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1. Malaya's Plural Society in 1941
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Malaya’s Plural Society in 1941 | 3 CHAPTER 1 Malaya’s Plural Society in 1941 At present only in name is this a Malay country. The Malays are outnumbered by the Chinese who swarm in by the thousands every year and monopolise all the jobs, wealth and businesses of this country. – Za’ba, Al-Ikhwan, 16 December 1926 In 1941 “Malaya” was a convenient British administrative and geographical term comprising three political units: (1) the Straits Settlements colony of Singapore, Malacca, and Penang; (2) the Federated Malay States (FMS) of Selangor, Perak, Pahang, and Negri Sembilan; and (3) the Unfederated Malay States (UMS) of Perlis, Kedah, Kelantan, and Terengganu. Nineteenth-century British colonial policy had transformed Malaya from a collection of Malay states into a “plural” multicommunal society. Unrestricted immigration of Chinese and Indian labour (largely non-Muslim) for the tin mines and rubber estates had continued until 1921, but by then migrants already outnumbered the indigenous Muslim Malays. The 1921 census report showed that peninsular Malays and others of Malay-Indonesian stock numbered 1,623,014 (48.8 per cent of the total population), Chinese 1,171,740 (35.2 per cent), and Indians 471,514 (14.2 per cent). The British authorities generally regarded the Chinese and Indian immigrants as transients who for the most part, had little intention of making their permanent home in Malaya. Despite British colonial impressions 3 4 | Red Star Over Malaya to the contrary, the 1931 census report indicated about one-third of the Chinese and one-fourth of the Indians were local born and already showing a trend towards permanent settlement in the colony (see Table 1). The Socio-Economic Setting The preponderance of the Chinese and Indian communities in the economic life of the FMS was vividly illustrated by the fact that, according to the official estimates of 1934, Malays numbered only 643,003 out of a total FMS population of 1,777,421, Chinese came to 717,614, and Indians to 387,917. Of the four states in the FMS, Malays predominated only in underdeveloped Pahang where the total population of 186,465 contained 117,265 Malays. In the 1931 census, it had been established that in both the Straits Settlements and the FMS, the urban population was predominantly Chinese. The same was true of Johor (UMS). Even in Kedah (UMS) the largest single component of the urban population consisted of Chinese, though they just failed to equal in numbers the people of all other races combined. However, the towns of Kelantan and Terengganu (both UMS) were still essentially Malay. Indians were most numerous in the towns of the FMS, where they were very evenly distributed and formed just over one-fifth of the total urban population in each state. Race relations were good as far as they went. There had been no inter-racial friction, apart from Malay newspaper criticisms of Chinese and Indian immigration and of the growing economic disparities between Malays and non-Malays. Chinese criticisms against British protective measures on behalf of Malays, such as the Malay Reservations Enactment, were offset by major Chinese gains in the business and labour fields, while Indians were generally satisfied with gaining jobs in the public and private sectors and with the open atmosphere for business opportunities. However, Indian business enterprises were still small-scale, confined to money lending, shipping services such as stevedoring and ship chandling, textiles, and retail trade in towns and rural areas. But because Chinese numbers were far greater than Indians and Chinese business enterprises, more varied and challenging, the Chinese were seen by Malays as the greater threat to their economic and political future. The Malay Sultans and their subjects were opposed to unrestricted immigration of Chinese and Indians, but since British policy [44.222.169.53] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 13:19 GMT) Malaya’s Plural Society in 1941 | 5 was nominally protective of and generally favourable to Malay interests, their discontent was stifled. British rule in the FMS left the traditional and regional elites with a certain degree of autonomy. In both the FMS and UMS, however, the British controlled the government , foreign affairs, and defence, while Malay customary law and the Islamic religion were in the hands of the Sultans. The British gave preference to Malays for employment in government service: only Malays were eligible to enter the elite Malayan Civil Service through which the British governed the country, and in 1913 a Malay Reservations Enactment was passed to prevent non...