The Klang Districts Readers and Writers Association, with the support of Koogai Publication and Iyal Publication, has proudly organised the book launch event of Siva Lenin‘s 1941 Klang’s Estate Workers Strike, which chronicles the history of one of the most well-organised labour agitations that colonial Malaya has ever seen. The event will take place on October 15, 2023, at 2:30 p.m. in the Digital Wave Academy, No. 19, 1, Jln Kasuarina 4, Bandar Botanik, 41200 Klang, Selangor. This important book launch will also be attended by Dato’ M. Gopalakrishnan, Sivakumar Veeran, the leader of the Klang Districts Readers and Writers Association, and Professor Dato’ N. S. Rajendran.
The 1941 Klang estate workers strike is one of the most integral parts of both the revolutionary history of plantation Tamils and labour history in Malaya. The arduous and necessary research and writing on the subject by Siva Lenin contributes to honouring and learning from the revolutionary memories of the Tamil proletariat in Malaya. Works such as this aid in furthering the understanding of how much Tamil labourers and the working class as a whole were central and prominent in the anti-imperialist struggle against British colonialism.
Siva Lenin is a writer who has a keen interest in bringing to light the social, political, and economic history of Tamils in Malaysia. Another one of his works is a book on the life of the revolutionary Sybil Kathigasu, who helped provide medical aid and services to the Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army during the brutal Japanese occupation of Malaya. Siva’s writing career also contains essays and poetry on revolutionaries and social issues pertaining to the importance of speaking one’s mother tongue, anti-caste politics, and workers liberation, to name a few.
Siva’s labour, both as a historian and a writer, is incredibly vital to both the academic and literary fields in Malaysia, where the lives and contributions of the Tamil proletariat are not only unknown but deliberately kept out of acknowledgement. This book on the proletariat agitations of Tamils will be of the outmost value to the younger and future generations of revolutionaries who will be able to utilise this knowledge as a profound source of intellect and inspiration.
All Images Taken From Siva Lenin’s Facebook.
