India played a significant role in the British Empire’s globalized trade, investment, and migration, explaining the presence of around 2.75 million people of Indian origin, who make up about 9% of Malaysia’s population and hold key positions
India was central to a globalized trade, investment, and migration under the British Empire. It played a key role in conquest, control, and governance across a territory stretching from Africa to eastern Asia and advancing colonial interests. The British Indian Army secured Malaya, Africa, and Mesopotamia (Iraq) for the empire.
Indians, especially Sikhs, were widely employed for colonial policing. Sikhs began emigrating to Malaya from Punjab, a region now divided between India and Pakistan, in the 1870s, to became the backbone of colonial policing and second only to the Malays. They have since emerged among Malaysia’s high-ranking civil servants, businessmen and politicians.
About 80,000 Malaysian Sikhs account for less than 0.25% of Muslim-majority Malaysia’s population but two Sikh ministers—Gobind Singh Deo and Ramkarpal Singh—are among the well-represented Malaysian Indians in Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s government. Tunku Abdul Rahman-led Malaysian ruling alliance set the tone for an inclusive political system ensuring representation to all ethnic communities as nation-building overshadowed divisions. His rule coincided with harmony and political freedoms in the country where the Constitution’s Article 3 guarantees the freedom of religion.
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Rahman’s United Malays National Organisation worked with Chinese and Indian parties. It formed a national coalition that expanded and was renamed National Front (Barisan Nasional, or (BN). The interethnic coalition, which included the Malaysian Indian Congress, governed the country from 1957 to 2018.
The Rupture
The BN delivered robust economic growth before losing a two-thirds majority in parliament for the first time after 1969. Racial riots and the 18-month emergency rule that followed led to a rise in Malay nationalism and prompted the launch of an affirmative action plan for Malays in the 1970s. The democratic space narrowed and sparked ethnic tensions for years.
The Malaysian Consultative Council for Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Sikhism was established in 1983 to promote harmony among Malaysians. It has since been addressing polarisation and promoting an inclusive national identity. Civil society groups have been playing a key role in bridging differences through inter-faith and inter-ethnic dialogues
Fair Representation
Malaysian Indians have held key positions and served in the Malaysian Cabinet since independence. Datuk Seri S Samy Vellu, a Malaysian Indian, has one of the longest-serving ministers (1979 to 2008). In 2018, Gobind Singh Deo became Malaysia’s first Sikh Cabinet minister when he was named as the communications and multimedia minister in Mahathir Mohamad’s government.
Kulasegaran Murugeson (human resources) and Xavier Jayakumar (water, land, and natural resources), Waytha Moorthy Ponnusamy (national unity and social well-being), and Sivarasa Rasiah were other ministers of Indian origin to serve in Mahathir’s seventh Cabinet. Saravanan Murugan, another Indian-origin minister, succeeded Murugeson as the human resources minister in 2020. Edmund Santhara Kumar Ramanaidu was the second minister of Indian origin in Prime Minister Muhyiddin bin Mohamad Yassin’s government.
Apart from Gobind Singh Deo and Ramkarpal Singh, Zambry Abdul Kadir, V Sivakumar, M Kulasegaran, Saraswathy Kandasami, and Ramanan Ramakrishnan are the other Malaysian Indians in the Anwar Ibrahim government. Malaysian Indians in the government have been mostly Tamils, reflecting the makeup of the Indian diaspora in Malaysia.
Indians are the third largest ethnic group after the majority Malay and the Chinese (26%). A bulk of the Malaysian Indians, mostly Hindus are Tamils with roots in the Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Around 2.75 million people of Indian origin in Malaysia constitute about 9% of the country’s population. There are also about 2,25,000 unskilled and skilled Indian expatriates working mostly as IT professionals, engineers, and doctors in Malaysia. Over 65 Indian associations are registered with the Indian High Commission in Malaysia. About two million Malaysian Indians speak Tamil. The remaining speak Telugu, Malayalam, Punjabi Gujarati, Bengali, and Urdu.
The Tamils began arriving in what is now Malaysia in the 15th century mostly as textile and spice traders. In the 18th century, British rule in Malaysia accelerated their migration as Tamil labourers were brought to the region to build roads, and railways and to work on plantations. K Thamboosamy Pillay, a Tamil trader, built a key emblem of multiculturism in Malaysia in 1891—the Batu Caves Temple towering over Gombak near the capital Kaula Lumpur. The 140-foot high gold-painted statue of the chief Tamil deity Murugan at Batu Caves is the world’s largest Murugan statue and sixth tallest Hindu sculpture.
The statue is near the base of a 272-step flight to the entrance of the largest of the Batu Caves. Pillay picked the site for the temple there after finding a similarity between the shape of the caves’ entrance and the tip of the vel, the spear Murugan wielded. He is believed to have dreamt of the Goddess Sakti requesting him to build the shrine for her son, Murugan. In 1888, Pillay installed a vel before a consecrated Murugan idol at Batu Caves.
The Thaipusam festival commemorating Murugan’s victory over the demon Surapadman and the deity’s birth was first celebrated at Batu Caves in 1892. Tunku Abdul Rahman visited Batu Caves during Thaipusam in 1959. His successor, Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, recognised Thaipusam as a national festival and visited the Hindu shrine in 1971.
Murugan’s statue, the centerpiece at the shrine, was added at the foot of the stairs to the caves in 2006. It is the world’s tallest statue of the Hindu deity. A Batu cave lined with dioramas representing scenes from the Hindu epic Ramayana is known as Ramayana Cave. A statue of Lord Hanuman, one of the heroes of the epic, is placed at the cave’s entrance.
Tens of thousands of Hindu pilgrims annually visit Batu Caves, where the main celebrations of Thaipusam are held in Malaysia. Hindu devotees carry kavadis or symbolic burdens including body piercings and pay annual homage to Lord Murugan after climbing the 272 steps to his temple.
