Mohamad Iskandar was a "Penang Malay", or more correctly, Jawi peranakan — often shortened to Jawi pekan — meaning a locally born Muslim with Indian blood.[6] A forbear, most likely Mohamad's father Iskandar, had emigrated from southern India to begin a new life in British Malaya.[7] Some Indians, after marrying Malays, retained aspects of their culture, including language and links to their former homeland. Mohamad never looked back: He acknowledged no relatives in India and spoke no Indian language, according to Mahathir,[8] though one grandson said Mohamad's cousins in Penang were fluent in Tamil and he heard Mohamad scold a stranger with impeccable Tamil pronunciation.[9] While some other family members speculated that Iskandar hailed from Kerala, Mahathir said he was not even sure it was his grandfather who was the immigrant, since no records survived and his father had never mentioned the subject. "Frankly, we don't know which part of India we came from," he said. "Maybe this grandfather or great grandfather: One of them must have come from India."[10] Mahathir never met his grandfather Iskandar, who died before he was born, though he knew his grandmother, Iskandar's wife Siti Hawa, whom he identified also as a "Penang Malay".
Like his father, Mahathir did not discuss his Indian side publicly, and the matter was treated like a dirty family secret and not mentioned in polite company. After he became deputy prime minister, an official government publication described his father as the first "Malay" to become a secondary school headmaster. A genealogical chart displayed in Mahathir's old house, converted into a museum in 1992, traces his lineage through his Malay mother, but has almost nothing on his father's side. While he was active politically, Mahathir left the impression it was a sensitive subject, even with his immediate family,[11] though he was highly amused when people from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh all claimed him as a native son.[12] After he retired, he was more relaxed about it. "You know, what I resent most is that anything I do which appears to be successful, they attribute it to my Indian origin. If I fail, then it must be my Malay origin."[13]
The country has never had any trouble accepting leaders of mixed parentage. In that respect, Mahathir continued what had become almost a leadership tradition. Tunku Abdul Rahman's mother was Thai, Razak traced his ancestry to the Bugis from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi and Hussein Onn had Turkish blood. While Mahathir's political rivals occasionally tried to use his Indian background against him, the issue found little traction. For the Malay community, whose view is reflected in the nation's Constitution, the concept of being Malay is not ethnic as it is in being Chinese or Indian. Constitutionally, a "Malay" is defined as a person who professes the Muslim religion, habitually speaks the Malay language and conforms to Malay custom. Indians, Europeans or anyone else may be accepted as Malay if they adhere to those requirements.
Somehow, though, being part Indian was not quite as exotic as being Turkish or Thai, since the overall Indian community, the third-largest ethnic group, was bottom of the economic pile. And the Malays, for all their inter-marrying with Indian and Arab Muslims, often vaguely yearned for an idealized leader who was "pure Malay", even though such a person hardly existed. For Mahathir, joining UMNO, whose membership was restricted to Malays, raised no questions. But he was easily riled over his sub-continental connections, complaining privately soon after serving a term in Parliament that Tunku Abdul Rahman would refer to him as "that Pakistani".[14]
Many of Mahathir's other defining characteristics were apparent in his early life, or can be traced to influences in those formative years. No factor was more important than his pipe-smoking father. Master Mohamad Iskandar, as he was called at school, imposed a similarly strict regimen at home as he famously did in the classroom. He supervised his children's homework, helping them with mathematics and English. Relatives sent their children to stay with the family, knowing he would insist that they study. His role was to inculcate in the children work habits and learning, having acquired his own education in Penang over the objections of his parents and lifted himself to a position of authority and respect in the community. As Mahathir recalled, "The sound of his cough as he approached the house was enough to send us boys flying back to our books."[15]
Wilful though not rebellious, Mahathir absorbed the workload and excelled at school. Quiet, studious and not much interested in sports — he once told a friend he played marbles[16] — he read voraciously and kept pretty much to himself. At home, Mahathir had his own ideas and stuck to them with precocious obstinacy. As his sisters said, they found no point in trying to stop him once he had made up his mind to do something because he knew exactly what he wanted. The whole family learned in the end that it was easiest to let stubborn little Mahathir do things his way.[17] In due course, the entire country went along with him. Adult Mahathir's theme song — suggested by others and readily embraced by him was the one popularized by Frank Sinatra, My Way.
In later life, Mahathir was often judged to be "un-Malay" in his dominant personal values: discipline, hard work and self-improvement, the qualities acquired from his highly-motivated and upwardly mobile father. Realizing the rewards of striving for excellence, he believed other Malays could be successful too, if they were given half a chance and changed their attitudes. Providing that opportunity and trying to bring about an adjustment in the
