| Issue 27 Vol II, November 15, 2006 | Archive |
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Malaysia: Ethnic Melting Pot FOR Malaysians the celebration of festivals comes naturally as does acceptance of different cultures. So when a maulvi declared from the housetop that Muslims should not wish their Hindu fellow citizens Selamat Deepavali Raya [Happy Deepavali], there were not many takers. But it did require Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and host of ministers and senior Muslim clerics to assure that despite Islam being an official religion, all citizens have an equal right to celebrate and wish their fellow citizens on their religious festivals. “This country belongs to all and it is no one’s monopoly. We respect diversity.” Badawi declared and went along with senior cabinet colleagues to attend an open house of his Hindu minister on Deepavali. After three days was Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri, Eid-ul- Fitr for us Indians. The political class here also works towards tolerance and peace and hence these peaceful celebrations. Since Hinduism along with Buddhism came to this land centuries back, majority of the Muslims as well Chinese try to be understanding and accommodating.
The Malay Peninsula, situated at one of the great maritime crossroads of the world, has long been the meeting place of peoples from other parts of Asia. The population shows the ethnographic complexity typical of Southeast Asia as a whole. In general, there are four groups of people on the peninsula: the Orang Asli (aborigines), the Malays, the Chinese, and the South Asians. In addition, there are small numbers of Europeans, Americans, Eurasians, Arabs, and Thai. The peoples from South Asia—Indians, Pakistanis, and Tamils from Sri Lanka—constitute about 10 percent of the population of Peninsular Malaysia. Linguistically, they can be subdivided into speakers of Dravidian languages (Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam) and speakers of Indo-European languages (Punjabi, Bengali, Pashto, and Sinhalese). Numerically, the Tamil speakers are the largest group. Most of the Indians and Sri Lankan are Hindus besides Sikhs, while the Pakistanis are predominantly Muslim. Islam is practiced by over 60%, Buddhism by over 19%, Christianity by 9% and Hinduism by nearly 7%.Malaysia spread over 330,442 square kilometers has a population of 45.6 million people and literacy rate is 95 per cent. This multi ethnicity is treasured as a good influence on each group. One can see young Muslim girls wearing a head scarf, but free from inhibitions and taboos and at times even holding hands of their boy friends in the malls or gardens. In education, women compete with men. But in certain professions, men do dominate. Instead of making people fearful people and dependent and prey to manipulation and control, the leadership over the years has concentrated on making people educated, adopting skills for variety of jobs. They are also susceptible to deceptively simple or tough measures and are less insecure. For other Asian countries, particularly those professing Islam as their state religion, there is lot to learn from Malaysia. Malaysia can claim and rightly so as a modern state that can take up cudgels and speak against War in Iraq and Afghanistan. It has moderating influence on many other Islamic countries as it offers a contrast to their under development and social backwardness. Position of women being one such yardstick to measure. It has become over the years a middle-income country, transforming itself from 1971 through the late 1990s from a producer of agriculture raw materials into an emerging multi-sector economy. Still retaining its position as number one country in the production f tin and rubber. Growth was almost exclusively driven by exports - particularly of electronics. As a result, Malaysia was hard hit by the global economic downturn and the slump in the information technology sector in 2001 and 2002. GDP in 2001 grew only 0.5% because of an estimated 11% contraction in exports, but a substantial fiscal stimulus package equal to US $1.9 billion mitigated the worst of the recession, and the economy rebounded in 2002 with a 4.1% increase. The economy grew 4.9% in 2003, notwithstanding a difficult first half, when external pressures from Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and the Iraq War led to caution in the business community. Growth topped 7% in 2004 and 5% in 2005. It is expected do much better this year. As an oil and gas exporter, Malaysia has profited from higher world energy prices. Malaysia "unpegged" the Ringgit from the US dollar in 2005. Healthy foreign exchange reserves, low inflation, and a small external debt are all strengths that make it unlikely that Malaysia will experience a financial crisis over the near future similar to the one in 1997. The economy remains dependent on continued growth in the US, China, and Japan - top export destinations and key sources of foreign investment. Currently its major worry may be at the political plane to contain the current spat between the former prime minister and his successor but the real issues that ought to engage the political class is equitable distribution of wealth. This way it could build a just society. |
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Tata and Corus Steel Themselves-1 THE acquisition of the Corus, the largest Anglo Dutch steel company, by the Tata Steel is a defining moment. It projects to the world our enormous capabilities for entrepreneurship. The roots of the defining moment can he traced to the 1890s when Jamsetji Tata commenced the arduous quest for establishing the first ever plant to manufacture steel. For the Indian history marked by repeated subjugation to foreign rule, the attempts by the Tatas to produce steel, a basic material for industrial goods heralded a new dawn. Amidst intimidating circumstances of colonial rule it was an exceedingly difficult task and Jamsetji made heroic attempts in overcoming the obstacles and later his heirs registered splendid success thus was born Jamshepur, India’s hub for industrialisation. It set an example for excellence, quality and innovation. It is a remarkable coincidence that while Jamsetji, facing heavy odds, was marshalling resources in the 1890s for setting up the first steel plant, Gandhi around the same lime was anguished to see the severe curtailment of rights of the Indians in South Africa to engage themselves in trade and commerce. It was part of the larger and calculated strategy of the Britishers to deprive the Indians of all rights and reduce them to the state of serfs. With his uncanny understanding of the situation of that period, Gandhi, in his book Satyagraha in South Africa, wrote that the British settlers ruthlessly restricted the rights of Indians primarily because they started doing well in the field of business and posed challenge to the British monopoly over economy. When the British denied Indians their legitimate rights including the right to vote, they wished to attack the Indian trade and paralyze their ability to pursue economic activities. The non -violent fight launched by Gandhi for the inalienable rights of Indians to do business in South Africa and the assertion of the same right by Jamsetji for establishing a steel plant represented the spirit of our country, during the early 20th century. In a way the struggles launched by Gandhi and Jamsetji represented a mighty struggle which remained central to our arduous quest for Swaraj. The support extended by the Tatas to the first Satyagraha in South Africa showed the convergence of goals of Gandhi and Jamsetji. It is instructive to note that in 1909, two years after the steel plant was established and three years after the commencement of' the first satyagraha, Jamshedji contributed Rs 25,000 to the Satyagraha fund. Gandhi referring to that contribution wrote, "This sum amply sufficed for our immediate needs and we forged ahead". Tatas have acquired the largest British steel company on the centenary year of the first Satyagraha and on the eve of the centenary year of the establishment of the first ever steel plant in India. Such acquisition also enables us to peep into history and understand the unfavourable circumstances in which the Tatas established the steel plant and at the same time succeeded in establishing their credibility as the first rate entrepreneurs in India and the world. In the 21st century Britain the culinary delights of India have cast a spell on its citizens. The taste and flavour of the chicken tikka masala immeasurably contributes to the gastronomical delight of the British people multiplying their appetite for this spicy item. The delicious Indian curry is now ruling their hearts and minds and occupies a pride of place in their menu almost as a national dish. The book Curry in the Crown is indicative of the craze and love of the generations of the British people for this Indian cuisine and its determining role in fashioning their culinary habits. But there was a time when Jamsetji approached the British authorities for support and encouragement to establish the first ever steel plant in India they could not digest the proposal and rather derisively expressed their desire to eat every pound of steel in their breakfast and digest it if at all he could succeed in establishing the plant and manufacturing steel. Rarely in the history of any country can one see such scornful attitude of the ruling class towards an entrepreneur who had the dream of initiating a venture which would herald a new era of modernization, industrialization and social change for a country under colonial rule? It is difficult to believe that a country which now savours Indian cuisine had slightly more than hundred years back, contemptuously harboured the impossible desire of eating steel as part of their breakfast! It was reflective of their arrogance and a racial mindset which got nurtured during centuries of colonialism and which blinded them to see and spot talents among people who became victims of their rule. None can take revenge on history. But history has its own way of doing justice to those who were denied and deprived of it. The British people who with utter derision expressed their desire to eat every pound of steel produced by the Tatas are now witnessing the lake over of the largest British Dutch steel company by the Tata Steel. Approving the deal the Chairman of the Crous metaphorically referred to curry and said, "We didn't cook this deal up, it wasn't microwaved. This was like an Indian curry where you've got to marinate the ingredients for a long time." It is indeed poetic justice for the enterprising Tatas and the Indian nation. Shobhana Subramanian in her article in the Rediffmail.com on the theme "Tata's Global Gambit” wrote, "But, for the $5-billion Tata Steel it might just be like marinating another Indian curry". It marks the triumph of the ability of Indians in registering success in face of tough competition at the international level. It testifies to the unchaining of the potential of the Indian entrepreneurs following the full fledged economic reforms introduced by Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh when he was the Finance Minister during early 1990s. The private enterprise which laboured so long under the license permit Raj has rediscovered its strength and confidence to excel at the national level and show its competence spectacularly at the more competitive international market. What the Tatas did in acquiring the Corus was nothing short of a revolution. Most of the Indians are not familiar with the problems faced by the Tatas in establishing the first ever steel plant. Even some celebrated intellectuals from the west did not know about the extremely important role played by the private enterprise in putting India in the steel map of the world in 1907. The British authorities out of their sheer arrogance refused to believe that Tatas had the caliber to produce steel on their own. It is painful to note that till 1975 i.e. after seventy years of the construction of the steel plant in Jamshedpur, economist Prof. John Kenneth was ignorant and to a great extent doubtful about the historical contributions of the private sector in manufacturing steel and thought that the public sector pioneered steel revolution in the country after independence. He, in fact, lamented that in India if some thing was not done by the Government sector, no attempt was made by any other sector to do that. To be continued [Author is Director in Prime Minister’s Office and the views expressed by the author are his personal views] |
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In 2003 Dr
Mahathir Mohamad had come heavy on fundamentalists and through out his 22
long years as prime minister, he helped build peace and tolerance. One
reason for major progress that Malaysia has maintained since it attained
freedom in 1957. This position is strongly defended by the present incumbent
though both are busy airing their differences on some basic questions in
full public view. From a backward colony, Malaysia today has been
transformed into modern state where unemployment among its 25.6 million
people is just 3.6 per cent. Agriculture takes only 14 of labour force,
industry 36% and services 49.5%.