For folks who study immigration flows, one of the interesting phenomena has been the tremendous success of the Overseas Chinese. In just about any country with a significant Chinese population, we find substantial overrrepresentation of Chinese folks at or near the top of the income distribution. Interestingly, this is the case even in countries where the Chinese were subject to both historical and on-going discrimination. Nevertheless, their ability to swim these currents results in interesting theoretical debates about “why”, what it means for other minorities and poses significant real world problems. Amy Chua’s groundbreaking book World on Fire does a great job of diving into these issues and extending Thomas Sowell’s scholarship in understanding the ebb and flow of different minorities in the economy.
In contrast to the Chinese diaspora, the Desi diaspora has a far wider distribution of socio-economic outcomes. While Sepia Mutiny regularly catalogs success stories in the US and occasionally across the pond in the UK, the Desi diaspora is unique relative to many in the world in that we can find different countries where “Desi” invokes different stereotypes at every rung of the ladder. At one extreme, in Fiji and parts of Africa for example, Desis are/were practically viewed as nouveau colonial overlords who unfairly “control” a disproportionate share of the national economy much like the ethnic Chinese in the Phillipines.
In the US and much of the West, a milder range of stereotypes encompass wealthy, hardworking professionals (docs, techies), and entrepreneurs large (silicon valley), medium (shop keepers & hotels) and small (taxis!). That’s not to say there aren’t exceptions — Urban centers in Canada are a particularly unique testament to the breadth of the Desi community in the West; I still remember the first time I realized that a significant chunk of the “gang problem” being discussed in a newscast I saw in Vancouver was desi / Punjabi street gangs… Some googling turns up this article, to give readers a taste. Desi gang-bangers are apparently pretty significant in the UK as well… BUT, at the end of the day, y’all know what I’m sayin’.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, there are several countries where Desis are decidedly clustered at the bottom — the low status & harsh treatment received by Desi laborers in the Mid East is often discussed here. On the news tab, prolific contributer “VenkiG” points us at an interesting article describing the plight of the desi population in Malaysia –
Malaysia’s Indians don’t send home dollars, don’t become CEOs of IT start-ups; they haven’t even produced a VS Naipaul. Consequently, in contrast to the dissertations on the NRI community in the United States, the formerly east African Indians in Britain and the Indian diaspora’s experience in the Caribbean, there is a paucity of even basic information on the ethnic Indians living off the Straits of Malacca. Consequently, in contrast to the dissertations on the NRI community in the United States, the formerly east African Indians in Britain and the Indian diaspora’s experience in the Caribbean, there is a paucity of even basic information on the ethnic Indians living off the Straits of Malacca.
…Malaysian Indians are predominantly uneducated; few are white collar professionals, fewer still own property. Drug addiction is a problem among the young. At the bottom of the heap, they do low-end jobs and run errands for ethnic Chinese crime syndicates.
The article goes into some detail on the various subgroups that make up the Indian population in Malaysia and how integral the group overall has been to Malaysian history. The author argues that Malaysia’s recent turn towards a Muslim-centered identity bodes even worse for this group and he advocates stronger ties between the Indian government and Kuala Lampur as one remedy…
For me, the article is yet another interesting datapoint about the controversial relationship between culture, race and economics…. And I certainly didn’t know that there were nearly as many desis in Malaysia as there are in the US….
MMMMMMMM, economic layer caker, uggggggggghhhhhhhhhh
It’s important to separate out the two different issues here:
1) the govt’s bumiputera policies- somewhat similar to affirmative action in the US and designed to ensure that the indigenous Malays were not economically marginalized. Calling this policy “racialist” ignores the underlying intentions, which are in some way similar to those of policies for helping the African-American population.
2) the pre-existing economic hierarchy, where a majority of Indians (those who arrived as indentured labor in the 1800s) were not well off and a significant minority who did OK. The latter group includes farmers like my great-grandad and grandad, administrative officials and teachers who were often Ceylonese Tamils, army/police personnel who were often from the so-called “martial races”, and entrepreneurs like P Govindasamy Pillai in Singapore
A poorly-designed education system, where schools stressed learning Tamil or Malay over English, and limited access to university spots and government jobs, has made it much harder for the lower-income Indians to break out of their socio-economic class. However, at the same time, there are many well-to-do Indians in Malaysia in the fields of public administration, law, finance, business (eg Ananda Krishnan, Tony Fernandes), education, etc.
I’ve found that articles in the Indian media by journalists with limited knowledge of the situation tend to be inaccurate and present an exaggerated picture. It’s a pity that there are not more Malaysian Indian readers of this blog, who can definitely give a better picture than me.
The current problems seem to stem out of the issue with tearing down Hindu temples, which the govt has blown out or proportion by its heavy-handed response to the protest. Also, the protest took place after two other marches- one by lawyers and another much larger one by a collection of NGOs called Bersih (meaning “clean”) which was also put down with water cannon etc. So, the govt’s response to the Indian march shd be seen in that context- it doesn’t want to encourage any more public protests.
BTW, the extent to which the protests took place is far more than the Singaporean government would have allowed – in 2005, it arrested 4 guys who stood together holding signs!
Harminder:
They are the majority population and owned most of the land before the “affirmative action” policies, in what way are the Bhumiputras like African-Americans? To me the Bhumiputras are alot like some of the historically land owning castes in India who claim “backwardness” and quotas because they were unable to deal with their loss of village overlordship. A claim which is much less worthy of sympathy than that of Dalits or African-Americans. The intentions here, unlike US affirmative action, are about maintaining privilege.
Dont think the Tech indians are going to be supportive of the “rubber tappers” and more than the Indian middle/upper class/Jaffna tamils did previously.
I diagree. One must be proactive about it but with enough effort, some will certainly support the cause. The “chalta hai” attitude boggles the mind.
Here, the US Council on International Religious Freedom just spoke out on the temple destruction issue. This is due to the lobbying efforts of Indian-Americans.
Re: 53 – louiecypher: owning land was not the main issue that motivated the bumiputera policy, and neither was it key to being on top of the economic food-chain in Malaysia. Agriculture ceased being a major part of its economy a long time ago. Most economic activity takes place in industry, extraction activities (mining, oil, commodities like rubber), general commerce (trading, finance, etc). In these areas, the Malays were under-represented when Malaysia became independent, and were thus economically disadvantaged. Their situation is nowhere near the upper-caste Indian land-owners clamoring for backward caste status.
I’ve been sitting for at least a day now, thinking about how to enter this debate. There are many ways in which I wish to tackle this issue. Thank you Harminder for giving this discussion some sort of focus. I found most of the first 50 posts to be in the usual trope of ‘how come these desi’s can’t be like us in America?’ or ‘will discussion of desi’s who are not doing so well bring shame upon our own status as a model minority’?
I wish that a better title could have been found for this thread. It’s sad that we continue to hold onto this model minority thing. I don’t want to attack the writer of the article as I understand that it’s difficult to find an entry-point to bring up these kinds of things for discussion.
For North American members of the diaspora, the model minority thing, unfortunately, is the prism through which they see all other members of the South Asian diaspora.
Why is it so important to establish that the Indians in Malaysia are mostly low-caste? Is that the variable which you think has the most to do with their inability to get educated and move up in society?
I think we are still a way’s off from a time where will see the fate of all these populations as being interconnected.
It might be easy for many of you to scoff at the fate of these descendants of ‘coolies’, but try to look underneat the veneer of stupid model minority tag… what are you? Cyber-coolies shackled to your H-1B visas.
Again, thanks to Harminder for steering this in the right direction.
Above all this is an issue of how a state that claims to be a modern pluralistic democracy can treat a minority as if they are invisible.
Bloody oath.
True dat, to a large extent. Look at the cartoon character Asok.
That’s not true for Canada at all. It seems to be an American phenomenon borne out of being a relatively very small ethnic group that, as someone else said, mostly benefited greatly from Americas immigration policy in the 60’s and 70’s. Canada’s pop is proportionately more brown, from a variety of sources and time periods.
I appreciate the rest of your comments though, it points out the somewhat narrow perspective we sometimes tend to view these issues from.
That quote is from the Sulekha article. This kind of easy stereotyping is supposed to pass for insightful journalism?
If we’re setting the bar so low, let me try: “all 1.5 million members of the South Asian diaspora in the US are employed as actors portraying interns in television productions of hollywood medical drama shows.
OK, thus ends my snarky post.
The next one’s will be a bit of historical grounding. “Defining the Diaspora” is not a new endeavor. It is an on-going project which we must do some justice to.
Comrades, we are varied and many. We meet under the shade provided by the Sepia Mutiny tree to contemplate.
Melbourne Desi, it’s summer for you in Oz, what the hell are you doing in front of a computer?
Harminder — I’m a Malaysian Indian, and agree with most of your summary of the situation, but I don’t think I can wholeheartedly get behind either your defense of the Bumiputera policy in comment no #52 or louiecypher’s subsequent critique of it. It’s really not like affirmative action, but it’s not like the Indian-landowner situation either. These are the reasons why the comparison to affirmative action is faulty:
1) Malays are the majority, and were not brought to British Malaya as slaves — the closest equivalent to the African-American population in the US are those whose ancestors were brought over as indentured labourers, not the Malays.
2) Affirmative action in the US benefits other underprivileged minorities as well, e.g. Native Americans — the Bumiputera policy doesn’t benefit many of Malaysia’s indigenous people, who don’t qualify as Bumiputera under the government’s definition. You have to be Muslim to qualify, and a significant minority of the indigenous peoples are not Muslim — therefore they don’t count as Bumiputera even though they have been there longer than anyone, and certainly longer than many of those who currently count as Bumiputera but are recent immigrants from elsewhere in the Malay archipelago, or even from other Muslim countries entirely. According to the government, anyone who is Muslim, speaks Malay, and practises “Malay norms and customs” at home qualifies as Bumiputera — therefore my brother (we have the same two South Indian parents) qualifies as Bumiputera because he converted to Islam (to marry a Muslim — the law dictates that in interreligious marriages the non-Muslim convert and their children be raised Muslim). I’ve encountered recent Arab, Bosnian, Turkish immigrants who qualify as Bumiputera because they’re Muslim and ostensibly practise their spouses’ Malay norms at home.
3) Malays already had some privileges before independence — to ensure their place in the region, the British favoured them in the civil service, for example. There were also elite Malay-only schools before independence, just as there are now — but all of this, I do agree, benefited only a small minority of the Malay population. There really is an immense gap, nevertheless, between the colonial government’s relationship with the Malays and the place of blacks in the antebellum U.S.
My big problem with Malaysia’s policy is that it’s race-based at all. At independence, both the Malay and Indian communities had low standards of living, education, etc. etc. Both lived largely below the poverty level. Affirmative action should have been based on socio-economic criteria, not on race. The race-based policy has ended up making rich Malays richer, and not really benefiting anyone else. Not to mention, race is a terribly slippery notion on which to base a government (please see my point #2 above for a brief glance at the slipperiness in question). I can’t think of a single example of a government that has tried to define race and regulate society according to that definition without running into massive problems. You have to either resort to junk science (as Nazi Germany and South Africa did), or come up with some confused amalgamation of religion and “racial” ideas (as Malaysia and Israel have done).
This comment is already too long, but I’ll just say that in the ’50s and early ’60s there were people fighting for a non-race-based form of government, in which government aid would be meted out according to socio-economic factors. It’s a pity those people didn’t prevail. Things would be very different now if they had, but I suppose that can be said about any mess anywhere in the world.
You for got to mention the mideast, which even tops Malaysia when it comes to racist attitudes against desis. I obviously have absolutely no idea how apartheid was for desis in South Africa, but I seriously doubt it was anything close to the prejudice and mistreatmen that occurs in countries such as Saudi or Malaysia.
Of lately the Indian gov has started to be a little more realistic about their foreign alliances, but ever since indo-chin bhai bhai Indian politician have seemed to pursue closer ties with the countries that quite frankly despise us. The whole idea of India joining this or that bloc as a counter weight to the US, just give me a break. But you still hear it, from the communists.
I suspect this is the ultimate goal of the bhumiputra system. – its dhimmitude dressed in the language of 20th century social justice. It is designed to make life difficult for the dhimmis by shutting down their religious institutions, limiting their ability to make a living (by limiting education and property rights) and imposing limits on how they can interact with Muslims. Overtime the dhimmis will slowly convert to Islam because being a non-Muslim is so burdensome.
This is the system that was successfully used to wipe out Zoroastrianism in Iran over a course of 1000 years.
In the Middle East, Desis are considered to be temporary workers who are expected to return home after their jobs are over and thus not afforded the rights available to citizens (don’t forget Middle Eastern citizens themselves don’t have that many rights to begin with, most of these countries are authoritarian). Most Desi Indians don’t seem to get outraged over this system because they don’t consider the Middle East to be their permanent homes. They want to make lots of money quickly and leave for greener pastures.
In the US, UK, Canada and Australia Desis are building permanent institutions and demanding to be treated as citizens with all the rights of those who have been living here for generations.
In the Middle East, Desis are considered to be temporary workers who are expected to return home after their jobs are over and thus not afforded the rights available to citizens (don’t forget Middle Eastern citizens themselves don’t have that many rights to begin with, most of these countries are authoritarian). Most Desi Indians don’t seem to get outraged over this system because they don’t consider the Middle East to be their permanent homes.
It’s approximately 15 Indians every year that meet the hangmans noose in Saudi, I bet they beg to differ. I wonder why the Indian gov do so little about this when they where so eager to pressure the Austrlian gov.
JGAndhi
whats this dhimmi business you write about. methinks you are giving ABCD scholarship the old heave ho. Please revise your comment to include the gangbanger angle. If possible throw in a few bagels and a caramel cappuccino.
Dhimmi and dhimmitude.
Whether India should intervene on matters related to rights of ethnic Indian diaspora (who are struggling because of political reasons) can be matter of debate. But why cannot Indian govt take a pro-active role by investmenting and create opportunities for the diaspora in their own country through the private sector ? This can atleast be a postive spin-off of globalization.
summer – ya but no hols for another 2 weeks.
Browelf #61,
Thank you very much for clarifying these issues for us.
I have an interesting connection to this story, several actually.
First, in 1987 when there was a coup in Fiji under the banner of ‘indigenous protection’, models were sought for ‘uplifting the indigenous community’. The regime eventually reached out to Malaysia to offer advice on how their model of ‘multicultural harmony’ could be implemented in Fiji. So, you can see how the post-colonial regimes which are bent on making Indian minorities invisible, reach out to each other for help.
Again, these issues today pertain to the rights of minorities in modern plural democracies. One of the things I was most taken aback by in the youtube footage was the reporter saying, “in the shadow of the Petronas Towers”. This is a story about how rivalries formed in the bitter environment of plantation economics are playing out today, in front of our eyes.
In an earlier era, the question of the rights of Indians in the colonies and British dominions (Oz, NZ, S. Africa, & Canada) was very important. When Gandhiji arrived in India after his sojourn in South Africa, he was keenly aware of something the Indian elite could not understand, mainly the connection between the abuse of rights of Indians ‘at home’ and ‘abroad’. This is why the upholding of rights of these individuals came to the forefront of the Indian independence struggle.
Basically, when emissaries from the Indian independence movement would unearth stories of cruelties in places like Malaysia, Caribbean, & Fiji, the Govt. of India would HAVE to petition Britain to look into the matter.
The colonizer, facing humiliation in the press and in the eyes of other nations, would have to act by forming investigating committees to look into these claims of brutality.
In this fashion, independence leaders were able to apply slow pressure over decades to eventually get the British to QUIT INDIA.
(I’m the same person as “browelf” in #61, in case anyone’s wondering — that was a typo 🙂 ).
About what JGandhi said in #64:
It would seem to be the logical conclusion, no? But it hasn’t happened, as far as I can see. I’d be interested in any statistics that show how fast Islam has been spreading in the Chinese and Indian communities in Malaysia, but I’m not sure where to find those statistics. In my experience almost no one converts by choice; a few do in order to marry Muslims, but even that number is small. Non-Muslims are much more likely to intermarry with each other (i.e. Indians with Chinese — a very common pattern in Malaysia) than with Muslims. Many non-Muslim young people more or less rule out marriage with a Muslim because there is so much family/parental resistance to it. And the reason for that resistance is the policy outlined above, so you might even say that the effect of the policy is the opposite of what JGandhi describes.
Are some of the Indians Muslims anyway? Meaning, descendants of Muslim Indian migrants, not people who converted AFTER arriving in Malaysia?
Amitabh (#72): Yes, indeed. There’s a significant population of Tamil Muslims who were already Muslim before they settled in Malaysia — I should’ve specified. The statistic I’d like to see is what percentage of the non-Muslim Indian and Chinese communities has converted to Islam since independence.
I disagree with Harminder. Bumiputra-ism is not just economic affirmative action. The very word “son of the soil” says that non-Malay Malaysian are less legitimate. Which is wrong. Chitty Tamils and Pernankan Chinese have been on the Malay peninsula from pre-colonial times. And Kristjans have been here since before the British. What’s more, Malaysia has always been a cultural crossroads for everyone from Cholas to Chinese. I think economic upliftment policies are fine, but they shouldn’t be based on a “Malaysian Malaysia” idea, not a nativist “Malay Malaysia” policy. As browelf mentioned above, there were attempts in this direction in the 1950s.
Second, to deal with JGandhi’s inevitable atttempt to be an ill-informed Mohammad Ali Jinnah on this blog — no this isn’t exactly a Muslim issue, enough with the Dhimmi crap. Indian Muslims have it easier that Indian Hindus in Malaysia because they can abandon ther culture and try to “become” Malay. Malays often don’t like that — see this article, and see this about the case of Dato Aziz Muhammed.
By identifying himself as a Malay, he thought he could rise up the civil service ladder. He did. But because he was an Indian Muslim, he was identified and regarded as an outsider by the Malays in the civil service.
This is the reverse of the position of Hindu Indians in Burma, who are able to assimilate, while Muslim Indians face the brunt of a very bigoted anti-Indian Burmese regime. But neither Hindu or Muslim is ever truly accepted by the gvt unless they absolutely assimilate (like Mahathir!).
And those that choose not to assimilate find it harder. Here is the US State Department’s 2006 Religious Freedom report
In August 2005 the Selangor state religious authorities announced their decision to withhold support for visa applications by foreign Muslim imams and religious teachers. Local media reported that the decision was largely targeted at the ethnic Indian Muslim community…
(Keep in mind, Hindus aren’t the group that has it worst it malaysia — it is actually illegal to be Shia in Malaysia.)
“Second, to deal with JGandhi’s inevitable atttempt to be an ill-informed Mohammad Ali Jinnah on this blog — no this isn’t exactly a Muslim issue, enough with the Dhimmi crap. Indian Muslims have it easier that Indian Hindus in Malaysia because they can abandon ther culture and try to “become” Malay. Malays often don’t like that — see this article, and see this about the case of Dato Aziz Muhammed.”
Better an ill-informed Jinnah than a Tariq Ramadan wannabe. The Bhumiputra is essentially based on religion. There is a system based on two tiers of citizenship, one tier with more rights than the other. The essential difference between the citizens of the two tiers is one is Muslim the other is not. People from the lower tier can join the upper tier by converting to Islam thereby gaining full rights. This is amazingly close to a textbook case of traditional dhimmi systems – right down to the small details. IE: The Malay government allowing Hindu temples to exist but not allowing new temples to constructed or old temples to be repaired.
As other posters have shown being Muslim is all that it takes to join the Bhumiputra tier. Even Middle Easterners are able to join it. The requirement to also practice Malay customs is inherently subjective and unenforceable. Indian Muslims have it easier in Malaysia because they are Muslims and thus can be part of the Bhumiputra – Indian Hindus are disqualified from Bhumiputra because of their faith.
This isn’t my analysis or interpretation. The Malay government lays out the requirements of being part of the Bhumiputra in a frank manner and non-Muslims cannot be part of the Bhumiputra.
As much as people may object to the use of “dhimmitude” due to its popularity on sites like LGF, JGandhi is correct in that membership is defined by religion. I would say however that as there are “sons of the soil” sentiments throughout South and Southeast Asia (Shiv Sena Marathis in Mumbai, Sinhalese) that the conflict would probably exist to some degree even if the natives were Buddhist/Hindu.
There was discussion of Hindu groups here in the US drawing attention the plight of Hindus worldwide. These groups seem to have a pre-occupation with counting the number of temples desecrated as part of their own agenda of painting a Hinduism that is under attack around the globe.
As such, their agenda is more with maligning Islam than it is with advocating for the rights of disenfranchised people. Does that make sense?
Exactly, and that’s why I think people were repulsed by the jargon of ‘dhimmitude’ even though it describes the situation perfectly.
This is about NATIONALISM and how people are defined as members of a society. In Malaysia, it just so happens that Islam has been invoked by the state to carry out their vision of ‘multicultural harmony’.
It’s not just Islam that likes to believe in ideas of an ethnically homogenous society, with a common history of being victimized, and a bold social agenda to ‘right’ past wrongs.
This is about the rights of minorities shouted down by increasingly hostile majorities.
I am not throwing around “dhimmitude” recklessly. Its a very specific system which gives minority religions some sort of right to exist while at the same time imposing legal pressure and incentives to convert and limiting the growth of such minority religions. The idea is conversion over time is preferable to just mass slaughter. Dhimmitude is a very specific system that describes the rights minorities have and don’t have to the smallest detail. The Bhumiputra resembles dhimmitude down to the smallest details.
On the contrary, Islam believes that ethnicity and race is irrelevant. The religion is paramount. The Bhumiputra system is designed according to this ideal. Indigenous non-Muslim tribes are outside the Bhumiputra while Muslim foreigners are accepted to the Bhumiputra.
I disagree – but even if true shouldn’t we be more concerned about the temple desecration which is happening by the hundreds than the agendas of a some Hindu groups that exposing the desecrations?
Krish**: Abuses against Hindus are regularly removed from history books at the behest of progressive academics and what you see now is an over reaction by extreme elements. I read a book on the Pakistani civil war published by Yale that has a good deal of evidence that Pakistani officers were directed to focus their attentions on Bengali Hindus and yet you have many academics here who say that all Bangladeshis suffered equally. Not to mention the accounts from secular minded people I know who had to flee in ’71. Progressives will always find some way to discount the animus towards Hindus. So while I don’t agree with the simplistic Hindu vs. Muslim dichotomy to explains what’s going on in Malaysia, I do feel that certain people have been conditioned to react angrily whenever a Hindu asserts his Hinduness or points out discrimination. These people are in a large measure to blame for the popularity of obscurantist Hindu groups like the VHP
Why are you all pretending that nativism is unique to Malaysia when in reality it is a worldwide phenomenon?
This nativism has been good for Malaysia. Compared to India, Malaysia looks like a developed country. The indians in Malaysia dont have to beg or starve as so many do in India. Which is why the malays think that the indians should consider themselves lucky they are in Malaysia not in India, regardless of their low status there. The Arabs say the same thing about south asians living in their countries.
“Malaysia looks like a developed country.”
When I visited in 2000, it still looked very much like a poor-man’s Singapore 😉
Third-world fascism rears it’s ugly head. The attitudes reflected by #81 are the reason why I made the effort to lobby SM to get this story posted.
Do you see how they stifle Indians in Malaysia? Either be invisible and grateful for the chance to live in a country that ‘looks like a developed country’ OR go back to India, where people like JGandhi and LouieCypher will bulldoze your squatter settlement to ‘make room for progress’.
Krish***: Go screw yourself. People like me are active in secular primary education and rural development programs and I don’t want to see India become a Hindu country. I don’t need to explain myself to congenitally small minded/bigoted people like you who think that all Hindus are fundamentalists
I wrote that Compared to India, Malaysia looks like a developed country but you ignored that and compared it instead to Singapore! This pathetic deception seems to have amused you tremendously. Obviously you realised the truth of my statement and feel ashamed to compare India to Malaysia.
If you want to see ‘third world fascism’ look no further than your own hindu caste system.
although, if you presupposed this predicament, screwing oneself might prove to be a tricky task.
Easy there. Let’s keep this discussion relevant and productive or bid it a fond farewell.
Bhumi, my compatriots don’t know about bigots like you. I do. I know about your inferiority complex, endless comparisons to the ‘progress’ of Singapore, and chilld-like need to blindly cling to Islam. T
People like Bhumi are all about historical revisionism. If they had been given birth in South Asia, I’m sure they’d be joining JGandhi in Nazi-esque calisthentic displays all meant to restore the dignity ‘taken’ from them by Marxist historians holed up in the ivory tower 🙂
This link is for Bhumi, who proudly reaps the benefits fought for by Marxist insurgents (and might have forgotten that bit of history in his rush to memorize the Koran.
All around the world religious identities are expressing themselves by calling for the revision of anti-imperial struggles that turned into struggles for independence. This is the ‘shameful history’ that turns people like Bhumi onto the path of ethnic-chauvanism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayan_Emergency
The Malayan Emergency was a state of emergency declared by the British colonial government of Malaya in 1948 and lifted in 1960, as well as an insurrection and guerrilla war fought between government forces and the Malayan National Liberation Army around the same period. The state of emergency entailed the revocation of many civil rights, the granting of special powers to the police, and other measures aimed at the suppression of left wing political movements, especially the Malayan Communist Party (MCP). The guerrilla war, which is also known as the Malayan War, was part of the ongoing conflict between the MCP and other leftists, and the colonial establishment, starting shortly after the Japanese withdrawal in 1945 and extending at least to the signing of the peace treaty between the communists and the government of Malaya in 1989.
bhumi writes: >>The indians in Malaysia dont have to beg or starve as so many do in India. Which is why the malays think that the indians should consider themselves lucky they are in Malaysia not in India, regardless of their low status there.
Quite inadvertently, you have nailed the crux of the issue.
For the last 50+ years, Indian diaspora was quite happy with its state in all of its adopted countries – material life in the adopted country was better than India, where people were starving and beggars were roaming. They were not affected by the “Hindu rate of growth”. So what if they were second class citizens – they had food, running water, electricity, TV etc etc. So what if they could not climb the corporate ladder – at least they had jobs!
But now that India is a success story, and all signs point to the trend continuing for a long time (unless Indian politicians manage to botch it up), the diaspora is waking up. Access to internet has made it possible for them to see with their own eyes the strides Indians are making. With a click of the mouse they can see the stocks on BSE soar. And it’s not easy to stand still when the people presumably under you start moving up rapidly. For those in America, they came more recently and can go back to their place in India. But for the majority of the diaspora – it’s too late. They are fifth/sixth generation, and their ass is stuck. They can only agitate for more rights in their countries.
Expect more of this as India progresses. Expect more bugs to come out of the woodwork and claim their “Hinduness”.
M. Nam
Bhumi, You dont see Indians queuing in front of the Malaysian embassy desparately scrambling for visas,if Indian life in Malaysia was so great compared to India. Besides these “Indians” are 4-5th gen Malays and are as “Bhumi” as anyone else. Our caste system is shameful, but it pales in comparison to Islamo-fascism. For example, Islamists have indulged in wholesale massacre of infidels when it suited them. The Marad massacre, the Turkish genocide, 9/11, The purge of the Kashmiri pundits from Kashmir,etc..etc..etc. But anyway although the caste system was became an organized form of racism later on, the lower castes were never purged,their temples and homes destroyed etc. And if what happens to the Malay Hindus is an internal affair of Malaysia, why the hell does your f***in gubmint condemn the “atrocities” in Kashmir in the OIC every year, If you live in glass houses, dont throw stones. If you do not want us condemning what happens in your country, STFU about Kashmir. And yeah life in India for me atleast is any day better than the life in your third-world hellhole of Malaysia.
And according to your argument, blacks in the US live better than the blacks in Africa, so therefore should put up with white racism and the Jim Crow laws right?
JustALurker, now you’ve done it. Expect Mr. Modi to make an appearance in the thread in response to your comments. Time to get some popcorn. 🙂 /tongue-in-cheek
Seriously, folks. Let’s take the hostility down a notch.
bhumi is prema!!!!
Thats just unbelievable. The living conditions in India, the poverty and hunger there, the chaos, the unhygenic conditions, horrify even the most jaded of tourists. But you Mr. Moornam think its all a roaring success! Please get help.
A country where 80% of the population barely survives on less than $1 a day cannot be considered a ‘success story’ by any reasonable human being.
Bhumi,
It’s unfortuante that SM doesn’t practice the kind of intolerance displayed in Malaysia.
If I had some tear gas and a high-pressure water cannon, ohh, the things I’d do to you 😉
Bhumi, Maybe Malays do not have a strong grasp of Math. But to address your point
1) The % of Indians,living below $1/day is not 80pc, it is 25% (2002 figures). https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/in.html I guess in 2007 the number must be around 20%.
Second, you never addressed my question which was:
And according to your argument, blacks in the US live better than the blacks in Africa, so therefore should put up with white racism and the Jim Crow laws right? Or if a pissed off white American calls a Malay living in the US, a sand n**gger, Malays are subjected to racism in the West, denied jobs because they are Muslims, Malays should accept it right as living standards in the US are better than in third world Malaysia?
Third, a lot of “reasonable” humans do accept that India is making good progress (for example the western press). Yes, we have a long way to go, but a still the progress in the past 20 years has been good. And there is a lot of poverty in third-world Malaysia too.
JustALurker: I think the dollar a day figure was revised to 80+% this morning based on new data on the PPP indices compiled by the Asian Development Bank and World Bank, but the rest of your points are very good.
BTW the Malaysian Indians comprised the bulk of Subash Chandra Bose’s revoultionary Army. Some 50,000 died in World War II and in the building of the Bridge over Kwai. The Malaysians were handed control of the peninsula by international powers. The perpetuation of apartheid demonstrates to many that they are unfit to govern. I suspect the bhumiputra racism to eventually collapse with enough internationalization of the immorality of it. We must pray that something worse comes up in place.
Use your brain lurker. If India’s malnutrition rate is 50% how can its poverty rate be only 20%? Only in India can hungry people not be considered poor!
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=19709
The ADB’s announcement also indicates that the number of dollar-a-day poor in India is closer to 800m than the current estimate of 400m.
Is 800m people not 80% of India’s population?
Ahh, the statistic… a truer friend could not an ethnic-chauvanist ask for 🙂
a truer friend could not an ethnic-chauvanist ask for
I doubt very much he/she is Malay. A true Malaysian chauvinist would tell an Indian (and the Chinese as a matter of fact) to go the f*(& back to India — not try to prove how much better he has it in Malaysia.
Risible,
Every morning I wake up and realize that I am trapped between the MoorNam’s and the Bhumi’s of the world.
I don’t know who I find more offensive 🙁
Simplistic arguments seem to be the flavor of the day. I hope that people will take time to scroll through the posts I’ve put up on this thread. I spent a fair amount of time thinking about it.
I’ve got one more post in me… the ‘takeaways’ from this discussion.