by Humayun Kabir | FMT

IPOH: DAP vice-chairman M Kulasegaran would have been one of the statistics of the brain drain from Malaysia if he had not read Lim Kit Siang’s book “Time Bombs in Malaysia”.

The book changed his destiny, he said in a tribute to Lim on the occasion of the opposition veteran’s 70th birthday.

Kulasegaran bought the book in 1978 – the year it first appeared – while he was en route to Subang airport for his flight to England for his law studies. He was then 21.

“On the long flight to London, I read the book and almost immediately began to rescind a prior decision I had made not to return to the country of my birth after my law studies for reason of its discriminatory policies,” he said in a statement released online yesterday.

He said it had kept alive his hope for political reform in Malaysia.

The book was reprinted last year by REFSA. The MPHonline bookstore called it a book that “will serve as a constant reminder of what half a century of Malay-centric policies have done to trivialise and damage race relations to an extent unparalleled in our history”.

Kulasegaran, who is also Ipoh Barat M, spoke of the “democratic flame that still burns brightly in Kit Siang”.

“In the forests of the Malaysian opposition’s struggle for the reform of their country, the torch held aloft for nearly four decades by Lim Kit Siang has burned brightly, lighting the path for thousands such as I who have struggled to find their feet in the often bewildering and shifting sands of time,” he said.

He said “the flame of political hope” was first kindled in him when he was preparing for his Form 5 examination in 1974.

In that year, Kit Siang was charged with violation of the Official Secrets Act and was fined RM1,900, which did not disqualify him from Parliament.

DAP national chairman Karpal Singh also released a statement in praise of Lim.

“Kit was a real force and I think he would have made a very good lawyer as he is very perceptive and sharp,” he said.

“He would have gone a long way in law if he had chosen to, but instead he chose to be selfless in his commitment to politics to serve the needs of all Malaysians.”