Sivarajan: My name is Sivarajan Arumugam. I’m from Selangor, born and raised here. My involvement in community work started back in university. Though I got my degree in chemistry, worked at a company, and even had my own business for 10 years, I wanted to commit myself fully to advocacy. So, back in 2015, I became a full-timer at my NGO Marhaem. In 2008, I also did a short stint as the local councillor for Shah Alam City.
Sivarajan: My university—UKM, National University of Malaysia—was located in Bangi, an area that historically had a lot of plantation estates. It still does. The workers on these plantations belonged to the poverty group. They were marginalised, oppressed, and received very low wages. So, being university students, we felt an obligation to give back to the community.
During weekends, we taught tuition classes to the plantation workers’ children. But beyond that, during semester breaks, we stayed with them in their houses. They were very welcoming. We then started talking to them about their lives.
What are the challenges are they facing? What kind of work are they doing? Are they able to meet their necessities? And slowly, we said to ourselves, “They are very hardworking people, so why is there persistent poverty in this community?” And so this one thing just led to another. After graduation, we felt that our work with the communities was still required. So my colleagues and I started our own NGO in the same area.
We called it the Community Development Centre (CDC).
Sivarajan: We got more involved in the more systemic problem of poverty among plantation workers, which involved their wages, housing rights, child labour, and any kind of exploitation. One of the first issues I remember that we took up, this was back in the mid-90s, was the issue of housing rights. At that particular time, most of these plantation workers were being evicted overnight to make way for new developments.
There was a government policy enacted in the 70s whereby these workers should have been given low-cost housing because they were in the poverty group. But that never really materialised. So we questioned, why was this policy not carried out? That led to organising the community. We had representatives from 30+ plantations initiate a signature campaign. We submitted letters and memorandums to the minister, as well as did a press event. Our aim was mainly to highlight this issue and seek some resolution from the government.
From there, throughout our work, we also met like-minded groups. We made connections with other groups in Perak, Penang, and Johor. That slowly transformed into a national network of organisations. That’s when we launched a national campaign to demand monthly wages for the plantation workers. We went campaigning from the north to the south of the Peninsula. We visited many plantations, talked to people, sent our demands to the government, did research, and had roundtable discussions.
Sivarajan: I think when we kickstarted, I was probably 26.
Sivarajan: I think at the core of it is the blatant injustice. Even today, we witness what’s happening in Palestine, you simply cannot look away. We started with students at the plantations, right? I saw how they were deprived of proper education, even at a basic level. Then you go to the next question. Why are their parents unable to provide for them? Then you ask the next question. Why are they poor? And then you go into: are they working? Yes, they’re working. And they work very hard, more than eight hours a day. Then why? What’s the problem with the wages? How are wages calculated? And so on. This continuous journey of asking questions doesn’t end. Even today, I’m asking the same questions.
The thing is, poverty is multidimensional. It’s never about one thing. Once you find a community in poverty, then they are vulnerable to so many other violations. The longer you do this advocacy work, the more you realise how complex it all is. Today, we work with many other groups beyond plantation workers. I work with contract workers in schools, unions, Orang Asli communities, and so on.
Sivarajan: Overwhelming, yes. I would say that it’s sometimes a bit frustrating because you are unable to resolve certain issues.
Because like I said, the problem of poverty is systemic. You can push and campaign for change, but the larger issue remains. There are the small battles that you win here and there. For example, in terms of the housing issue I mentioned earlier, we were quite successful in ensuring that the evicted workers were given proper housing or were able to buy low-cost housing.
And yet, this is only achievable in areas where we were able to mobilise the people and campaign for it. Nationally, there is still no law or policy to address the problem. So here’s where the frustration comes in because we cannot be firefighting every time, right?
How can we push the government to come up with a national policy so that all plantation workers are protected and retain their housing rights? These are things that you have to be patient with. At the same time, what keeps us going is that, if you really push, you might get victories.
But to get the bigger victory, to win the war, it’s a much longer battle.
Sivarajan: I was thinking about it for quite some time, but of course, my work and commitments always held me back. I’ve spent the past 30 years doing activist and social work. It has been a continuous journey of learning through experience and practice. At no point in time did I feel like I had an opportunity to go back to do a Master’s.
Now I think I can take a step back, slow down and think deeply about what I’m doing. I’m already 55 years old. It’s about time that I enhance myself academically in this particular field. You know? Really go deep. I feel that Birmingham is an excellent opportunity to level up my work because it offers this specific Master’s in Poverty, Inequality and Development. No other universities offer it.
Sivarajan: Well, to put it plainly, without a scholarship, there’s no way I’m going to Birmingham. Though I come from a middle-class family and launched my own business, I did not make a lot of money. So I’m very grateful that I was given this opportunity. If you had seen some of the correspondence that I had with MABECS while waiting for the scholarship decision… I was so keen, always WhatsApping and emailing you, you know. “Did I get it? Did I get it?”
Sivarajan: There’s a lot more work involved to address all the issues. I’m hoping to set up a think tank. Or, if I’m able to engage with the government, work with them to put forward policies and understand why current government programmes are not addressing poverty the way they should be.
That’s my purpose now. I want to continue my journey of doing this social work. I also want to think about looking at this issue on a global level. What are the impacts of global policies on Malaysian laws and programmes? And how do they also impact Malaysian society?
Sivarajan: If I don’t get a break this time, I don’t know when I’ll get it because I’m not young anymore, right? I hope that I will be able to excel in Birmingham. I am committed to it. When I come back, I really want to do something different.
This interview was edited for clarity.
