LETTER | In the heart of Malaysia’s Klang Valley, an insidious yet often overlooked form of discrimination persists - housing racism against Indian Malaysians.
As revealed in the first academic study on the phenomenon conducted by anthropologist Dr Ting-Fai Yu and myself, Gabriel Pereira, racial prejudice continues to shape the country’s rental market, systematically excluding Indian tenants through deeply entrenched stereotypes, class biases, and even olfactory discrimination linked to cultural practices.
This discriminatory reality challenges the very fabric of Malaysia’s multicultural identity and demands urgent legal and societal intervention.
At the crux of this issue lies a set of prejudiced assumptions about Indian Malaysians, branding them as “dirty”, “dangerous”, or “bad tenants”. These baseless stereotypes, with colonial origins, are not just casual opinions - they translate into systemic barriers.
Most Indians in modern-day Malaysia are descendants of lower-caste Tamil labourers who migrated to Malaysia under British colonial rule.
The caste system is a Hindu apparatus that categorises Indian ethnicities according to social class, disposition, and conduct, and it is based on this historical backdrop that many negative stereotypes against Indians originate and are used to exclude them from renting properties in the Klang Valley housing market.
These have become a norm rather than an exception, and property agents routinely screen prospective tenants by race.
We found that when Indian tenants are interested in a property, housing agents often explicitly ask them for their racial background and inform them point blank if the homeowner does not want Indian tenants.
This makes the house-hunting process incredibly challenging, as Indian tenants have to cycle through numerous listings before finding someone who accepts Indian tenants.
In addition to race, colourism is also at play as Indian tenants, particularly those with darker skin, face an even steeper uphill battle.
From our research, dark-skinned Indian tenants have shared that when housing agents ask for their picture, they are immediately excluded from the possibility of renting the property, attributing this rejection to repulsion towards their darker phenotype.
An added layer of complexity to this issue is the economic realities of Malaysia’s racial hierarchy. Many rental properties are owned by Chinese people, who have the power to exclude renters based on the criteria they set.
For Indian tenants, this hegemony, combined with lingering race- and class-based misperceptions, places them in a disadvantaged position.
We found that landlords often reject Indian tenants due to concerns that they may pose safety risks or fail to pay their rent. Even financially stable Indian professionals find themselves battling the stigma of being deemed “unreliable payers” even though many urban Indians are economically privileged.
Beyond race and class, cultural biases also play a role in the exclusion of Indian tenants. Our study details cases of “olfactory discrimination”, where Indian tenants are ostracised due to the smell of traditional Indian cooking.
This may seem trivial, but it reflects a more profound cultural intolerance, where difference is not just refused but actively repelled.
Despite these disturbing realities, Malaysia lacks legal protections against racial discrimination in the housing market. Unlike countries with robust anti-discrimination laws, Malaysia has yet to implement enforceable policies to penalise racial exclusion in rentals.
Although there has been discussion of tabling a rental racism act in Parliament, which would criminalise race-based housing discrimination, nothing has yet come to fruition.
On the other hand, while some online property platforms claim to take a stand against racism, their enforcement mechanisms remain weak, for example, with reporting mechanisms that do not follow up on the issue, allowing discriminatory practices to thrive unchecked.
Furthermore, the failure to ratify the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in 2018 further cemented Malaysia’s unwillingness to address racial inequalities at a systemic level, sending a message to Malaysians that it is permissible to discriminate against others based on their race.
So, what can be done? Although anti-discrimination laws would be beneficial, our research shows that they are meaningless if people do not want to change.
In other words, a transformation from within needs to transpire so that people, of their own volition, are committed to eradicating racism in the rental housing market.
Our research shows that neighbourhoods are microcosms of society. They have the power to foster multiculturalism, by reaching out across divides to build more inclusive spaces for all, and already, our study demonstrates that there are intercultural interactions between people that move beyond reading each other stereotypically to understanding one another as people through fostering spaces of care that transcend the divisiveness of race.
This spells hope for the future that a welcoming society is indeed realistic and not an unattainable utopian ideal.
Ultimately, housing is not just about shelter - it is about dignity, security, and belonging. If Malaysia is to live up to its promise of unity in diversity, it must confront the ghosts of its colonial past and the biases of its present to build a fairer future for all its citizens.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.
