Heart of Service – The Untold Story of Dr MPL Yegappan
IT won’t be wrong to suggest that his name is almost non-existent in our history books. It doesn’t help that there is not a road in Penang that is named after him, but the late Dr MPL Yegappan left an indelible mark on 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 today where councillors, whether at city or municipal levels, are appointed, Penang set the standards 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 untold story of a man, whose unwavering dedication to service over self made him a beloved figure in BM, is finally recorded in a book by the current MP for Bukit Mertajam Steven Sim Chee Keong.
This could happen 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 the young Yegappan were schoolboys in Standard One at SRK Stowell and later went to Bukit Mertajam High School together.
The story of Dr MPL Yegappan remained etched in Sim’s memory since the first time he heard about this local BM legend.
Coming from the distinguished Nattukottai Chettiars family of businessmen, landowners and money lenders, Dr MPL Yegappan grew up in India but came to Kulim in Malaya at the age of 14, and eventually enrolled at St Xavier’s Institution in Penang for his 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, and when World War II ended, he wasted no time and sailed 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, a sleepy town then. Having settled down in Penang with his family of a wife and five children, he was then put on for transfer to Tampin, Negeri 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 private clinic in BM – the first private medical practice in town.
Despite his busy schedule, he also played an active community role, including in local government bodies where he was also the first president of the Indian Association in BM.
As self-government began to take root in Malaya, ahead of the independence in 1957, municipal council elections were held in several towns. In 1951, a group of young professionals decided to form the multi-racial Penang Radical Party.
It was founded by Dr Lim Chong Eu, who later became Chief Minister, in 1969, with other personalities including lawyer CO Lim, SM Zainal Abidin and Nancy Yeap, the granddaughter of the wealthy Penang banker Yeap Chor Ee.
“Interestingly, SM Zainal Abidin was also the 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 multiple 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," wrote Sim.
Dr Lim remained as vice-chairman of the Radical Party but joined the MCA in 1954. He went on to become a president of MCA but later formed the Penang-based multi-racial Gerakan party.
Dr MPL Yegappan came into the picture in 1953 when he was elected as the party’s BM branch chairman, and in that 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 a seat.
Che Ya won a seat despite contesting in the Tanah Liat area with an overwhelmingly Chinese majority.
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.
They were the parents of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, our current Prime Minister, who recalled Dr MPL Yegappan, as a “polite and gentle person."
As his political career soars, 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 in a four-cornered fight, under the Alliance ticket.
He was made the state exco member in charge of education and interestingly, he was known as an advocate of Bahasa Melayu by initiating several campaigns 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," wrote Sim.
More importantly, he played a major role in pushing for the setting up of the University of Penang – which would later be called Universiti Sains Malaysia when it was finally set up in Minden Heights, Penang.
Certainly, many people deserved to be credited for making USM a reality but for the record, Dr MPL Yegappan was the person who tabled the motion on behalf of the Penang state government for a university in Penang on April 11, 1962.
He passed away in 1972 at the age of 57 and until his demise, he continued to be active in organising religious activities in BM and Kulim.
Sim has regarded the book as “a labour of love" when he started writing in 2020 during the pandemic period, saying that a few weeks after he began writing, he had been hospitalised for ten days.
It took him over two years to complete Dr MPL Yegappan's biography, which saw him carrying out research at the National Archives, libraries of the state assembly, the Parliament and all the way to Singapore, India and the United Kingdom.
It’s certainly a commendable job as Sim has put on record the achievement of another BM boy, the home of Anwar Ibrahim, Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Yang di-Pertua Negri Tun Ahmad Fuzi Abdul Razak, National Laureate Prof Emeritus Dr Muhammad Haji Salleh, the first chief minister of Penang, the late Tan Sri Dr Wong Pow Nee and badminton legend Datuk Lee Chong Wei.
Some of these personalities may have lived nearby BM town but certainly, they have studied in BM.
But certainly, it will be most appropriate that a road in BM be named after Dr MPL Yegappan.
Sim has written this book in a very clear way as he takes his readers from Dr MPL Yegappan's childhood days to his last days. It is easy to read as Sim cleverly weaved in the historical parts without interrupting the flow of his story telling.
He has also managed to provide his readers with 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 Leong is published by Clarity Publishing Sdn Bhd and World Scientific Publishing Co, and is available at major book stores.
