The story of Indian labour brought to Malaya in the 19th and early 20th centuries to work in plantation agriculture, rail and road building is an untold one - largely.

‘Tragic Orphans’, a book written by Carl Vadivella Belle, an Indologist from Australia, is an attempt to fill the ‘lacuna’, said Deputy Chief Minister P Ramasamy who launched the book in Penang yesterday.  

Funded by the Institute for Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, the book is the product of several years’ research by its author in archives and libraries in England, India and even the United States.

“He has done a lot of work and the book is the fruit of his labor,” said Ramasamy (right), a former professor of political science at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, whose advice Vadivella sought in the course of his research.

Vadivella has had a long association with Malaysia going back to his days as a diplomat with the Australian High Commission from 1976 till 1979.

Interest in the plight of Indians in Malaysia grew out of a chance visit to the Thaipusam festival at the Batu Caves in 1977.

His maid had requested the day off to attend the festival. Her curious boss decided to see for himself what the picaresque occasion was all about.

The visit saw Vadivella smitten and led to his conversion to Hinduism and an abiding interest in the plight of Indians in Malaysia.

Vadivella, who lives on his farm in Millicent in Victoria, makes annual pilgrimages to the Thaipusam celebrations in Batu Caves, trips that were followed by consultations in Singapore and Malaysia with scholars, researchers, politicians and others with knowledge of the Indian diaspora.

“People have reacted when informed of my title ‘Tragic Orphans’ that ‘Oh, at last a book about orphanages in Malaysia’,” cracked Vadivella, to laughter from an audience comprising of academics, NGO members and politicians.

The aside only underlined the obscurity in which this historical subject has been embedded, until - apparently - shone a light by Vadivella’s research and book.

The author credited K Kesavapany, a former Singapore High Commissioner  to Malaysia who was born in Klang and was at one time head of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, as the main backer of the whole project.   

The term ‘tragic orphans’ is actually the coinage of social activist Neelakanda Ayer who deployed it in 1938 to describe the plight of Indians, a “landless proletariat”, he wrote, “whom India has forgotten and Malaya looks down upon with contempt.”

Vadivella’s book-length exploration of that fate underscores the poignant aptness of Neelakanda’s description at a time when its enormity could only be dimly perceived.  

‘Tragic Orphans’, subtitled ‘Indians in Malaysia’, was launched in Singapore on Monday.

Two launches in the Klang Valley

Besides its Penang unveiling, it will have two launches in the Klang Valley, one by the DAP at the Kanna Curry House in Petaling Jaya on Sunday and the other the following day at Wisma Tun Sambathan in Kuala Lumpur by the Strategic Research and Development Centre. Both launches will be accompanied by forums.

Judging from the one in Penang yesterday, these would be hard put to elude scatter and sprawl owing to the subject not having been a fertile field of inquiry.

Vadivella Belle’s book is likely to be viewed as a pioneering effort that will prompt further study more than discussion of the Indian question in Malaysia.

Posed the query “What now?” at yesterday’s launch, the author was suitably agnostic.

“I'm a historian, not a politician and I don’t propose to tell them what should be done,” replied Vadivella.

He stopped short of saying they could start by reading his work.

The volume is priced at RM130.00 with a RM15.00 discount if purchased at the launch.