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A British Labor Settlement Experiment and the Socioeconomic Experience of the Chuah Tamil Settlement in British Malaya

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 October 2023

Thivya Ranie  and
Sivachandralingam Sundara Raja
Thivya Ranie*
Affiliation:
History Department, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Malaya
Sivachandralingam Sundara Raja
Affiliation:
History Department, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Malaya
*
Corresponding author: Thivya Ranie; Email: p.thivyaranie@gmail.com
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Abstract

We explore the socioeconomic experience of a group of south Indian Tamil laborers and their families who established the Chuah Tamil agricultural settlement in British Malaya during the Great Depression. These were laborers who, though unemployed, refused to be repatriated to south India. Progressing from subsistence farming to small-scale agricultural production, their settlement evolved into an organized, socioeconomic system. It was also a critical field experiment for the British to assess the viability of a self-generating labor pool. In this article, we examine the social history of the settlers and the development of the Chuah Tamil colony within the context of Britain's overarching desire to create a labor source. Our study contributes to the reconciliation of microsocial history and colonialism, as well as to global labor history more broadly, by situating the settlers’ experience and the settlement itself in relation to historical contemporaries.

Keywords

Tamil laborerssettlementland colonizationGreat DepressionFederated Malay StatesBritish Malaya
Type
Article
Information
International Labor and Working-Class History , Volume 105: Special Issue: Gender and Deindustrialization: Perspectives from European Case Studies , April 2024 , pp. 120 - 134
Copyright
© International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc., 2023

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References

Notes

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81. Jain, “Ramanathapuram Experiment,” 167; SEL: SEC: 939/1949, Memorandum on the Question of Land settlement for Malayan Indians, 2. The Pathsala has since been renamed Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan (Tamil) Mukundan (Mukundan National-Type (Tamil)) and is still in operation.

82. “School for Settlers,” The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser (1884-1942), November 12, 1936, 3. The school was opened by J.W.W. Hughes, the Resident of Negeri Sembilan, before retiring from official duty in December in 1936 (“Mr. J.W.W. Hughes gives a Farewell Interview,” The Straits Times, December 14, 1936, 13). During the opening ceremony of the school, the Resident acknowledged all the assistance and support that had been extended to the development of the Chuah agricultural land settlement during its establishment years. The ceremony was also attended by Lieutenant Colonel W.A. Gutshell, Rao Sahib Mukundan, C. Wilson, Controller of Labour of Negeri Sembilan, G.E. Turner, Assistant Labour Controller, R. Boyd, Co-operative Director, Dr. S.R. Krishnan, Dr. V. Paniker, Dr. S. Rama, S. Thamby Rajah J.P., S.S. Pillay, Goh Eng Thye, G. Suppiah, and G.V. Thaver (“Indian Settlers of Chuah,” The Straits Times, November 17, 1936, 17).

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