GROWING up in Kuala Lumpur, it is safe to say that I somewhat lived in a bubble, not really aware of what the rest of Malaysia looked like.
Trying to imagine a Malaysia beyond the skyscrapers and endless flyovers seemed foreign to me. While I’ve done my fair share of travelling across Malaysia as a child, the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia was an area I had not ventured into.
Through Iman Research’s Kami Orang Sini Juga study on Indian youths, I had the opportunity to do just that. Speaking to Indian youths there about their lived experiences as a minority within a minority group, I wanted to understand how they navigated a space that feels so distant from the West Coast of the peninsula and to uncover preconceived notions about ethnic dynamics and unity there.
Unity has taken on a different dimension in the east coast states, one that requires further interrogation to fully understand if this is organic unity or unity that is based on conditional acceptance of discrimination at the expense of the Indian community.
The concept of assimilation and unity is rooted in the expectation that the Indian community presents itself in a manner that fits the model of the Indian youth role.
I should stress that within individual social circles, community and belonging among youths is not a foreign concept.
Through their own efforts they have formed connections and created their own bubble of unity. This takes on many forms depending on the spaces they occupy, and through my conversations with them, what rings true is their ability to adapt to the complex mechanisms of ethnic relations.
There’s this rose-coloured view that areas like the Klang Valley are more tolerant and accepting of multiculturalism and being multiethnic; the reality is that it is often far from that.
Speaking to youths, racism is rampant, and unity is an ideal which we merely strive for, have not yet completely adapted.
Multicultural spaces do not necessarily equate to unity. Even in urban, multicultural spaces, there are ethnic divides and bubbles. On the East Coast, my own personal biases about what life would be like for ethnic minorities and the perceptions of ethnic minorities were skewed.
Instead of diving into those biased ideas of the place, I’d like to unpack the realities of what it means for East Coast Indians – an ethnic minority within a minority.
On the East Coast, there is a fine line of what unity means. There were youths who expressed that things were great on the East Coast and that they were not hindered by the issues people faced on the West Coast, for example.
From my observations, while there are strong sentiments of unity, it comes at the cost of accepting and normalising racism in an effort to assimilate and appear to be unified.
This conditional acceptance of Indian youths is dynamic and is more prominently exercised on the East Coast than on the West Coast.
Some youths detailed how they had never experienced racism, and that the tensions between the major ethnic groups were non-existent. However, this is not to say they do not exist at all.
Racism, even when experienced at a young age, is something a few youths on the East Coast described to me. It has become normalised, more so than on the West Coast. Youths have derived a coping mechanism to navigate the racial divides and find some semblance of community here.
One youth explained: “People ... make it a joke. So it’s like because everyone faces it, so it’s like normal ... you’re immune to it already. So it’s like, it’s fine. But it’s not right, but it’s OK.”
Another youth also described the racism that they experienced, saying, “It’s wrong, but it’s OK”. This immediate justification of saying this behaviour is “OK” shows how Indian youths have accepted that these are the realities which they have to navigate. They acknowledge the injustice of it all, yet to assimilate, they tolerate these discriminatory attitudes.
While there is no denying that there is some form of unity among youths of different races, there is a looming question at hand: What is the price that youths have to pay for this facade of unity?
The Indian population on the East Coast is small, with its numbers dwindling. Youths told me of their friends and peers leaving to seek job opportunities in other states due to the lack of jobs at home. Despite not everyone wanting to leave their hometowns, the reality is that they have to.
Youths who return home or never leave are able to do so because they own businesses, which keep them rooted in the East Coast. They have created opportunities for themselves or run family businesses. Others have to seek their fortunes and opportunities elsewhere. Those on the ground explained that many youths only return to visit their parents before heading back to bigger cities.
Within the Indian community on the East Coast issues like alcoholism, crime, and gangsterism are virtually non-existent.
When discussing if there were any of such instances in the area, one respondent explained to me, “I mean, if you were to hear anything about it, it can’t be from Kelantan. It has to be somewhere else. It has to be the outside Indian who came to Kelantan.”
East Coast Indians also explained that this is in part due to restrictions on the sale of alcohol in convenience stores, where dedicated outlets are available, for example.
However, it is not just the restriction that sets the community apart from Indians on the West Coast. With a shrinking youth population and mainly business owners remaining, the absence of these issues is in part due to the security offered by stability and social mobility for youths.
Indian youths have also created a form of security through seeking out communities beyond their own. The bonds formed to assimilate and survive alongside other ethnic groups are vital because without them, the Indian community on the East Coast cannot survive on their own.
Shaleen Surendra is a researcher at the Iman Research think tank, currently working on a study focusing on Malaysian Indian youths, as part of a larger nation-building project on interethnic understanding. The views expressed here are solely the writer’s own.
