Making Time

Time doesn’t give a fuck though, ‘cause look at me, remembering, reckoning.

My mixed media piece titled “Thondar Padai” which focused on the 1947-1948 Kedah Estate Riots, commissioned by EMPOWER Malaysia in 2021.

I’m planning to launch a 2025 calendar, and my plan was to create pieces similar to “Thondar Padai” where each month we see newspaper clippings that cover moments of local resistance against policing going as far back as NewspaperSG has catalogued up to present day.

First I found this, which I thought was very amusing.

A newspaper clipping from Malay Tribune on 31 January 1940 titled “Threw Stone At Police Notice Board”. It is about a middle aged Indian man named William who threw a stone at the police notice board outside of the Central Police station in Ipoh and was fined $2 and two days imprisonment after pleading guilty to the charge of being drunk and incapable.

By amusing, I mean “Ugh, of course”. Like ugh, of course the police require less than throwing a stone at it’s sign board to enact violence. Ugh, of course it is not just a stone, I think of Palestinians defiantly resisting against tanks and drones with pieces of rubble that surround them (please support SAD MUTUAL AID FUND FOR Queer and trans Palestinians and front line organizers, and many organising efforts which you can find through Operation Olive Branch’s spreadsheet). Ugh, of course living in oppression will break us and deep down we know that we cannot continue like this. I’d like to believe that William knows this too, stomach ache or not. Ugh, of course property matters more than lives.

A newspaper clipping from Malaya Tribune on 20 July 1948 titled, “Tell The Police”. Criminal Investigation Department (CID) Chief for Singapore Police, E. V. Fowler tells the Tribune that people are afraid to give information to the police out of fear of having their identity disclosed. He assures this will never be the case unless they have consent, and to not hold back.

A newspaper clipping from The Straits Times on 29 September 1967 titled, “Police Not An Instrument Of Govt, Students Told”. A talk was held by OCPD Assistant Superintendent Dullah Singh for 60 upper secondary students and teachers from the Dingdings district of Sitiawan at an Anglo-Chinese school. The talk was part of a state-wide campaign among senior secondary school students to promote co-operation with the police. It is important to note that Sitiawan is Chin Peng’s hometown, who was in active armed struggle against the government at the time.

You can find a lot of little articles like the ones above calling for people to speak to the police. Policing has been around since 3000BC, and the modern police force as we know it since Francis Light? It’s pretty fucking telling when after centuries of existence, police and prisons need to constantly convince people they have their best interest at heart.

My favourite part from the second article is the bit about democracy being meaningless if the government dictated to the police its functions.

I know we don’t need receipts, but I’ll pull out the oldest one I’ve found in my digging.

A newspaper article from The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser on 6 January 1860 with no title but has the location, Penang. The Deputy Commissioner Of Police, Mr Robertson and Inspector Jeremiah have paid $700 as compensation to Meh, a woman who was falsely imprisoned, deported to Kedah, and held there in bondage for 6 months. It goes on to say that both Mr Robertson and Jeremiah has paid an upwards of $2000 in compensation for illegal detention over the last two years, and that Governor continues to be lenient towards police misconduct. The writer suggests that the leniency might be because the Governor does not want to appear as if he condemns his predecessor who is pro-police.

Anyway, what I wanted to reflect on was time. The writing in some of the articles felt like takes I’d be reading on Twitter right now.

Before this rabbit hole, whenever I came across Malaysian Indians advocating for assimilation, I didn’t consider how this position is also informed by Indians in power actively participating in this erasure as a way to avoid accountability in oppressing Dalits. “Malaysiana” as a way mask the complicity in our own oppression. The fact that I cannot quite name what my caste is, is deliberately manufactured for my benefit.

A newspaper clipping from The Straits Times on 24 December 1951 titled, “They Talked For 10 Hours And Said “No””. During the Pan-Malayan Indian Scheduled Castes Conference that was held from 23 to 24 December and attended by 300 union delegates, The Representative Of The Government Of India To Malaya, M. Gopala Menon said that did not think members of the scheduled caste did not have any special problems calling for the formation of a pan-Malayan organisation and if they had any political problems, they should join up with other races in Malaya to solve them. Singapore Legislative Councillor, C. R. Dasaratha Raj had appealed to Gopala Menon prior to the conference to not take part in the formation either, and echoed the same sentiments. Dasaratha Raj was called out by A. M. Durai to substantiate the claim the caste was not an issue in Malaya. He said that in almost all estates, scheduled caste labourers were given separate quarters, hundreds of yards away from the houses of the upper castes and scheduled caste labourers cannot spend the night in the house of an upper caste. At the end of the conference, it was decided that all Adi Dravidian associations were to merge into a pan-Malayan body called the Pan-Malayan Adi Dravidian Federation.

A letter to the newspaper, The Straits Times on 16 July 1954 titled, “Position Of Indians In The New Malaya”, writted by Padi A. Krishnan from Kuala Lumpur. In the letter, he says the the Malayan Indian Congress is not a purely Indian political body and has no business to tamper in the future of Indians in Malaya, that Federal citizen’s problems are not communal but Malayan, and that as a minority, their future is with other communities and not through communal representation.

It’s awfully convenient to say to minorities and dissenters that we cry over nothing, make problems where there are none, claim victimhood. Why do we reach for it? Why does our mind race to discredit what gets raised than to sit with what is being said? This is a fragility that has existed as long as empires have, it depends on it. Better still for oppressed communities to impose this fragility amongst ourselves. May we never reckon, may we never remember.

Time doesn’t give a fuck though, ‘cause look at me, remembering, reckoning.

Empire tries very hard to make time theirs. “This is not the time to discuss rights”. “This is the time to retaliate against the enemy”. Empire wants time to move linearly, in an orderly fashion, that never catches up to them. But Empire can only really be Empire if it remains static. Empire is obsessed with immortality, to lose nothing. It will pretend to change by giving itself a new name, but ultimately, Empire wants to freeze time.

Time really doesn’t give a fuck though. There is nothing in this world that is not touched by time’s circular reach. I think that’s why, while it is hard to find or build community, it is never impossible. That’s why, while movements build nuance, you can find the same echo a century before.

That’s why I wanted to find these articles for the calendar. To remember, reckon, remind us of why nothing about our struggle is unprecedented, and why our resistance, whatever the scale, is indispensable.

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Newspaper Links (In Order Of Appearance)

THREW STONE AT POLICE NOTICE BOARD | Malaya Tribune, 31 January 1940, Page 2 | https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/digitised/article/maltribune19400131-1.2.12

TELL THE POLICE | Malaya Tribune, 20 July 1948, Page 2 | https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/digitised/article/maltribune19480720-1.2.27

Police not an instrument of Govt, students told | The Straits Times, 29 September 1967, Page 5 | https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/digitised/article/straitstimes19670929-1.2.25

PINANG. | The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser (1835-1869), 6 January 1860, Page 1 | https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/digitised/article/singfreepressa18600106-1.2.3

THEY TALKED FOR 10 HOURS AND SAID 'NO' | The Straits Times, 24 December 1951, Page 7 | https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/digitised/article/straitstimes19511224-1.2.96

Position of Indians in the new Malaya | The Straits Times, 16 July 1954, Page 6 | https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/digitised/article/straitstimes19540716-1.2.88.9