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Last updated
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Language & Literature

Victoria Institution

Politics of Hindu Revivalism

Kalaivani, a Malaysian Tamil
Information Exchange

Books by S. Durai Raja Singam  at adebooks.com

Malaysia - மலேசியா
- an estimated 1,060,000 Tamils live in Malaysia -

"Chalanggai portrays some of the social, cultural and economic conditions of Malaysian Indians who struggle to keep up with the rapid growth of developing Malaysia. The film is set in Brickfields, an Indian street at the heart of Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. The film looks into the aspects of urban living social issues of ethnic Indians such as education suppression, unemployment, dysfunctional family values as well as racial segregation that most Malaysian Indians encounter in their daily lives. The film is a cry that hopefully, will create a sense of history, self-rediscovery and an inspiration to all Malaysians. It also intends to be a reminder to the younger generation of the hardship and treatment endured by their predecessors. 'A race of people is like an individual man: until it uses its own talent, takes pride in its history, expresses its own culture and affirm its own selfhood, it cannot fulfil itself" "- Malcom X

"Large scale migration of Indians from the sub continent to Malaya followed the extension of British formal rule to the west coast Malay states in the 1870s. As early as 1901 the Indian population in the Straits Settlements and the Federated Malay States was approximately 120,000, and by 1947 it had grown to almost 600,000 for Malaya and Singapore. At the time of Independence in 1957 it stood at a little over 820,000. In this last year Indians accounted for approximately 11 per cent of the total population of Malaya and Singapore. The overwhelming majority of migrants from India were Tamil speakers from the south of the sub continent. In 1947 they represented approximately 77 per cent of the total Indian population in Malaya and Singapore."

"..Malaysia has been in the news of recently. The Tamils in Malaysia especially those of Indian origin have begun agitating for their civic rights. I had written an  article - attached below - in the mid nineties during a visit to Malaysia. I was shocked at the way that non Malays - especially  those of Indian and Eelam origin were treated.  And I was  saddened by  the way these Malaysians of Indian and  Eelam origin accepted the open discrimination of their government.  I had the opportunity of meeting very highly educated and wealthy Malaysians of Eelam origin during the visit. When I pointed to them about their  unconditional support for  the racist policies of the  Malaysian government, they laughed at me and told me that it was the Eelam Tamils who were real fools. They pointed out that had the Eelam Tamils followed their policies - accepting political discrimination for economic concessions the Tamils of Eelam would not be in their present sorry state. All of them were unanimous in their opinion that the Malaysian government would never allow another " 69 " ( a major riot which broke out against the Chinese and the Indians).."

" The record of racial discrimination  practiced by the Malaysian government as well as by government agencies is an open secret. Figures in this list are estimates. The Government of Malaysia has the most correct figures. Is the government of Malaysia too ashamed to publicise their racist acts by publishing the statistics?  The Record Speaks.." more

"The plight of the Malaysian Indians can be attributed in part to a dependency mindset nurtured on the plantations and this has to be overcome. There is a significant and emergent need for a change in the leadership of the Indian parties in power to take up the cause of the Indians to get them their due rights free from racial discrimination and have full access to jobs and education."

"..Sir, while the Indian community has been successful at the macro policy level, there has been a serious concern over the implementation and delivery of this policy. To date there has been no action taken by any of the Government agencies. The Economic Planning Unit is supposed to undertake a study and draw up specific strategies. However our understanding is that no action has been taken. The Mid -Term Review of the Eighth Malaysian Plan is due for tabling in Parliament towards the later part of the year. The MIC therefore urges you to review this matter and direct the relevant agencies to take the appropriate action."

"The purpose of this paper is to examine the position of Tamil as an ethnic minority and language in Malaysia, and to make some predictions about the prognosis for survival of Tamil in the twenty-first century. Tamils are the largest of the language groups that form the `Indian' minority in Malaysia, which constitutes around 9% of the population, or 1.5 million. Within this number, people classified as Tamil-speaking are about 85%.... .. (But) increasing number of Tamils ... are not actually Tamil speakers.... The Tamil language will probably survive in Malaysia into the twenty-first century, but perhaps only in isolated rural pockets, or as the language of a marginalized urban underclass... Tamil has no economic value in Malaysia, and is therefore maintained by the socio-economically destitute as a last vestige of primordial ethnicity. Since even in the developed western countries (e.g. the US) a similarly destitute urban underclass persists, and continues to maintain its own variety of English despite teachers' attempts to extirpate it, the prognosis for Tamil is unlikely to be any different in Malaysia"

"...If language maintenance does not occur, there can be several results. One is language death; speakers become bilingual, younger speakers become dominant in another language, and the language is said to die. The speakers or the community does not die, of course, they just become a subset of speakers of another language. The end result is language shift for the population, and if the language isn't spoken elsewhere, it dies. In the case of Tamil in Malaysia, we do not speak of death because Tamil continues to live on in Tamilnadu, but the effect is the same. For the speakers who go to their death as Tamils still, it is a kind of death to see their children shift to another language..."

"...(the) political and social changes broadly outlined here follow the pattern of similar changes that have taken place in India and Ceylon in post-war years. As long as the English educated middle class was the only articulate and opinion-forming group in a community, its political and social activity was centred round wider and more universal loyalties, and divisive factors played down. When other layers of leadership emerge, which do not share this common experience and values of westernisation, there takes place a certain degree of centrifugalism of political and social forces. In Ceylon we have seen the polarisation of politics into a Sinhalese and a Tamil nationalism cutting into whatever common ground there was of a Ceylonese nation. In India, the nation is rather dangerously poised on top of a number of separate and sometimes conflicting linguistic nationalisms." 

"There is a caste war going on among Indians in Malaysia. Let me delineate the general process and recent history... " more

"...Higher education or specialized education in preparation for professional and technical positions holds some promise for advancement, but many of the younger, educated Indian Tamils, like the younger Ceylon Tamils, feel a sense of uncertainty and insecurity about their future. Perhaps this is another instance of the " rising expectations " syndrome: as a minority's self-conception improves, the ambitions of its members rise faster than the opportunities to satisfy them. But ironically, the youths of the formerly advantaged group, the Ceylon Tamils, are now facing the same problems as the educated youth of the Indian Tamil group. However, the Ceylon Tamils are a minority within a minority, having to cope with a more drastic re-evaluation of their group status..." more

"Ignored by government Policy, hidden from mainstream Malaysian society, the Indian labour force indeed becomes Malaysia’s forgotten people"

"Decades of official discrimination have turned Malaysia's ethnic Indians into a disgruntled underclass"

The Indian Minority & Political Change in Malaya 1945-1957  Rajeswary Ampalavanar, Oxford University Press, 1981

"Large scale migration of Indians from the sub continent to Malaya followed the extension of British formal rule to the west coast Malay states in the 1870s. As early as 1901 the Indian population in the Straits Settlements and the Federated Malay States was approximately 120,000, and by 1947 it had grown to almost 600,000 for Malaya and Singapore. At the time of Independence in 1957 it stood at a little over 820,000. In this last year Indians accounted for approximately 11 per cent of the total population of Malaya and Singapore.

The overwhelming majority of migrants from India were Tamil speakers from the south of the sub continent. In 1947 they represented approximately 77 per cent of the total Indian population in Malaya and Singapore. Other South Indians, mainly Malayalee and Telegus, formed a further 14 per cent in 1947, and the remainder of the Indian community was accounted for by North Indians, principally Punjabis, Bengalis, Gujeratis, and Sindhis.

These ethnic divisions corresponded closely to occupational specialisation. For example the South Indian Tamils were predominantly labourers, the majority being employed on rubber estates, though a significant minority worked in Government public works departments. The Telegus were also mainly labourers on the estates, whilst the Malayalee community was divided into those who occupied relatively more skilled labouring positions on the estates and those who were white collar workers or professionals. The North Indians, with the exception of the Sikhs, were mainly merchants and businessmen. For example, the Gujeratis and Sindhis owned some of the most important textile firms in Malaya and Singapore. The Sikhs were either in the police or employed as watchmen.

There were, in addition, three further ethnic and religious groups whose political and economic importance in Malaya far exceeded their numerical strength. Two were important business communities the Chettiars, a money lending caste from Madras, and the South Indian Muslims (Moplahs and Marakkayars) who were mainly wholesalers. The third group were the Ceylonese Tamils who were employed principally in the lower levels of the Civil Service and in the professions.

The close correspondence between the ethnic and occupational divisions of the Indian community was inevitably reflected in the community's geographical distribution in Malaya. The South Indian Tamils were concentrated mainly in Perak, Selangor, and Negri Sembilan, on the rubber estates and railways, though a significant proportion found employment on the docks in Penang and Singapore The Telegus were mainly on the rubber estates of Lower Perak and parts of Selangor, while the Malayalees were located predominantly in Lower Perak, Kuala Lumpur, parts of Negri Sembilan, and Johore Bahru. The business communities, the Gujeratis, Sindhis, Chettiars, and South Indian Muslims, were concentrated in the urban areas, principally Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Ipoh, and Singapore. The Ceylon Tamils were also mainly an urban community, though some were found in rural areas working as subordinate staff on the estates...." 

“A race of people is like an individual man: until it uses its own talent, takes pride in its history, expresses its own culture and affirm its own selfhood, it cannot fulfill itself” --- Malcom X

The third largest ethnic group in Malaysia after the Chinese and the Malays are the Malaysian Indians. Despite the fact that the Indians constitute about 8% of the country’s population of 22 million they own less than 2% of its national wealth. According to The Economist (22nd Feb 2003), “they make up 14% of its juvenile delinquents, 20% of its wife and child beaters and 41% of its beggars. They make up less than 5% of the successful university applicants.” The story of the Indians has been a case of progressive deterioration from the time Malaysia became independent in 1957.

The mass Indian (South Indian) immigration can be traced back to the early 20th century when the Britishers brought them to meet the labour force requirements in the colonial public services and in private plantations. While the bulk of the Tamils were employed in the plantations, the Sri Lankan Tamils and Malayalees were in supervisory or clerical positions. Of the North Indians, the Punjabis were in the police force, while the Gujaratis and Sindhis were in the business (mostly textiles). Despite the mass exodus of South Indians back to India after independence and after the racial riots of May 1969, the Tamils (South Indians) constitute about 80% of the total Indian community.

The Indians themselves are to some extent responsible for their present unenviable and ignominious status, and the policies of the Malaysian Government since independence had not been helpful either. Ignorance born out of poverty in the plantations resulted in many of them not getting citizenship which was offered in 1957 when Malaysia became independent. This prevented them from getting jobs.

A major setback for the Indian labour force was the steady closure of the rubber plantations giving way to tea and oil palm plantations. Their numbers started dwindling and they had competition from the illegal Indonesian immigrants. Unlike the Chinese who lay great emphasis on education, it was not given due importance by the Indian working class. The Tamil schools in the estates were often mere apologies and offered no opportunity for progress in higher education. The undue importance on Tamil education has also weakened the Indian community in competing with the indigenous Malays and the Chinese. One of the major reasons for the low percentage of Indian origin students in the tertiary institutions in the country is the lack of merit and as a result, even the quotas set for the Indians remain unutilised.

Despite their economic backwardness, the Indians were a peace loving people and were not involved in any racial riots either in May 1969 or later except for a few incidents of clashes on account of religious sentiments. However in March 2001, the ethnic clashes between Indians and Malays in a village in the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, brought into focus the plight of the Indian community in Malaysia. The incident has since been forgotten on the assumption that the clashes resulted on account of poor living conditions in the villages than the racial differences. There has been no introspection of this incident by the Government or by the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), the leading political party of the Indians.

The MIC, a constituent of the coalition government at the center since independence does not have much political clout and has not been able to do anything substantial to improve the lot of the Indians. Datuk Seri Samy Vellu is the President of the MIC since 1979. Charles Santiago, a Malaysian economic consultant, in an interview on 5 Feb. 2003 to Radio Australia (Asia Pacific) said “ He (Samy Vellu) is in, very much in control of the party, and the party’s run almost on feudal organisation where almost all the decisions are made by the President himself…. A lot of Indians are critical of MIC’s role in the coalition government … the Indian middle class dose not want to associate itself in the MIC and largely making the MIC a working class party." This in brief sums up the state of affairs of the leading Indian party and its leader in the coalition government.

On January 9, 2003, India celebrated the Parvasi Bhartiya Divas (Day of the Persons of the Indian origin and Non resident Indians), and ten eminent persons of Indian origin were given the Indian Diaspora award. Datuk Seri Samy Vellu was one among them. One wonders whether Government of India made any enquiry about Datuk Seri Samy Vellu's contributions to the Malaysian Indians.

Referring to the grand mela organised by Government of India for the people of Indian origin, Dr. P. Ramasamy of Malaysia in a letter to the Far Eastern Economic Review (Feb., 27, 2003) said “like previous (Indian) governments it continues to betray the interest and welfare of million of Indians locked in poverty and misery overseas…. It wants to develop the links with the wealthy segments of the overseas Indian community while turning a blind eye at the less savory side of the diaspora.”

The Malaysian Government policies since independence have also been consistently to the detriment of the non-Malays in general though the Indian community seems to be most hard hit. The first major step was the introduction of work permits for the non-citizens when a majority of Indian workers had not obtained Malaysian citizenship. Subsequently in 1971 with its New Economic Policy, the Government championed the cause of the Malays by the policy of "Bhumiputras"(sons of the soil).

The Bhumiputras were to have a major share in the public sector while the private sector remained secure with the Chinese. The introduction of quotas for the different races in the educational institutions has also adversely affected the Indian community. The New Development Plan for the period 1991-2000 was also designed to achieve the socio-economic upliftment of the Bhumiputras and the MIC’s efforts to place the Indians in a separate ethnic grouping seems to have made no headway with the Malaysian Government. Being a minority, they do not have the numerical strength to exert any political influence nor do they make any significant contribution to the national economy. The ruling government’s apathy to the Indians is therefore understandable.

But what about the leaders like Samy Vellu and what has been their contribution towards the alleviation of poverty of the poor people of Indian origin? There has been none.

The following observations elucidate some of the reasons for the current state of the Indians and the bleak chances of their betterment:

*"Malaysians have failed to integrate in any meaningful fashion, even after almost forty years of independence.” – Edmund Terrence Gomez in the book “ Ethnic Futures – The state and identity politics in Asia”

* ‘Indians have little prospect of advancement, since Malaysia’s Chinese minority dominates business and Malays control the bureaucracy”- P.Ramasamy (The Economist 22nd February 2003).

* “Despite the country’s veneer of racial harmony and opportunity for all, many in the Indian community have limited access to housing , education and jobs. About 54% of Malaysian Indians work on plantations , or as urban labourers and their wages have not kept up with the times.” –Santha Oorjitham (Asiaweek January 26, 2001).

* “The Scope of government help (to the Indians) is also limited by the realities of the race politics in Malaysia, which effectively means the problems of the majority Malays will always come ahead of those of the Indians”. – Simon Elegant (FEER April 20, 2000).

* “Malaysia’s Indians are at the bottom of the country’s social and economic scale and their ebullient yet stubborn political leader Samy Vellu is not helping matters”. Simon Elegant (FEER April 20, 2000)

Conclusion.

The plight of the Malaysian Indians can be attributed in part to a dependency mindset nurtured on the plantations and this has to be overcome. There is a significant and emergent need for a change in the leadership of the Indian parties in power to take up the cause of the Indians to get them their due rights free from racial discrimination and have full access to jobs and education.

As proposed in the Conference on the “The Malaysian Indian in the new millennium –rebuilding the Community” held at Kuala Lumpur in June 2002, problems such as the loss of self esteem within the community, external derision and the absence of unifying factors to forge a single identity have to be addressed by the leading cultural, social and political institutions and embark on an action plan. However the effort has to come from within the community and has to be sustained as such deliberations have been there in the past also with no major impact on the Government.

Till now the Indian Government has done very little in this regard. Since the Government of India has now embarked upon a programme for interacting with the Overseas Indians, especially with the affluent sections in the Western nations, it should also look after the interests of the under privileged Overseas Indians in countries like Malaysia. As part of the “ Look East” policy interaction with Malaysia especially in the field of education will be beneficial to the Indian community. The High Commission of India in Kuala Lumpur used to award scholarships to the poorer sections of the Indian community in the late 80’s. The system , if continuing, can be augmented further to help the community. Setting up IIT type institutions and exchange programmes can also be considered. There is need to make a proper selection and not go by the recommendations of the big wigs.

As of now the problems faced by the Malaysian Indians are not being attended to by the Malaysian Government nor does the community have the economic or political clout to demand their redressal. One wonders whether the Indians belong to the third major race or to a third class race in the country. We are not aware what recommendations the High Power Committee of Government of India ( really high powered with extensive tours all over the world, five star hotels and lavish receptions etc) have made for the poorer sections of the Indian community abroad. Acceptance of the dual citizenship for a selected class is not going to be helpful either for this hapless lot.