As the world becomes more advanced we’d think that incidences of racism would start becoming less rampant as people become much more tolerant, united and awakened to other cultures and races that exist.
However, in Malaysia, this does not seem to be the case as the issue of racist property owners who practice discrimination in disallowing Indians to become their tenants is still seen as a norm.
This notion was further proven more recently, when local content creator Vikar did an experiment in which he called up property agents, told them he is Indian and said that he was interested in renting the property.
In a video titled “Renting Properties in Malaysia as an Indian” which was posted on his YouTube channel, Vikarworld, he explained that he wanted to do the video to highlight how bad the issue is.
“We’re almost reaching 2022 and we Indians still go through sh*t on a daily basis. We can’t even pay – literally give money to someone to stay in their place.”
“Imagine being denied access to rent a property just because you’re brown,” he said.
He explained in the video that he had recently seen a screenshot of a conversation between a friend of his and a property agent who said that “the reason why we don’t like to rent to Indian tenants is that we can’t accept their living culture.”
“I completely understand if they would like to vet through their tenants by asking questions regarding their work and financial status. That’s fair enough. But to say no to someone just because of one’s race? That’s just horrible.”
Moving forward with his experiment, Vikar explained that he is going to call up a few property agents which he had found online and see if they would accept an Indian tenant.
The first property agent he called up went on to ask if he was Chinese, to which he responded that he is Indian. The property agent then went on to say, “not being racist, but some of the landlords actually do not prefer to rent to Indians.”
When asked why that is the case, the property agent went on to say that based on her previous experiences, “A lot of the previous (Indian) tenants really like to nail their pictures on the wall, which leaves a lot of holes when they do leave.”
Vikar was shocked and amused at the property agent’s supposed justification on why landlords do not rent to Indians.
“You can’t say that you don’t rent to Indians and then say that it is not a racist thing. It is a racist thing.”
Meanwhile, the second property agent he called up also asked if he was Indian.
After declaring that he is, the agent told Vikar that, “certain owners don’t accept (Indians).”
After the call, Vikar explained that “I can’t be mad at property agents because it is the landlords that are setting these conditions. As much as I’d like to scold these agents, I know that they’re not in the position to choose.”
The third property agent he called up seemingly wanted to help but said, “Sorry no offence but owners don’t like black skin. Maybe they have a bad impression of not only Indian, but Africans as well, this is the ‘owner culture’.”
Speaking to WORLD OF BUZZ, Vikar said that he was extremely disappointed even though he was mentally ready for these rejections.
“I have experienced racism throughout my life to a point I am immune to it.”
“I didn’t expect them to openly be racist towards me. It really made me feel like my race is not respected at all,” he explained.
On what must be done, Vikar said, “I think people need to speak out more. If you’re a victim of racism, use social media as a tool to voice out what happened and how you felt after going through it. Awareness is always the first step.”
“After posting the video, I’ve received so many messages from people who were shocked that Indians go through this,” he added.
Netizens share similar tales
Vikar’s video has garnered plenty of attention and currently has over 10,000 views and 1,000 likes on YouTube. Many Malaysians took to the comments section to express their agreement with Vikar’s statement as well as share their similar experiences when looking for a place to rent.
Surprisingly, the problem is not even specific to Indian tenants, and even Indian landlords face similar issues.
One Indian landlord explained how they had hired agents to rent their place out but the agents ended up only finding Indian tenants.
“My only requirement was decent people. But the agent only brought me, Indian tenants, it got me thinking, why on earth only Indians are coming,” they added.
They then discovered that the agents had matched Indian landlords with Indian tenants!
Meanwhile, another Indian landlord detailed how they had rented to people of various races over the many years. “All of my Indian and Malay tenants and most of my Chinese tenants were great. Although I did have a bad experience with two Chinese tenants in the past who never paid a few months rental and went missing before the contract was even close to being up.”
“So it’s NOT about the race when trying to rent out to someone. Its about the mentality of that individual.”
“We as landlords just pray we can rent to someone who looks after your place as if it’s their own and who are good paymasters. It’s just that simple!” said the commenter.
We hope that with more exposure, such incidences get cut down. A more permanent solution could also be helpful to prevent such blatant incidences of racism to continue occurring in the future.
Check out Vikar’s video here.
Have you experienced any similar sort of situations? Let us know in the comments.
