The Sikh and Punjabi Community in Malaysia

In the ranks of the police and the British forts of 19th-century Malaya, many of those officers with turbans and thick beards were not locals — they were Sikhs brought thousands of miles from Punjab in northwestern India. Out of that duty of maintaining security grew one of Malaysia’s smallest yet most instantly recognisable minority communities.

This article explains three things briefly: how the Sikhs came to Malaya, where the community is located today, and how their religious and cultural life — the gurdwara, langar and Vaisakhi — still carries on. It reports what the sources state, without evaluating any policy.

How did the Sikhs come to Malaya?

The Sikh presence in Malaya is closely bound to the British administration. According to Free Malaysia Today, many Sikhs were brought in from India during the British colonial era to serve as policemen, soldiers and security guards. They were renowned as trustworthy members of the security forces, and throughout British rule many held ranks in the police and military.

Their settlement pattern followed that duty. In Johor, Sikhs began to settle in the late 19th century, mostly serving in the police force or as personal bodyguards to the Sultan of Johor. In Perak — the state that to this day has the largest concentration of the Sikh community — many worked as tin-mine security guards, general labourers and bullock-cart drivers. A Sikh community also existed in Labuan as early as the 1860s.

A similar story unfolded in Borneo. An academic study published in a peer-reviewed journal on the Sikh community in Kota Kinabalu records that Sikhs began to migrate to Sabah in 1881, when the British North Borneo Armed Constabulary (NBAC) was formed. By 1883, the force had 153 members, including 50 Indians (Sikhs and Pathans). The 1911 census recorded 173 Sikhs in North Borneo, concentrated in Jesselton (now Kota Kinabalu), Sandakan and Lahad Datu.

Where does the Sikh community live today?

The Sikhs remain a small community in number. Malaysia’s official population census does not break out the number of Sikh adherents separately — some are recorded under the “Indian” race and others choose the “Others” category — so there is no specific census figure for them. The estimate most commonly cited by the community and the media is around 100,000 people.

A more tangible measure is the number of houses of worship. There are more than 100 gurdwaras across Malaysia, and Perak alone has about 40 — reflecting the history of Sikh settlement in the state’s tin-mining areas. This distribution of gurdwaras, from big cities down to small towns, maps the places this community once lived and still lives.

What is a gurdwara, and which is the most important?

A gurdwara is a Sikh house of worship — the place where the holy scripture Guru Granth Sahib is enshrined and recited. Every gurdwara also runs a langar, a community kitchen that serves free vegetarian food to anyone regardless of race, religion or background. The langar embodies the principle of equality that lies at the core of Sikh teaching, and is typically served three times a day.

The most famous gurdwara is Guru Nanak Darbar Tatt Khalsa Diwan in Chow Kit, Kuala Lumpur — the largest gurdwara in Southeast Asia. Established in 1918, it began operating in a ward of the General Hospital before moving to permanent premises on Jalan Pahang in 1924; the present building was completed in 2002 at a cost of RM7 million, with a prayer hall able to hold about 1,500 worshippers.

The table below lists several historic gurdwaras and their years of establishment, according to Free Malaysia Today reporting:

Gurdwara	Location	Year notes
Guru Nanak Darbar Tatt Khalsa Diwan	Chow Kit, Kuala Lumpur	Established 1918; present building completed 2002
Gurdwara Johor Bahru	Johor Bahru, Johor	Site gazetted 1921; present building opened 1992
Gurdwara Rawang	Rawang, Selangor	Original temple 1938; expanded in the 1970s
Gurdwara Kuala Pilah	Kuala Pilah, Negeri Sembilan	Established 1937
Gurdwara Kuching	Kuching, Sarawak	Opened 1982

How is Vaisakhi celebrated in Malaysia?

The biggest Sikh celebration is Vaisakhi, held on 14 April every year. It commemorates the founding of the Khalsa by the 10th Guru, Guru Gobind Singh, in 1699. According to The Star, in that year Guru Gobind Singh conducted the Amrit Sanchar (baptism) ceremony for five adherents at Anandpur Sahib, Punjab; after being baptised, the men received the title Singh (symbolising courage) and the women received the title Kaur (symbolising honour).

The celebration at the gurdwara usually centres on the Akhand Path — a continuous reading of all 1,430 pages of the Guru Granth Sahib, completed within a non-stop 48-hour period. The holy flag Nishan Sahib is also changed in a special ceremony; at Tatt Khalsa Diwan, the flag is changed twice a year, namely during Vaisakhi and on Guru Nanak’s birthday in November. Throughout Vaisakhi, the langar is expanded to accommodate the surge of visitors, with local dishes such as nasi lemak served alongside the usual vegetarian menu.

Although Vaisakhi is not a national public holiday, it is given a certain recognition. In 2017, the Ministry of Tourism and Culture announced that Sikh civil servants are permitted to take unrecorded leave to celebrate Vaisakhi on 14 April. Vaisakhi has also been incorporated into the national tourism calendar through the “My Vaisakhi Fest” event, which, according to Malaysia Airlines’ Going Places magazine, has been held since 2015 by the Malaysia Punjabi Chamber of Commerce in cooperation with the Ministry of Tourism and Culture.

Is the Punjabi language still alive?

Punjabi, written in the Gurmukhi script, is the mother tongue of this community — but it faces the challenge of language shift. Academic research on the Sikh community in Kota Kinabalu found that the majority of families now use English at home more often, and some respondents worry that Punjabi will fade among the younger generation.

In response, gurdwaras play a role as centres for language preservation. Gurdwara Sahib Seremban, for example, runs a Punjabi Education Centre, while in Kota Kinabalu Punjabi language classes at the gurdwara draw dozens of children each week. It is through weekend classes like these that the Gurmukhi script and the Punjabi language are passed on to a generation born in Malaysia.

Common misconceptions

“All Punjabis are Sikhs, and vice versa.” Most Malaysian Sikhs are of Punjabi descent, but Sikh is a religious identity while Punjabi is an ethnic and linguistic identity; the two overlap but are not the same.

“Sikhs are a kind of Hindu.” Sikhism is a distinct religion originating in Punjab, with its own scripture (Guru Granth Sahib), house of worship (gurdwara) and festival (Vaisakhi) that differ from Hinduism.

“Langar is only for Sikhs.” On the contrary, langar is open to anyone regardless of race or religion — that is the very meaning of the practice.

What’s next

To understand this community’s place within Malaysia’s racial mosaic, read Population composition. For other communities of Indian descent and their languages, see Tamil in Malaysia, and for a picture of linguistic diversity within a single race, see Malaysian Chinese dialects.

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This article is an AI-assisted draft that has not yet undergone human review. Facts have been checked against media reports and one academic study listed in the sources section; it is written descriptively and held as an interim draft pending review.