People

Legacies for generations

Tan Sri B.C. Sekhar was a towering Malaysian, whose principles and work mark an enduring legacy which often goes unappreciated

Updated 2 years ago · Published on 17 Nov 2020 2:30PM

Legacies for generations
Tan Sri Dr B. C. Sekhar retired with a modest pension despite his life's achievements. – Pic courtesy of the Sekhar family, November 17, 2020

by Vinod Sekhar

TODAY my father Tan Sri Dr B. C. Sekhar would have turned 91. 

He created history by becoming the first Asian, the first Malaysian to head the Rubber Research Institute and then the Malaysian Rubber Board. He also created the Palm Oil Research Institute and all the linked bodies that would become the Palm Oil Board.

Along the way he founded RISDA, Mardec, Malaysian Carbon and many others. All for his country. For his Malaysia.

Despite controlling an industry that at the time represented nearly 70% of Malaysia’s GDP, he retired with only a pension and his EPF savings.

Well, retired is not the correct word, as at the age of 56, Mahathir Mohamad and Daim Zainuddin decided they had no further use for him. 

They forced the man that created and implemented SMR (Standard Malaysian Rubber) and had saved the Malaysian economy – giving it the backbone and footing that would allow the Mahathir administration to make her The Tiger economy – to leave the country and accept a position in London, just so he could make a living and take care of his family.

It broke his heart, as he loved his country so much.

When he returned from London, he tried again to help the poorest parts of this nation of ours, even speaking with Nik Aziz Nik Mat, the late mentri besar of Kelantan, to find a way of breaking the cycle of poverty in his state. Wealth meant very little to him. He wanted to always do the right thing.

I hope Mahathir and Daim, in their old age, have a sense of remorse and regret for how they treated the great sons and daughters of Malaysia. Because my father was not alone. His was a generation of great nation builders. Country first. We sadly don’t really have many of those anymore.

My friend Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim once told me that we had to correct the history we teach our children, and show them the contributions of great men like my father and others, many others who have been forgotten.  Regardless of race or religion – they stood, fought for and built Malaysia.

I hope the current and future leaders of our country take that important step to remind us all of the great men and women forgotten by local history, who built this great nation of ours.

I have tried my best to walk in my father's shoes. It’s an impossibility. I am a very very pale version of him, and my feet are too tiny to even move in his shoes. 

But like many Malaysians like me, and there are many, we try. We may fall, we may fail. But we keep trying. And maybe that’s enough. And maybe that’s what we all must keep doing. Never giving up, just keep trying to be like those that came before us. To be a tiny version of those that sacrificed and gave so much for all of us.

May 9th 2018 was the day we as a people made history.  We changed the way this country runs, but less than two years later we were shocked to see a mandate we had given ripped up.

We definitely updated our operating system on May 9, but the jury is still out, and shall be for several years, as to whether we upgraded it as well.  

We speak about the ‘New’ Malaysia and brim with hope and anticipation.  The truth is, what we want is the old, original Malaysia.  The one made from the original recipe, with perhaps a little more zest.  

Many of this current generation have no true understanding or appreciation of the sacrifices and work done by the original Malaysian generation.  

The likes of Tan Sri Khir Johari, Tan Sri Thanabalasingam, P.P. Narayanan, Tan Sri Lee Boon Chin, Tan Sri Tan Chee Khoon, Tan Sri Zain Azraai, Tun Raja Mohar, Tun Suffian Hashim, and many many more have virtually been forgotten both by the history books and in the public psyche.  

How can we truly move forward if we don’t appreciate our past and the people that gave us the foundation that has allowed our success? 

A childhood picture of Datuk Dr Vinod Sekhar and Tan Sri Dr B. C. Sekhar. – Pic courtesy of the Sekhar family
A childhood picture of Datuk Dr Vinod Sekhar and Tan Sri Dr B. C. Sekhar. – Pic courtesy of the Sekhar family

One other founding father was my own dad, Tan Sri Dr B. C. Sekhar.

With all that has happened in our country recently it is critical we remember people like my father who were nation builders. We need to remember them now if we are to push ahead in this New Malaysia and overcome the obstacles and spectacles in our way. We need to be inspired to keep standing and push ahead. 

This is not a country for or of just any single race. She is a nation of Malaysians, for all Malaysians.

I would like to share again my thoughts of the B. C. Sekhar I knew and loved.  And perhaps this will get others to write about the other great unsung historical heroes of our nation.

Let me tell you a little more about Balachandra Chakkingal Sekhar, or Unni as he was affectionately called.  He was born on November 17, 1929, in the Ulu Bulu Estate, about four miles from the 3,400 acre RRI Experimental Station. 

He joined the Rubber Research Institute as a chemist by chance.  He went looking for a job, although they said there was none on offer.  So impressed was the English man who spoke to him, that B.C. Sekhar was offered a job. 

In 1964 he became the Head of  the Chemistry division, and then in 1966, he created history by becoming the first Asian Director of Research.  It was front page news when it was announced.  And of course as everyone knows, he rose to become the first Asian Chairman and Controller of Research.  At his peak, he led an industry that accounted for about 70% of the GDP of Malaysia.  He had also developed a research organization that was held as the most respected rubber research institute in the world. 

Along the way he founded PORIM (Palm Oil Research Institute of Malaysia), now known as MPOB, the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (starting with two employees, and now several thousand – he led this organization for a decade, creating a world class research institute in the process), RISDA (the Rubber Industry Small Holders Development Authority), MARDEC (the Malaysian Rubber Development Corporation), Malaysian Carbon and played a role in the creation of Petronas (the National Oil Company) and the Malaysian International Shipping Corporation (MISC). 

The list goes on and on.  

Tan Sri Dr B. C. Sekhar at an event with Queen Elizabeth II. – Pic courtesy of the Sekhar family
Tan Sri Dr B. C. Sekhar at an event with Queen Elizabeth II. – Pic courtesy of the Sekhar family

When he was made a Tan Sri, he was one of its youngest recipients.  Soon after he would decline offers of a British Knighthood.  His reasoning was simple and straightforward, “How can I as a Malaysian Lord (Tan Sri), be beholden to a foreign Queen?”

His integrity was legendary. I remember once asking if his official car in the UK (he was Chairman of the Tun Abdul Razak Research Centre in Hertford), could collect me from school to take me to the airport at the end of term.  

He said “No!” without hesitation.  The car is an official car and only for official business. “Unless I am in the car with you, it cannot be used. Take a train.” 

And if he was in the country at the time, he would be waiting for me at the train station in a taxi.  Again, he didn’t approve of the government car and driver being used to ferry his son – even with him in it.

We were very similar in temperament and ideas, and that probably explains why we were so close and why we fought many times about all sorts of silly things.  But it was always short lived and over before you knew it.

He loved golf, he loved gadgets, he loved cooking, and he loved life.  When he smiled, he would light up an entire room. His presence commanded attention, and everyone always gravitated, quite naturally, to him. 

He was as comfortable with kings and prime ministers, as he was with plantation workers and clerks.  

A former Union leader recounted a conversation with him during the wage negotiations. He recalls my father saying, “I’ll take care of the tree, you take care of the man under the tree.  But always remember, if there is no tree, there will be no man under it.” 

The Union leader then added, “In the end, as was his style, he took care of both.”  

You never really know what people think of you or your contributions until you’re no more. From the thousand odd people that came on the day of the funeral, the day after he died, I know what people thought of my father.  

My family was overwhelmed by the grief and love that was shared with us, by so many people.  It was truly Malaysian. 

All races, all religions.  At one point, an old friend of my father who had become a Hare Krishna devotee asked my mum if he could pray for my Dad by his coffin, as he did, another old friend who had arrived came and recited verses from the Quran, and speaking to my mother at that same moment was a lady who had become an evangelical Christian. 

I remember just staring at this moment, this picture.  None of them had any issues with what the other was doing.  They were united in grief, and united in the belief that there is a far greater power in this universe that dictates everything, and loves everything.  It reminded me of the prayer altar in the house I grew up in.

On it, my Dad had placed among our Hindu deities, a verse from the Holy Quran, a Crucifix and a Buddha.

“There is only one Supreme Being,” he would tell me, “Call him what you like”. 

Even in death my father was sending everyone a message. "Good guys always win,” he constantly advised, “it may hurt a bit, and take longer, but in the end, good guys always win.”

With his death I have realized that everything I have tried to achieve has been to make him proud.  I was only interested in scaling whatever heights I needed to, just so that I could go to him and talk about it.  

It all seems unimportant to me now. I’ve lost my compass in life, and when I find it again I imagine it will be broken.  But I will try to find it and fix it, as my Dad would expect nothing less. 

From leading an organization that held sway over tens of billions of dollars of income for Malaysia, he retired as a normal pensioner.  No big directorships, no big cash hoard in banks, no private businesses.  But he had what he felt was more important than anything, the love of his family, the respect of his peers and his integrity. 

The government of the time has a lot to answer for in relation to how they treated Malaysia’s great sons.  Daim Zainuddin has a lot to answer for. 

But in the end, my father held a grudge against no one.  He was from a generation that believed that service to the nation was an honour, and to serve was reward enough. 

His was the era of Tunku Abdul Rahman and Tun Dr Ismail.  He was a proud Malaysian who was a patriot and a nationalist. Malaysia had in him, a global scientific icon who was a ‘Towering Malaysian’ before they started using that term. 

A man, who right up to the last day of his life was creating, inventing and developing technologies and ideas to make life better, not just for the poorest among us, but for all of us. And incredibly, never expecting or needing to be rewarded nor remembered for it.  

A friend mentioned to me that he had overheard someone at the funeral saying, “Vinod Sekhar is half the man his father was.” I suppose it was meant as a slight.  

All I can say is that, if at the end of my life I truly do achieve half what my father has – then I will die a very happy, and incredibly successful man. I am nowhere near half now, but I suppose it is something I can aspire for. 

My father had this saying: "It is what you do that counts, and your most important audience should be your mirror”. 

My Dad took the road less traveled, and looking at the state our world is in now, maybe we should all follow.  – The Vibes, November 17, 2020

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