M'sian Indians: An incomplete history (Pt 1)

M'sian Indians: An incomplete history (Pt 1)
Carl Vadivella Belle Jun 25, 09 1:20pm
Book review: The Malaysian Indians: History, problems and future by Muzafar Desmind Tate




The Hindraf demonstrations of late 2007 and the subsequent detention of much of its leadership, coupled with the seismic Malaysian election of 8 March 2008, have focused both Malaysian and international attention of the role and socio-political profile of the Indian community in Malaysia.It is now some 40 years since Professor Kernial Singh Sandhu published his groundbreaking study on the migration of Indians to colonial Malaya, and Professor Sinnappah Arasaratnam completed his landmark social history of Indians in Malaya/Malaysia.While in the interim there have been numerous specialist studies of aspects of the Indian presence in Malaysia, there has been no broad historical work which has sought to update these pioneering studies.Given recent developments it seems apposite that a recent work, The Malaysian Indians: History, Problems and Future by Muzafar Desmond Tate, should seek to remedy this scholarly vacuum.In his Foreword G.A. David Dass informs us that "Muzzafar" (sic) Desmond Tate was commissioned to write this work because of the perceived neutrality he would bring to the study of Indian affairs in Malaysia.It was hoped that Tate would offer a balanced approach, free of the "polemics and bias" which would supposedly tarnish the work of a specialist scholar, and thus increase acceptance of this work both by the general public and policy makers alike.Despite the fact that modern historiography has long dismissed the concept of a "neutral" historian or the possibility of "unbiased" history, the commission was a bold and interesting experiment.Unfortunately it has to be said from the outset that, apart from the final chapters, which achieve the level of a journeyman competence, The Malaysian Indians fails dismally, and at virtually every level.This is a curious book, poorly organised and constructed, which succeeds neither as a narrative nor as an analytical history.In the early chapters, the layout is disjointed and erratic, and the jumbled and often confused writing neither introduces nor develops any thematic discourse. Indeed, in many respects the work reads as though it had been abandoned midway through compilation.‘Linguistic infelicities'This impression is reinforced by the book's tabloid approach to historical reconstruction. Boxed explanatory notes are inserted within chapters, seemingly as an afterthought.Major claims are frequently unsourced and the end notes are in the main tangential and often irrelevant to the inferred thrust of the text. Many of these notes read as though the author had intended to later incorporate this material into the main body of the study but had somehow failed to do so.It is difficult to accept that this slight work was ever subjected to the rigorous processes of peer review.The deficiencies of The Malaysian Indians are compounded by sloppy editing, and obvious blemishes litter the text.Thus, for example, we are informed on page 66 that Indian nationalist leader Subhas Chandra Bose first set foot in Singapore in August 1943, whereas a mere 3 pages later it is claimed that the actual date of arrival was 2 July 1942. (Both dates are incorrect; Bose reached Singapore on 2 July 1943.)Moreover the book is replete with clumsy, poorly worded and incongruous writing. A modicum of basic editing may have erased or at least amended the many linguistic infelicities which lie scattered throughout this work.The work is marred by numerous factual errors which are especially frequent in the earlier chapters of the book. Thus for example:(i) Tate claims that most Tamil labourers originated from the Madras Province, now Tamil Nadu state; in point of fact they were drawn from the Madras Presidency which was a significantly larger administrative area than modern Tamil Nadu, and included portions of the modern day states of Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, and labour intakes thus included both ethnic Telegus and Malayalees.(ii) It was not Sikh influence which provoked the 1915 mutiny of the 5th Light Infantry regiment in Singapore; the Regiment was largely composed of Pathan and Rajput Muslims who were influenced by revolutionary materials sent from India.(iii) The Klang Valley strikes of 1941 were not a "victory" for Indian workers; the violent suppression of the strikes and the mass arrests and deportations which followed were regarded both by the colonial authorities and by the Central Indian Association of Malaya as an unqualified British triumph and were described as such by the Association leadership at the time.(iv) The Indian Independence League did not have its origins in a conversation between Major Fujiwara of the Japanese Army and Indian nationalists S.C. Goho and K.P.K Menon in Singapore soon after its fall to the Japanese; the League existed well before the Japanese invasion and the first Malayan Branch was established soon after the Japanese occupation of Kota Bharu on 8 December 1941.Obvious blundersThese are but a handful of what are often egregious blunders. And this gives rise to a very basic point. Repeated inaccuracies represent more than a series of embarrassing slip-ups - they reveal lack of familiarity with a given subject, and worse still, the greatest of all historical sins - the failure to conduct the thorough research upon which sound historical writing depends.A fundamental and perhaps fatal weakness of this book is Tate's neglect of the wider historical forces which encompass his subject.He all but totally ignores the broader social and economic catastrophes which impelled the flow of Indian labour migration to colonial Malaya.The seeming willingness of Indians to indenture themselves to work under conditions which bore a striking resemblance to an actual state of slavery, cannot be understood without detailed reference to British colonial policies in both India and Malaya, and without at least some discussion of the changing social, economic and political realities within the Madras Presidency.British economic policies significantly magnified the impact of the great famines which engulfed the Presidency and which fell with especial harshness upon the dispossessed landless agricultural labourers who made up the bulk of the indentured workforce recruited by the estates and in the public utilities of colonial Malaya.Similarly modern Dravidian Hindu reform movements or the ignition of inter-caste rivalries cannot be understood without reference to the Social Darwinist racial policies introduced into India (and later Malaya) by British colonialism in the wake of the Great Rebellion (Indian Mutiny) of 1857/58.Similarly Tate fails to locate the Indian presence in Malaya within an overarching Malayan/Malaysian historical framework.Thus, for example, we are provided with limited understanding of the general development of British Malaya, or the racial ideologies which the colonial regime applied in order to "compartmentalise" and divide the multiple ethnicities which constituted its subject population.There is no discussion of Japanese manipulation of ethnic identity to precipitate pronounced and often violent Sino-Malay rivalry, suspicion and distrust.We learn nothing about how these developments found later expression in the communal political model adopted and developed by the Alliance and Barisan Nasional governments.Role of religion ignoredAnd yet it might be convincingly argued that interrogation of colonial and post-colonial racial policies is fundamental to any meaningful analysis of the continuing political, social and economic marginalization of the Indian community.But perhaps the most glaring deficiency of The Malaysian Indians is the almost total absence of any discussion of religion.Within Malaysia, the practice of religion is often noticeably intertwined with complex issues of ethnicity. The post 1969 Islamic revival among Malays has been paralleled by vigorous processes of renewal in other religious traditions.Seemingly restricted in the political sphere, many non-Malays have turned to religion and religious practices as an assertion of ethnic identity.Given the recent series of controversial developments in Malaysia, for example the contentious "Everest" Moorthy case, and the negligent and arrogant destruction of long established and cherished community based temples, it might have been confidently predicted that religion would become the most obvious site where hard pressed elements of the Indian community ultimately challenged the actions of an increasingly out of touch political establishment.The centrality of religion and its persistent intrusion into political and social debate make it a crucial issue for any worthwhile study of Malaysian affairs and its omission from this work is inexplicable.Modern scholarship has placed an underlying emphasis upon the formative influence of the great dynasties - Pallava, Chola and Vijayanagara - in the development of South Indian beliefs, institutions and outlook.The most distinctive feature of the South Indian dynastic polity was its segmentary character, that is, the existence of diversity of bounded units whose rights and privileges were zealously guarded.These structured segments were ultimately united in the recognition of a sacred overlord, the king whose rule and moral authority over a fluid state was characterized by acts of ritual incorporation rather than by the application of direct force.Any understanding of the complex, confusing and often disputatious heterogeneity of the Indian population of Malaysia, especially the divisions which persist among Tamils, must commence with a perfunctory exploration of metropolitan Tamil society.Unfortunately Tate's knowledge of Tamil civilisation or South Indian history is at best slender, and his account of the development of Tamil religious and social institutions consists of little more than unsubstantiated and occasionally embarrassing generalities (for example, he reduces the powerful Vijayanagara dynasty to a single eponymous individual).Stilted and fragmentaryTate has little appreciation of how South Indian dynasties differed from those which governed "Aryan" North India and Gangetic Plains, or the significance of their largely successful resistance to northern and specifically Muslim incursions.He fails to identify the powerful forces which shaped South Indian religious traditions and philosophies or the vibrant anti-authoritariani sm and indeed antinomianism inherent in Tamil Hinduism, which resulted in, among other things, the concept of bhaktism, that devotional current which resisted Brahmin hegemony and insisted upon individual autonomy in one's relationship with the Divine.In recent years scholars have produced a series of illuminating studies which have explored the complex relationships between pre-colonial Malay Archipelago (and in particular the Malay Peninsula), and both China and the Indian subcontinent.The establishment of wide regional trading networks was accompanied by scholarly, cultural and religious exchanges which left a deep impress on Malay culture.Regrettably Tate seems oblivious to these works and his overview of the pre-colonial era and these historic contacts is stilted, fragmentary and awkward.Unfortunately this paucity of detail continues into the main body of the work. Thus we not only learn little of the circumstances which generated the migration of Indian labour, we also gain a limited understanding of their fate upon arrival in Malaya - of the high death rates, the exploitative working conditions, the harsh punishments, the brutal legal repression, the malnutrition, or the makeshift lines which passed for accommodation.There is no investigation of the colonial labour policies or examination of the different labour recruitment schemes - indenture and kangany - or any reflection on the implications of each in determining the final social composition of the overall Indian population. Indeed, Tate's account of this crucial period is so sparse the reader could easily be led to the erroneous assumption that there was no organized Indian labour migration to Malaya prior to 1900.


Pt 2 of will appear tomorrow.........