Labourers from India were brought from Madras Presidency to Malaysia with so many false promises in early 19th century

Labourers were brought from Madras Presidency with so many false promises and persuasions to work in coffee and rubber plantations and also to lay railway lines. Many perished from diseases while clearing jungles for this.

That is why it was said, every rubber tree in Malaya was paid for by an Indian life, and every railway track was a cemetery.

Though India’s ties with Malaya go back to the pre-Christian days, major migration of Indians to that country started in the early 19th century. The planters were not in the least bothered about the welfare of their labourers. The workers’ shacks-tiny hovels, were made of roofs with branches and leaves and the floors were covered with dirt, the squalor was unimaginable.

‘You dog of a coolie, keep your black face up and look at me when I am talking to you’, verbal abuse in Tamil and English from the white manager was a daily event. Their life revolved around the manager, master, contractors, and tappers in the rubber estates.

It was nothing better than ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ before the American civil war, a virtual slavery. Lankan readers need no explanation as it was much similar to the line houses in our tea estates today where neither the scene nor the life of those have improved to our knowledge, except the bellies of union or political leaders.

The sacrifice of Indian Tamils was not well recognized, not only when Tun V.T.Sambanthan, as the leader of the Malaysian Indian Congress became a signatory to Merdeka [Independence] Agreement on Aug 31, 1957, but also when the Father of Malaysia and the first Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, went to Madras as his first official visit out of Malaysia and said “My wish is to land in Madras first as the Prime Minister of Malaysia for all the good things people of this state did to us”.

Over a century, though descendants of the tappers, who constitute 90% of the Malaysia’s 2 million persons of Indian origin that comprises 8% of the total population of 24 million, have under gone a vast change, they feel they have experienced only abysmal economic growth on several parameters compared to other communities.

Trade was previously dominated by the Chinese acquiring wealth while the Malays were confined to their Kampong [Village] doing traditional professions like breeding poultry farm, fishing etc. with less inclination for that which have economic value.

After independence, especially following the 1969 Malay Chinese riots, the picture changed as the government were hell bent to promote the UMNO's policy in commerce offering extraordinary concessions which pushed some crony Malays to dizzy heights and created cronies like Ananda Krishnan at the expense of the Chinese while the Indian Tamils were left far behind.

Malaysian Indian Congress, the ethnic-based party that represents the Indian minority in the ruling coalition, with a membership of 650,000 out of 850,000 eligible voters and having 4,000 branches are today widely looked upon as ineffective if not corrupt.

Due to their colonial legacy, Indians are generally seen as providers of cheap labour in plantations and construction sites; their political and social mobility has been thwarted. The conversion of rubber plantations to housing estates and golf courses also has displaced plantation workers who have drifted to urban centres. As a result, urban Indian ghettos have emerged and crime has escalated.

Besides, UMNO's politics disadvantage Indians in education and work opportunities. Local university seats and scholarships are awarded under a racial quota system, and even after getting a degree, many say that discrimination is commonplace. Indian doctors, for instance, complain that they are often excluded from lists of approved doctors whom civil servants or company employees can patronize. Demolition of roadside temples and enforcing strict Islamic code on Hindus like where a Hindu dead body was buried under Muslim rights saying the person had secretly embraced Islam saddened them.

“Our community is backward, our schools are dilapidated. We are the last in the line for jobs, scholarships, health benefits,” says opposition lawmaker Kulasegaran Murugesan. “For over a decade we have been appealing to the government for help to alleviate our poverty but all our appeals had fallen on deaf ears,” says Uthayakumar Ponnusamy, Hindraf’s legal adviser.

“The British brought us here, exploited us for 150 years and left us to the mercy of a Malay Muslim government. They should compensate us now.” Yes, the British brought tea pluckers to Ceylon, rubber tappers to Malaya and paddy farmers to Burma, almost from the same caste and same district. Interestingly, a steamer that was transporting these labourers from Calcutta to Rangoon and Penang was named Nuwara Eliya.

Though their living is identical, their lifestyle is different according to political situation in those respective countries. The smiling ones are from Burma though they still live a primitive life of the 19th century, chewing betel and travelling in bullock carts in the rural under a military dictatorial rule, sans starvation being farmers.

The mother tongue is lost and even in religious festivals announcements are made in Burmese but devotional songs played are in Tamil. No much racism experienced living with natives while their Sri Lankan brethren are timid and feel unwanted by the natives, and in Malaysia they feel like poor relatives in a wedding.

In quick succession, Samy Vellu grabbed the presidency of MIC in 1979 at the age of 43 and he is the longest president of MIC and the second longest cabinet minister. Unfortunately his tenure has been lacklustre compared to Sampanthan and Manickawasagam’s who were wealthy and highly educated.

Further Samy Vellu is accused of amassing ill-gotten wealth and his critics call him “Semi Value” and “Mr.Tollgate” [like Mr.10%] because many projects handled by his ministries were found to be faulty and he was alleged to have a cut on tollgates introduced on highways. His second wife Indrani bought over the oldest newspaper ‘Thamilnesan’.

Even mighty Dr. Mahathir in an interview last May stated that he could not remove tainted leaders like Samy Velu as he was powerless.

“We, indians voted for the Opposition this time to send a clear message to the UMNO government to treat us with respect, to share with us,” he said. “We fight for the future of our children; we don’t want them to suffer like us.” This is the sentiment in SL too simmering of any community can’t be contained unless attended to, and this is an era to boot corrupt politicians and arrogant regimes out.

mi1

20/05/09