RPK, you blind and bigoted racist
Of course, the Indians did migrate to Malaya even before the Portuguese came in 1511 (and brought Islam to the Malays) and after 1900 to work in the civil service and as teachers. But Moorthy and Rais were not debating that issue. They were debating the issue of Indian labourers and estate workers.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Refer to the article in today’s MT (The Chinese and Indians “sacrificed” for Britain, not for Malaya). You are an unmitigable and biased racist, judging from the tone of your article. You conveniently forgot to mention that it was the Indian educated who first brought education to Malaya, AND WHEN THE BRITISH INTRODUCED THEIR STYLE OF PARLIAMENTARY GOVT IT WAS THE INDIANS WHO FORMED THE BULK OF GOVT SERVANTS.
AND YOU COVENIENTLY FORGOT TO MENTION THE ROLE OF INDIANS AND CHINESE WHO PLAYED A VERY IMPORTANT ROLE DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR, JAPANESE OCCUPATION AND THE COMMUNIST INSURGENCY.
LEE KUAN YEW ONCE REMARKED TO ALEX JOSEY this remark never got published when Alex wrote his memoirs) that the British fell to the Japanese during the Japanese occupation was because it was the Malays who pointed out the British encampments to the advancing Japanese. It was this reason LKY did not trust the Malays and never allowed them to go up higher than Major in the Singapore armed forces or could become pilots, as he was afraid they will fly the planes into Malaysia.
I am 85 years old and I was in the midst of all that happened, when you were still knee high to a grass hopper, you blind and bigoted racist.
Victor Nanhsirkala B
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Dear Nanhsirkala,
Thank you for your e-mail above and I will try to reply to the points you raised.
First of all, as you may have noticed, my article was in response to Waytha Moorthy Ponnusamy, which in turn was a reply to what Rais Yatim said. Hence my article on the Chinese and Indian migration was not a complete history but specific to the Moorthy-Rais debate.
On your point about the Indians bringing education to Malaya, I did say “the Indian migration story is slightly different because the Indians came to Malaya in waves.” The wave or period that I was referring to in my article was the 1850-1920 period, which was the period Moorthy and Rais Yatim were debating.
Of course, the Indians did migrate to Malaya even before the Portuguese came in 1511 (and brought Islam to the Malays) and after 1900 to work in the civil service and as teachers. But Moorthy and Rais were not debating that issue. They were debating the issue of Indian labourers and estate workers.
Richard James Wilkinson was a British Colonial administrator, scholar of Malay, and historian who spoke French, German, Greek, Italian, Spanish, Malay and Hokkien. In 1903, he was appointed the Acting Inspector of Schools for the Federated Malay States.
Wilkinson initiated the establishment of the Malay Training College in Malacca, which later became the Sultan Idris Training College and now known as the Sultan Idris Education University at Tanjung Malim, Perak. In 1905, he founded the Malay Residential School, which today is known as the Malay College Kuala Kangsar (MCKK).
MCKK was established to educate the Malay sons of the elite and royalty to take over Malaya once the British went home
Wilkinson’s idea was to give the sons of the Malay elite and royalty a western education while still retaining the culture, traditions and values of the Malays, in particular regarding Islam. In short, he wanted to breed brown Englishmen to one day take over the country.
But he needed teachers and where better to get these teachers than from a country that was already English educated, India (and some from England, of course). And Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s father was one such English teacher who was brought over from India. (At that time, even the Sultans did not speak English so the English administrators had to speak Malay and they wrote in Jawi).
Hence your statement “it was the Indian educated who first brought education to Malaya” is not quite accurate. It was Wilkinson who brought English teachers from India to teach the Malays the English language. And the Indians were also brought in as clerks because at that time the Malays could not yet speak English (the reason why Wilkinson set up those schools to educate the Malays).
The church also set up schools but their motive was to save the souls of the ‘pagan’ Chinese and Indians by converting them to Christianity.
By 1920, however, the Malays spoke better English than the Englishmen (my grandfather sounded just like Sir Winston Churchill), so they eventually took over as ADOs, while the English were still the DOs. And, in 1941, the English ran off and the Japanese took over but they still retained the Malays as assistants to run the government.
One example was in Dungun, Terengganu. The DO was English while the ADO was Datuk Andika, a graduate of the MCKK. When the Japanese took over, a Japanese became the DO but they retained Datuk Andika as the ADO. And Datuk Andika’s job was to import rice and timber from Thailand for the Japanese Imperial Army.
Datuk Andika told me the Japanese DO was a gentlemen with Samurai values. When the Japanese lost the war in 1945, the English came back and the new DO was also an Englishman, and according to Datuk Andika, also a perfect gentleman.
The Malay Regiment slowed down the Japanese advance to Singapore allowing the British to escape
The following year, 1946, Umno was formed and the English DO asked Datuk Andika to travel to Kuantan to attend a rally that was being organised by Tunku Abdul Rahman and Tun Razak Hussein. At that time travelling from Dungun to Kuantan would take three days so the DO gave Datuk Andika one week’s leave.
But Datuk Andika did not have money so the DO gave him some funds to travel to Kuantan. And that was why the first branch of Umno Terengganu was formed in Dungun, at the behest of the British DO who told Datuk Andika that the future of the country is in the hands of the Malays and Umno once the British decide to go home.
On that part about the Japanese invasion, yes, the Indians and Sikhs plus the Malay regiment played a role in slowing down the Japanese advance to Singapore to allow the British to escape. There were even members of the royal family in the Malay regiment who the Japanese executed by beheading for their ‘resistance’.
Your statement “it was the Malays who pointed out the British encampments to the advancing Japanese” is not true. In Perak, Selangor, Pahang, Negeri Sembilan and Johor, the Malays (together with the Indian, Sikh and British troops) managed to stop the Japanese, sometimes for days, and many British lives (in particular civilians) were saved (they were transferred to Australia in ships). In fact, the tragedy after the fall of Singapore would have been bigger had the Japanese reached Singapore earlier.
As for Lee Kuan Yew, we all know that story. In fact, Lee Kuan Yew was behind the setting up of DAP when Singapore parted ways with Malaysia in 1965. And Lee Kuan Yew did not trust the Indians because at that time they were aligned to Chandra Bose, a Communist, and Communists monopolised the trade unions in Singapore and Malaya.
Lee Kuan yew also said the Chinese are the most difficult race to govern who should never be allowed democracy because they only understand the iron-fist rule.
Nanhsirkala, truth in history is a matter of interpretation and to you I am a blind and bigoted racist. The British call it the Indian Mutiny and the Indians calls it the Indian fight for independence. The Americans call it the Independence War and the British call it the rebellion of the colonies. Eventually, the winner in that episode in history decides ‘the truth’. So your version of the truth differs from mine and sometimes the truth hurts.
