Sojourners and Settlers: South Indians and Communal Identity in Malaysia

Abstract

One of the most striking features of Indian migration to Malaysia in the late nineteenth century, in contrast to earlier migrations, was the pre-ponderence of ‘coolie’ immigrants who arrived on a contract basis to labour on the plantations and government undertakings. The vast majority of these immigrants did not intend to stay, nor were they expected to. They were regarded as ‘sojourners’ who would remain in Malaysia only until they had saved enough money to return to their homeland with improved prospects. Yet by the 1930s, it had become obvious to the colonial authorities that the bulk of these temporary migrants had become settlers. Particularly after the Second World War and the Partition of India, many of them also became ‘Malayan’ in outlook and identity. Nevertheless, the Indians have preserved their communal identity in the face of local pressures in Malaysia and developments in India. This preservation of identity was accomplished in two stages. First, identity was ‘constructed’ by the colonial authorities who defined Indian ethnicity in relation to the Malay and Chinese ethnic communities in the country. In the second stage, the numerically superior south Indian group asserted its ‘south Indianness’, particularly ‘Tamilness’, as the dominant characteristic of Indian communal identity in terms of culture, religion and political representation.