When the Federation of Malaya was born, I was in Standard 1 at the Ibrahim Primary School in Sungai Petani, Kedah. In fact, my father was already an elected town councillor. He stood as an Independent and beat the Umno candidate.

I was trained in character and discipline at the Royal Military College, and got into Universiti Malaya when it was still the best in the region. Upon graduation, I applied and was shortlisted for an interview at Jalan Young, and attended the Public Services Commission (PSC) interview with my RMC classmate from Batu Gajah.

We both were found to be suitable but then my classmate, who held a Federal Bursary Scholarship, was back-dated to an April date for the Administrative and Diplomatic Service (PTD) appointment, but mine was post-dated to Sept 4, 1972. I never fully understood why.

Public service - serving to lead?

We both started work in the public service and were posted to the Implementation and Coordination Unit of the Prime Minister’s Department. Our current man’s father was our prime minister. I met the younger man when he as “interning with the Petroleum Development Unit” under the PM’s Department. That was the precursor to what we call Petronas Berhad today.

My first assignment was the publication of a grand book which listed all projects federally-funded and executed by the federal departments. What I did not know then was that these expenditure and reports were part and parcel of the ruling government’s agenda to seek re-election at the general election (GE) of 1974.

My next assignment was with the National Institute of Public Administration (Intan), as a trainer for new public service appointees. What was more than strange was that I had never been trained as my classmates who were instead selected as temporary public servants even before their appointments into the Administrative and Diplomatic Service of the government of Malaysia.

‘Pendatang dari Kedah’

If the word ‘pendatang’ means newcomer or immigrant to the country, let me assure every other Malaysian that I am and may be more Malayan than most. My father is a founder-member of the MIC in Kedah. He was one of the four founders together with Chandra Muzaffar’s grandfather.

More than that, in fact, I have two forms of citizenship certificates in my possession, with one being the birth certificate and dated before Merdeka. My parents are well-established citizens of Kedah and we have many photos with the present sultan’s parents as proof.

‘The Legacy of A Father’s Love’ is a book we wrote about our parents and their contributions towards our blessed life in Malaysia. We launched and distributed the book for our dad’s 90th birthday. Unfortunately, mom had passed on by then.

Dr Mahathir Mohamed wrote the foreword to the book. He, too, like his grandfather and Chandra’s parents, come from the same home-state as my parents. Are they pendatang, too?

Mar Thoma Christians

If the PAS president was more gracious with his interpretation of the Quran; we can and should be considered as “people of the book”. It is reputed that Thomas, often called Doubting Thomas who was the disciple who wanted empirical proof of Jesus resurrected body, went to India in 52AD and preached the Gospel and thereby our forefathers became Christians. They are called Syrian Christians of India.

My father was trustee for one piece of land which the Mar Thoma Church bought in 1955 in Sungai Lallang, Sungai Petani. Today, a Mar Thoma Community Centre sits on that plot of land, and it had to be rebuilt after it was 80-percent burned down because of an arsonist. Thanks to a gracious donation of RM100, 000.00 by the then-prime minister, we were able to rebuild that destroyed community hall.

I was sent on study leave by the government of Malaysia to complete my studies, and when my proposal to “study dignity in the workplace” was tabled, I met obvious objections from the American faculty for my scriptural definition of “dignity”.

Therefore and as a consequence, I had to invite University Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr, an Iranian, to come on board my committee to defend the starting point of the dignity of man; as one assigned and prescribed by God Almighty.

Thereafter,“as a result of this clash of worldviews” I even stated a biodata summary of my faith and origins in the appendix to my thesis. I also elected to establish and state the fact that in Malaysia we extol the Rukunegara as our national ideology or philosophy.

Therefore the current debate today about its relevance as a preamble is really moot. It is our ideology and it is too late to reject it now. We must therefore seriously consider and decide if it must be unconditionally accepted as our preamble to avoid untoward interpretation of the Federal Constitution in newer hindsight.

Mar Thoma Christians in Malaysia are mostly all Malayalees and while the originals are in fact mostly ‘pendatang’ from Kerala, India, the concept of ‘pendatang’ does not apply any more. In the USA, for example, the concept of an ‘alien’ denotes ‘foreigners’ and are usually limited to non-citizens. It cannot become an ethnic classifier for all and sundry; especially citizens...