The problem with Malaysia

Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is reported to have offered to resign if the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraff), which organised a raucous protest in Kuala Lumpur on November 25, can prove discrimination.

He’s termed Hindraff’s accusations of racial bias and “ethnic cleansing” as “lies.”

Badawi is right to feel angered by this sudden burst of ethnic muscle-flexing by Malaysian Indians.

The community —comprising mainly Tamils shipped there as indentured labour by the colonial British regime — has so far banded  together under the umbrella of the Malaysian Indian Congress, a junior partner in UMNO-led coalition that’s ruled the country for over half a century.

Malaysia has, by and large, been a peaceful and tolerant place, given its multi-racial character. Its social contract,  under which ethnic Malays get certain privileges in return for guaranteeing the rights of other groups, has worked well. Barring the riots of 1969, communal outbursts have been far fewer than in India.

However, the chances are that Badawi will not win his bet cleanly. Despite the veneer of relative peace and tolerance in Malaysian society, there is little doubt that discrimination against non-Muslims is in-built.

In fact, this position was indicated right upfront by the father of independent Malaysia — Tunku Abdul Rahman. He said in the 1980s:

“The Malays are not only the natives but also the lords of this country and nobody can dispute this fact.”

The interesting feature about the Malaysian constitution is its duality. While making it very clear that Islam is Malaysia’s state religion, it guarantees its minorities most of the freedoms one would get in a secular state: the right to practice one’s own religion and also to preach it, but only so long as the preaching is not done with Muslims.

In sum, the only freedom denied is the right to convert a Muslim to any other religion.

Speaking of the Malaysian constitution, Shad Saleem Faruqi, professor of law, Universiti Teknologi Mara, says that some of the societal discord comes from the fact that Malay Muslims are subject to Shariat, while others are not.

One area this problem surfaces is in marriage. Non-Muslims seeking to marry Malays have to convert to Islam to have their relationships recognised. Muslims can’t resort to civil marriages.

If they want to marry non-Muslims without converting them, they are considered apostates.

Another expert, Poh-Ling Tan, an  associate professor of Australia’s Griffith Law School, says that non-Muslims sometimes find the law working against them despite the secular provisions in the Malaysian constitution.

In a paper  focused on the workings of Malaysia’s draconian Internal Security Act, she says: “… essentially non-Muslims find it difficult to construct new places of worship because of planning restrictions; those who want to leave the Islamic faith face ostracism by the Malay/Muslim community and, in some states, jail and flogging; and those not of the majority Sunni school of Islam have been  detained (under ISA).”

In fact, this partly explains the Hindu character of the opposition building up against the Malaysian social contract.

With the Constitution defining Malaysia as an Islamic state (though not a  theocratic one), opposition to the in-built discrimination is also emphasising religious identity — as in Hindraff. And this is why Badawi is likely to lose his bet.

The problem is not really “ethnic cleansing” or excessive discrimination. But with a Constitution that is so explicitly Islamic, and given the growing attractiveness of militant Islam worldwide, it will be tough for Badawi to avoid giving the impression that all’s fair in Malaysia.

The laws on his statute books must not only be secular, but also be seen to be so.

Hindraff may be making a mountain out of a molehill, but there’s no denying the fact that a modern state such as Malaysia cannot afford to have unsound constitutional baggage.

Email: r_jagannathan@dnaindia.net