From Terence Netto

The death of herbal business entrepreneur Tan Kai Hee on Feb 22 at the age of 84 was mourned by a small coterie who knew him in his youth of activism on behalf of left wing causes and in his maturity as an entrepreneur who gave generously to national integration and literary causes.

The valedictions should have played out before a larger audience. For Kai Hee was that rare, even oxymoronic, thing: a socialist entrepreneur.

Rarely do socialists become successful entrepreneurs: socialist instincts sit uneasily with zealousness about the bottom line, a sine qua non for success in business.

Kai Hee started Hai-O, his Chinese herbal medicine business, two years after he was released in 1973 from an eight-year detention spell under the draconian Internal Security Act (since abolished).

The start-up money for the project came from friends he had known when he was organising secretary of the long-defunct Labour Party from the late 1950s until his ISA detention in 1965.

Forty years on from the project’s inception, Kai Hee succeeded in building up public-listed Hai-O Enterprise Bhd to the extent it was able in 2015 to pay shareholders a 100% dividend on their investment.

The business thrived through its multi-level marketing arm where Malays were encouraged to participate in a scheme that popularised the range of medicinal products offered by Hai-O.

All the while, Hai-O kept its moderately priced products within reach of the average consumer, in keeping with its founder’s socialistic economics.

When the business prospered, Kai Hee kept within his ken the left wing causes he had espoused and the friends he made in their course.

Accordingly, he financed the production of a biography of Dr M K Rajakumar, the Labour Party leader who mentored Kai Hee in left wing politics from the late 1950’s.

An Uncommon Hero: Dr M K Rajakumar in Politics and Medicine, written and compiled by Tan Pek Leng, is a biographical compilation of Rajakumar’s contributions to politics and medicine in Malaysia.

Had not Kai Hee bankrolled the production of the book, it is doubtful an account of Rajakumar’s remarkable career in both fields would have been preserved for posterity.

Rajakumar, like Kai Hee, was an ISA detainee (1966-69). He died in 2008. The loss of his close friend moved Kai Hee to commission the biography which was brought out in 2011.

Kai Hee also commissioned a history of the Labour Party (1952-69) in Malaysia. The book was written in Mandarin and an English translation was also published.

Another beneficiary of Kai Hee’s legacy-preserving endeavours was Usman Awang, a National Literary Laureate who was close friends with Kai Hee.

Usman, who died in 2001, befriended Kai Hee when the latter accompanied Ishak Haji Muhammad (famously known as Pak Sako), who was Labour Party chairman, on electioneering spells around the country in the early to mid-1960s.

Kai Hee donated RM1 million to the setting up of a foundation in Usman’s honour for the production and dissemination of the poet’s works.

These friends of Kai Hee and his effort at preserving their legacies reflected the multiracial proclivities of the man and his desire to see the Malaysian people unite.

Towards the latter goal, Kai Hee donated RM1 million for the inauguration of a National Integration Award. The award honours recipients whose career and works have promoted national unity.

Given a dearth of candidates, a reflection of the growing racial and religious divisions in Malaysian society, the award has not had an annual staging since its inauguration in 2015.

In 2018, the novelist and poet, A Samad Said, was selected by a board headed by former senator and academician, Dr Syed Husin Ali, as recipient.

The award ceremony, held at the Lake Club in Kuala Lumpur, was graced by fine music, poetry readings in the main languages of the country, and multi-cultural dances that showcased the richness of the country’s pluralist milieu.

Four years on, the evening remains pungent to memory, evocative of the senses.

Now with the death of its progenitor, a person born into poverty in Kluang in 1937, who overcame a spell of cruel deprivation of personal liberty to become a millionaire businessman, that occasion will long endure as an example of what a socialist patriot may cause to accomplish.

In sum, Tan Kai Hee was a towering Malaysian.

Terence Netto is a senior journalist and an FMT reader.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.