36 Asia The EconomistNovember 30th 2019
1E
ight monthspregnant, Noor (not her
real name) flew from Washington back
home to Malaysia, desperate to arrive be-
fore her baby did. Travelling so close to a
due date poses risks, but for her, giving
birth overseas did too. Her child would not
automatically receive Malaysian citizen-
ship. The constitution guarantees that fa-
thers can pass their nationality to children
born abroad. But mothers must apply for it,
a process that can leave foreign-born chil-
dren in limbo for years. To avoid such a
wait, Noor and her American husband even
asked the Malaysian embassy in Washing-
ton to let her give birth there, technically
on her country’s soil, but in vain. So she hid
her big belly under a heavy winter coat and
boarded an aircraft. “I cannot fathom how
the government can expect women to take
on that level of risk,” muses her husband.
Malaysia is one of 25 countries that re-
stricts their women from conferring their
nationality to their children, and is one of
roughly 50 that limit them from passing it
to foreign spouses. Still more unusually,
Malaysia discriminates against some fa-
thers, too—it is one of three countries that
prevent men from passing citizenship on
to their children born outside marriage.
Between 2012 and 2017 more than 15,000
children born in Malaysia to Malaysian fa-
thers were denied citizenship.
Sixty years ago most countries had na-
tionality provisions that varied according
to sex. They made assumptions about
women’s roles and expectations that are
now widely viewed as wrong and discrimi-
natory. Since 2000 more than 20 countries
with such laws—from Kenya and Yemen to
Morocco and Zimbabwe—have reformed
them. The holdouts are mostly in Africa
and the Middle East. Of the ten members of
the Association of South-East Asian Na-
tions (asean), Malaysia is one of only two,
alongside neighbouring Brunei, to persist
with gender discrimination in their citi-
zenship rules.
Why do they not change? “Xenophobia
and a patriarchal mindset,” says Catherine
Harrington of the New York-based Global
Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights.
The World Economic Forum ranks Malay-
sia 131 out of 149 countries for women’s po-
litical empowerment.
Discriminatory citizenship laws can
render children stateless. Horror stories
abound: a baby born in Brunei to a Malay-
sian mother and stateless father has nocitizenship, nor does another born in
France to a Malaysian mother and a Sri Lan-
kan refugee. Earlier this year the Malaysian
Campaign for Equal Citizenship (mcec), a
pressure group, shared a video plea of one
Malaysian woman who had had a baby with
her Syrian husband (unable to prove his
citizenship mid-conflict) in Turkey, and
could not get travel documents for their
child. On paper Malaysia has safeguards
against statelessness, but in practice “citi-
zenship is treated as a privilege, not a birth-
right,” says Hartini Zainudin, co-founder
of Yayasan Chow Kit, an ngoin Kuala Lum-
pur, the capital.
Advocacy outfits in Malaysia call for
constitutional amendments to settle the
problem for good. That should be fine with
the ruling coalition, Pakatan Harapan,
which took power last year and has prom-
ised to review laws that discriminate
against women. Malaysia’s constitution is
one that needs attention. It currently con-
tradicts itself. One article guarantees “no
discrimination against citizens” on the ba-
sis of gender, but another discriminates
against married women and single men
over nationality. Hannah Yeoh, the deputy
minister for women and families, says she
endorses calls for an amendment. But the
home ministry sounds less enthusiastic. It
merely talks about streamlining existing
applications for citizenship.
Ivy Josiah, an adviser to the mcec, be-
lieves it is possible the government will
make the hoped-for constitutional change
by the end of next year. Noor’s husband
hopes for reform, too. But he is jaded. He
has been hearing speculation about possi-
ble change for more than 20 years, ever
since Noor took her desperate flight back to
Malaysia. She has given birth to seven chil-
dren while she waits. 7Citizenship laws in Malaysia still
discriminate against womenCitizenship in MalaysiaBad luck, you’re
second-class
T
he ageingstars, tired tunes and awk-
ward dance moves had the makings of a
box-office flop. But recent plot twists in the
politics of Maharashtra, a big, rich Indian
state that is home to Mumbai and its cine-
ma industry, are proving a showstopper.
Unlike a product of Bollywood, however,
this protracted tale of treachery, hubris and
midnight manoeuvring has real conse-
quences for the state’s 112m people.
It started in October, with an election
that handed an easy majority of the state
assembly’s 288 seats to the incumbent co-
alition. This alliance involved two Hindu-
nationalist parties, the Bharatiya Janata
party (bjp), which commands the national
government in Delhi, and Shiv Sena, a hot-
headed local party built on the prickly
pride of the Marathas, a dominant regional
caste. The pair had collaborated for de-
cades, jointly ruling Maharashtra since
2014 with little friction, despite Shiv Sena’s
resentment that the much larger bjp, led by
Narendra Modi, India’s charismatic prime
minister, has encroached on its turf. But
rather than get quietly back to work after
this election, the brothers-in-arms fought
over the spoils.
Before the vote, the two were said to
have sketched a deal whereby Devendra
Fadnavis of the bjp, the serving chief min-
ister, would continue for another half of
the office’s five-year term before handing it
to Uddhav Thackeray, Shiv Sena’s boss. But
neither party gained as many seats as ex-
pected. The bjp’s tally fell from 142 seats to
105, and Shiv Sena’s from 75 to just 56. So
the bigger brother played tough, suggest-
ing it would find another partner unless
Shiv Sena dropped its demand to share the
top job. After all, another local party, the
National Congress (ncp) had grabbed 54
seats, enough when added to the bjp’s
strength to reach the 145 needed for a ma-
jority. The ncp’s leaders sent signals they
might be coaxed away from their tradition-
al partner, the Indian National Congress, or
Congress party, which has long been the
bjp’s main national rival.
Tempted by the chance to stick it to Con-
gress and boosted by its crushing victory in
spring’s national election, the bjpbrushed
off Shiv Sena. But Mr Fadnavis underesti-
mated Shiv Sena’s determination to stick to
its demands. It was afraid that without high
office and real power, ever more Shiv Sena
followers would drift into the bjp’s camp.
To general surprise the party walked out onDELHI
Political drama has gripped
Bollywood’s home stateIndian politics