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This book argues that the prevailing view of colonialism - that it was a negative and destructive phenomenon - needs to be rethought. It focuses on the experiences of the South Indian working class, large numbers of which came to Malaya in the early years of the twentieth century, emigrating from socially, economically, and environmentally inhospitable south India. It examines the opportunities which colonialism presented for these people, highlighting also the British approach to colonialism in Malaya, an approach which emphasised conservativism and tradition, and which protected the interests of the Malay aristocrat classes and, by extension, the Malay masses in order to compensate for European economic dominance and the influx of a non-Malay labour force. Overall, the book demonstrates that the South Indians, a class whose identity, social existence, and prospects were inextricably linked to imperial processes, benefitted from colonialism, and should be viewed as an active transnational entity within a constructive system, rather than as passive victims of repressive, destructive forces.
List of contents
Introduction by the Editors
Ideation: Historiographical, Methodological, and Philosophical
Chapter 1: Repurposing Colonialism: Historical Intellectuality, Postcolonial/Decolonial Encounter and the Colonial Labour History in Malaysia
Sivachandralingam Sundara Raja and Shivalinggam Raymond
Chapter 2: Colonialism's Postcoloniality/Coloniality, Historical Epistemology, and a Case for Malaysian South Indian Labour Historiography
Shivalinggam Raymond
Historical Discussions
Chapter 3: Global Colonial Economy, South Indian Labour Immigration, and British Colonial Institutions and Practices: A Historical Perspective
Sivachandralingam Sundara Raja
Chapter 4: The Inception and Internal Workings of the Tamil Immigration Fund in British Malaya, 1907-1938
Pushpavalli A. Rengasamey
Chapter 5: Towards the Interaction between the Chettiar Financial Capitalist and the South Indian Working-Class in British Malaya
Ummadevi Suppiah
Chapter 6: Indian Agents of the Government of India and the Conception of a Transnationalist Context of the South Indian Labourers of Malaya
M. Utaman Raman
Chapter 7: Colonial Exigencyand Labour Self-Agency: Colonial Policy, Labour Agricultural Land Settlement, and South Indian Response from the 1900s to the 1930s Great Depression
Thivya Ranie
Epilogue
Bibliography
About the author
Sivachandralingam Sundara Raja is a Professor of History in the Department of History at the University of Malaya, Malaysia
Shivalinggam Raymond is a research assistant in the Department of History at the University of Malaya, Malaysia
Summary
This book argues that the prevailing view of colonialism needs to be rethought. It focuses on the experiences of the South Indian working class, large numbers of which came to Malaya in the early years of the twentieth century, emigrating from socially, economically, and environmentally inhospitable south India.
