Was Penang ‘robbed’ from Kedah? Malaysian states face off in sovereignty row
A grievance dating back hundreds of years resurfaces as Kedah state lays claim to the country’s richest island
When Francis Light, a British merchant, landed on Penang on August 11, 1786, he took possession of the 293 sq km (113 square-mile) island on behalf of the British East India Company and renamed it Prince of Wales Island.
One enduring local legend holds that Light loaded silver coins into a cannon and fired them into the dense jungle to speed up land-clearing for the new settlement.
That did not sit right with Sultan Abdullah Mukarram Shah of Kedah, who had agreed to let the East India Company occupy the island only on specific terms – chiefly military protection against external threats and annual compensation. But those conditions were never definitively secured before the British moved in.
In historian Ranjit Singh Malhi’s telling, Light pressed ahead without waiting for formal approval from London, even though Kedah’s conditions had not been met.
Hence, every few years, a much older story resurfaces: the claim by neighbouring Kedah that Penang was never truly “lost”.
In modern times, Kedah has a chief minister who has spent years insisting that Penang, its richer neighbour to the south, belongs historically to Kedah.