Making spaces, making subjects: land, enclosure and Islam in colonial Malaya

Abstract

Land control struggles were central to multiple projects of enclosure in colonial Malaya. Indeed, enclosures created Malaya, a discrete geo-body constructed by bounding the Malay polities of the Malay Peninsula. It also underpinned technocratic regimes for managing land, forest and property, including in Terengganu, the last peninsular state to be colonised. Enclosure, however, was directed not only at territorialising landscapes; it was also a biopolitical project for bounding subjects and subjectivities, producing both Malayans and racially-constructed Malay peasants. One response by Terengganu cultivators, a holy war,was grounded in an audacious globalism, through which they rejected the enclosures which bound them in ever-tightening webs of discipline and control.

Keywords:

• Malaya
• Islam
• Terengganu
• enclosure
• land
• forest
• territory
• subjectivity
• colonialism

Notes

¹I thank Craig Reynolds for this turn of phrase.

²I thank Megan Vaughan for encouraging me to reflect on this point.

³Malays who lived in the forested hinterland were actively differentiated from other groups actively coded as forest-dwellers and pejoratively referred to as ‘Sakai’. For more discussion on this strategy of ethnic differentiation, refer to Manickam (2009).

⁴For a discussion of colonial biopower and the biopolitical in the urban environment of Delhi, refer to Legg (2007).

⁵For a more general discussion of the multiple political processes by which the Malay peasantry was constructed, refer to Kahn (2006).

⁶ Perang sabil is a Malay colloquialism for sabilillah, or more fully, jihad fi sabilillah – an Arabic term for struggle ‘in the way of God’. Its meaning approximates ‘Holy War’, or armed jihad. For more details, see Bosworth and Behrens-Abuseif (2008).

⁷For a discussion of contemporary ‘Islamist’ political violence as a means for activating aglobal political community, refer to Devji (2008).

⁸E.A. Dickson, Report of the British Agent, Terengganu, August 1914, 8 September 1914: 1-2, CO273/412: 41389: ‘Affairs of Trengganu’.

⁹E.A. Dickson, Report of the British Agent, Terengganu, January 1915, 9 March 1915: 1, CO273/425:16985: ‘Affairs of Trengganu’.

¹⁰E.A. Dickson, Report of the British Agent, Terengganu, February 1915, 9 March 1915: 1, CO273/425:19310: ‘Affairs of Trengganu’.

¹¹J.L. Humphreys, Journal of the British Agent, Terengganu, May 1916, 31 May 1916: 7, CO273/445:32544: ‘Affairs of Trengganu’.

¹²I take this assessment of the document's authorship from Misbaha (1978).

¹³I thank Michael Laffan for this translation from the Arabic.

¹⁴Refer to CO273/474:6947: ‘The Trengganu Commission’.

¹⁵Arthur Young to Colonial Office, 4 June 1919, CO273/487: 39802: ‘Administration of Trengganu’.

¹⁶Refer to SUK T files, 1915–1930.

¹⁷Deputy Chief Minister to Chief Adviser, 22 November 1928, MBT 203/1340: ‘Hendak diadakan pesuruhjaya di Kuala Berang’.

¹⁸J.L. Humphreys, ‘Report on Certain Matters Relating to Haji Drahman of Trengganu’, 24November 1922: 1, CO717/61:52432: ‘Disturbances in Trengganu’.

¹⁹Undang-Undang Tanah Kerajaan Terengganu 1344 [1926], MBT 864/1344: ‘Undang-Undang Tanah’. These regulations were in fact first introduced in 1921: refer to Wong (1975).

²⁰Undang-Undang Tanah Kerajaan Terengganu 1344 [1926], MBT 864/1344: ‘Undang-Undang Tanah’.

²¹Haji Abdul Rahman bin Abdul Hamid to Commissioner of Land, 2 Rabiulawal 1342 [13 October 1923], SUK T 599/1342: ‘Wang yang dikirim oleh Haji Abdul Rahman berkenaan dengan pas menebang hutan’.

²²J.L. Humphreys, Humphreys Report, pp. 1–2, CO717/61:52432.

²³Statement by Penghulu Abdullah, 6 May 1925, appended to M.L. Wynne, ‘Unlawful Assembly at Kuala Telemong’, 6 May 1925, CO717/61:52432.

²⁴Refer to SUK T 1295/1346: ‘Report Forest Guard berkenaan orang-orang hendak melawan kerajaan di Terengganu’; and SUK T 1268/1342: ‘Haji Musa bin Abdul Ghani menegah dan menghasut rakyat daripada menurut peraturan dan membayar hasil kerajaan’.

²⁵Refer to SUK T 1295/1346.

²⁶‘There is no God but God and Muhammad is his messenger’.

²⁷Refer to SUK T 1295/1346.

²⁸Refer to SUK T 1295/1346.

²⁹Land Enactment 1344, Amendment Enactment 1347, 11 July 1929; Land Enactment 1344, Amendment Enactment 1347 Objects and Reasons, 30 June 1929, CO 717/64:52433 ‘Terengganu Enactments 1347’.

³⁰High Commissioner, Malay States to Colonial Office, 24 July 1929, CO 717/68: 62468: ‘Conditions in Trengganu’.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Amrita Malhi

I presented a preliminary version of this paper at the ‘Processes of Subjectivation’ conference at the University of Copenhagen in August 2010. I extend my special thanks to Nancy Peluso,Stephen Legg and the anonymous reviewers for invaluable suggestions along the way. I also thank the National Archives of Malaysia, Universiti Malaya, and the Malaysian Ministry ofEducation for supporting my archival research through its Malaysia–Australia Fellowship program.