A Brief History of Indian in Malaysia

Pre-colonial period

Actually Indians have been staying at Tanah Melayu (Malay Land) long ago, since 7^th century and they have built many big empires like Srivijaya and Majapahit. One of the reasons of the widespread of the empire is to propagate Buddhism. Other than that, it is because of trading, war and other forms of contact. It is also believed that, ancient Indian has come to Malay Land because of Asoka’s invasion.

There are many ethnics that come from India to Malay Land. Most of them are from Tamil Nadu that speaks Tamil. Apart from they are also from south India – Malayalee and Telugu and from North India – Punjabis, Gujerati, Bengali and Sindhi.

It is recorded that, Indian Muslim has lived in Pulau Pinang even before British colonization. Most of the come to trade and fall in love with Malay Land and decide to stay there. They are called as – ‘mamak, mami and anak mami’. Some of them even get married with the Malays and we called them ‘Jawi Peranakan’. These Indians that have come before the colonization has actually being fused by Malay culture. They speak Malay very fluent and even dress like Malay. This generation of Indian also wealthy because of their jobs as traders.

This is the custom wear by Indian Muslim in Pinang - most likely Malay wear

Colonial Period

The British has brought Indians in mass during colonial period (1786-1824) in order to work at the plantation area and railway construction. Apart from being plantation labourers, some of them work with British government as polices and traders because they are fluent in English. We actually can see the difference between Indian generation that has come before colonization and after colonization.

The generation that come after the colonization seem not so fused with Malay culture. In fact, most of them are unable to speak Malay and prefer to mingle among them. Because of the ‘Divide and Order’ policy that has been implemented by British, most Indian nowadays has low socio-economic status.

Below is the distribution of  Indian ethnics in Malaysia, the BIG difference of these different ethnics is LANGUAGE:

Ethnics	Parts in Malaysia
South indian tamils	Pinang
Malayalee	Perak, Selangor, KL, Negeri Sembilan, Johor
Telugu	Lower Perak, Northern Selangor, Kedah, Pahang
Gujaratis, Sindhis, Chettiars, and Tamil Muslims	Pinang, KL, Ipoh
South Indian Tamils, Ceylon Tamils, Tamil Muslims, Punjabis, Malayalees, Sindhis	Sabah and Sarawak

Ethnics

Parts in Malaysia

South indian tamils

Pinang

Malayalee

Perak, Selangor, KL, Negeri Sembilan, Johor

Telugu

Lower Perak, Northern Selangor, Kedah, Pahang

Gujaratis, Sindhis, Chettiars, and Tamil Muslims

Pinang, KL, Ipoh

South Indian Tamils, Ceylon Tamils, Tamil Muslims, Punjabis, Malayalees, Sindhis

Sabah and Sarawak