If the non-ethnic aspects of society are going to be ethnicised, chances are that in the near future, crime/violence will constitute one of the features in defining Indian Malaysians.
Of late, newspaper reports, information from the law-enforcement agencies, and statements from certain political parties have tended to reinforce the argument that Indians have a natural tendency to engage in violence. Attempts by the government to pass over the responsibility of Indian Malaysian social problems to certain ethnic Indian political parties and social organisations have merely served to reinforce the link between Indian Malaysians and violence.
Involvement in violence in the country is not confined to one ethnic group: Indians, Chinese, and Malays are involved in varying ways. In some parts of the country, Indian Malaysian involvement in violence might have exceeded other ethnic groups. In some areas in Selangor, it is around 37 percent, so much so that law enforcement agencies have asked Indian Malaysian political parties and individuals for cooperation in meeting with Indian groups living in depressed socio-economic areas. While there are no reliable statistics for the country as a whole, it is estimated that Indian Malaysian involvement in violence is around 14 percent. Malays and Chinese are also involved in criminal activities, although the nature of activities might differ not so much due to ethnic or cultural reasons as to geographical location and differences in the level of material development.
Not all Indian Malaysians are involved in violence and crime. In fact, violence seems to be the function of class differentiation and not so much ethnic in character. Amongst Indian Malaysians, criminal activities seem to be mostly, though not exclusively, engaged by those members of the working class found in urban areas. A few from the upper socio-economic brackets might be involved, but their number is very small.
Similarly, among Malay and Chinese Malaysians, violence seems to concern only the working classes, although there are definitive differences as to how violence is manifested in the working communities of different ethnic groups. Again, the explanation cannot be sought in ethnicity per se, but rather in how urbanisation, commercialisation and class differentiation have impacted on the working class in different ethnic communities.
Influenced by violent movies
The mainstream perspective, often endorsed by the ruling government and other organisations, seems to have been influenced by ethnic and political considerations. It is argued that Indians have a propensity to engage in violence as result of influences exerted by Tamil movies that contain violent scenes. Young Indians watching these movies without the supervision of their parents are said to be influenced by the contents of these movies to act out scenes in actual life. Instances of fighting and other forms of violence thus become the main preoccupation of these youngsters. There is growing feeling that crime amongst Indian Malaysians can be addressed if their political parties and civil society groups can organise dialogues with those in problematic areas.
Lately some Indian-based groups have been funded by the government to tackle social ills among Indian Malaysian youth. Whether these activities will reduce violence amongst Indians remain to be seen, but one thing is clear, ad hoc approaches have their obvious limits.
The mainstream perspective on violence does not really address the issue in a more comprehensive manner. It merely endorses the argument that Indians have some kind of natural affinity with violence. This kind of thinking does not contribute to solving the problem: it merely transfers the cause of violence from the larger society to the Indian community. By this shift, occurrences of violence are blamed on Indians, their mannerisms, culture and habits. No attempt has been made to understand why violence occurs mainly among particular segments of society and in certain geographical locations, what are the effects of urbanisation and commercialisation, etc., in order to ascertain the real and fundamental cause of the phenomenon.
Negative view
Given their habit of stereotyping entire ethnic groups, it becomes very convenient for the mass media to perpetuate the mainstream perspective that violence is very much an ethnic issue in the country. In the course of time, such a line of thinking influences other sections of society to have a very negative view of Indians and paves the way for further discrimination in government and non-governmental establishments.
While criminal activities are basically social problems, the government in Malaysia has ethnicised them to the extent needed for its own political survival. If Indians or other ethnic groups are becoming more prone to engage in criminal activities, the blame should not be placed on them alone: the government must bear part of the responsibility. If a large percentage of Indian Malaysians are involved in violence, then there is dire necessity to understand this problem from the perspective of development and the way ethnicity in the country has been managed for the last four decades or so.
To put it very simply, Indian involvement in violence and other forms of social ills are a result of four decades of the political, social and economic neglect of the community by the government in power. More precisely, it is the racial policy of the government in promoting only the Malay community that actually sowed the seeds of social fragmentation of the Indian community.
Since government policies during the New Economic Policy period and after were geared to benefit Malays, they resulted in Indians and other non-Malay communities becoming targets of discrimination. The Chinese, given their economic strength and superior entrepreneurial skills were able to overcome some of the problems, but the Indian community, locked in plantations and urban areas as a proletariat, was unable to respond effectively to state-sponsored discrimination.
Left in the lurch
Over the years, the declining numerical strength of Indian Malaysians, their weak material position and governmental discrimination, have also served to reduce their political, social and economic opportunities. While urbanisation and commercialisation have meant opportunities for other communities, Indians have been left out. And while some sections of the Indian community, especially those in the upper socio-economic brackets could have benefitted, the working class has been left in the lurch.
Social problems among the Indian working class are not the product of the plantation setting, but rather the urban environment. Increasing migration of Indian Malaysians from plantations to urban areas in the last two decades, the nature of their settlement in depressed areas around big cities, the lack of social and cultural centres for sustaining a community, the lack of leadership, the discrimination of Indian Malaysians in employment, provision of licences, contracts, and other economic opportunities have undermined the confidence of the working class community.
No alternative
Indians would like to compete for opportunities but have found it difficult to do so because they belong to a "wrong" ethnic group. While Malay and Chinese Malaysians have made steady progress in a number of areas, Indian Malaysians are seriously lagging behind them. It is not that they are lazy or uninterested, but they find that, as Indians, they have difficulty in taking advantage of the plentiful opportunities either because they lack the right connections or they are not ethnically "right".
Living and working in an urban environment for a discriminated group like Indian Malaysians are extremely frustrating and disappointing. Given the lack of power and the lack of effective political representation, Indian youths in urban environments have no alternative but to form their own organisations, gangs and secret societies to gain self-confidence and self-respect. However, since these outfits invariably define power and control in terms of the exercise of brute force, there is a natural tendency to engage in fights and other forms of violence.
In today's ethnicised political environment, the targets of violence are not the political and economic elite, but the poor and neglected Indian Malaysians from poverty-stricken areas: Indian gangs and secret societies fight and kill each other in the name of some definition of power and control. In other words, what is termed as crime or violence amongst Indians in Malaysia is not something directed at other ethnic groups or the government, but towards segments of the Indian working class. Thus, violence amongst Indians can be described as fratricidal in nature members of the same community killing one another.
It is useless for governmental authorities to rope in Indian organisations and individuals to provide pep talks to gangsters and those who are prone to engage in crime. The problems with the Indian community are due largely to the decades of racial discrimination they had endured and continue to endure under the present government.
Social problems cannot be eliminated overnight: serious thinking needs to be done. There is an inextricable relationship between social problems and the way a community is treated by those in power. Unless and until the government realises this, there is no way the social problems of Indian Malaysians can be approached in a meaningful and pragmatic manner.
P RAMASAMY is a professor of political economy at the Political Science Department, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and has academic interests in Malaysian politics and labour. He has written quite extensively and is currently focusing on conflict management in Sri Lanka.
