COMMENT | Very few people in this country would have the privilege of being handpicked by Onn Jaafar to run as an election candidate. And no one but one woman could say that she has the privilege of being the first female elected official in the country - only Devaki Krishnan.

“Onn wanted me to contest because I was a teacher and was known in my community,” she said. Devaki was popular in Brickfields, the constituency (Bangsar) she would contest. Every election that returned her as a winner saw her given a “princess reception” where she would stand and wave on an unhooded motorcade.

But what is most interesting about Devaki is that she was the only person to survive Onn Jaafar’s multiracial experiment.

Three years before Onn Jaafar approached Devaki, he quietly harboured a dangerous idealism: a multiracial party. As president, he told Umno that “Umno’s objective is the independence of the whole country. This cannot be achieved unless there is unity with other races who are prepared to owe full allegiance to Malaya.”

He urged Umno to open up to non-Malays, as “it is absolutely necessary for the Malays to obtain closer ties with other people in this country,” and to choose friendship over enmity...