DEMOLITION AND RELOCATION OF HINDU TEMPLES IN MALAYSIA: PRAGMATIC RESPONSES OF INDIAN HINDU COMMUNITIES IN PENANG

Abstract

This thesis examines the pragmatic responses of Indian Hindus when their century-old Hindu community temples face threats of demolition by the Malaysian government. I argue that their compliance with the demolition is a subtle and pragmatic political act that manipulates their political standing as a minority community in order to safeguard their temples. I analyse the effectiveness of such pragmatic acts of compliance by the Indian Hindu communities, and the implications of their compliance for the political and social significance, as well as the sacredness of their demolished temples. My ethnographic data is derived from in-depth interviews of the management committees and community members of three Hindu temples in Penang, and field observations of the rituals and ceremonies in these temples. During my fieldwork, these temples have either been demolished or are in the process of demolition. The management committees of these temples have relocated the statues of the deities into temporary buildings. My findings show that the Indian Hindu communities acquiesced to government demolition of their community Hindu temples to make way for development. In return for their compliance, the Hindu communities expected that the government is obligated to find new locations for them to rebuild their community temples. Their attempts to ensure the temples continuously exist in the area suggest that these temples, regardless of their shapes and sizes, have significance for the local Hindu communities. This significance it true both for members of the temple committee and the local Hindu community. Their compliance also suggests that the portability of these temples as sacred places. The importance of the thesis is in its insistence that Malaysian Indian Hindus as minorities are not necessarily powerless in the face of dominance of the government. Instead, these Hindu communities are actively engaging with their political and social realities with pragmatic and subtle political actions such as demonstrating compliance. By complying with the demolition of their community temples, the Hindu communities are not only able to manoeuvre their ways through the dominance of the government, but they can also Hindu communities.