'Honey, do you like my dress and make-up?'

So the big day has arrived. Samy Vellu’s MIC is apparently due for a ‘rebranding.’ Actually, the process was already underway as the post-3/8 realities led to some house-cleaning of various functionaries of the MIC who had fallen into disfavour with their master. The most recent case being the departure of the now former MIC Youth Chief, SA Vigneswaran.

Obviously I’m not holding my breath about this ‘rebranding’ ploy, and I’ll give you one very good reason: the most recent interview given by Samy Vellu to Malaysiakini. While I’ve already conveyed – in a previous column [Mumbo-jumbo, Gibberish, Babble, Gobbledygook] - my sentiment about the bizarre and dumbfounding responses we got for the questions posed to him by the Malaysiakini reporters, I do think it is worth noting one more particular detail: this government’s proclaimed spokesperson of the Indians seemed, in his responses, more eager to make excuses for the BN regime’s failure to live up to its constitutional obligation with respect to education policy than he was to, incoherently, address the real issues posed to him in the interview.

Mind you, for someone who was, on the eve of this so-called rebranding, stretching every inch to reach out and continue to appease and be submissively deferential to the powers-that-be [some might even say, metaphorically that is, lick the government’s proverbial bum], do you really expect this 'rebranding' to be much more than a window dressing?

Well, I thought, in this spirit of rebranding and re-packaging the usual, if I could offer up some rebranding slogans to reflect my sentiment about the MIC, what would they be? Hmm… So, here is some of my contribution:

MIC: Where cronyism is an art-form
MIC: We’ll show you how to invest your money
MIC: Our AGMs are a circus and we're experts at throwing chairs
MIC: Give us your hopes and we’ll destroy them

I know these will never make the short-list of potential slogans to be adopted by the MIC. But then, will any of their new slogans and gimmicks really matter much to the disenfranchised Indians? Will it really matter to the school children who have to follow in the footsteps of prior generations of children who had to endure dilapidated school conditions? And from what we can tell from Samy’s most recent interview comments, he is more suited at stonewalling and muttering some incomprehensible and incoherent remarks than being able to articulate anything substantive, meaningful or constructive. Do you really expect this MIC to reinvent itself in a way that truly matters?

You can put lipstick and a pretty dress on a pig, but it’ll still be a pig.

G. Krishnan