HISTORY | Malaysian Punjabi Muslims and the heritage we must not erase
Prominent Punjabi Muslim Malaysians are denying their ancestry when approached, an author writing in Malaysiakini says, raising questions about the value placed on forebears when economic advantage intersects with…
Source: Malaysiakini · October 4, 2026 at 1:02 AM · AI-assisted report
Single-sourceKUALA LUMPUR, 4 OCTOBER 2026 —
Prominent Punjabi Muslim Malaysians are denying their ancestry when approached, an author writing in Malaysiakini says, raising questions about the value placed on forebears when economic advantage intersects with identity.
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The article, published under the History desk, argues that the community’s contribution to nation-building far exceeds its size, tracing its roots to 1873 when Captain Tristram Speedy recruited 95 discharged sepoys in Lahore for Ngah Ibrahim, the territorial chief of Larut, Perak. The recruits included Pathans, Sikhs and Punjabi Muslims from undivided Punjab, the piece notes, and describing them as arrivals from Pakistan would be anachronistic because partition did not occur until 1947.
Speedy’s men formed the nucleus of the early Perak police establishment, the article states, and Punjabi Muslims later served in the Malay States Guides, a regiment created in 1896 with headquarters in Taiping. Their numbers in the Guides rose from 49 in 1900 to 90 by the end of 1914, according to the historical account.
In the 1890s the British North Borneo Company also began recruiting Punjabi Muslims for police service in present-day Sabah, the piece adds.
Beyond uniformed service, first-generation migrants engaged in dairy farming, cattle and buffalo rearing, and bullock-cart transport, the article reports. Mohamed Akbar Yasin of Banir, Perak, recalls cattle rearers such as Ashraf, known as Acah Bhai, in Tanjung Tualang; Feroz Khan in Temoh; and Chanda Nazam Din in Chenderiang. Community testimony cited in the piece also places bullock carters in Temoh, Kampar, Mambang Di Awan and Chenderiang.
Motor transport later created further opportunities, with taxi owners Ghulam Khan in Batu Gajah and Ibrahim in Chemor named as examples.
Urban settlement followed tin-mining and commercial growth, the article says, with families concentrating around Segambut, Sungai Besi, the fifth mile of Jalan Ipoh, Batu Arang and Puchong in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur. In Kelantan the community entered the cloth trade in Pasir Mas, while in Penang the Anwar Fazal family operated Fazal Mohamad Brothers, first in Taiping and later on Chulia Street.
Kampung Mogah in Tanjung Malim preserves a direct link to Moga in Punjab, the piece notes. The village, opposite Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris, now has 13 houses and a surau. Its name also survives in the Mogah Omnibus Company Limited, founded in the late 1930s by Jiwa Hazara, Tota Singh and two Punjabi Muslims who had been taxi owners and drivers.
A photograph dated April 28, 1940 shows Punjabi Muslim friends accompanying a wedding party in a Mogah bus to the Batu Gajah gurdwara, illustrating inter-communal cooperation.
Community organisations helped sustain identity, the article records. The Overseas Pakistani League in Penang and Province Wellesley likely formed in 1948, with its first annual general meeting on January 2, 1949, according to the Indian Daily Mail. Its founding president, Hafiz Ghulam Sarwar, had served in the Malayan civil service.
The Straits Times reported on September 28, 1953 that a conference had agreed to establish the Malayan Pakistani League, with S Mohamed Shafi of Kuala Lumpur as founding president. Today the Malaysia Pakistan Community Association (MyPak), led by founder and president Amin Ali Sidik, and the Pakistani Malaysian League in Penang, headed by Abdul Rafique Karim, continue that advocacy.
Punjabi Muslims have reached senior public-service roles, the piece documents. Sher Mohamed Allah Baksh joined the police in 1934, became an inspector in 1946 and assistant superintendent in 1948, earning the Colonial Police Medal for Gallantry in 1947 before serving as Selangor’s deputy chief police officer from 1966 to 1969.
Mohd Mokhtar Mohd Shariff served as Johor police chief from 2008 to 2015 and later headed Bukit Aman’s Narcotics Criminal Investigation Department and Special Branch, retiring in 2018 after four decades.
In diplomacy, Mohd Arshad M Hussain spent more than 36 years in the Foreign Ministry, leading missions in the Philippines, Australia and Austria and serving as Malaysia’s permanent representative to the United Nations in Vienna, where he was involved in negotiations for the release of Malaysian captives taken by Abu Sayyaf from Sipadan in 2000.
The author concludes that while many cherish this inheritance, encounters with successful individuals who deny their Punjabi Muslim ancestry are deeply troubling and point to an uncomfortable tension between heritage and economic advantage.