KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 4 — As memoirs go, that of Malaysia’s second deputy prime minister Tun Dr Ismail Abdul Rahman would have been a humdinger.

No one who knew him would have said otherwise, knowing that the doctor-reluctantly-turned-politician never backed down on what was right, honourable and just.

He had a unique agenda for Malaysian politics, race relations and how the average Malay, Chinese, Indian and member of other communities should conduct himself in taking the nation forward.

Indeed, Malaysian politics may have been very different today if Dr Ismail had not died suddenly at 58 in 1973 — at the prime of his political life.

But the man of steely conviction in walking the straight and narrow path come what may did leave an unfinished work detailing his life and times.

His eldest son, Tawfik, who admirably tries to walk the path trod by his father, has come out with a slim volume of the personally-penned thoughts of the man who could have been prime minister entitled Drifting into Politics.

To be available to the public soon, the collaboratively-edited effort with Dr Ooi Kee Beng of the Singapore-based Institute of Southeast Asian Studies who authored Reluctant Politician (the biography of Dr Ismail) in 2006 allows a peek into the rare blend of character and resolve that was Dr Ismail.

The 16 chapters of the 82-page book reveal how the medical practitioner walked tall among Malaysians with an uncompromising stand on multi-racialism, corruption and meritocracy.

It is indeed timely that the book is being released now given that today is the 100th anniversary of his birth.

As I sit in his house in the housing estate in Kuala Lumpur named after his father, Taman Tun Dr Ismail, I am acutely aware there are only a handful of other places including Jalan Tun Dr Ismail to remember Dr Ismail by.

To a question as to how Malaysia has remembered his father, Tawfik, a straight-talker like his father, says the nation has “by and large forgotten him”.

“I want to use the 100th anniversary of his birth to remind Malaysians of what leadership was all about in those days,” the Oxford-educated businessman says of the labour of love undertaken with Ooi.

In the wide-ranging interview with the erudite 64-year-old, several issues closest to his father’s heart come to the fore.

One of them is the social contract between the Malays, Chinese, Indians and others that is being ever so often debated today.

Tawfik feels that Dr Ismail was of the opinion the 1957 “agreement” held a handful of core issues that were written into the Federal Constitution.

“Dad thought the Constitution was THE social contract. But some are reading new elements into the social contract,” the former Sungai Benut MP points out.

A member of G25, a group of eminent Malay personalities from various disciplines who, among others, want the spirit of the Constitution preserved, he says his father realised very early in the day that multiracialism was the only way for Malaysia.

It was something Dr Ismail lived out daily from young as his politician father, Datuk Abdul Rahman Yassin, employed Indians and Chinese for household and clerical duties.

“My grandparents adopted Chinese girls from poor families to give them a future. Multiracialism was a reality to him as it happened in his very own house,” Tawfik says.

It was a worldview shared by several other Malay politicians of the day notably first prime minister Tunku Abdul Rahman.

The other is the New Economic Policy which Tawfik says his father thought had a definite shelf life.

“He used the golf handicap analogy to explain it. He probably felt the handicap should cease to exist after a while when the Malays caught up with other races,” he says, speculating on what Dr Ismail’s sentiments were on the matter.

A third was his view that Umno should represent the interests of all races and not only that of the Malays.

Dr Ismail’s death had a profound effect on the nation and on a more personal level, to his wife, Toh Puan Norashikin Mohd Seth.

“She was a young widow in her early 40s who felt the change more than us,” he says of his mother who died in 2010.

As to why Tawfik has taken the task of ensuring his father is remembered to posterity, I feel it has to do with his personal recollection of times with the strict but affectionate-in-his-own-way Dr Ismail.

“I remember how he used to take me in his car on visits to his constituency when I was young. I would sleep in the back seat as he drove around,” he says from the perspective of the special bond firstborn have with their fathers.

As to the million dollar question of why he handed his father’s personal papers to a Singapore organisation, he candidly says he was more comfortable with their record-keeping facilities. “Our National Archives is not very good in this respect. They did not have some of the material my father’s press secretary gave to them of dealings between my father and other leaders.”

Is there more about Dr Ismail that Malaysians can expect from Tawfik and Ooi? The duo are planning a compilation of Dr Ismail’s letters, diaries and speeches early next year.

Tawfik and siblings — Zailah, Badariah, Tarmizi, Zamakhshari and Ariff — are not about to let Dr Ismail be forgotten.