Some quarters have wrongly labelled the indigenous people of Tanah Melayu as immigrants as immigrants because they came from various parts of the Southeast Asian mainland and the archipelago.
EVER so often the question of “pendatang” (immigrant) crops up. The latest one is the hue and cry over the claim of Indians being the earliest immigrants in the Malay peninsula, before the Malays, by Human Resources Minister M. Kulasegaran.
He cited the archaeological site at Bujang Valley as proof of their early existence. In actual fact, even before the Indian traders set foot in the Malay peninsula, the land had already been settled eons ago by the proto (aboriginal) and deutro (ethnic) Malays as the original indigenous people, who were animists (they believed that all natural things, such as plants, animals, rocks, and thunder, have spirits and can influence human events).
The Indian influence in Southeast Asia, which began around the beginning of the Christian era, was the result of Indian traders who introduced their culture and religion. They interacted with the local community through trade and cultural activities. It was seasonal and transient in nature and there was no permanent Indian settlement.
This was the case with the “indianised” kingdoms of Funan, Langkasuka, Sri Vijaya and Majapahit, which were not Indian but indigenous kingdoms that had acculturated the Hindu culture and religion into their animistic belief as the Hindu pantheon ran parallel to the many animistic spirits.
Islam came to Southeast Asia through Perlak and Pasai between the 12th and 13th centuries. The indigenous Hinduize states were Islamised before the faith spread to the Malay peninsula and other parts of the Malay Archipelago.
From time immemorial, the Malays were the indigenous people of Tanah Melayu. Some have wrongly labelled them as immigrants because they came from various parts of the Southeast Asian mainland and the archipelago. But this is not so as they were within the enclave of the Old Malay world which encompassed most of the Asean region. And they had settled here before the Christian era.
There was no territorial delineations within the Malay world enabling the Malays who were seafarers to freely move (merantau) within the region. And indigenous Malay kingdoms successfully sprang out at various locations in the Malay world.
The notable ones were Funan, Sri Vijaya, Majapahit, Melaka, Langkasuka, Rhiau-Lingga, Suluk and Brunei, that established the shifting focal points of Malay supremacy within the Malay world.
From the time of the Melaka sultanate all the courts and their people in the current geographical configuration of Malaysia, such as Kedah, Kelantan, Terengganu, Kedah, Perak, Selangor,
Johor, Pahang, Negri Sembi-
lan, Brunei and Suluk were Malays from different parts of the Old Malay world.
They were Bugis, Javanese, Minangkabau, Thai, Banjar, Suluk, Brunei, Bajau, Iban, Kadazan, Dusun, Semang, Senoi, Negrito. Thus we cannot label them pendatang or immigrants. They are the indigenous people of the land.
It was the colonial powers such as the Dutch, British, Spanish and Americans who carved out the territory of the Malay world and usurped the powers of the indigenous people to serve their political and economic interests.
Thus the indigenous people who used to move freely in the region were separated into various political groupings restricting their movements in what used to be their common land, the Malay land. John Russell Denyes, in his book titled Malaysia (1919), referred to this land as encompassing the Malay peninsula, the islands of Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Celebes, Timor, the Moluccas, New Guinea and a thousand other islands. He said Malaysia got its name from the Malay people who live there.
Jules Dumont d’Urville, a French explorer, mentioned Malaysia in his writings in 1826 as Malay land with reference to the suffix sia, which means land in Greek. The actual influx of Indian and Chinese immigrants was
the result of the British colonial policies that began with the establishment of the East India Company on Penang island in 1786. Subsequently they established the Straits Settlements and encroached on the Malay states emplacing British advisers and residents in the courts of the sultans and rajas.
The Indians were brought in to work in the plantations and the Chinese settled in as tin miners and engaged in retail trade. Thus began the permanent enclave of the immigrants in Tanah Melayu.
As part of the social contract to achieve independence, these immigrants were granted full citizenship while recognising the special privilege and rights of the indigenous Malay people that included Malay reserve lands, Malay as the national language, Islam as the official religion and the rights of the Malay rulers.
From the historical perspective, the Malay stock are the indigenous people of this region known as the Malay world. Most of the Chinese and Indians were immigrants brought in by the British to serve their economic interests while others migrated on their own to seek a new life in Tanah Melayu.
Today, after almost 60 years of post-independence governance based on the Constitution and the Social Contract, we are still bickering about pendatang (immigrants). To a large extent, this is due to politicians who whip up racial and religious sentiments to serve their political interests irrespective of the larger national interests.
We need to put aside this imbroglio of identity crisis and look
to the future wellbeing. Let the subject of pendatang be part of our country’s heritage and not a stigma.
The writer is an emeritus professor of Performing Arts at the School of Arts, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang