Kami Orang Sini Juga Episode 1: Exploring the Malaysian-Indian Identity

This is a podcast from BFM 89.9, the business station. Beyond the ballot box on BFM 89.9. Hello and welcome to the show where we explore the forces shaping society from the streets to the halls of power. I'm Dashrin Johan. You're listening to Episode 1 of our new mini-series with Iman Research titled "Kami Orang Sini Juga". The series explores how young Malaysian Indians and Chinese understand identity, belonging and a place in Malaysia today. It builds on Iman's earlier project, Orang Kita, which focused on Malay Muslim youth. Now over the next few weeks, we'll be unpacking key findings from their latest research in the lead-up to the launch of their report. In the first episode, we do an overview on the diversity within the Malaysian Indian community and how language and class shape how Indians relate to one another as well as other communities in the country. Joining me on the show ish Salline Surendra. She's a researcher at Iman Research. Shaline, welcome to the show. How are you today? Hi, thank you so much for having me. I'm good. How are you? I'm doing great as well. We've been talking about this for a while now, so I am very keen to dive into this with you. I think a lot of people don't understand. I mean, obviously if you are Malaysian Indian, you understand it. But if you're not, you probably do not know how broad a category the term Indian actually is. So, Shaline will be say Malaysian Indian, what are the groups we are talking about right here? Yeah, so the Malaysian Indian community is actually very diverse and definitely not a monolith in the sense that you have a lot of different sub-Athenic groups that make up the Indian community. For example, Punjabi, Telugu, Mariali, South Indian, Tamil, Sri Lankan, Tamil, Sindis, the list goes on. But yeah, it's a very complex and multi-ethnic group that makes up what we call Indians in Malaysia. But also things like class, it's such a complex issue within the community and something that's quite difficult to grapple with when, like, from the on the surface level, geographies also another factor in terms of where they grew up, what their lived experiences were like, what their communities were made, the ethnic demographics of the communities that they grew up in, and then how that in turn shaped their own worldviews. So, with a lot of Indian use that we spoke to, they feel most strongly when they identify as Malaysians. So, they always feel Malaysian first. So, that's the thing that was very dominant throughout our conversations with them. And of course, they feel strongly with regards to their ethnic identities, especially because as Indians in this country, they feel neglected and almost ignored basically and holding on to these specific ethnic identities is a way for them to feel some sense of belonging. One thing that came up in a lot of the conversations with these youths is how fragmented the community is and everyone kind of operates in these silos. So, on a social level, of course, with friends, there's no issues there. It's more in terms of when you look at it at a wider societal context. So, India is essentially a multicultural, multisabilizational continent with more than 20 over constitutionally recognized languages, not to be confused with dialects, by the way, but languages with your own scriptures. Every state in India has its own political tradition, think Europe, the continent, but embarking on a particular nation state project of sorts. But I digress, Shaline, basic question, but I think it is also important to set the scene. Why do we have Indians from various regions here? A lot of videos, basically from colonial times, where certain ethnic groups were allocated to certain jobs. So, within that context itself, it creates this tension. Because, for example, in colonial Malaya, if you could speak English, you were rewarded. So, we speak by the colonial rulers where you were given positions such as administrators or clerks. And a lot of these positions were given to Sri Lankan Tamil and Malayali's as well, whereas the South Indian Tamil was brought in as an indentured labourer. So, when you look at the colonial context, and I know we live in post-colonial Malaya, but this is very important to understand the dynamics within the community. When you look at that, you can see that if you are living in that space, to see someone that looks like you, but does not hold the same position or rights as you, that creates this tension within the community. And speaking through a lot of these youths, their parents and their families do have a lot of influence over them. So, growing up, some of them spoke about how their parents had certain perceptions of other ethnic groups within the Indian community and projected a lot of that onto them. And of course, when you're a kid, you absorb everything like a sponge, and you don't really think twice, and it's only when you're older, and you actually sit down and think about it, you're like, "Oh, this is actually not right. Why do we have these perceptions about this community or that community?" And speaking to the youths, they've definitely tried to move away from this and trying to find more common ground among one another, and basically let go of that. So, two questions. Firstly, do Malaysian Indian youths today see themselves as Malaysian first or Indian first? Secondly, do they say, "I'm Malaysian Tamil, Malaysian Punjabi, Malaysian Malayali, or do they say Malaysian Indian?" And I ask this because I think some people see the word Indian as a racial group, while others actually do see it as a nationality. So, actually, one of the questions that we had for them was, "How do you see yourself as a Malaysian? Are you Malaysian first or Indian first?" So, we kind of posed that Indian first as a way for them to approach the subject, but a few of them did point out that they do identify as being like Tamil, like a Punjabi, more than Indian. But again, it's a very, I think that's a very individual case by case, sort of, basis, and looking at the community as a whole, "Yes, there is a need to reclaim certain ethnic titles and move away from that term of being Indian." You're right, India is not an ethnicity, so there is a bit of that, but I think more so, it's, again, it's leading more towards the Malaysian side of things, more than anything. So, that's, I think, very important to note that uniformly, everyone says they are Malaysian first. But whether you're Malaysian Tamil or Malaysian Indian and how you choose to describe that would depend on your personal individual relationship to your own culture, I guess here's an important one. How does class, and this is something that I want to spend more time in later episodes as well, but how does class shape identity within the Malaysian Indian community? Yes, so class is super, super complex when you look at the Indian community. During colonial times, of course, certain ethnic groups, like we discussed, were given certain positions. So, post-independence, a lot of these communities and families were better off compared to others within the Indian community. So, that in itself has created this strain, which unfortunately has sort of persisted throughout the decades, despite the fact that we are an independent country now and we've moved away from all of that, but these colonial narratives have not really shifted in the present. So, now you have this great class disparity, I think, in the Malaysian Indian blueprint, which came out almost a decade ago now, they sort of did a good job of showing that, and it really is very staggering the difference between the T20 groups versus the B40 and there's not much that is being done to address that. And you can see it in terms of, with the case of youth, how it affects them is especially in terms of educational, education and opportunities for, yeah, basically education and opportunities for them and how class then plays such a big factor. Because obviously, if you are more well off, you have access to opportunities. So, yes, in the Indian community, there are people that are well to do, but that is because they are afforded that aspect of class to get them forward and help with social mobility and things like that. Do middle and upper class Indian youth experience, quote unquote, "Indianness" differently from working class youth? So, this was a very interesting thing that we discovered when talking to Indian youth. So, it's something that I think because Malaysia is such a, like when you grow up, you're so conditioned, socially conditioned to think of everything through racial lens, and a lot of times it's a negative racial lens. And so, you automatically stereotype a lot of people based on their ethnicity. And so, for a lot of people, you know, you can see that there's a lot of people that are in the same way as you do. these youths who are more well to do and come from a higher socioeconomic background. A lot of them spoke about how growing up they would try to move away from that Indian side of them and sort of isolate that so that they could be seen as a palatable version of what it means to be Indian so that they could come across as someone that, "Hey, you know, I'm not like them." The them being someone that's from a lower socioeconomic background who does, you know, does not have the same opportunities. I think there's a lot of course with class that comes privilege, but I think that also with a lot of youths, they use that as a protective mechanism to sort of push and isolate themselves away from being seen as too Indian or too closely related to that side of being. No, is this because the term Indian in Malaysia historically has carried a lot of baggage, unfortunately so we see, for example, the intensity of the racial discrimination in the rental market towards the Indians, for example, due to negative stereotypes. Indians are associated with t-very, with gangsterism, with alcoholism, unruly behavior, these are all the stereotypes. And so there is a tendency, especially by Indians in mixed groups, especially English speaking Indians of the professional class, to want to distance themselves from that identity and therefore the label itself. Right? I mean, I think fundamentally that kind of forced distancing is a form of internalized racism, but I think a lot of people growing up, even like myself, don't necessarily realise that at the time, it's kind of a protective mechanism of sorts. Yeah, and when we spoke to a lot of these, it's something that I don't, like when they are younger, it's almost like a subconscious thing to protect themselves from these very strong labels that have been placed on the Indian community. And again, that's like a wider societal problem with Malaysia and how we view each other through racial lens, but it's something that they did as a way to protect themselves. And then only when they're older, they realise, oh, I've done XYZ and I don't know why I did that. But I mean, I know why I did that. It was a way to protect myself, but it's not necessarily the right thing to have done. But again, you can't fault these youths for doing that because we have created a society where being Indian is not always seen as a good thing and is always associated, like you said, with these labels of being a gangster or an alcoholic or things like that. But without actually looking at the social conditions that maybe have led to that. So we've talked about how the Indians are not a monolith, right? It's a diverse group. But we spent some time looking from a linguistic cultural diversity perspective. We haven't gone from a political perspective yet. I mean, even language will get to a little bit more later, but as an overview, could you give me a sense of the political diversity of the Indian community from a historical perspective? When you look at the colonial context, it's not to say that a lot of the Indian community was just sort of passive participants or whatever was happening to them. There were a lot of, like they were very mobilized as a community. For example, I believe it was 1912, the telegroup community. Actually, there were a group of them in one of the estates. They sort of rallied and decided to protest against their colonial rulers because of the unfair treatment and the fact that they weren't being paid well and things like that. So it's not that the community has sort of been very passive participants. They have very much been people that have not just sat back and just let things happen to them. It always fascinates me how racialized a society we are, not always racist, but very racialized. We see and we relate to one another, we relate to the problems in Malaysia, primarily through a racial presuming. I think that's a problem. And this is something we don't actively realize that within all the various racial communities, there are important historical nuances that transcend race. With the Indians, you had the likes of, let's say on the left, you had the likes of, as a Ganabadi, you had the likes of Devon Nair from all these people, I'm all of these socialist leaning people who were severely prosecuted by the British elites and sometimes by the local elites as well. These are people whose politics are rooted in socialism, worker struggle and anti-imperialism, much like your Burhanu little Helmys, your Dr. Pousu Kai, etc. And then you also had Indians that tied themselves more towards, let's say, my see for example, to some of them came from the elites, right? But anyway, let's go for a quick break on the show with me today, Shalin Saringar, researcher at Iman Research, who will be back with more on Beyond the Belled Box after these messages, bfm89.9. Welcome back to Beyond the Belled Box, I'm Dachran Johan, and on the show with me today is Shalin Saringar, researcher at Iman Research and you are listening to the first episode of this new mini-series with Iman Research. I'm exploring what Indian and Chinese you want. In the first episode, just a bit of an overview we're doing on the diversity of the Malaysian Indian identity from a few different prisms. Shalin, we talked a little bit about this somewhere the start, but what role does language play in shaping the Malaysian Indian identity? Because we live in a multilingual country. So when you think of language, okay, with the Malay and Chinese communities, when you think of language, there is a dominant language that sort of appears when you think, oh yeah, so with the Malay community, obviously Malay, Chinese, you have Mandarin, of course you have all the dialects, but Mandarin is the language within the community. With the Indian community, it's a lot more complex because again, as we've established there's so many different sub-ethnic groups, and with that of course there comes a lot of different sets of languages and cultures and things like that. So although Tamil is the dominant language within the Indian community because of the ethnic makeup of the Indian community, it's not necessarily the language of the Indian community. So you have so many different, like for some Indian youths, their mother tongue is like Malayali, or Telugu, or Hindi, and so on and so forth. Okay, so there's that, right? At the same time, I'm also wondering about how much young Malaysian Indians emphasize their mother tongue. No judgements from me, I mean, I don't speak the language well at all, nor do I read or write it, something that, you know, I'm not particularly proud of these days especially, but I am curious, given the shrinking size of the population, does a language like Tamil often rank fought in terms of importance to some Malaysian Indians, next to languages with a more quote-unquote productive value, right? Bigger market size, perceived economic value, real economic value, etc. So I'm talking English, Basam-Laysia, and of course BM is, you know, our national language, so that's also that, and also over the past couple of decades, Mandarin as well. Yeah, that's a very good point because when you look at the Indian community, because it's so diverse, you can't necessarily survive speaking just Tamil and only associating with the Indian community. Speaking to these youths, what they saw and what they've experienced is that there is cultural value in learning your mother tongue, but there's no economic value in that, unfortunately. So like you're saying, in terms of like a market, business perspective, it's difficult, especially when you're looking at things in terms of getting job opportunities. The language, you know, obviously English BM, and Mandarin is the other language that they see as something that is important to sort of push you further, and it's the language that opens doors, which their mother tongue does not necessarily do, but it's not to say that it doesn't have value. It's just a different kind of value. There's also something that we've seen where in urban areas, there's that, and also with the class dimension of it, there's also that erosion of language in part also because of what we were talking about earlier, where they try and distance themselves from being to Indian and things like that. So that that weight of being able to speak English over all else is something that is seen as a way to move away from speaking Tamil. In fact, when I was actually in Trangano, I was talking to this priest there, and we were just having a conversation and he asked me, can you speak Tamil? And I said, oh no, I'm so sorry, I can't. And his first thing was, oh, you must be very educated. So it's that mindset of like moving away from that, but that being said, there are a lot of youths, especially like the parents' youths who are parents that we spoke to, who see a lot of value in having their kids learn Tamil. Some they speak it at home, or they, youths who are parents actually send their kids to Tamil schools, but that is also, I mean, one to learn language and the culture and get a better understanding. of the community but there's also like another added element of protecting them from discrimination. Let's also talk about caste a little bit because we know that the oppressive caste structures hold such prevalence in India although it has reduced over the decades. I mean it's still there. In Malaysia you don't hear about it much, I'm guessing it's not prevalent but the young people you spoke to throughout your research bring up caste at all. I should preface to say that all the youths we spoke to don't condone or believe in caste. In almost all cases when it comes to marriage that's a big area of contention where it's not them but it's their parents and it's their parents who feel like oh you know you have to marry someone within your own caste and you have to make sure you know that it's all like a similar caste that sort of thing because I spoke to this girl who was saying oh yeah I've been dating my boyfriend for a while I don't believe in it but my parents do so thank god he's from the same caste and we've also spoken to youths who have detailed how they don't speak to parts of their family anymore because they've been ostracized because one of their parents has come from a lower caste or things like that so it's that older generation mindset but you can see youths now moving away from it but they're being said we have spoken to youths like I remember speaking to this one guy who was saying that he's a business owner so he gets a lot of requests coming in from different people for his services and he was saying how a lot of them actually come from caste association so they're still active and they're still prevalent like for him it's a source of frustration and anger but it's just so normalized they're like oh yeah because you know are you this caste like we want to work with you and it's of course the higher caste that where you see a lot of this happening but it's something that was also seen in temples like you were saying it's very subtle no one really puts a label on it but it's happening in the sense like in temples for example if you're of a higher caste you get to eat inside and the others you have to wait outside for your turn to have to do this happens in temples in Malaysia yeah so it's not that the youths are actively participating in it but it's things that they've heard here and there geography is also interesting something people don't often talk about do people let's say in the east coast the Malaysian Indians in the east coast so cland tantran or pahang for example navigate their identity differently than those perhaps in the clang valley where Indians are a minority but not a uber minority right in some places you know especially in clang valley and all that it ranges from 10% to 20% right depending on on which area oh definitely especially when you look at I mean there's so many different factors like ethnic demographic of where you grow up what kind of area you grow up what is a community like and things like that because when and and what you're surrounded by so yeah definitely it does affect your lived experiences and how you view Malaysia as a whole I mean I grew up in KL so very KL centric bubble and through this research being able to travel and speak to youths across peninsula Malaysia definitely I obeyed for me but it was that that's when you realize like we I think sometimes the problem is we don't talk to each other enough and we don't have these kind of conversations because there are a lot of common threads across peninsula Malaysia with the youths that we were talking to and things like that of course there's regional differences and things like that but with a lot of things there's so many commonalities and I think if we just spoke to each other more it would definitely help to sort of bridge that gap so with the east coast because the Indian population is so so small I'm talking like less than 1% it's so small there's that element of uallitry a minority within a minority right like this and the thing is when we were talking to not just youths but just people on the ground everyone was saying a lot of youths have left like they've gone to greener pastures so to speak but it's also in part because they cannot get the opportunities that they would want to in their hometown so they're kind of forced to leave to go to KL pinang more urban dense areas so I guess that point is more or less the same in other communities as well right where communities leave smaller towns more rural areas into denser cities for economic opportunities yeah and I guess that's also like a wider problem of how resources are allocated and what is available to youth and yeah again not just within Indian youth but like you said even with the Malay youths and things like that but yeah with the Indian youth because the population is so small I think the way that they view being Indian and being Malaysian is so different from how the youths in Clang Valley or other parts for example something that came up a lot in conversation was actually the sense of unity like where they kept talking about oh you know there's so much unity here where so united everyone gets along and things like that and on a social level all the youths we spoke to of course with your friends you're not going to be friends with someone that's a racist or that calls you racial slurs and all that so that's something that yeah across the board but when you sort of look at this sense of unity that they were talking about I think it's very complex and also because I'm an outsider looking in I just want to preface that because it's easy for me to talk about it but obviously it's difficult when you actually have to live there and navigate these many different factors because yes there's unity but the factors that's also a lot of racism that happens in the east coast that a lot of these Indians have normalized in a way to assimilate and just because you either normalize it and you get used to the racism that and the hand that you've been dealt or you speak out and you kind of ostracize yourself because the community is so small you kind of have to cling on to whatever or whoever you can right so if you just normalize it and bear with it and just carry on you can sort of just operate within that space but again that so there is not to say like there's no sense of unity or togetherness because they they do have like that strong bond where they want to support each other and they want to do well within and beyond the community but looking at it more is like a wider social context of it yeah so of course we're going to be diving deeper into all of this in future episodes but broadly speaking and this circles back to what you brought up earlier where most respondents said they are Malaysian first right do Malaysian Indian youths ultimately feel like they belong or do they feel like the outsiders? Someone said something that was really sad to me he said as a Malaysian I'm very happy but as an Indian I'm very sad and I think that honestly encapsulates a lot of what it means to be an Indian in Malaysia because as nice as it is you know Malaysia is a lovely beautiful country and all of that but the reality is that for a lot of Indians there's a lot of racial discrimination that happens institutional discrimination there's so many factors and like even things where we were talking about the way in which there are other people view Indians and the stereotypes associated with that I think if we can move away from all of that then perhaps we wouldn't get youths saying these very very sad things I think in the grand scheme of things a lot of Indian youths we're talking about how they want to see a Malaysia that's beneficial for all so there was a bit of this like speaking some of the youths there was a bit of this sense that they want to move away from things like race-based parties and such but I think there's also with the race-based parties that do exist I think the reason for that sentiment of wanting to move away from race-based parties is also because they feel like those that are around now aren't necessarily addressing a lot of the issues that the youths themselves are dealing with and I mean this is in terms of like educational opportunities like social discrimination like institutional discrimination rental discrimination like the list goes on like there's so many things that are just not being addressed and when they are addressed by these Indian parties so to speak it's very concentrated on certain niche issues that don't affect the entire community so it's hard also for them to rally behind and be like oh yeah you know this is an Indian party that is looking out for me because they're not so there is that sentiment of wanting basically any Malaysian leader to look out for them and to address issues yes within the Indian community so that we can move forward as a country as a whole yeah final question and I know there's no straightforward answer to this I just thought about it a Malaysian Indians becoming sort of as a group the first post-communal group in the peninsula not because of a particular mindset shift right or all like this sudden okay we are we are all progressive post-communal people I'm not talking about that but when we look at the material The real condition, the population size is around 6 to 7%. Officially, there's not much of an Indian business network per se. With the same strength as something like the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, there is not a single Indian seat in the entire country. And I'm talking about a seat where there are more than 50% Indians in that seat, not one in the whole country. And therefore, it becomes perhaps pointless to arrange yourself politically as Indian. Or has the shrinking population insecurities, etc. made people hold on to the Indian label more strongly? I think it is still important, only because within the wider context of being Malaysian, they don't always feel like they belong. So it's a way for them to hold on to this kind of identity in a way. So I think if we can sort of find a way to bridge that gap and address the issues within the community and find a way to be proud and uphold our individual identities, then we wouldn't feel so isolated. Thank you so much for joining me today, Shalini. Thank you so much for having me. I've been speaking to Shalini Suradhan, researcher at Iman Research. I'll also be linking other similar episodes where we discuss the Malay Muslim community, the diversity, the yearnings by the youth in the podcast description and show notes so do check them out. There will also be more episodes of this series coming up on the next few beyond the ballot box. This has been Beyond the ballot box, BFM 89.9. [BLANK_AUDIO]