Rafizi Foreshadowing Putrajaya’s Sarawak Digvijaya

Rafizi Foreshadowing Putrajaya’s Sarawak Digvijaya


20 May 2025 • 6:00 PM MYT


TheRealNehruism
Writer. Seeker. Teacher

Image credit: CNA/ Malay Mail


One of the things that powerful leaders in our region have done from time immemorial, is to launch a digvijaya against neighbouring kingdoms to consecrate their authority and power.


The most well known digvijaya that we know of in our country is likely the ones that the kingdom of Ayutthaya launched against the northern sultanates in Semenanjung, like the Sultanate of Kedah, Terengganu, Kelantan and Kedah, which resulted in these kingdoms to send tributes, in the form of the Bunga Mas to the Kingdom of Siam once every few years.


Another famous example of the digvijaya in our region was launched by the Chola kingdom of Southern India against the Srivijaya Kingdom in Nusantara in the 11th century.


A digvijaya is not exactly the same as conquest or colonisation, although there are similarities.


When a ruler in our region launches a digvijaya against a neighbouring ruler, unlike a conquest or a colonisation, the purpose is not to exploit or annex their territory.


Instead, the purpose is merely to flex one’s strength, or to show that as ruler, you reached the acme of power and strength, by forcing your neighbouring rulers to accept your supremacy, and defer to you as a younger brother would refer to an older brother.


This is why, in cases of digvijaya, unlike in the cases of a western conquest or colonisation, the ruler that launched the digvijaya will not remove the ruler or the ruler’s family that they attack from the throne, or exploit the land and the people of the nation they attack, or convert them out of their customs and habits.


Instead, the ruler that launches the digvijaya will allow the attacked ruler or a member of the attacked ruler to continue to rule their nation without interfering in their affair, for so long as the attacked ruler does something to acknowledge the superiority of the ruler that launched the digvijaya, by for example, sending a bunga mas periodically, or marrying their daughter to the ruler who launched the digvijaya.


For the longest time, I have been predicting that Putrajaya is bound to launch a digvijaya on Sarawak in the foreseeable future.


Since Mahathir resigned in 2002, a string of weak leaders in Putrajaya has emboldened the East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak to formulate a separate destiny and carve a separate identity, which is threatening to break up the Federation.


Now that Anwar has proven himself to be a strong leader, I predict that he will launch a digvijaya to the east, to temper Sabah and Sarawak's separatists desire and unify the federation.


A big part of why I predict this will happen, is because this is what has always happened in our region for as long as history remembers.


While we might believe that events from the past no longer have any effect on us, but as the historian George Santayana puts it, “those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.”


Whether they realise it or not, Sarawak has been challenging the prestige and authority of Putrajaya, by doing things like challenging the control that Putrajaya has on the natural resources in Malaysia, calling its leaders premiers- in direct competition with the Prime Minister in Putrajaya, seeking greater autonomy and even supposedly calling the residence for the Premier of Sarawak in Petrajaya, as the White House of Sarawak.


It is precisely because the Srivijaya empire did to the Chola empire what Sarawak is currently doing to Putrajaya that it invited a digvijaya by the Chola empire. Going by that example, I think the chances are indeed high that Putrajaya, like the Chola empire in the past, will be motivated to launch a digvijaya on Sarawak, likely before the next Sarawak election, scheduled for next year, to assert its imperium, power and prestige.


Other than history, what Rafizi has said recently, during his re-election campaign for the PKR deputy president post, which he is widely expected to lose to Nurul Izzah, is also foreshadowing the imminent digvijaya that Putrajaya might have already planned for Sarawak.


Rafizi has promised to resign form his minister post if he loses to Nurul Izzah for the PKR Number 2 post, and if he is no longer a minister, he believes that it is possible for him to be banned from entering Sarawak.


Now when I ask myself, why does Rafizi have to specifically mention this matter during his campaign for re-election, the only answer I can find is that it is because Putrajaya probably already has a plan to launch a digvijaya on Sarawak soon.


Rafizi sees himself as the PKR war general, and he has cast doubt as to whether his challenger, Nurul Izzah, to be able to carry out the role of war general of PKR, if she were to replace him as the PKR number 2.


By putting two and two together, we can thus see that when Rafizi hints that that he might be banned from entering Sarawak if is no longer PKR’s number 2 or a cabinet minister, what he is likely doing is indicating that Putrajaya’s planned digvijaya on Sarawak might face hiccups, if he is defeated by Nurul Izzah in the coming PKR election, because then Putrajaya will thus not have its war general during its digvijaya of Sarawak.


The very fact that Rafizi is hinting this, is thus suggesting to me that there is probably already a planned digvijaya on Sarawak soon.