Sim (second from right) with Penang Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow at the 'Heart of Service' book launch in Bukit Mertajam recently. Present are Dr MPL Yegappan's son Vengadasalam Yegappan (right) and grandson Dr Yegappan Shanmugan (left). — Bernama
IT wouldn’t be wrong to suggest that his name is almost non-existent in our history books. It also doesn’t help that there is not a single road in Penang that is named after him, yet the late Dr MPL Yegappan left an indelible mark in our country’s history.
He was a man of many firsts, including being the first elected chairman of the Bukit Mertajam Town Council.
Unlike in modern day Malaysia where councillors – whether at city or municipal levels – are appointed, Penang set the standard by being the first in the country to hold council elections.
Dr MPL Yegappan was also a state executive councillor in the Penang Merdeka Cabinet during the transformative 1950s through to the 1960s.
The good doctor: Dr MPL Yegappan was a man of many firsts, including being elected the first chairman of BM town council. — Photos courtesy of Steven Sim
The untold story of a man whose unwavering dedication to service over self, which made him a beloved figure in Bukit Mertajam (BM), has finally been recorded in a book by its current Member of Parliament, Steven Sim Chee Keong.
This transpired because Sim is a friend of Dr Yegappan Shanmugam, a grandchild of Dr MPL Yegappan. The young doctor was named after his grandfather.
Sim and young Yegappan were schoolmates in SK Stowell before going on to secondary school together at Bukit Mertajam High School.
The story of Dr MPL Yegappan remained etched in Sim’s memory from the first time he heard about this local BM legend.
Coming from the distinguished Nattukottai Chettiar family of businessmen, landowners and money lenders, Dr MPL Yegappan grew up in India but came to Malaya in 1929 at the age of 14. He first lived in Kulim, Kedah, and eventually enrolled at St Xavier’s Institution in Penang for his Higher School Certificate examination.
He went back to India to study medicine in Madras and became the first doctor in the Chettiar community. But his heart was in Malaya where he had spent his transformative years, so when World War II ended, he wasted no time sailing back to Malaya in 1946.
He took up the post of medical officer at the Penang General Hospital the following year but in 1948, he was transferred to Bukit Mertajam, then a sleepy town.
Having settled down in Penang with his wife and five children, he was not happy to be transferred to Tampin, Negri Sembilan.
After his appeals to work in nearer towns such as Taiping, Alor Setar and Ipoh were rejected, Dr MPL Yegappan decided to open his own private clinic in BM – the first private medical practice in town.
Despite his busy schedule, he played an active role in the community, including in local government bodies and became the first president of the Indian Association in BM.
As self-government began to take root in Malaya, ahead of the country’s independence in 1957, municipal council elections were held in several towns. In 1951, a group of young professionals decided to form the multiracial Penang Radical Party.
It was founded by Dr Lim Chong Eu, who later became Penang’s chief minister in 1969, with other personalities, including lawyer CO Lim, SM Zainal Abidin, and Nancy Yeap, granddaughter of wealthy Penang banker Yeap Chor Ee.
“Interestingly SM Zainal Abidin was also Penang Umno president when he was appointed vice-president of the Penang Radical Party – at that time party membership was more fluid and less restrictive, allowing individuals to belong to multi parties.
“Nevertheless, despite Zainal Abidin openly welcoming the formation of the Penang Radical Party and expressing that Umno members were free to join any party for municipal elections, Penang Umno exco later expelled Aziz Ibrahim because he contested under the Penang Radical Party banner in the 1951 (council) election,’’ Sim writes.
Dr Lim remained as vice-chairman of the Radical Party but joined the MCA in 1954. He went on to become a president of the MCA but later left to form the Penang-based multiracial Gerakan party.
Dr MPL Yegappan came into the picture in 1953 when he was elected as the party’s BM branch chairman and in the same year, he won a seat in the BM council elections.
Interestingly, in the 1958 council polls, Che Yan Hamid Hussain, the secretary of Umno’s Kaum Ibu in the Seberang Perai Selatan division, contested and won a seat in the Tanah Liat area, an overwhelmingly Chinese majority seat.
Che Yan was the wife of Ibrahim Abdul Rahman, who served as the first MP for BM (1959-1969), then known as Central Seberang Prai. Both were parents of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who recalled Dr MPL Yegappan as a “polite and gentle person’’.
As his political career soared, Dr MPL Yegappan went on to become an elected state assemblyman in the second Penang state election in 1959.
In the Butterworth state constituency, he won with a 1,154 majority on the Alliance Party ticket in a four-cornered fight.
He was made the state exco member in charge of education, and interestingly, he was known as an advocate of Bahasa Melayu and had initiated several campaigns to encourage people to speak the national language.
“The extent of Dr MPL Yegappan’s commitment to the national language can be demonstrated in an incident at the state assembly when he responded in Bahasa Melayu to questions posed by a member of the Opposition. The Opposition member had spoken in English as it was allowed then,’’ writes Sim.
More importantly, he played a major role in pushing for the setting up of the University of Penang – which would be called Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM)when it was finally set up in Minden Heights in 1969.
Certainly, many people deserve to be credited with making USM a reality but for the record, Dr MPL Yegappan was the person who tabled the motion for a university in Penang on behalf of the Penang state government on April 11, 1962.
He passed away in 1972 at the age of 57 but until his demise, Dr MPL Yegappan continued to be active in organising religious activities in BM and Kulim.
Sim regards the book, Heart of Service: The Untold Story of Dr MPL Yegappan, as “a labour of love’’, which he started writing in 2020. It was during the Covid-19 pandemic, and he was even hospitalised for 10 days a few weeks after he began writing.
It took Sim over two years to complete the biography of Dr MPL Yegappan as he had to carry out research at the National Archives, libraries of the state assembly, Parliament, and all the way to Singapore, India, and the United Kingdom.
Due to his extensive research, it took Sim over two years to complete the biography.
It’s certainly a commendable job as Sim has put on record the achievement of another BM boy; the township is also the home of Anwar as mentioned earlier, as well as former PM Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Yang di-Pertua Negeri Tun Ahmad Fuzi Abdul Razak, National Laureate Emeritus Prof Dr Muhammad Haji Salleh, Penang’s first chief minister, the late Tan Sri Dr Wong Pow Nee, and badminton legend Datuk Lee Chong Wei.
Some of these personalities may have only lived nearby the town but most went to school in BM.
What is clear is that it would certainly be most appropriate for a road in BM to be named after Dr MPL Yegappan.
Sim has written this book in a very clear way as he takes readers from Dr MPL Yegappan’s childhood days to his last days.
It is easy to read as Sim cleverly weaves in the historical parts without interrupting the flow of his storytelling. He also manages to provide readers with glimpses of what Malaya and the early days of post-Merdeka were like.
Well done.
Heart of Service: The Untold Story of Dr MPL Yegappan by Steven Sim Chee Keong is published by Clarity Publishing Sdn Bhd and World Scientific Publishing Co, and is available at major book stores.
