One of the British Military Administration's first instructions from London was to announce the Malayan Union proposals. The response from the people of Malaya was really in two tracks. There was the conservative rural Malay response which was successfully harnessed by Umno. And there was the response from the Malay left-wing nationalists and the non-Malays which was really a response to British secret negotiations with Umno and the royalty. In this article, I will deal with the first response leading up to the formation of Umno and the next article will deal with the response of left-wing Malaya.
While fighting two simultaneous wars against the Germans and the Japanese, the British national coalition government begin to plan for a postwar world in 1942, after the US entry into the war but while the eventual result was still far from assured. It laid the ground work of the social welfare proposals that has been a bedrock of postwar British political and social systems. It also worked out in the direction of the British Empire, given Britain’s diminishing role in a bipolar world dominated by America and the Soviet Union.
Particular considerations was to rationalise a very messy arrangement of multiple British possessions in South East Asia that accidents of history has left as separately administered entities: direct colonies of the three Straits Settlements plus Labuan; four federated protectorates; six unfederated protectorates, five in the peninsula plus Brunei; and the soon to be acquired colony of North Borneo and the kingdom of Sarawak to be handed over by the last white Raja of the Brooke family after the end of the war - a total of sixteen entities then administered separately. The white paper in 1944 suggested a series of three steps spanning at least 20 years: (1) all the states of peninsular including Penang and Melaka but excluding Singapore federated into a united Malaya; (2) Merger of Malaya and Singapore, while the Bornean entities are consolidated in a similarly loose arrangement; (3) Malaya, Singapore and the Bornean entities come together into a single union. It was expected that at least ten years will elapse between each step and Malayan Union was just the first step.
In 1944 too, discussions on the post war order were also underway under the United Nations - at that time a collection of countries fighting the Axis powers in World War 2. The post-war vision was very much dominated by United States and Soviet Union, both who for historical and ideological reasons favoured the idea of decolonisation. In a way, the Malayan Union proposals also satisfied Britain's need to appease their allies on whom they depended for their war effort, by setting out a path to self-determination and eventually to independence. The timeline would of course set independence in the far future - at least twenty years before the natives would even begin to be ready for independence - too far for them to bother with at that time. Or so they thought.
Malayan Union proposals
The Malayan Union proposals simplified administration by imposing a standard government polity on all states, irrespective of history and whether they were protectorates with their own sovereigns or were colonies directly ruled from London. Sovereignty was transferred from the sultans to the British crown, except in a sole area of religion. The respective state councils were retained but were effectively stripped of power, becoming mere extensions of the federal government. The respective British Residents replaced the rulers as chairman of the councils.
Citizenship was granted to everybody who was born in Malaya or Singapore and resident on or after 15 February 1942, the date of the British surrender to the Japanese, or a child of a citizen. Anyone who was not in Malaya on that date could apply for citizenship if they had been resident for five out of the preceding eight years and can speak either English or Malay.
The main import of this rather liberal citizenship rules was that some 83% of the Chinese and 75% of the Indians in Malaya were eligible for naturalisation even though only 10% or so would have qualified by right of birth. Citizenship would also have opened up the civil service to non-Malays, which the British had hoped would allow them to tap a larger pool of English-educated talent. Common citizenship would also have facilitated transfers between any of the Malay states under a unified civil service
Consent by blackmail
The British colonial office mandated Harold MacMichael, who has just then completed his stint governing Palestine under the British mandate, to secure the consent of the Malay rulers to the proposals. This he did in a rather high-handed manner. First, realising the position of the sultan of Johor as first among equals, he persuaded the Anglophile Sultan Ibrahim to sign in October 1946, apparently capitalising on the latter’s desire to visit London where he spent much of his time. Once he had the signature of Sultan Ibrahim on the Malayan Union treaty, MacMichael then approached the other rulers and obtained their signatures using a combination of persuasion, largely pointing to Johor’s signature, and threats of deposition.
McMichael told the rulers that if they resisted, an inquiry will be set up to look into their collaboration during the Japanese occupation. He also insinuated that if they did not sign, the British will depose them for a successor who would - especially those who ascended the throne during the Japanese occupation and had not yet been confirmed by the British. They were also given little time to consider, during which they were not allowed to consult their state councils.
Ultimately, only one sultan, Sultan Ali of Terengganu, did claim deposition on the grounds of his refusal to sign the treaty, although the British authorities and the state council of course gave other reasons at that time. Another ruler, Raja Syed Putra of Perlis abdicated for unknown reasons (at least, no official reason that I could find) and his successor claimed to have signed the treaty under duress. The other rulers later also claimed duress, initially in private and publicly after the inauguration boycott.
It was through such underhanded tactics that MacMichael managed to wrap up his task to obtain all signatures on the Malayan Union treaty before Christmas 1946, just ten weeks after he started, surprising even experienced Malayan hands. But fast and efficient shortcuts often bypass necessary if lengthy deliberations, and the absence of these deliberations became the undoing of the proposals that MacMichael so 'efficiently' advanced. MacMichael himself seems ignorant of the weakness of his tactics, remarking to the incoming governor that he found it surprising that there was so little interest in the proposals from the locals, who accepted it without any fuss - a possible British misinterpretation of the politeness of the Malay royal courts.
Malay protests
The Malayan Union white paper was published 22 January 1946. Louis Mountbatten, the Supreme Commander of British forces in South East Asia responsible for Malaya, had asked for a period to sound out local opinion. Many of the pro-Malay British Orientalists in the prewar Malayan government, including Frank Swettenham, the retired first Resident-General of the Federated Malay States, cautioned against the Malayan Union proposals. But the dissenting voices of Mountbatten and the experienced Malayan administrators were overruled despite impassioned pleas from the 96-year-old Swettenham, just months before his death in June 1946. Sir Edward Gent, a supposed Asian expert in the Colonial Office, who had never been to South East Asia until then, was appointed the first governor.
News of the consent of the rulers and the manner by they were obtained had been slowly leaking out in the new year. Even before the white paper was published, there was a thousand-strong procession in Alor Setar in support of the sultan on 19 Jan 1946, voicing unhappiness with the then unpublished proposals.
The first rally after publication was on Friday 1 February 1946 at the Johor state mosque, at which Sultan Ibrahim was denounced for treason against the Malay race. The sultan only found out about the rally three weeks later because he was then residing in London, and promptly withdrew his signature on the treaty but the rallies continue to spread, and to other states too, though lacking in focus and leadership.
Onn bin Jaafar, then seen as a leader in the Malay community for his success in dousing inter-communal tensions in Batu Pahat where he was the District Officer during the Interregnum, was invited to the 1 February rally and quickly took over the reins of leadership of the protests. Protests were organised in other states and with those protests, grassroots Malay organisations sprang up. Malays, especially those outside large cities, had been conscientised to defend their survival when no authorities would during the bloody Interregnum the year before, quickly mobilised to defend what they saw as the erosion of the Malay nation.
In this heated atmosphere, the name of Hang Jebat was invoked. In Malay folklore, Hang Tuah and Hang Jebat both represented the two opposing polemics of the relationship between the ruler and the people, with the former representing absolute loyalty to the sultan, right or wrong, while the latter represented the people’s right to repudiate a sultan who has betrayed the Malay nation. Onn Jaafar, who had built his reputation as a monarchist exiled by his adopted father, the Sultan of Johor, for his public criticism of the sultan, managed to divert much of the Malay fury towards the Malayan Union proposals rather than the royalty. Onn recognised that the Malay states were not yet ready for independence and still require protection of the pro-Malay British against Chinese economic power.
Formation of Umno
On 1 March 1946, some two hundred Malays representing 41 associations gathered at the Sultan Sulaiman Club in Kuala Lumpur and agreed on a more structured program of protests, with Malays being asked to wear white bands on their songkoks as a sign of mourning, and to boycott the Malayan Union Advisory Council as well as all Malayan Union public ceremonies & functions. More significantly, they also resolved to bring all Malay organisations opposing the Malayan Union under a single umbrella.
The United Malays National Organisation (‘Umno’) was eventually formed on 11 May 1946. At its inaugural assembly, there were little opposition to Onn’s ideas on the direction for the Malay community: to return Malaya to the pre-war arrangement under the British, effectively to buy time to develop Malay consciousness as a single nation, which he saw as the pre-requisite for independence as a Malay nation.
Amidst the cacophony of Malay public opinion then dominated by left-wing radical writers that resonated little in the Malay villages, the formation of Umno united one strand of Malay thinking which until then was little articulated, being seen the establishment view. And Onn was establishment in two ways. First, it is hard to see the Anglophile Onn, who pronounced Umno with a very British accented ‘Amno’ seeking to dismantle British rule. Secondly, Umno was initially deliberately an organisation, not a party, to avoid being seen as an alternative political power centre challenging Malay rulers, contrasting with the stance taken up by left-wing writers calling for political parties to champion the people who have been failed by their rulers.
In that sense, Onn and the Anglophilic Malay establishment had common cause with the British administrators alumni in seeking to calm passions and slowly hand over to a Malay administration preparing for self-rule if not independence. The bogeyman in such circles was Indonesia where the Dutch colonial authorities lost control amidst a bloody war still raging in 1947. An Indonesian scenario, which eventually led to the Soviet-leaning Sukarno regime, was not in the interest of the Malay royalty and elite, who were likely to be deposed and lose power to left-leaning Malay nationalists, or in British commercial interests.
Inauguration boycott
Malayan Union was to be inaugurated on 1 April 1946 at what is now Dataran Merdeka, to be attended by all nine Malay rulers. They arrived the day before in their royal regalia to stay at Hotel Majestic just opposite the train station. Some accounts stated that the royals stayed at the Station Hotel just across the road, but Station Hotel did not have a balcony so did not fit this story well.
The story goes that on their arrival, Onn bin Jaafar went to meet them to persuade them to boycott the inauguration. He brought them out to the balcony (the top floor of the hotel used to be a dance floor and a restaurant with balcony seating popular at that time) to see the Umno supporters gathered below. And for the first time, the rulers as a group met the people, and in that moment as the rulers looked out onto the crowd, a special rapport was established between the rulers and the people. I believe it was at that moment that the sultans realised they held sovereignty only with the consent of the people and the people understood they had the power to make the powerless and rudderless royals represent their views. Some of the rulers cried and in that moment, declared themselves to be one with the people.
The rulers decided to boycott the inauguration and asked to meet with Gent. There was no account that Gent replied and by midnight, they sent word to Gent that they will not be attending the next morning. Still, Gent decided to proceed with the inauguration. Although attended by Mountbatten and other dignitaries, one British attendee described it as ‘as flat as local beer’ - evidently he has not tried Malaysian Anchor beer (not the American beer of the same name) or the Singaporean Tiger beer, both of which were around at that time.
Thus was born Malayan Union, crippled at birth and not having long to live. The tenure of Malayan Union was really a placeholder while the British negotiated its replacement with the Malay establishment. With those negotiations, the Umno protests subsided and second phase of protests was largely by non-Malay and left-wing nationalists. That is the next article.
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