No country for young men
Malaysia’s ethnic Indian community staged its biggest anti-government street protest on Sunday when more than 10,000 protesters defied tear gas and water cannon to voice complaints of racial discrimination… Ethnic Indians from around the country swarmed into Kuala Lumpur for the rally, despite a virtual lock-down of the capital over the previous three days and warnings from police and the government… At the Batu Caves, a Hindu place of worship just outside the capital, police clashed with 2,000 protesters early on Sunday after barring entry to the temple. [Link]
The bitter irony of the tear gassing and chemical spraying of peaceful protesters in Kuala Lumpur this weekend is that Malays call themselves ‘bumiputeras,’ a term derived from India, but enshrine in their constitution discrimination against the Tamil minority. Malays are guaranteed better education and jobs, yet have not gained much ground against the Chinese minority. Only the Indian underclass, children of indentured laborers brought over by the British, have suffered. The spate of temple razings has further frayed their nerves.
One only needs to look at Sri Lanka to see that institutionalizing discrimination against a Tamil minority is a dangerous path.
At least 5,000 people gathered before dawn near Kuala Lumpur’s famous Petronas Twin Towers, in a rare attempt by Malaysia’s ethnic Indian minority to highlight complaints that they are economically marginalized by the ethnic Malay Muslim-dominated government… dozens of demonstrators were beaten and arrested. [Link]
Courtesy of Darrell N.
Malaysian police swooped on Friday on organisers of a planned protest by minority ethnic Indians, arresting them for sedition… On Friday, police went further and arrested three Indians from the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf), charging them under Malaysia’s colonial-era Sedition Act for making seditious speeches at a recent rally outside the capital… Police also took the unusual step of securing a court order preventing anyone from attending the rally…
Malaysia bans public assemblies of more than five people without a police permit. In practice, police deny permits to anti-government protests but often issue permits to protests aimed at foreign governments, such as the United States. [Link]
Sunday’s rally was meant to support a US$4 trillion lawsuit filed in London in August by the Hindu Rights Action Force. a Malaysian rights group. demanding that Britain compensate Malaysian Indians for bringing their ancestors to the country as “indentured laborers” and exploiting them… Activists say more than two-thirds of ethnic Indians, who constitute about eight per cent of the population, live in poverty, with many trapped in a cycle of alcoholism and crime…
Malaysia has maintained racial peace since 1969. when some 200 people were killed in riots sparked by Malay frustration over the economic clout of Chinese. The violence spurred the creation of programs that give Malays privileges in government jobs. contracts and education. [Link]
The country is economically dominated by Chinese and numerically by Malays:
Ethnic Indians, mainly Tamils, account for eight percent of Malaysia’s population. A large proportion lack skills, money and education. Forming 60 percent of the nation’s 27 million people, ethnic Malay Muslims make up the majority group, while 26 percent are Chinese. [Link]
Little India name-checked Sharanya in a story heavily plagiarized from Time Asia earlier this year:
[Sharanya Manivannan's] grandfather was a diplomat and her parents, despite working and living for the most part of their lives were denied permanent residency in Malaysia. Post-retirement, her parents live in India… “Being non-bhumiputras in Malaysia, we can never settle down here,” says Upadhyay. “We know that getting a permanent residency here is next to impossible…” [Link]
Historically, the Indian diaspora in Malaysia was comprised of disparate groups, the largest in number being indentured laborers:
Malaysia’s 1.8 million Indian population… [used to be] the largest Indian [diasporic] community in the world. Nearly 90 percent of Malaysian Indians are of South Indian origin, principally Tamilians, Malayalis and Telugus… Mantras like “the Malays are lazy, the Chinese are greedy and the Indians are cheats” are still a part of Malaysian lore…
The migration of Indians, mainly Tamils and Telugus, to Malaysia started in the second half of the 19th century, primarily as indentured laborers, who were brought by the British to work on plantations, roads, railway lines and ports. The second wave of Indians came as auxiliaries, mostly from North India, as part of the police force and security services. About the same time also came Indians from Kerala and Sri Lankan Tamils from Jaffna to work as clerks and subordinate civil servants. The third stream of immigrants came as traders, most predominant among these were the Chettiars, a South Indian moneylending caste. The latest wave of Indian immigration started toward the end of the last century when Malaysia, like its neighbor Singapore, began looking at India as a source for knowledge economy professionals… [Link]
But a few have prospered:
Ananda Krishnan (worth $4.6 billion in Forbes’ list of Malaysian billionaires) is the second richest tycoon in Malaysia. He owns Malaysian pay TV operator Astro All Asia Networks and telecom major Maxis, among other businesses. Tony Fernandes, CEO of Air Asia, is one of Malaysia’s most successful entrepreneurs. Born in Kuala Lumpur of Indian descent, Fernandes revolutionized budget air travel in Asia and has earned the nickname of the “Asian Branson…” [Link]
Time Asia reported in ‘00 that, like the BJP at Muslim shrines in India, and noticeably unlike Thailand, Malay Muslims do their best to deny the country’s Hindu history:
In the Bujang Valley in northern Kedah state, Malaysia’s Indian roots are visible. An ancient kingdom existed there, of Hindu and Buddhist beliefs, dating back to the 4th century. It was a trading and migration port, within sailing distance of India… The ochre ruins are classically Indian in design… even denigrate, the Indian impact on the region… The museum’s brochure is even more explicit. It states that maritime trade led to the “indianization” of the Bujang Valley. The indigenous culture, it says “was eventually adulterated…”
The second-largest group, the Chinese, were supposed to lose their disproportionate grip on the country’s economy. But it may be the Indians who were the real losers. Most were imported a century ago to work the rubber plantations and tin mines, and they still dominate the bottom rungs of the social ladder… Indians have the lowest share of the nation’s corporate wealth: 1.5%, compared to 19.4% for the Malays and 38.5% for the Chinese. Not surprisingly, Indians claim the highest rate of suicide of any community. Violent crime is becoming Indian turf. In 1994, 128 of the 377 murders committed in Malaysia were by Indians. Some 15% of the Indians in the capital are squatters…
… an Indian Malaysian can find it difficult to become a doctor or lawyer. Local university seats and scholarships to study overseas are all awarded by a racial quota system. Even when someone gets a degree, discrimination is frequent. Indian doctors, for instance, complain that they are increasingly excluded from the lists of approved doctors whom civil servants or company employees can use. “I wish you Americans would invade–just for a while,” a small-town Indian doctor tells a visitor. “Then I would have a fairer chance of working in this country of ours…”
Last October, five Malaysian men were attacked and killed one night in the town of Kampar, 150 km north of Kuala Lumpur. Their charred remains were found in a torched pickup truck…. poaching has reportedly ceased in that area. The defendants are quietly regarded as heroes among the Indian community. [Link]
Yet Malays call themselves Bhoomi-putras, sons of mother Earth, a term which is meaningful in Hindi even today.
Sharanya has more.
on Sunday, November 25th, 2007, 11:28 am in History, Issues, Politics, Religion, Video clips › 
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Phew! You work quickly. Thank you, Manish.
My parents moved to Malaysia when I was 20. I visited shortly thereafter; it was my first overseas trip. One thing that blew my mind was how Indians were at the bottom of the racial heirarchy there. I grew up on the University of Illinois campus in Urbana, where Indians were professors, like my parents, whose kids went to the fancy-pants University High School like my siblings. Urbana did have a simple racial heirarchy: local blacks on the bottom, everyone else on top. In Malaysia I saw more clearly delineated steps on the ladder, and totally different groups occupying the rungs. It was a profound lesson in how arbitrary - or at least culturally defined - “race” is.
The Batu Caves are amazing.
They pissed off Tamil king Rajendra Chola once and he promptly annexed them.
I was born in malaysia in 62, so was my dad. But were not considered citizens. Wasn’t allowed to attend college, could not get even get a menial clerical job when I finished high school (I finished top of my class). I left in 83 to attend college here like most of my friends and we have done very well. Sadly I would advise most young indian men in malaysia to do the same. There is no future for them. Their local political representative, Mr. Samy Vellu would make Tammany Hall look like Mother Theresa. The malaysian government will continue razing temples, denying any chance of education and any jobs to indians. The only good thing about rascism in malaysia is that it is in your face, they tell you every day that you have no chance of success in malaysia. You know from the time you are about six that you going to have to outwork, outstudy and outthink the “bumiputeras”.
Anoop, thanks for the insider perspective. Do the Tamils in Malaysia have Indian citizenship or are they a stateless people ?
This is throwing up various thoughts, and i’m hoping someone would add further commentary.
I have a relative and some of her peers in India who go frequently to Malaysia as part of the expat tech workforce hired by the multinationals in malaysias tech corridor (or quadrilateral?). They work at the level of designer, team leader, solution architect etc. so are a few cuts above the entry level technical positions. These folks do not lack for money or for career opportunities. The first whiff of racial discrimination and they’d be off. So I am curious - is the tech corridor maintain a social environment separate from the rest of Malaysia?
louiecipher, i was reading on the same on wiki. It says that malaysian citizenship is granted by lex suli - or right of birth. However, the constitution seems to imply jus suli, or right by blood, as would be suggested by the ‘bhumiputera’ naming. anyone in the know what is the official constitutional stipulation on citizenship and the fundamental rights of citizens?
Powerful and eye-opening post, Manish, thanks.
What Indians are experiencing in Malaysia today (and elsewhere, especially Africa) - is the delayed backlash from a colonialist (and racist) “division of labor” imposed by an earlier, and more in-your-face hegemon - the British. A colonial power enforces its rule over the majority in part by co-opting (and sometimes by creating - often by importing) a minority, in this process creating professional and middle-man roles for them (both as traders and as law-enforcers). So minorities obviously identify more with the colonial power, and lose, or fear losing, when it leaves. (The broader logic also applies to the subcontinent itself and to North America, of course).
A greater degree of engagement by India with both the broader ASEAN, and with Malaysia itself, and a promotion of of more liberal social and economic values (complemented by movement toward these goals within India itself) should be part of both the immediate and the long-term solution.
I would translate it as ’sons of the soil’ , and it certainly has Sanskritic origins, just as many words used in India have Arabic or Persian origins. I don’t see it as a particular irony - and I don’t accept the logic, but if bringing up the cultural origin of the word is considered relevant, then one possible corollary is to claim that they are merely doing to Indians what Indians themselves may have done, or are doing, to others - and expressing it in words Indians can understand!
Manish, thank you for posting this interesting article. What is the etymology of the term “ASEAN” vs “ASIAN”?
Singapore has equally stringent laws against Indians/assembly. They specifically engineer demographics in neighborhoods, apartment complexes and housing developments so ethnic Chinese remain the 3/4 majority. Indians who have a choice should avoid Singapore airlines. Singapore is totalitarian state disguised as a shopping resort. Check out this blog: http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/
ASEAN = Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Indians have the same citizenship as malays, carry the same ids, passports etc but are treated very differently. Indians on visas from india that work in the malaysian IT industry stay to themselves and do not get involved in internal politics. The situation in the old rubber and palm oil plantations is very deplorable. There is no running water, electricity or medical assistance. The indians you see protesting are the lucky ones who have somehow against all odds got an education and made it. I applaud their courage. But the ones that are really suffering are the ones still living in the plantations and quietly tapping rubber trees or picking palm fruit. When I was growing up we indians kept our mouths shut, our elders always reprimanded us that things could be much worse back in india where we came from. I think that razing dozens of temples arbitrarily (one of them a hundred years old), denying jobs, no access to universities, limiting licenses for businesses and a whole range of other rascist limitations is not acceptable in modern society.
ASEAN is a joke, they promote non interference in each others affairs. Which boils down to, do what you want to stay in power ie Burmese generals, Thai generals, the UMNO (United Malay National Organization) of Malaysia and the Lee Dynasty of Singapore (Lee Kuan Yew former prime minister and his son Lee Hsien Loong the present prime minister). India would not even comment on the burmese monk protests last month.
Anoop. Thanks for your views on this. Your point is raising more questions. How does the Malaysian government constrain the channels to to progress for the ethnic Indians? As in, do they have ‘quotas’ for ethnic indians in universities or in allotting business licenses that are disproportionate to the %ge of indians in the country? How about ethnic indians who have intermarried with chinese or with bhumiputeras (sic)? Where do they figure?
Regarding the Indian government’s role in this, I think one of the new bold moves is the institution of the PIO and the OSI system - that allows people of indian ethnicity to claim residence and citizenship in india. That’s a generous offer, even if international politics (seemingly) keeps india from speaking vigorously for its expat community.
I called out this troll ( Chachaji ) on a very recent post on SM where he contended that minorities in Pakistan are actually better off than minorities in India. A few other commentators on SM also took exception to his boneheaded conclusion. If anyone believed it was a one-time , anomalous derangement, please take another good look at the shockingly idiotic comment # 7. I’d be surprised if the smart people here don’t think the same of Chachaji’s comment. I’ll be quick because I don’t wish to waste time picking apart a seriously self-hating Indian’s lunatic comments disguised as intellectual musings.
Blame the White man of course. Why shouldn’t you? But blame the victim too? That’s even better. Justify horrid discrimination as ‘ delayed backlash ‘. Nowhere in his thoughtful comment does the honorable Chachaji put a finger on the party that is really to be blamed - the Malaysian government or the majority Malays. If it were Africans rioting against Indians or kicking Indians out you’d expect the same from him. Why? Soft bigotry of low expectations. Who is being racist here? Chachaji. I can bet my life that Chachaji’s take on a scenario where Muslims were experiencing similar discrimination in India or in America, would be very different. In that case Chachaji wouldn’t ask OIC ( Organization of Islamic Countries ) to engage with the West and to better the treatment of minorities ( codeword used - ‘ promotion of more liberal social and economic values ) in Islamic countries as an implied condition for better acceptance of Muslims. In fact when some people do ask to base the treatment of Muslims in the West on the shoddy treatment of minorities in Islamic countries it is people like Chachaji who call them nuts ( rightly ) and are vehemently opposed to such reciprocity ( again rightly so ). I mean WTF has India got to do with this? Why has India got to implement some reforms in order for Malaysian citizens to be treated well in Malaysia.? By that logic ( India has responsibility for the welfare of Malaysian Indians ) and given how much Malaysians of Indian origin have suffered to date, maybe India should go to war with Malaysia.
Oh and btw Chachaji Indians haven’t been law enforcers in either Africa or Malaysia. And one more thing it’s not just Indians who have suffered in Malaysia. In terms of violence against minorities Chinese have fared worse. Hardworking and enterprising minorities shouldn’t be paying a terrible price for success. In the case of the Indian minority it’s not even prosperous. Whatever happened to your unbending concern for minorities’ rights?For the poor? Or do you only care for those rights when the minorities are Blacks or Muslims? Or is it because you unwittingly don’t expect Africans and Malays and other Muslims to be as fair to minorities as Hndus and Whites and Jews can?
More importantly educated people like you shouldn’t be ‘ understanding ‘ the discrimination and violence by Africans and Muslims against Whites, Indians, Chinese and Jews while flying in a rage when the roles are reversed. It is you who is unwittingly creating a hierarchy among the world’s people.
Honestly, I haven’t come across a bigger dolt trolling around the desi blogosphere posing as a thoughtful sage. The man has the moxie to even demand an honorific ‘ ji ‘ everytime someone addresses him!
I shouldn’t address commenters who post with handles they do not normally use, or engage in gratuitous personal attacks like this, or those who completely decontextualize what I said, even less those who put words in my mouth in hypothetical situations - but I will come in only to address the one point of fact that was questioned:
This is so well known that to even point it out may sound trite - but still:
Link Picture
At least half-dozen personalized histories of the earliest Sikhs who were policemen in East Africa are available here and even the simplest searches will uncover much more.
Chachajiisstupid —- given that there have been no genocidal pogroms in Pakistan against minorities in the last 20 years, it’s a moot point about whether India or Pakistan treats its minorities better. Despite all this, your obnoxious, bullying attempt to insult him, a reasoned and always polite interactor, with your moronic name, marks you out as a turd. Get a life you wanker.
Chachaji can you specifically elaborate on the “merely doing to Indians what Indians themselves may have done, or are doing, to others — and expresing it in words Indians can understand..”.
What is the specific policy? There several thousand media outlets in India free to express a variety of opinions.
Pali- Very clever qualifier “last 20 years”. I suppose over 100,000 East Pakistani Hindus targeted for killing in ‘71 would be hard to explain away. The subcontinent has a law & order problem and both Muslims and Hindus seem to believe in collective guilt, why don’t we leave it at that ?
Chachaji: You advocate federalism based on the wide ethnic diversity in S. Asia, but somehow Sikh constables in the Empire has some bearing on Tamil laborers in Malaysia today ?
The subcontinent has a law & order problem and both Muslims and Hindus seem to believe in collective guilt, why don’t we leave it at that ?
Very true.
Good post Manish.
Malaysia sucks. All this economic progress is of little value if the minorities are still suffering from institutional discrimination.
But their food is excellent, and for that reason we cannot give up on them entirely. Also, they have Lat.
But their food is excellent, and for that reason we cannot give up on them entirely.
Amen to the food. I prefer Indonesian food to Malaysian food though.
louiecypher
So have there been any genocidal pogroms in Pakistan equal to those of Sikhs and Muslims as have taken place in India since 1984? The genocide in Bangladesh was of Bengali Muslims and Hindus.
People like you who try to play stupid pointless games over who treats their minorities better, India or Pakistan are like a bunch of alcoholics waving their dicks in the air and comparing whose got the worse genital herpes. Both countries have disgraceful records of violence and persecution of minorities and if you gave a damn you would just focus on how India can improve rather than behave like a steam boiler whose gasket has blown when someone points out the truth about the way minorities have fared in modern India — let’s have a fight about Pakistan instead! How pathetic.
this is a bit of a tangent but toer’s writings have figured Tamils* as boss-man (as in a taskmaster driving a group of laborers) or as protector (axe for hire ) etc in enforcer type roles. I am not sure how the indonesian representation extnds to malaysia though .
*It echoes NinaPs statement of indians being the equivalent of the afams in this part of the world - hence their kind/liberal representation as the magical and monodimensional ethnicity.
Pali- Anyone who reads my comment and yours will see that it is you that is unhinged and have “blown a gasket”. And there are books from university publishers, no not Hindutva publications, that interview Pakistani officers who state that they had orders to focus their efforts on Hindus. I see now you have retreated to what is my position, i.e. that both Hindus and Muslims have a history of violence, from your untenable position that Hindus are alone in indulging in this kind of violence. Maybe things are quieter in Pakistan because the minority population is less than 5% and they don’t feel robbed….after all what should you aspire to as a Hindu when the country in which you live is constitutionally defined as a Muslim nation ? There is only room for outrage when a secular country like India fails to deliver I suppose
I sometimes wish modern India went through a manifest destiny stage so young Indians would be inheritors of real guilt instead of the faux kind manufactured by South Asia academic specialists. Malaysia has some awesome beaches and I feel they are my birthright given the Chola conquests :-)
“One only needs to look at Sri Lanka to see that institutionalizing discrimination against a Tamil minority is a dangerous path.”
Manish, being a Tamilian from South India, I personally don’t take offense at this, but just pointing out that, by making this statement, you may be venturing into irresponsible territory - tending towards perpetrating a stereotype that ‘any’ discriminated ‘Tamil’ minority will lead to a dangerous path by alluding to the Sri Lanka example.
Sometimes I wish modern India went through a “Manifest Destiny” stage to justify the guilt that academic South Asia specialists expect young Indians to feel. Malaysia has some mighty fine beach property ;-)
There is only room for outrage when a secular country like India fails to deliver I suppose.
Well said louiecypher. Although it has to be acknowledged growing intolerance in India of all hues is worrying for everyone.
Manish, while I don’t disagree that there may be nuts who want to “cleanse” India of all mosques, this is neither the majority view nor does it have state sanction. I think the comparison between the denial of native Malay heritage (at least by the state) and revisionist historians in India is rather shallow, especially given that a lot of history that has been taught in India has been thoroughly sanitised and has strong ideological slants to begin with. Also, unlike in India there were no Hindu invaders persecuting the native populace and bent on destroying their culture (they’re doing it pretty well on their own). I do agree it’s stupid to attempt to “correct” these, but really there is no parallel. I could be wrong.
Both countries have disgraceful records of violence and persecution of minorities.
The real problem here is that violence and persecution against people of all kinds are still instruments of power in India (and Pakistan) and the state has utterly failed in changing that. Nandigram shows up a lot of hypocrisy for what it is.
Stumbled upon this post and I’ll give my views as a Malaysian.
Yes, the Malaysian government has quotas in universities. The quotas are supposed to be based on the % of each race in Malaysia but that’s just a lie. When I was in university, there were 4 Indians in my class of 108 students and about 30 Chinese. The rest were Malays with a few token natives from East Malaysia. Now, this was the intake from the standardised national exams. What they don’t tell you is that there are another 200 or so Malay students coming in based on just their school exam results (backdoor entrance).
Business licenses are more complicated. I think it’s not hard to get a license but to get business deals are another matter. Most (all?) government projects are given to Malays. These guys usually just take a large cut and sub-contract the projects out ie. free money. You could probably do private business and make a living but to make it big, you’ll need contacts and bumi partners. Floated companies need at least 30% ownership from Malays. These Malay partners are usually connected to the UMNO ruling party and don’t work. They just get directorship and monthly fees.
As for Indians married to Malays, these people are generally more well off. They pass themselves off as Malays and their children get the privileges of being a bumi. The only caveat is that they must adopt Islam as their religion. If you marry a non-Malay, your status stays the same. Your race will be stated in documents as that of your father’s.
However, I must say that many of the problems facing Malaysian Indians are self-inflicted to a certain extent. Many problems such as not getting citizenships etc. could have been avoided if they didn’t have the caste/race problems. During the early days of Malaysia, many of the civil servants were Indians who could’ve helped their fellow Indians out by registering them as citizens. Instead, they didn’t give a damn because they were from different castes or different areas (eg. many administrators were Ceylonese Tamils or other Indians while estate workers were from Tamil Nadu(?)). They looked down on these people instead of helping them out and now many poor Indians are still stuck with just permanent resident status. Even to this day, I think no one discriminates against a poor Indian more than a rich one. I think a general idea of the race relations is captured perfectly by Anthony Burgess in “The Long Day Wanes” (banned in Malaysia).
There are also many poor Malays in Malaysia despite the positive discrimination by the government mainly because they can’t enjoy these privileges and it’s in the government’s best interest to keep them poor and uneducated so that they can keep telling them to vote for the government to prevent minorities from stealing their wealth and country. I would say that Malaysia is divided into 3 classes - the very rich and elites who have benefited from the government connections and comprise of Malays descended from the early civil servants and traditional feudal lords and Chinese and Indian businessmen who have good connections with them, a growing middle-class who are seeking to stop corruption by the elites and want more equitable distribution of wealth, and finally a class of very poor, uneducated people along the poverty line who have bought, hook, line, and sinker, into the ruling elite’s fear-mongering and promises.