Nijhar was born in the back of a bullock cart – somewhere between rural Kroh and Klian Intan in Perak – to a poor migrant family who lost everything to war.

The Punjabi Sikh, who died of a stroke on Tuesday aged 87, dreamed, dared and turned adversity into advantage.

He survived the hardships of World War II and achieved academic and career distinction, political astuteness and renown.

His father, Amar Singh, who began his life in Malaya in 1926 as a labourer in Rahman Hydraulic Tin Mine, would never have imagined that one day his son would be chairman of that company.

As a corporate captain, the “bullock cart boy”, who never owned a pair of shoes as a kid, and was illiterate until the age of nine, wore fine woollen suits and handcrafted leather shoes from Europe, and hobnobbed with the rich and famous.

No one envisaged that Nijhar would be able to break through the rigid cultural conventions of the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) and rise up the ranks of its leadership.

Against all odds, the man who could not master the Tamil language, served as MIC’s treasurer-general for nine years, secretary-general for four years, and vice-president for nine years.

But he was not the first Sikh to make it to the leadership of the MIC as Budh Singh, in 1947, was the second president of the party.

Nijhar also served two terms in the Senate and two terms as Subang Member of Parliament.

In his autobiography, The Bullock Cart Boy, he noted that his 40-year political journey through the MIC was a “microcosm, a reflection of the unique challenges that micro-minorities faced in Malaysian politics”.

Ironically, he faced barriers to becoming an ordinary MIC member despite being a lecturer in economics at the University of Malaya and one out of only two Indians with a PhD in economics in Malaysia at that time.

Denied entry into the party, the Brinsford Lodge-trained teacher wrote a hard hitting article, “MIC: Is this the beginning of the end?” in The Sunday Mail.

He questioned the reluctance of the leadership of V T Sambanthan, who was party president from 1955 to 1973, to admit young Indians like himself, asking: “Was it because I was a Northern Indian, a Sikh?” “Was I too educated or not good enough?”

After a three-year wait, Nijhar became a member in 1974, thanks to the intervention of a certain S Samy Vellu, then the Selangor MIC chief.

In his autobiography, Nijhar related an incident that could have spelt the end of Samy Vellu or delayed his rise to the top of the MIC.

In 1977, Samy Vellu was facing S Subramaniam for the deputy presidency following the death of Athi Nahappan a few months earlier, when his camp was suddenly plunged into crisis.

The Selangor MIC building was to be auctioned off, owing to arrears of about RM30,000 on its bank loan.

“Considering the timing of the news being made public, it looked like a ploy to destroy Samy Vellu. Both the election and auction were in a few days and the image of the Selangor MIC was at stake, as was Samy Vellu’s reputation,” he narrated.

Nijhar made frantic appeals to his business contacts and within 48 hours, he raised the full sum, in cash. It was kept secret.

When MIC president V Manickavasagam launched an attack on Samy Vellu at a party meeting, the latter coolly began pulling out neatly bundled wads of cash from his pockets.

“Gasps and murmurs filled the room as he tossed a growing pile of cash on the meeting table. It was a dramatic rescue for the dignity of the Selangor MIC leaders,” Nijhar stated.

Days later, Samy Vellu became MIC deputy president. A formidable partnership between Samy Vellu and Nijhar was in the making.

In October 1979, Samy Vellu became acting MIC president after Manickavasagam suffered a fatal heart attack.

His elevation to the top post marked a new phase in Nijhar’s political career, beginning in 1981 as a central working committee (CWC) member and later, treasurer-general.

In 1985, he was appointed a senator, the first time the MIC nominated a Punjabi Sikh for the Dewan Negara. The first Punjabi Sikh to sit in the Senate was the late Paramjit Singh, president of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP).

During his second term in the senate three years later, he was appointed parliamentary secretary to the ministry of trade and industry during which time he also served as a member of the first National Economic Consultative Council.

From 1984, Nijhar won all eight party elections he contested.

In his early days as an academic, the government sought his help for various initiatives, one of them being the development of “academic staff salaries for Malaysian universities” for the Justice Harun Hashim Commission.

Arshad Ayub, director of Institut Teknologi Mara (now UITM), engaged him as a part-time lecturer and to help develop the curriculum for the school of business administration.

A week after Nihjar was made Tan Sri in 1997, he attended a CWC party, ready to deliver his swansong speech, only for Samy Vellu to announce that he was the new party secretary-general.

Later, in private, Nijhar raised his concerns with Samy Vellu: “How would I overcome the challenges I would face as party secretary-general, especially the majority of the correspondences, meetings and minutes that are all conducted and written in Tamil? And what of my plan to retire?”

Samy Vellu dismissed his concerns teasingly, saying: “You are like a catfish. You’ll find your way around even the trickiest of problems.”

Thus began another unexpected phase of his political life, one that would surpass all expectations: Subang MP (1999/2004); member of government committees on education, economy and religion; and the first Punjabi Sikh to be elected MIC vice-president.

His contemporaries in the MIC often spoke about how Nijhar made a difference to the lives of many others, who like him, came from difficult circumstances.

Nijhar was 72 when he left active political service.

His son, Rabin, runs security company, Cisco (M), which Nijhar acquired in 1979.

Rabin said: “He was a man with an analytical and managerial mind who shared many great relationships with even greater people.”

Nijhar is survived by his wife Molina, daughter Premeeta, Rabin and five grandchildren.