Why is Malaysia simmering?
December 15th, 2007 Administrator–> By M.S.Shah Jahan “Don’t tell us – look at Ceylon, look at Burma”, thundered the ferocious orator, the youth leader of the Malaysian Indian Congress, in the Municipal Hall opposite Padang playground of the Kuala Lumpur Cricket Club and by the side of the Mosque type scenic General Post Office building, in the early 1970s. ‘If there is any tree on which money could be said to grow then this is it-rubber.’ This was the sentiment in Malacca way back in 1897. Mr. Ridley, the curator of the Singapore Botanical gardens had been trying for years to interest British planters in giving rubber a try. The imperial authorities in London had spent a fortune in arranging to have seed stocks stolen from Brazil. As Mr. Ridley himself first admitted that it might take as many as ten years for rubber plantation to become productive, Malaya’s European planters backed away. But Tan Chay Yan, the son of a well known Chinese family of Malacca was undeterred and converted
