The Indians in Malaysia are Malaysian citizens of Indian descent. Almost all of them are descendants of Indian immigrants who came to the country as workers at a time when both Malaysia and India were British colonies.
Content
History
The Indians visited the territory of the Malacca Peninsula and its neighboring territories since at least the 11th century as sailors and traders.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Malay plantations required labor, which facilitated the migration of a large number of people. However, not all Indians worked on plantations, some of them were police officers, small officials and businessmen (especially in the textile business). A serious blow to further migration was the closure of rubber plantations, most of which gave way to tea plantations and Pancake week palm trees. According to data from 1947, about 85% of Indian migrants were Tamils, 14% were other people from the south of the country: Telugu and Malayal.
After the country declared independence, a fairly large part of the Indian population chose to return home, but a significant part still remained. A serious problem is still the economic backwardness of the Indian population of the country compared to the Malays and Chinese. The proportion of people who graduated is also lower among Indians than among the other two main ethnic groups of the country. [one]
Our days
Indians should be understood not only as immigrants from the territory of modern India, but also Tamils from Sri Lanka, and Punjabis from the territories of modern Pakistan. Today, Indians - the third largest ethnic group in the country after the Malays and Chinese, make up about 8% of the total population of Malaysia (about 2.2 million people). Almost 80% of all Indians are of Tamil origin.
Language
Unlike neighboring Singapore , where the proportion of Indians is also not so high, the Tamil language does not have official status in Malaysia. Nevertheless, the language has a rather stable position in the Tamil environment, especially in rural areas. [2] In large cities, many educated Tamils have completely switched to English, to a lesser extent, there is a transition to Malay.
See also
- Chinese in Malaysia
- Malaysian population
- Indian diaspora
Notes
- ↑ MALAYSIAN INDIANS: The third class race Archived July 17, 2011 on Wayback Machine
- ↑ Schiffman, Harold Malaysian Tamils and Tamil Linguistic Culture . University of Pennsylvania (December 31, 1998). Date of treatment August 27, 2007. Archived on August 25, 2012.