To tap rubber trees, we boarded an old ship. For forty-five cents, he breaks my back. For thirty-five cents, he bends my joints.
— ‘Oppari/Elegy’

Malaysia’s historically crucial rubber industry was built on violent movement: ships crossing oceans, forests cleared for profit, the soft machine of the body beaten and broken by labour.

Under British colonial rule, Tamil workers were brought to Malaya to work on rubber plantation estates and satiate the empire’s increasing need for the commodity. Many arrived through coercive or deceptive labour practices, and subsequently endured gruelling conditions marked by poverty, sickness, and physical abuse. While the colonial archive meticulously recorded output, acreage, and profit, it made little effort to document how plantation life was lived and experienced by the indentured labourers whose efforts sustained the industry.

• Tags: Issue 42, Malaysia, Tashny Sukumaran