Why our constitution defines a Malay the way it does
The law
One interesting feature of our constitution is the definition of a Malay, which I reproduce below from Article 160 of the Malaysian constitution:
"Malay" means a person who professes the religion of Islam, habitually speaks the Malay language, conforms to Malay custom and - (a) was before Merdeka Day born in the Federation or in Singapore or born of parents one of whom was born in the Federation or in Singapore, or is on that day domiciled in the Federation or in Singapore; or (b) is the issue of such a person;
The interesting point here is that there is nothing about Malay parentage, the usual way we think about race as something we inherit from our parents. You are a Malay because you fulfil the triple definition. You do not need to have Malay parents to be a Malay, the way that you would need Japanese parents to be a Japanese. A person who is born of non-Malay parents can become a Malay in Malaysia by speaking Malay, converting to Islam and get married under Malay customs. It is also one of the few situations where a race is defined by their religion, but unlike the other cases - the Yazidis in Iraq, the Parsis in India, the Druze in Lebanon - the religion is not exclusive to that race and while there are plenty of non-Malay Muslims, there are no non-Yazidist Yazidis.
The requirement for Malays to be Muslims has the effect that only Muslims can be Malays and you can see this in the accompanying illustration from our census where the number of non-Muslims in the Malay column is always zero. This contrasts with other predominantly Muslim races like Bajau and Melanau which will still have some small numbers under the non-Muslim columns. It then leaves the question what race would a Malay be if they convert out of Islam as under Malaysian law, they would have no race at all.
It is different in Indonesia, where Malays are self-identified and are normally from Sumatra. Indonesian census counts about 7 million Malays or only some 3% of the population. A person of Javanese or Bugis ancestry would be counted as Malay in the Malaysian census but not in a census in Indonesia where they originate. In Indonesia, a Malay need not be Muslim, and I have on several occasions personally met Sumatrans who identify as Christian Malays. As late as 1970, in an age when race was less politicised, 4.8% of the Malaysian population self identify as Indonesian.
The history of Malay as a nationality One root cause is that the term Malay was once both a race and a nationality. In the Malay Peninsular during the days of old, there was no concept of our modern citizenship. You are a subject of the sultan, not a citizen, which implies a different set of rights. You are a subject of the sultan if you owe allegiance to that sultan and therefore, you would then be a Malay. And as a subject of a Malay sultan, you would of course be required to speak Malay to the sultan and adhere to Malay court customs in all your rituals with the sultan.
One has to remember that the country known as Malaya/Malaysia did not exist then and there had not been a unified political entity in the Malay Peninsular since the fall of Malacca until the Japanese occupation. Before independence, the 'country' was really a collection of Malay States: the Federated Malay States (‘FMS’) and the unfederated Malay states. You are not a citizen of a unified country but the subject of a Malay ruler, owing a personal allegiance to him. And being a subject of Malay ruler makes you a Malay because you are in the Malay states. So, Malay is both a race as well as a nationality.
The country of Malaya did not exist until the Federation of Malaya was set up in 1948, despite references made to a British Malaya as a convenient shorthand for the patchwork of states in the Peninsular. Malaya was a British term that Malays at that time did not accept and as such, Malays did not accept the term Malayan, viewing it as a label for all the non-Malay immigrants that the British brought in. The Malay term for the Federation of Malaya was Persekutuan Tanah Melayu, or the Federation of Malay States/Lands. So, the equivalent Malay term for Malayan would be Melayu (Malays).
As late as February 1947, a draft People's Constitution drawn up by the left-leaning PUTERA-AMCJA (Pusat Tenaga Rakyat-All-Malaya Council for Joint Action) in their opposition to the secretive British-Umno agreement to replace the Malayan Union, included the following Principle 9 out of 10 Principles:
Melayu to be the title of any proposed citizenship and nationality in Malaya
That was the last documented reference I have found to Malay as a nationality anywhere in colonial Malaya/Malaysia and the revised draft issued to support the All-Malaya Hartal dropped any reference to Malayan nationality. It is also interesting that Malay left-wing groups set up PUTERA to ally with the non-Malay AMCJA in part because Malays were not comfortable to be lumped under the Malaya banner, the ‘M’ in AMCJA.
Incidentally, Malays at that time were fine with the name Malaysia as that was an alternative term for inhabitants of the Nusantara, the insular South-East-Asia that uses Malay as the lingua franca. The 1931 and 1947 census included Malaysians as an umbrella term that included Malays, Orang Asli and Indonesian ethnicities as separate races. Effectively, Malays at that time sees Malaysians and Malayans almost the same way as we today understand Bumiputeras and non-Bumiputeras respectively.
A final point
It should also be pointed out that the constitutional definition limits Malay to those whose forbearers were in Malaysia on or before Merdeka Day, meaning that more recent immigrants should not be classified as Malays even if they fulfil the triple criteria of language, religion and custom. It would be interesting to find out whether the officers at the National Registration Department are as scrupulous as the constitution.
Conclusion
It is unfortunate that Malaysia have today largely forgotten about Malay as a nationality and as a result, leading to the conflation of the Malaysian nationality with Malay race. While the idea that a person can become a Malay late in life has always existed in the past, it has always been within a specific context which I will discuss in another article. We will have to decide as a nation, as people of Malaysian nationality and people of the Malay race whether this context still has a role in conflating the Malaysian nationality and the Malay race today. I hope the conversation can start soon.
The next article takes a look at how Malaysian number plates came to be the way it is and how British divisions of Malaya continue to dictate life in Malaysia today.
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