party led by the redoubtable Seenivasagam brothers, both lawyers and with the younger, D.R. Seenivasagam, the more dominant, particularly in the opposition benches in Parliament – to also represent the Indians. His death in the late 1960s lead to his elder brother, known as SP, taking over, and subsequently joined the ruling National Front, After his death, it was the vehicle for a Chinese leader at odds with the Chinese party in the National Front, the Malaysian Chinese Association. But the PPP came back into Indian hands, its president being appointed a senator tough he is elected to parliament now. He, an Indian, is a deputy minister, but the party is a pale shadow of its old self.

INDIA IS STRONG BECAUSE it is backed by a strong power, the USSR (as it was) then, the US now. Indians can rail all they want in their newspapers that it is not so, but the fact is India is not in Southeast Asia these days as it was 500 years ago. One Indian high commissioner to Malaysia about ten years ago, talking of India's roie in the region, said it ended when Vasco da Gama reached Calicut in 1498. It was an important speech for which many policymakers had attended, and they left confused. But what he said is the truth. The Tamil newspapers, almost all owned by the MIC president or his family, carries out in detail developments in Tamil Nadu, followed by attacks on his political enemies, and reports on Malaysia only as it affects the Tamils. The insular attitude makes it difficult for the Indians to be members of the larger Malaysian community. The high commission spends too much time on the affairs of the Indian community, missing the larger developments in Malaysia as a result.

CHENGARA VEETIL DEVAN NAIR, or C.V. Devan Nair, is dead. Not where he was born – in Malacca, Malaysia; not in the land of his adoption, Singapore whose president he became; but in exile in Canada, hounded to the end by Mr Lee Kuan Yew, then prime minister but now two steps higher as minister mentor, whose colleague he was and who had him elected as President. He was born in 1923, and died in December 2005. He was, of course, a Malayali, a clan Mr Lee was, and is, afraid of, and who gave him his biggest trouble in his march to be Prime lMinister. He regarded them more dangerous than snakes, and did not look upon them kindly. Mr Devan Nair was weaned into Mr Lee's People's Action Party, from the pro-communist Anti-British League, and later, so Mr Lee's supporters said, he sold his friends to be firmly entrenched with Mr Lee. Mr Nair never wrote his memoirs, so we will never know the truth of this. He was an active writer since 1954, but wrote less and less after he was removed as President in 1993. In 1999, he attracted a libel suit from Mr Lee for what he wrote in Canada, but which was thrown out after his counter-claim. He married a Tamil, who died before he did, had four sons and five daughters.

Over the years, the opposition parties often take the law into their hands. Harakah, the PAS party organ, is published twice monthly, and is sold to the general public, though it cannot, and gets its views heard throughout the land. It sells more than 200,000 copies every issue, and more during elections or byelections. It has a multiracial leadership because eight of its pages are in English. It is read avidly because it contains the alternative point of view, a refreshing change from the Malay, English, Chinese and Tamil newspapers which carry only the National Front point of view. It carries the views of opposition leaders only when they support the National Front views, or if they are in trouble. The opposition leaders, instead of fighting the existing position of the National Front, take the line of least resistance, and survive in the National Front shadow. But there are exceptions. PAS is committed to an Islamic state as it proclaimed when the religious wing broke off from UMNO in 1951. The Parti Rakyat Malaysia remained a thinking man's party, and the rump after its split with the Parti Socialis Malaysia has joined Parti Keadilan Rakyat, formed to get Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim from jail. The other political parties do not matter because it is personality splits with parties in the National Front that formed them, and they would usually like to replace their alter egos in the National Front. National Front leaders will not admit it but the views although publicly decried is quietly taken as its.

Maybe this is not how a journalist should work. That what I write is not worth reading because it does not represent the 'truth'. But I am read, even by journalists, for a different view I provide. I am often told I am a 'conspiracy theorist'. This is often hurled at any who does not accept the perceived truth. I challenged the perceived truth in Vietnam; I was lucky there because I was the only Indian reporter, though a Malaysian, and India was a neutralist nation and chairman of the International Control Commission. That challenging has not left me. And my writing mirrors it. If the authorities find that irritating, they should not try to shut me up; they should change their policies. Few in Malaysia are critical in English, but Malay papers and journalists are. I write but a fraction of what contains in the Malay or Chinese papers. The officials and politicians read the Malay papers now with more care, and act to prevent the pot from boiling. The English papers are not critical so we are told because the Caucasian foreigner will not come otherwise. The Tamil papers represent factions in the MIC, and can be ignored. It is the Chinese papers that has landed the Malaysian government in a mess today. They printed photographs of a naked Chinese woman doing the ear squat, which Pak Lah has said gives Malaysia a bad name overseas! There is no mention of the locals badly treated by the police, or police brutality which is common. Ask Dato' Seri Anwar! But why does a naked woman do the ear squat for a minor offence?

Press conferences by the prime minister and others are in English when it matters overseas. They also address foreign and local conferences in English. Why can't they speak in Malay? Malaysian officals are more concerned that the English newspapers and media are censored, while the Malay, Chinese and Tamil papers are not. In Thailand, it is the other way around. The English papers are allowed to report as its likes, so the reporters fill in the requirements of a theoretical free press. But the Thai papers are not. Today, the government of Mr Thaksin Shinawatre has problems with the press, because the Thai newspapers object to being under a tight leash. In Thailand, the government knows which language press it must control. It is so in many countries. But not in Malaysia. It is the other way around. Civil servants readly the English papers, and they wait for summaries of the language press sent hours or even a day late. The English media knows which side their bread is buttered, and smartly follow what is expected of them. An ambassador from a Central Asian state spoke only French; he was laughed at by Malaysian officials. But he is a high official in his country today. Those who studied in this country since the May 13 racial riot studied in Malay. The universities from about 1982 were in Malay, but it is the English- educated who gets the preference in all facets of Malaysian life. So the well heeled, and the politicians sent their children to English schools and universities. Even Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, a former minister of education but now expelled from UMNO, has sent his children to schools in the United States. But he is not the only minister of education to send his children overseas. We even have Oxbridge graduates who think they know the Malay-speaking rural folk,

He is, I am told by Malayalee Muslims, not a likeable figure. I dismissed it as the normal rankling of those who felt they were better than him. You find similar attitudes by Tamil Muslims of a Tamil Muslim who had gone far by being a Malay. But some of his actions after his father visited him a few years ago made me realise that he regarded himself as a Malay and not the Malayalee Muslim that he is. The Malay community will absorb him if he is smart, as he is, but will get jealous of him as he moves up the civil service ladder. He is wrong in assuming that all is well after he changes his race. In Malaysia, the Malay is a constitutional definition. If one follows that he is a Malay. It is not race that determines it. As many non- Malays have found out. Too many non-Malays were becoming Muslim that it was decided that the convert has to be integrate his name, or better still retain, his given name. This is help the civil servant weed out the non-Malay in his calculations. The convert will have to wait for his grandchildren to get the benefits of his conversion. But this is natural when there is a divide between the Malays in power and not. The Malays in power can ignore the constitional definite as they fancy, but the must also ensure they get along with their colleagues as well. A Malay I know retired from government service because he could not stand the politics inherent in his job.

The BBC now talks of insurgency in the centre of Iraq, and of its dangers in the referendum on October 15. But it is the centre of Iraq that conain the Sunnis which has experience of government. They are out of jobs, they support Saddam Hussein even if they once did not. They could have ruled Iraq, but now they rule the insurgency. One is not surprised this happens. The Tamil insurrection in Sri Lanka grew worse after it became policy to discriminate against the Tamil civil servant, and Tamil groups will tell you that it got worse when they were excluded. And the Tamils were not the favoured group in Sri Lanka. The British made sure the Sunnis ruled during their dominance in Iraq, but joined with the Americans to dismantle it. The Sunnis rejected plans for them, and did not take part in the election of the National Assembly. They were brought in, as if that was a great concession, but the constitution was drafted by the elected Shias and Kurds, and the fear of Sunnis caused a rule to be forced upon the National Assembly by the Americans and British that the Sunni objection can only stand if it got two-thirds the vote. The National Assembly rejected it, but the damage had already been done. The Sunnis are deliberately sidelined. The condescension the Shia and Kurds over Sunni participation is not lost on the Sunnis, including the National Assembly vote on the rule that prevented a rejection. It is all in all an constituition which is hammered in Washington and London which the Iraqi is expected to vote. It will remain in force so long as the US-led multinational forces remain, call it UN forces if you like, as Tony Blair did yesterday. The US do not have the experience in foreign affairs that the British have, and they make more mistakes. If they remain in control for 40 years, as the British did, they would do well. But they would be forced out much sooner.

The Buddhist kingdom of Ligor took control of Kedah shortly after, and its King Chandrabhanu used it as a base to attack Sri Lanka in the 11the century, an event noted in a stone inscription in Nagapttinam in Tamil Nadu and in the Sri Lankan epic, Mahavamsa. During the first millenium, the religion of the Malay peninsula veered between Hinduism and Sanskrit until eventually converted to Islam. But not before Hindu, Buddhist and Sanskrit became embedded into the Malay worldview.

The official figure of those who died is 68. The few hundred missing is only in Malaysia. The government ignores those caught outside Malaysia. This is time of the year when Malaysians go on holidays, usually to the areas where the tsunami caused the most havoc: Indonesia, Thailand, South India, Sri Lanka, Maldives. There is no official word of them, not even a promise to find out. An MCA group went on a holiday to Phuket when the tsunami struck: a husband and wife were swept away. A Malaysian couple met many Malaysians at the Velainkanni shrine along the coast of Tamil Nadu on the day when the tsunami struck. They describe a harrowing and terrifying journey to Chennai, but do not know the fate of the other Malaysians. It goes without saying that the final death toll would be in the hundreds, if not thousands.

In Brickfields, he spoke to the press. What he said was not controversial, but it was clear it was form not substance that mattered. The Tamil and Chinese papers did cover the event, but not the Malay and English press.

The matter has died down. There was no discussion about it in the mainstream media. It embarrassed the leaders of every BN party besides UMNO, and where the leaders cling to office at any cost so what matters is not the organisation he leads but he and he alone. The Malaysian Indian Congress, for instance, is in terminal decline. But its president does not think so. He believes that what needs to be done is change its slogan: from MAIKA (the Tamil initials of the MIC) cares to Maika hears. A cosmetic change he believes would set it right. But the same old noise runs it to ground.

THE MIC PRESIDENT, DATO' Seri S. Samy Vellu, does not know if his deputy, Dato' S. Subramaniam, is a candidate in this month's general election. "It is the prerogative of the party president and prime minister," he thundered. "I am not going to make any statement on this." When MIC leaders beg and cry before him for a "chance to serve the people", and Dato' Seri Samy only wants sycophantic leaders, is Dato' Samy denied his seat because he did not beg, cry and kowtow low enough? Johore MIC leaders talk of a new MIC MP. Tamil papers are sure he is out. His supporters are distraught and convinced he is out. There is no love lost between the two men. Dato' Seri Samy would rather he disappear into thin air. He saw the prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, yesterday, but "it was on other matters". He was dropped once, in 1990, after he challenged Dato' Seri Samy for the MIC presidency, brought into the government as a senator as deputy agriculture minister. He was MP for Segamat after 1995. He is close to Pak Lah, whose relationship with the MIC president is at best tetchy.

So, what has he achieved in his first hundred days in office, two days before this edition of Seruan Keadilan hits the streets on 10 February. He has made a series of orders and statements railing against corruption, praised the Chinese but scolds the Malay for his subsidy mentality, without adding that it is the UMNO-led BN government that nurtured it as official policy in the past three decades. Like the MIC's hold on its vote bank, the downtrodden and rural Indians, by cyncially raising the continuance of Tamil schools which only keep them tied perpetually to the poverty that is now their lot, the UMNO-led BN held on to the Malay community with its widespread policy of providing them with political subsidies that now backfires on it. What made it worse is, of course, UMNO's favourite punching bag, the jailed former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who turned that into an issue to all but destroy UMNO's hold on to the Malay cultural ground. So it reacts in panic. Pak Lah has made a few headline winning comments on corruption, but as usual he does not look at why, a few are charged, but with no attempt to address the root causes. He accepted the Mahathir cabinet, long past it sell-by date, as his own, the only two main changes - that of the new deputy prime minister and the second minister of finance - forced upon him.

The DAP's Save Maika Committee charged in as a bull in a china shop. It did not understand what was at stake. With the absolute self-confidence of fools, but without an iota of how things work, it believed it alone had the answers, talked and argued their way to certain defeat. But when its campaign took off, the Maika affair overnight moved away from bad management and the role of MIC and its president in it into a test of wills between the BN and the DAP. Dato' Pandithan and the harshest BN critics were bluntly told to shut up. The Tamil newspapers, warned about what they had written, decided the Maika issue is not worth wasting one's breath, and now translates those items as appears in the English language mainstream press, which is few and far between to begin with. Even before the Maika AGM at the Putra World Trade Centre on 30 December, it was all over. That was a tame affair. The Maika board, the MIC president, and supporters of the status quo, had all those who attended eating out of their hands. They got all they asked for. There was little or no discussion. The supremely confident DAP SMC happily went to their defeat. All the retiring directors were voted back by a show of hands, the mode the DAP SMC wanted, none of the issues about its finances were discussed or raised, and fizzled out. This does not mean Maika Holdings are clear. It plans to sell off loss-making subsidiaries and stick to those that turn in a profit. The fundamental weakness that led to it, like elsewhere in Malaysia, is swept under the proverbial carpet until the next crisis.

For the driving force of Maika Holdings is not its board but one of its shareholders, Dato' Seri Samy Vellu. He spoke of Maika Holdings to the Press as if he owned it, issued statements to the Tamil press talking as if he controlled or was Maika Holdings personified. He would not let Maika Holdings survive without his permission, and to make sure, installed his son as the CEO. He has not made a success of anything in the past, nor has he of Maika Holdings. But the sustained pressure on Dato' Seri Samy Vellu on Maika Holdings takes its toll. He has sued eight men, including Dato' Pandithan, the Malaysia Nanban publisher and editor-in-chief, for defamation, and demands damages of RM50 million from each and other relief. Curiously, he does not want an injunction in place until the trial, only after. No doubt he has excellent legal counsel, but he should know that by the time the case comes to trial, he would, like Tun Mahathir Mohamed, not have the clout he has, and he could well be laughed out of court. Did you notice that when Tun Mahathir says something sensible these days, it rates at best a report on the inside pages of the mainstream newspapers? Do Dato' Seri Samy believe he would fare any better?

THE MIC PRESIDENT, DATO' SERI S. Samy Vellu, is the brains behind Maika Holdings. Of that there is no doubt. Nothing happens in the investment company for the Indians without his knowledge and approval. Over the years, he told Malaysians proudly, and reverentially reported in the Tamil Nesan, the Tamil daily his family controls, how he controls its direction and investments, every decision it takes only with his approval. Nothing would have happened if Maika Holdings than went on to prove its sceptics wrong. The company is on the verge of bankruptcy, it has not released its annual reports for more than two years - an offence under the Companies Act - and it stonewalls every attempt by a shareholder to find out how his investment fairs. Letters are not answered. Questions are ignored. There is no way a shareholder can find out about how Maika Holdings fares through the usual methods available with an aggrieved shareholder.

THERE IS NOW NO DOUBT that the MIC president, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu, must go. He buys time. His bluster is checked. His time is past and surrounded by self-serving aides and politicians who would lose all if he were ousted, he is led to believe that he, and only he, could lead the Indian community, that he is the great white hope of the Indian community, and UMNO and BN - and the new Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, had better accept it. It did not take long for hubris to prove him wrong. He accused the Indian Progressive Front leader, Dato' M.G. Pandithan, of nominating a Tamil newspaper editor for a royal award. In the war of words that followed, he had to lick his wounds. It turns out that he fell foul of the Official Secrets Act. A police report is lodged. It hangs over him as a Sword of Damacles.

When a National Front (BN) supporting party, the Indian Progressive Front (IPF) nominated a Tamil newspaper editor for a federal dato'ship - it was not in the end given - it lifted the lid on how BN parties have a right to nominate whomsoeverf they liked for titles and awards. When this is accepted as the norm, it is a small step to selling them. Just as one sells its nominations for the Senate to the highest bidder. This, in the view of a party official, is not corruption. It is to ensure the party is never short of funds. When pressed, he changed 'party' to 'party president'. When these titles matter, and it is a rule of thumb that an untitled business man is not to be trusted, cannot corruption, and the buying of titles, be not far behind? The business man is prepared to spend RM250,000 or so for a dato'ship, the politician he deals with sees it an easy way to earn money, and a deal is made, with both happy at the outcome.

THE IPF PRESIDENT, DATO' M.G. Pandithan, lied to the King, screamed the MIC president, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu. He nominated a Tamil news editor, amongst others, for an award from the King aka Yang Dipertuan Agung. The MIC chief had stalked him for year, and now he had him hoist on his own petard. The editor is not the IPF deputy president but an MIC branch member. So he lied. The National Front (BN) and MIC closed ranks, and asked how this could be. This is a blot on Malaysia. The usual flurry of police reports - this to show how serious they are, not with any hope the police would look into it - followed. It was downhill for him from then on. The editor, Mr Athi Kumanan, said he is not an MIC member since he did not renew his subscription, he has not decided if he would accept an offer to be IPF deputy president. Two days later, he accepted it.

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