Tamil Nesan, MIC and Samy Velu

In Their Own Pandora

One word sums up it all. Both the party and it’s leader is irrelevant, a word made famous during sodomy 1 trials by Judge, the late Augustine Paul.

MIC and Samy appear to live in their own world. While I know for sure that the GAS movement will not have impact on him, I am baffled that Samy is ignorant of numerous show of disgust by fellow Indians in the country. Only someone with thick skin can endure such abuses and insults throughout the country, not just by Indians but also by other races who are equally baffled that this unwanted leader is still around, helming the party when most of his contemporaries have retired and even some are resting in peace.

What is more baffling is that MIC members, who appear to share the same planet as Samy, still believe in Samy and still thinks MIC is relevant to the Indian community.
When Kamalanathan won the Hulu Selangor parliament seat, it make them big headed and more convinced that MIC is relevant when everyone knows that the Indian votes had hardly returned to BN. It was the Malays who won it for Kamalanathan.

Samy Vellu’s claims of 600,000 membership of MIC are all a sham. MIC branch leaders open branches by getting copies of identity card of Indians all over their area. Branch leaders pay the membership fees and maintain the records to keep their branches active.
Only the old guards, who have benefited directly from Samy Velu are still supporting and worshipping him, perhaps also due to the fact that Samy also means ‘God” .

My estimate is MIC has only about less than 50,000 hardcore supporters or rather Samy cult followers.

Tamil Nesan

Since the emergence of GAS movement, MIC’s family owned paper, Tamil Nesan, went on the offensive with numerous declaration of support for Samy Vellu by various state, divisional and branch chairman, who appear to revere Samy as a king or even god.

Numerous lies are propagated by the newspaper, whose Managing Director is none other than MIC’s prince, Vel Paari. Even on Monday, 31st May, the front page had a huge picture of an almost empty hall in Mines, where the GAS event was held. The report says that hardly 2000 people turned up and most of whom who turned up was Indian Nationals and Indonesians who works for Klang based businessman, Ohms Thiagarajan.

A quick glance at other newspapers in newsstands tells you a completely different story. The hall was full at about 4pm and even one can see a full turnout from the prime time news in TV. Who is Tamil Nesan trying to fool. Tamil Nesan thinks that the Indians are an ignorant lot and will believe what it says. The newspaper is now helmed by a reporter who was jailed before for defaming Samy Vellu. Now this man is using Tamil Nesan to slam Samy’s detractors. How ironic and things change when people develop thick skin like Samy. Maybe money and survival make people work for their one time enemy.

Tamil Nesan also published several sponsored full page advertisements of Birthday wishes for Samy’s wife Indrani. If anyone reads the wishes narrated, one would believe that Indrani is bigger than Queen Elizabeth or Mother Theresa combined. Never before I have seen people sucking up to irrelevant leaders and their wifes in such a way. Indrani has been described as 1st lady, model mother (to Vel Paari, yucks), model woman, holier than thou person etc. It was sickening to read such things when the whole of Malaysia knows that Indrani is nothing but another politician wife.

Tamil Nesan has no worthy news to offer, their front pages are either dedicated to glorifying MIC leaders, Samy or his son Vel Paari, or their partner in crime, youth leader or rather Youth ‘liar’, T.Mohan. Front page are also often dedicated to slam ex-deputy, Dato S. Subramaniam and other critics. It has the lowest circulation amongst Tamil dailies and I believe only hardcore Samy supporters buy the paper.

Other MIC Leaders

I am equally baffled with the silence from other MIC leaders. They should know by now that nobody supports MIC and their leaders. Either they are deaf or dumb enough not to realise this. Their leaders have also not learn their lessons. During the Hulu Selangor by elections, MIC leaders have yet to fulfill many of their promises. Some tried to misappropriate funds given by BN, some gave worthless cheques while some purposely wrote incorrect names in the cheques, causing cheques to be returned. People in Hulu Selangor is more disgusted with MIC now.

This is a one man party and most of those in CWC owe Samy a lot for their current position in the party, therefore most do not want to go against their King. It appears that in their minds, never mind what the Rakyat says, Samy is more important than anything else in their Pandora.

Samy purported successor, Palanivel does not enjoy widespread support and seen as weak. Only Minister Subramaniam enjoy has some respect among Malaysians. Will he speak up and do something. Nobody thinks he will as he owe both Samy and Palanivel for his post now, both in Cabinet and the party.

So nothing is going to change even if Palanivel takes over. Najib should realise that he can’t rely on Samy’s party. In the hindsight, as suggested by T.Mohan, MIC should just leave BN or UMNO should find ways to expel MIC. Only then MIC will realise that they are nobody without BN’s support.

Samy Vellu’s Biggest Achievement

Dr Mahathir urged Samy to call it a day many times over, sarcastically highlighting Samy’s record breaking tenure. Apart from this record, Samy will be remembered as the who caused Indian community to split. There was no other Indian political party before Samy took over MIC. Now we have almost a dozen of Indian based political parties and hundreds of Indian based NGO, just because MIC is ineffective. All because of his grip on MIC and his inability to face dissent in his own party.

On a lighter note, his other achievement and potentials are listed here.