Appendix

International migrants in Malaya frequently engaged in social and associational activities, often leading to the growth of what may be termed a diasporic civil society. Civil society organisations created a public space in urban areas to secure their interests and represent themselves through various activities, including social services, acts of community solidarity, policy advocacy and cultural activities. Each generation of migrants made its imprint by creating new organisations or promoting existing ones. The Bangla-speaking diaspora shared a similar historical process for space-making in Malaysia and Singapore. The previous chapter focused on Bengali place-making from the lens of political organisations and activism. This chapter explores further Bengali contributions to place-making from the vantage point of civil society, including associational and other activities. The binary processes of globalisation, that is, ‘globalization of the local’ and ‘localization of the global’, could help to articulate the role and engagement of Bengali migrants in the local and international sphere, especially since the end of WWI.

Bengali Civic Spaces within the South Asian Diaspora

During the early twentieth century, South Asian transnational communities formed different organisations under the umbrella term ‘Indian’ mainly for three reasons. First, despite different ethnic backgrounds, the Indian diasporic communities were open to forging cooperation. The Bengalis, among other diverse South Asian migrants, played a vital role in forming organisations and associations of a social and religious nature. For example, Hindu migrants disseminated the idea of reforming Hinduism in Malaya. S. N. Bardhan, a Bengali, was a founding member of the Arya Samaj Sangam, established in 1910. Later, he served as its president from 1911 to 1919. Adi Dravida Sangam, another Hindu reformist organisation, was founded in the 1920s in Singapore. S. C. Goho frequently arranged dialogues there on the Hindu religion. Apart from the religious debates, members of Hindu religious associations occasionally placed their demands before the government. For instance, delegates from the Arya Samaj, Dravida Sangam and Vivekananda Sanmarga Sangam appealed to Singapore's government to introduce an ordinance for the registration of Hindu marriage in the Straits Settlements.

Bengalis migrated to British Malaya through an evolving system regulated from both the sending and receiving ends. The system underwent sporadic changes, revisions and additions, often in response to public criticism or the need for efficiency. However, the flow of emigration and demand for labourers remained largely unaltered. In the early 1920s, a fundamental alteration occurred in migration history with the introduction of passports. This system led to stricter control of mobility, and with the fashioning of a new administration in Malaya and India in the 1940s, migration became even more controlled. The Straits Settlements were dissolved in 1946; Singapore became a separate crown colony, and the Malayan Union was formed with the Unfederated and Federated Malay States. In India, British decolonisation left the subcontinent divided into India and Pakistan, which each devised specific sets of migration rules and regulations. These changes in the sending and receiving regions left marks on migration governance.

Types of Bengali Migrants

Before dealing with the theme in detail, it may be pertinent to note that, based on its characteristics and governing systems, Bengali migration can be divided broadly into bondage or systematic migration and ‘free’ migration. Convicts, indentured and kangany labourers can be placed under the first category. Non-government as well as government agencies transported such labourers through stringent systems. Those being transported like this had no choice or very little legal freedom of movement. The Bengalis who migrated willingly from the early colonial period for better opportunities in commercial ventures and the government sector can be termed ‘free’ migrants. Though they are termed ‘free’, the choices of these labourers were still quite limited at home and overseas. These migrants also had only a little freedom of movement. There was another kind of migrant—those who had to leave India or Bengal due to political persecution. Many Bengali revolutionaries moved to Malaya during the anti-British and nationalist movements in Bengal.

Convicts

From the late eighteenth century, the EIC transported convicts from British India to the Malay Archipelago. Regulation XVII of 1817 categorised the convicts as those accused of robbery, burglary, theft or any other form of open violence, who were liable to be whipped, imprisoned and transported for life.

The two worlds of Bengal and Malaya were connected through language, religion, maritime trade and colonial administration. In addition to being a trade route, the Bay of Bengal carried flows of migrants, information, ideas, cultural practices, pilgrims and soldiers over the centuries. However, this tie between the two worlds became more direct and extensive as British bureaucratic control spread over the Malay Peninsula from Calcutta, creating opportunities in various capacities for the Bengalis. By exploring the cultural contexts of migration, and the routes and nodal points of bonding with the Malay world, this chapter examines the administrative web that cemented existing flows of people, commodities and cultural practices from Bengal.

Linguistic and Cultural Links

The linguistic connection between Bengal and Malaya dates back to the early Christian era. In the Malay Archipelago and mainland Southeast Asia, Austroasiatic languages are widely spoken, which are also used throughout some parts of India, Bangladesh, Nepal and the southern borders of China. Hindu and Buddhist preachers from the Indian subcontinent, including Bengal, spread their beliefs in Southeast Asia in Sanskrit and Pali, leading to Indian linguistic influences in the region. The influence of Bangla, in particular, can be seen through the use of a pre-Nāgarī script. Srivijaya, a Buddhist thalassocratic empire based on the island of Sumatra, also had religious, cultural and trade links with the Buddhist Pala dynasty of Bengal.

The Malay language has borrowed many Sanskrit words. The Bangla script and the Sanskrit language are found in the Sejarah Melayu (Figure 1.1). Lanman suggests that Sanskrit influenced not only the Malay vocabulary but also ideas. About 45 per cent of the total Bangla lexicon is composed of naturally modified Sanskrit words and corrupted forms of Sanskrit. Similarly, there are many Sanskrit loanwords in the Bahasa Melayu. Although Bangla belongs to the Indo-European languages family, while Malay belongs to the Malayo-Polynesian/Austronesian family, many common Sanskrit loanwords can be found in classic Malay and Bangla. Both languages have borrowed a good number of standard Arabic and Persian words (Tables 1.1 and 1.2).

One of the earliest references to Bengal in Malay texts is in Raja Culan's Misa Melayu (The Mass of Malay), dating back to the second half of the eighteenth century. It mentions that a British captain had come from Bengal.