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Hear! Hear! The Indians Have A Deputy Minister!

I had a dozen emails, after I posted my Chiaroscuro column on the cabinet reshuffle in malaysiakini (http"//www.malaysiakini.com) on Sang Kancil yesterday, berating me for not saying something about "our" new deputy minister of local government and housing, Dato' M. Kayveas. At a diplomatic dinner last night, I was told this new Indian deputy minister should make Indian community proud, even if the MIC president, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu, sulks at it. Dato' Kayveas himself is proud and grateful for the Prime Minister's "great trust" in him. What trust is that, I wonder?

What honour do Indians acquire with a deputy minister not long ago accused of collecting RM100,000 from a party official for a minor bauble? Whether it is true or not is beside the point. But like much that happens in Bolehland, such accusations do not raise an eyebrow, though the naievity of the man who willingly paid such huge sums for what he thought was a title is touching indeed. He should clear himself of that. He has not. The doubts remain.

Let us begin from the beginning. What is his name? Kayveas is a literal rending of his initials K.V.S. There is nothing wrong with that, and since he could never ever elected, or for that matter given a state or federal seat, one would never know. If the Prime Minister wanted to honour the Indian community he should have chosen some one more fitting and bring him in through the Senate. It would have taken some of the heat off him if he had appointed an MP, even if from the MIC. If he had wanted someone outside the MIC, there are literally thousands better qualified and with more honourable intentions who would fit the bill.

Why was Dato' Kayveas chosen? For one thing, Dato' Seri Samy Vellu's remark, at a Christmas party, of the Prime Minister's responsibility for what happened at Lunas must have reached him, and had to be taught a lesson. For another, he wanted someone who would not rock his boat. Poodle-like loyalty he can expect from someone who wanting a meal gets a banquet instead. It is said to be a great honour for the People's Progressive Party, whose only benefit in the National Front is for its president to be given a senatorship and appointed a dato'. As for the quality of its leaders, after the Seenivasagam brothers, none who followed could hold a candle to them. One of his immediate predecessors is disbarred as a lawyer.

But does the Prime Minister want the Indians to be adequately represented in his government? He does not. He is mired in far too serious problems which he tries to shake off to be bothered about the quality of Indian representation in his government. Dato' Kayveas is appointed to tell Dato' Samy Vellu that disloyalty, even amongst close friends, is verboten. So, the Indians have a man appointed so that the Indian leader could be given a black eye. How does that benefit the Indian community?

The New Straits Times gushingly tells us he is the first to attain federal political office since 1952. The Seenivasagam brothers, SP and DR, were giants in Ipoh and the PPP represented their ideals and hopes, went out to root for the underdog and, especially DR, fiery parliamentarians; SP, on the other hand, was more calculating and less prone to histrionics as his brother was. DR's death robbed the PPP of its vitality, and in the aftermath of May 13, SP brought the party into the National Front but refused to hold office when Tun Abdul Razak offered it to him.

The PPP fire dimmed permanently, its carcass taken over by dismissed MCA leaders but it never got a seat to contest even in its once-stronghold of Ipoh. In the 1969 general election, a coalition it led under SP won half the seats in the Perak state assembly, as the Gerakan-led coalition in Selangor, that led the move to "ketuanan Melayu" (Malay dominance" of Tun Abdul Razak. In the revolving door leadership that followed they came into the public eye when its president made a dato' or appointed a former president became a bankrupt. This is not the kind of background that would the Indians proud that it has a new deputy minister.

ends