THE quest for Obaidur Rahman Nizam’s role in Sarawak was sparked by research being compiled in Dhaka by documentarist, Dr Shahidul Alam.
The Sarawak Library has the skimpiest records of him. James Richie has now taken up the field research.
Yet ORN was pre-WWII assistant manager of the Borneo Company in Sibu, served on the town’s municipal council, and the State Council.
He volunteered as a police officer. He was invited into the Freemasons,that most guarded of ancient brotherhoods.
After the war, OR Nizam was appointed Administrator of Sarawak by the Federated Malay States Gov-Gen, Malcolm Macdonald under the British Military Administration.
Vyner Brooke’s Sarawak
Typically, Colonial subjects in British trading firms toiled hard to reach chief clerk status. Fluency in English, work-competence and trustworthiness were assumed.
An invisible curtain of white privilege and exclusivity would stop most at that level.
Occasionally, an Anglo-Indian might slip through to reach assistant manager rank.
Obaidur Rahman Nizam’s rise within the British Borneo Company in Sarawak –and his roles in the administration of Sibu and the State, are all the more remarkable for that.
Count the cash
O R Nizam was an Indian-Muslim from Bengal.His mastery of book-keeping and profit & loss accounting – vital skills in import-export trading companies – made him almost indispensable. His legendary integrity, and relaxed, gregarious personality did the rest.
Apart from being assistant manager of the Sibu branch of the Borneo Company, ORN was inducted into the Freemasons – a closed, secretive club of rich merchants, well-placed judges, and the ruling elite. This veiled network is powerful. It ensures access.
As a trading company manager, ORN would have interacted actively with the Chinese compradors – a critical link at all trading outposts in the Far East. He was a natural fixer for the Chinese in Sibu and Kuching. His value to his employers grew even more.
War tax collector
As the Imperial Japanese Army swept through Malaya, overwhelming the shambolic Commonwealth forces, the Brits fled, leaving O R Nizam behind to collect war taxes for the British Crown!!
Interred in the Japanese POW camp, ORN was held separately with remnants of the British Indian Army – not mistreated, as the Japanese backed nationalist Subash Chandra Bose, who was raising an Indian National Army (INA) to liberate India.
Administrator of Sarawak
After the chaos of war, the Governor-General of the Federated Malay States, Malcolm Macdonald, appointed O R Nizam Administrator of Sarawak. It was the East India Company in 1772 which first created the administrative post of ‘Collector’for districts.
ORN returned to East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in 1947, where he served as vice-chairman of the municipal council of Chittagong for 15 years. That in effect was City Mayor. He is fondly remembered there. A main arterial road is named after him.
