Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2014. xviii, 318 pp. (Black and white illustrations.) US$30.00, paper. ISBN 978-0-8248-5254-2.
In reviewing this book, one naturally thinks of the earlier well-known anthropological study of South Indians on the Plantation Frontier in Malaya (University of Malaya, 1970) by Ravindra K. Jain. This is, however, a very different kind of anthropological study, and indeed the author hardly refers to Jain’s work. It is a study of the former Tamil estate workers and their descendants’ feelings of victimization after the lands that they had worked were taken over by developers or claimed by Malays. It is also a study of the Tamil’s ethnic sentiments that “were increasingly shaped by the racialized landscape of Kuala Lumpur’s development policies” (2). As the book title suggests, the study analyzes the use of legal means to fight against displacement and for compensation, but more significantly, it is a study of the violence of the law that contributed to their displacement, injustice, and loss of land to the Malays, and the allocation of their land for building mosques while the Tamils’ own temples were demolished or relocated to a distant place. In this Willford is inspired by the works of Derrida, especially the idea of “archive fever,” and this includes how archiving injustice nurtures “a sense of victimization” (13). For the Tamils the recognition of their long-time presence in the estate land is an important part of their struggle for recognition and justice.
Following the introductory chapter, chapter 2 describes the political process in Malaysia and the plantation industry. It discusses the “bureaucratization of ethnic politics” in favour of the Malays and the displacement of Tamil estate workers from plantation lands which are used for racialized urban development, such as the making of new townships for middle-class Malays. Chapters 3 and 4 describe the compensation struggles by bringing readers along with Willford and Nagarajan’s visit to various estates. They documented their observations on the condition of the estate community and former estate workers. They noted the significant roles of temples to the Tamils. Both the temples and Tamil schools are important communal symbols and they played important roles in mediating politics. Chapter 5 deals with temple demolition by developers and the strategies of resistance. Again the author and his collaborator share with their readers their visit to a number of estates as well as their interviews with activists. Chapter 7 analyzes the clash between Malays and Indians in Kampung Medan in 2001. While the officials and the media portrayed the incident as Indian gangsters acting against Malay residents, the narratives from the Tamil victims suggested otherwise, that they were attacked by Malays. Chapter 8 describes how the relocated former plantation residents adjusted to living in low-cost flats. The negotiation for compensation and relocation was done through the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), and the people felt cheated in both. The perception of racialized prioritization is evident in the complaint about the playground for Tamil children having to make way for building a surau (Muslim prayer house), while their own temple was built a distance away. The feelings of the former estate workers were expressed in their perception of being “like refugees.”
While the book is about estate workers, chapter 9 documents interviews with Tamil professionals who also provide narratives of bureaucratic victimization of the Tamil workers as well as their own resentment of the chauvinist agenda of the UMNO, the ruling Malay party, and of increasing Islamization of the Malaysian society. The author pays attention to the professional Tamils’ “perceived racialization or perversion of Law” (222). Chapter 10, the concluding chapter, describes the Hindraf (Hindu Rights Action Force) protests in 2007, when 30,000 to 40,000 Indians demonstrated against the government in Kuala Lumpur. While the conclusion of this last chapter returns to discussing the relevance of Derrida’s work, this reviewer wishes the “haunting of justice” were given a more general overall discussion beyond the abstract ideas of Derrida. The book contains lots of ethnographic interviews from visits to many estates and deserves a full concluding chapter that brings together the various important discussions on displacement, communal process in Malaysia, and Tamil ethnic sentiment. Indeed, the data can help to illustrate more clearly Derrida’s idea of the institutionalization of law and the deconstructive analysis of archiving.
Overall this is a good study of the Tamils in Malaysia and their narratives of victimization as well as the violence of law and injustice. Perhaps more significantly it is a good study of ethnic nationalism and development, which involves “arbitrary orderings of ethnic entitlement” (11) buttressed by law. In particular, this is a study of Tamil and indeed non-Malays’ ethnic sentiment with regards to increasing Islamization and Malay bureaucratization. The perception of “ethno-religious transformation of the landscape” (86) and that “a new and insecure Malay identity is increasingly brash and assertive” (270) as well as the nostalgia for a “better” time are in fact felt not just by the Tamils but increasingly by most non-Malays, too. This is a timely study that engages directly with non-Malay sentiment about racial politics and development in a country that many see as becoming more polarized.
Tan Chee-Beng
Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
pp. 723-725