Bank Building nearby. Ampang Street (now Lebuh Ampang) was the business and retail center of the Malaysian Indian and Ceylonese community in downtown Kuala Lumpur. Among his clientele were rich Malaysian Chinese businessmen whose trust he won which also enabled him to provide pro-bono (i.e. free) legal services to those who could not pay. His office was adorned with thank you plaques from his Chinese clients dating over three decades. For a time one of his partners was Senator Athi Nahappan, a well-respected younger member of the Indian community. Political career In May 1946, Dato Onn Jaafar became the first leader of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO). Onn, Thuraisingham and several others, which included Henry H.S. Lee and V.M.N. Menon, became the vanguard of the multiracial Malayan independence movement. In response to this movement and the spectre of the UN anti-colonial stance, the British instituted self-government and Dato Onn became Member (Minister) of Home Affairs while Dato Thuraisingham became Member (Minister) of Education. As the first Member of Education in the Federation of Malaya, Thuraisingham established a comprehensive system of education beginning in 1951 to provide free education for all children between six and twelve years of age; thus implementing the recommendations of the Barnes and Fenn Reports he presented to the Federal Legislative Council on 19 September 1951. He stated: Implementing the Barnes and Fenn Reports meant that more teachers were needed and so he established a teachers' training college in Kota Bharu and also leased teachers' training facilities at Kirkby and Brinsford Lodge in England. He also had more schools built, especially in rural areas. In addition, Thuraisingham was one of the prime movers of the Social Welfare Lotteries System which financed the provision of welfare services to the poor of all races in Malaya. Political Opposition The two friends, Onn Jaafar and Thuraisingham, were firm believers of multiracialism in politics. Together they laid the ground-work for an independence movement to devolve power from the British. However, their egalitarian multiracial movement began losing ground to racial-based politics in the early 1950s to assuage Malay anxieties. This racial-based movement was led by rising star Tunku Abdul Rahman, who entered national politics only in 1951, pushing for a wholly Malay-based UMNO party but in alliance with the Chinese-based (MCA) and Indian-based (MIC) parties which was to later become an election-winning strategy. Thuraisingham worried about the growing wedge between Onn