Abstract
This chapter provides a snapshot of Indian women’s political participation in Malaysia through the lens of intersectionality. First, we present an overview of women’s participation in politics as represented by female candidates and elected members of the legislative body in the region and elsewhere. We then look at the participation of Indian women in the electoral system in Malaysia, either as candidates or voters. We compare the political participation of Indian women in Malaysia with women from other ethnic groups and also with Indian men. We try to identify challenges faced by Indian women that limit their participation in the political process. We also look at other ways for Indian women to participate in politics, be it through NGO activism or trade union membership, among others. We interview several well-known female Indian politicians and activists to learn more about their experiences in the rough and tumble world of realpolitik and activism. Finally, the chapter offers policy recommendations on how to improve the political participation of Indian women in Malaysia.
Acknowledgement to “Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia for Fundamental Research Grant Scheme with Project Code: FRGS/1/2020/SS0/USM/02/15” and Universiti Sains Malaysia Short Term Grant, 304/PSOSIAL/6315357.
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Notes
- 1.
There are of course exceptional cases. For example, women MPs make up 61.3% in Rwanda, 53.1% in Bolivia, and 47% in Sweden (Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2020).
- 2.
According to MGGI, in the Educational Attainment sub-index, women have surpassed men at 105.4% while fast closing the gap in other sub-indexes such as Health and Survival (95.8%) and Economic Participation and Opportunity (72.7%) (Department of Statistics, 2019).
- 3.
Only the indigenous tribes from Malaysian Borneo (Sarawak and Sabah) are over-represented in the parliament (Members of the House of Representatives and Senate, 2020).
- 4.
IMP was established in 1951 by Onn Ja’afar, one of the founding members of UMNO, who left the party after a bitter disagreement about its political orientation. IMP was created as a multi-ethnic party but became predominantly Indian. Onn Ja’afar disbanded IMP two years later and established Parti Negara in its place.
- 5.
By joining the UMNO-MCA alliance, it reoriented MIC from non-communal and independent to communal and dependent on UMNO patronage, an image that has persisted until today (Tate, 2008: 98).
- 6.
The RoS later gave PPP a chance to reconcile and find a solution to its leadership problems as a condition for re-registration (Augustin, 2019).
- 7.
The “winner takes all” nature of the FPTP system results in voters picking their party of choice strategically so as to maximise the value of their votes. In this situation, it is the big parties with a long-standing reputation, well-oiled grassroots machinery, access to patronage and a national presence that stand the best chance of winning at the expense of smaller parties like PSM.
- 8.
The three women candidates were Jayanthi Balaguru (Gerakan) and Kasthuriraani Patto (DAP), both contesting in the Batu Kawan parliamentary district, and Mohana Muniandy (BN-MIC), who contested in the Kapar parliamentary district. Only Kasthuriraani managed to secure a win to maintain the seat she has held since 2013 (Jayasooria, 2018). See also Fong (2018).
- 9.
Gender-wise, during GE14 only 10.92% of parliamentary candidates and 10.69% of state legislature candidates were female even though nationally the number of female voters was slightly higher than male voters (Lim, 2018).
- 10.
There is also the issue of corruption and leakages in funds disbursement that renders these programmes ineffective (Chan, 2019).
- 11.
For instance, there is a tendency to downplay the seriousness of domestic violence in the black community in the US, so as not to feed the ethnic stereotype of violent black men and thus hurting the political cause of the black community as a whole. In other words, black women’s concerns have to be swept under the rug for the collective sake of the black community (Crenshaw, 1991).
- 12.
bel hooks in her critique of women liberation and black civil rights movements in the US in the 1960s laments that to many [white] feminists, “…the term ‘woman’ is synonymous with ‘white women’ and the term ‘blacks’ synonymous with ‘black men.’’ (bel hooks, 1981:8).
- 13.
Speaking of serious repercussions for blue-collar workers who speak out, the authorities arrested five officials of the National Union of Workers in Hospital Support and Allied Services (NUWHSAS) for protesting against unfair treatment of (mostly female) hospital cleaners by their employer, Edgenta UEMS (Bunyan, 2020). See also the highly acclaimed documentary Bila Kami Bersatu (When We Are One) that narrates the struggles of three female hospital cleaners in Batu Gajah, Perak fighting for higher wages. The documentary was screened at the 2019 Freedom Film Fest Malaysia and can be seen in its entirety here: https://freedomfilm.my/wayang/2019-bila-kami-bersatu/ (accessed on 15 May 2020).
- 14.
The gender breakdown of labour force in 2020 is 61% men and 39% women, which again shows many women opt out of the formal economy despite outpacing men in educational attainment (Department of Statistics, 2020b).
- 15.
Indian households, meanwhile, made up about 15% of the B40 economic group in 2014 (Marimuthu, 2016).
- 16.
PSM’s socialist ideology places singular importance on class struggle and solidarity that supersedes consideration for gender, ethnicity, and religion. The party’s central committee comprises of sixteen members and is evenly divided between males and females. Interviews with K.S. Bawani and Rani Rasiah.
- 17.
Hand-in-Hand workshops are co-organised by Aliran and Ikram, a well-established Islamic organisation. Interview with Prema Devaraj.
- 18.
Interview with Asmak Husin, a PAS female senator in Dewan Negara. Kota Bharu, Kelantan. 8 January 2020. In the GE14 PAS fielded more men than women in ineffective (unwinnable) contests, which can be seen as an indicator of the party’s intention to have more women representation in the parliament, even though all but one of these female candidates ended up losing. See also Yeong (2018).
- 19.
For instance, 1.5% of Indians are considered urban poor while 4.3% are categorised as rural poor. Nationally, 1.8% of Indians fall below the poverty level according to the Department of Statistics Malaysia. The Indian M40 economic group has benefited the most from the government’s poverty reduction measures compared to the Indian B40 and T20 economic groups. Gini coefficient also shows that Indians have the highest level of inequality (0.44) among the main ethnic groups in Malaysia, bucking the national trend. The disproportionate focus on urban middle-class Indians comes at the detriment of overlooking the poor Indian demographic, namely in political participation (Khalid, 2016).
- 20.
In a Proportional Representation (PR) electoral system, political parties gain the number of legislative seats that corresponds to the share of votes they receive in the election. For example, in a PR system that uses party-list, if a party gains 10 seats in the parliament, it would choose 10 MPs from its party-list, typically the top 10 names, to represent the party in the parliament.
- 21.
Amending these two sections of CMA had been part of the PH election manifesto in GE14 but was not realised after it came to power (Bernama, 2018).
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List of Interviews
Devaraj, Prema. (2020, June 3). Zoom interview.
Husin, Asmak. (2020, January 8). Kota Bharu, Kelantan.
K.S. Bawani. (2020, June 7). Zoom interview.
Patto, Kasthuriraani. (2020, June 5). Phone call interview.
Rasiah, Rani. (2020, May 28). Phone call interview.
Sreenevasan, Ambiga. (2020, June 10). Zoom interview.
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Tayeb, A., Sathasivam, L. (2022). Intersectionality and Indian Women’s Political Participation in Malaysia. In: Karupiah, P., Fernandez, J.L. (eds) A Kaleidoscope of Malaysian Indian Women’s Lived Experiences. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5876-2_4
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