Malaysian Indians : ethnic and class loyalties

Abstract

This paper will attempt to provide on historical overview of the interpiny of ethnic and class loyalties among the Indian working class in Malaysia. More precisely, this paper will seek to indentify the socio-economic and Political factors that gave rise to class based loyalties among the Indian working class in the 1940s as well as the factors responsible for the subsequent demise of class based loyalties and the rise of sub- communal appeals in the independence and post-independence period. Thousands of South Indians of lower caste origins immigrated to Malaya to work in the numerous rubber plantations organized by British capital in the early 20th century. Unlike the voluntary flow of Chinese labour, Indian labour was assisted by the colonial government with the help and support from private plantation capitalists. The setting up of the Indian Immigration Committee (IIC) and the Tamil Immigration Fund (TIF) helped to remove obstacles in the immigiration process and smoothen the flow of cheap Indian labour into the country. By the year 1940, about 250 European estates employed over 260,000 workers, mostly of South Indian origin. South Indian labourers were much desired in the plantation economy becaus they were regarded as hardworking, docile and less troblesome as compared to the Chinese labourers. Moreover, given the state of poverty and for 2 improvishment in South India, particularly in districts such as Tanjore, the British were quite anxious to drain off the surplus labour from such unemployment and hunger. And not the least, the regions so as to avoid une British Colonial authorities by instituting a government controlled system of labour recruitment were in a position to claim that this metho of labour recruitment was the most humane system of labour supply in the colonial world. The rapid large-scale importation of Indian labour to work in the plantation economy saw the establishment of a plantation based class structure and its consolidation in the post-war years. More precisely, the plantation production system came to be characterized by a three tier class structure indentified with occupational stratification.