feature The early plantations in this country were manned mainly by indentured immigrant labour from South India. According to a paper by Prof P Ramasamy of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, entitled 'Malaysian Indians: Ethnic and class loyalties', thousands of South Indians of lower caste origin immigrated to Malaya to work in numerous rubber plantations organised by British capital in the early 20th century.

The labourers would sign a contract in India to work at a particular estate in Malaya for about three to five years. The Indians were picked because African labour was out of question after the British Empire abolished slavery in 1883; also, Javanese labour was difficult to import due to restrictive Dutch emigration policy. The British were content to keep the Malays segregated throughout the country - grouping them together was recipe for revolt, and hence disaster.

The South Indian Tamils were considered ideal as they were already familiar with plantation conditions, and with British rule. They were good workers because they were 'not too ambitious', and can easily be managed. The fact that they lacked the ambition to rise above their station, as the Chinese were allegedly inclined to do, made the Indian immigrant a commodity par excellence.

More importantly, Indian immigration was considered a shrewd political maneuver to counterbalance the numbers of Chinese in Malaya. By 1940, there were 250,000 South Indians working in the 200-odd European estates in British-Malaya.

Appalling conditions

Wages were often below subsistence level, with workers living in appalling conditions. Indian labourers were housed in miserable dwellings. Families lived in often cramped and unhygienic conditions. Basic amenities such as running water and bathroom facilities were lacking.

Toilets were mostly long-drops housed is almost collapsing wood and zinc structures located outside the house and these were shared facilities. Small children were often naked or half-naked, while babies' bottoms were wrapped with old gunny sacks used as nappies. Older children roamed the estate barefoot, bringing on worm infestations problems and a host of other maladies.

These was hardly any recreational facilities for families here. However, there was plenty of toddy (alcoholic liquor made from fermented coconut juice) made available on the estate to cater for the emotionally unstable, and the overly exhausted. It's common knowledge that alcoholism is among the chief culprits of domestic violence. The Indians having grown up in these circumstances for at least two generations, have inculcated in themselves, negative cultural values and very low self-esteem.

African slave labour had built up the West-Indian plantations, and Indian labour did the same for Malaya. This system in British-Malaya is said to be a euphemism for slavery. Nearly a million South Indians died in the process. The British attitude of the time was: "We want Indians as indentured labourers but not as free men".

Adding insult to injury, when the economy went bust, the Indians were simply shipped back to India, much like the commodities they came to produce.

History repeats itself

Ironically, even today Indian estate workers are being 'shooed away', as they were in the days of old when their services are no longer required. In the 21th century, it has become more profitable to turn rubber plantations into property development projects.

In 1999, former employees of Golden Hope estate in Ipoh, Perak have been told to vacate the estate and fend for themselves. Their labour was no longer a needful commodity. In fact, they had become a liability. If there was a way, these people would be shipped back to India, this time not by their colonial masters, but by their fellow countrymen.

The estate folk claim that 'people' came to taunt them to get them to leave. These 'people' told the estate folk that they only had red ICs (identity cards for permanent residents) and that we should go back to India. They claimed the land to be theirs - bumiputra land. The 'people' were quite obviously Malays. A woman estate resident was held in a stranglehold in skirmishes involving estate employees and management. Many were physically injured in these incidences.

The district police chief Ahmad Tajuddin called the estate resident 'illegal residents' and said that they should be chased out. The group then went to then Perak Mentri Besar Ramli Ngah Talib for help. A week later bulldozers showed up in the plantation escorted by police.

The plantation union people were turncoats. They took the employer's side and used gangster to intimidate the estate residents. They broke water pipes, cut street lights, and stopped the bus service from plying the route. The countless police reports made showed no action.

Appalling conditions

Finally a report was lodged with Bukit Aman, the national police headquarters. Later, Human Resources Minister Fong Chan Onn made a statement that retrenched workers will be given lots to build houses. The developers then gave money to the estate workers to build a temple and a school. But the estate workers still did not have a house to live in. What were they to do with a temple and school?

There were several hundreds families living on this estate before. Most moved out when they were told to. They didn't want trouble. They felt they were helpless and alone. They knew any dissent would be silenced. So they took their meagre compensations of a couple of thousand ringgit and moved away. Some found employment in the nearby factories. Many families found it difficult to pay rent for houses outside the estate. They could not afford it. The wages had always been dismal.

Some saved enough money to buy themselves gold ornaments, and a bangle or two. But they worked for those, too. It is shameful that anyone should begrudge them those little luxuries. A small group of families decided that they will not be turned out of our homes without adequate compensation.

This group is adamant they are not going to 'gnaw on dry bones' that the management had thrown them. They are unsatisfied with the quality of the homes that they were told they could buy at discounted prices. There is hardly a compound for children to play in. The house is very cramped with bedrooms the size of storerooms. People build cowshed with more thought for comfort.. And the price has been hiked from the original RM25,000 to RM32,000.

Treated with contempt

Later in cahoots with the plantations union, the plantation management decided that the compensation money should go directly to the housing developer. The estate workers are treated with such contempt which makes it difficult for one to believe that this is happening in modern-day Malaysia. And the property developers are none other than a subsidiary of the state-owned Perak Development Board or Perbadanan Kemajuan Negeri Perak.

Having lived within a plantation social system with little contact with the outside world, these estate workers are at a lost when they are tossed out of the land that had offered shelter all this while. They do not wish this life. The system has made them this way. The estate living environment has long discouraged initiative and independence. The retrenched workers have no savings. The wages were too low for them to get into the habit of saving. What little money they can put aside goes literally for the rainy day, when they cannot go out to tap rubber, and hence don't get paid for that day.

The estate workers have been branded as 'trouble-makers' for refusing to move out of their land. When their grandparents came to this area in Ipoh almost a hundred years ago, there was nothing but thick, jungle teeming with poisonous snakes, wild beasts and malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Stories told by the old gas-lamp speak of men being buried in mass graves as hundreds fell victim to malaria. Today, after toiling for so long, these group of estate workers in Satislah estate are left homeless, landless and penniless.