Dato Dominic grew up in a highly intellectual family as an Indian in Malaysia and was growing up during the wave of anti-colonial movement in Asia at its height. With so much passion – he took a lot of risks throughout his journey including joining Mr. Lee Kuan Yew in establishing PAP.
In this episode, we talked about
- His early life during the remarkable surge of idealism and unity of Asia as free people
- His father’s unique career path and how that shaped him and his brothers
- His initial involvement when Lee Kuan Yew started PAP
- Risks he took throughout his life as an anti-colonist
- The importance of intellectual class and sense of history
- His principles and values of life
- The meaning and ideal of democracy especially in the world today with fake news and social media.
“My dream for the future generations would be to open up the minds, search for knowledge without fear or favor. Go back to the poets and the intellectuals and be open minded.”
Dato Dominic was born in Kerala, India in May 27, 1934, to a well-respected Indian family. His family later moved to Malaya, Johor Baru when he was four months old. By the mid-1950s, he was studying at the Singapore Teachers’ Training College. At a protest meeting, he made an anti-colonial speech in Malay and was expelled. And in 1954, he was part of the formation of Singapore’s People’s Action Party.
In 1956, he revamped the Singapore Trades Union Congress into the Trades Union Congress — where he was labeled one of the Ten Tall Men on the secretariat. He later became assistant general-secretary of Singapore’s General Employees Union and was the leader of the Singapore Association of Trade Unions (Satu).
In 1961, Dominic was one of the Big Six trade union leaders who left with 13 PAP MPs to form Barisan Sosialis where he was founder vice-president — after losing the vote on the issue of full internal self-government and abolition of the Internal Security Council before merger with Malaysia. He was arrested in Operation Coldstore in 1963 and banished from Singapore until the 1990 when his banishment from Singapore was lifted. He started a self-respect movement, “Than Maana Iyakam”, for the Indian community there and held political “school” for them on Sundays to educate them on political issues and empower them.
In 2011, Dominic’s son Janil was elected as an MP at PAP and had by 2019 became the Party Whip of PAP.
Wisdoms Takeaway
- University of life is the best university – books cannot compare
- You will always take risks in your life
- Sense of history is so important for younger generations. Value system of younger generations is only related to getting rich as much as possible and as fast as possible. There has to be a change.
- Spend your time thinking also, there is no point in just reading and doing but also about thinking
- Concern for other human beings and sense of human dignity for every citizens are an important values
- I take joy in discovering new ideas and bigger picture – that drives me everyday