Editing Malaysian Indian Congress (section)

=== V. T Sambanthan and becoming a Tamil party ===
In May 1955, [[V. T. Sambanthan|Tun V. T. Sambanthan]] was elected as the fifth President of the Malayan Indian Congress. Sambanthan started a recruitment campaign among plantation workers, relying on the patronage of Hinduism in its popular South Indian form, increased use of the Tamil language, and encouraging Tamil cultural activities. He personally toured plantations and encouraged Tamils to join the MIC.<ref name="Kailasam 2015" /> This led to a fragmentation of the Indian community, with traditionalists and the lower middle class becoming prominent in the party while upper-class professionals and the intelligentsia moved away from it. Two paths to leadership emerged in the Indian community, via politics or via trade union activism, with very little interaction between them.{{Citation needed|date=September 2019}}

Under Sambanthan's leadership, the MIC effectively became a Tamil party. Sambanthan served as president of the MIC until 1971 and was largely responsible for the transformation of the party to a conservative and traditionalist party emphasising Indian culture, religion and language.{{Citation needed|date=September 2019}} It was the weakest of the three main political parties, with the smallest electorate (7.4% in 1959) and had little support from the Indian community at large.

The Indian community was geographically dispersed and divided and comprised less than 25% of the population in any constituency. The MIC's overriding concern was therefore to remain a partner in the Alliance and obtain whatever concessions it could from the dominant UMNO. This led the MIC to compromise on priorities such as the political and economic rights of workers.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Koh |first1=Sin Yee |editor1-last=Christou |editor1-first=A. |editor2-last=Mavroudi |editor2-first=E. |title=Dismantling Diasporas: Rethinking the Geographies of Diasporic Identity, Connection and Development |date=2016 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-14958-3 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YbS1CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT133 |language=en |chapter=Unpacking 'Malaysia' and 'Malaysian Citizenship': Perspectives of Malaysian-Chinese Skilled Diasporas}}</ref>

Sambanthan sold approximately half of his father's 2.4&nbsp;km<sup>2</sup> rubber estate and donated part of the money to the MIC.  He was not uniformly popular but was able to gradually unite a party that had significant internal divides.  During his presidency, in 1957, Malaysian independence was achieved. Sambanathan was involved in the negotiations with the British government's [[Reid Commission]] to draw up the new Malayan constitution. In 1963 [[Singapore]], [[Sabah]] and [[Sarawak]] merged with the Federation of Malaya to form the [[Malaysia|Federation of Malaysia]], and the MIC renamed itself the Malaysian Indian Congress.

Sambanathan was forced to retire in favour of [[V. Manickavasagam]] in 1973 after a rebellion by five MIC leaders including [[Samy Vellu]].