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Until 1920 Indian education was mostly conducted in Tamil. Malaya's Indian community did not fit the Malay vernacular school system. Moreover, few Indians had the financial resources to enrol in existing English schools. The British subsidised a few Tamil missionary schools, which later became English-language schools. The British plantations were completely dependent on Indian labour; therefore the British also grudgingly established Tamil-language estate schools. This contradicted British policy to either integrate foreigners into the Malay- or English-language education system or not to provide for them at all- since they had the status of temporary aliens. However, these estate schools were badly organised and graduated very few pupils. In urban areas, private Tamil schools were better organised and funded, but as with the Chinese schools, they focused on the pupils' ethnic and cultural identity by hiring Indian teachers and providing Indian textbooks.72Kernial Singh Sandhu pointed out that the British had brought Malaya's first English-speaking Indians from India and Ceylon, since there was a shortage of cheap clerks who were also useful in communicating with plantation labourers. The British also brought Sikhs to Malaya to act as soldiers, policemen, watchmen, and caretakers.73
Sandhu described the appalling conditions in Malayan estate schools, which had been made mandatory after 1923, but were still opposed by the planters because of the cost. Planters often tried to keep these schools ineffective. Most teachers were estate clerks who were only teaching part time; there was hardly any compulsory attendance; all instruction was conducted in one large room with one teacher. The planters also provided jobs for children from ten years on, which was an incentive for uneducated parents who were in need of cash to withdraw their children from the schools. The Malayan government refused to support English education in estate schools and since most labourers could not afford the English-language schools in town, their children remained on the estate. The number of those who pursued another career than their parents was negligible. Only after World War II did Indian labourers become active in establishing trade unions that helped to organise better facilities and more access to English education. However, Sandhu added that even in 1969 the full effects of these improvements had yet to be felt. 74
Jain backed up Sandhu's argument and added that even after union-inspired improvements the value of English education was not appreciated by Indian parents, and only a small number of estate labourers made it to secondary schools. This put estate children at a disadvantage since they had received their primary education in Tamil and secondary schools provided instruction only in English or Malay. Most of those who made it to secondary school returned as primary school teachers to the estate, often without having finished secondary school. 75
During the Depression, an increase in English school fees was used to limit the number of pupils, since there was no government employment for them. There was increased demand for preferential Malay employment, while the Indian and Chinese community asked for non-Malay Malaya-born Asians to be admitted into their own civil service as the Malays were into the Malay Administrative Service. This divisive educational policy led to a division of labour and discrimination along ethnic lines. The Federal Trade School in Kuala Lumpur, which had been established in 1926, had preferential enrohnent for Malays, while private technical apprenticeships mainly stayed within the Chinese community. 76
Winstedt presented discrepancies such as those above without much concern, nor did he see an issue when he reported figures that by 1938 there were nearly 1,000 Malays teaching in vernacular schools while at the same time 4,000 Chinese were teaching in Chinese vernacular schools.77
In The Origins of Malay Nationalism William Roff analysed the development of new intellectual elites within the Malay community. In his eyes, understanding their development and goals is crucial to understanding British policy and its impact in Malaya. He argued that there was a fundamental contradiction in treatment, with, on the one hand, the maintenance of everything Malay, and, on the other, the goal of advancing and educating Malays. The British reaffirmed the local social system by making the sultan a grand figure, who, together with much of the upper class, was paid off with British pensions while most of the administrative duties were shifted to the penghulu, which left the court with the responsibility only for ada! law. As Roff put it "the Malay gained little and was asked to contribute little.“78
Most of Malay intellectual life centred in Singapore, where Malays and other Muslims exchanged new ideas freely in an urban setting, removed from the village world where traditions ruled. Singapore contained a cross-section of the Malay world; there were workers and immigrants from allover the Dutch East Indies, with a strong representation of Minangkabau from Sumatra as well as Javanese and many Arab traders.
Devout Muslim pilgrims from the Indies invariably proceeded through Singapore on the way to the Holy Lands. Many stayed there for a time to raise the necessary money for the pilgrimage; those who never actually made it to Mecca were called Haji Singapura. Most Singaporean Arabs kept up contacts with their home area and were active in organising Hajis and publishing Islamic religious as well as secular literature.Another prominent group was the Jawi Peranakan - South-Indian Muslim traders who had married local Malay women. They dominated Malay-language journalism and also worked as translators and teachers; and in terms of wealth and status they were second only to the Arabs. It was these elite groups who formed the audience for the new Malay magazines and newspapers, but not entirely. Roffnotes that the letter columns were also used as teaching material in vernacular schools throughout the peninsula.79
Many of these Malay periodicals addressed the problems of Malay life such as a lack of education and overemphasis of tradition. These problems were shared by most of the Islamic world These periodicals promoted a solution through religion. The idea was to cleanse Islam, provide education, and to live properly. Many of these reformist ideas were inspired by Egyptian modernists, and those who propagated them locally were mainly local Arabs and Minangkabau. This politisation had its roots at Al-Azhar University in Egypt, where Malay and Indonesian students came in touch with Pan-Islam, and began to publish their own journals. The most important group of young reformers were the Kaum Muda, who were in conflict with the traditional Malay elites, the Kaum Tua. Since there was no division between church and state in the Western sense, both spheres were affected by this movement. Religion and custom had been left in Malay hands, which allowed the Kaum Muda to organise committees and further vernacular education. They interpreted the scriptures with reason rather than blind acceptance in order to free Islam from superstition and create a more urban form of the religion, which also included more rights for women. This was regarded as an attack on the traditional elite, but also on the village ulama, who were generally relatively close to sufi and local practices and often did not comprehend the texts. Villages often became divided over this issue since the Kaum Muda stood for all that was modem, whereas the Kaum Tua stood for the secure, familiar, and unchanging.80
Both the Malays and British had an interest in allowing Malays into the Civil Service, because Europeans were too expensive, and the Malays wanted to advance their influence. Elite local youths received an English education and imbibed Western philosophy and ways of life. This group was purely Malay since the British wanted to preserve the "Malayness" of the colony and keep non Malays from political and administrative authority. This created a counter reaction in the Chinese and Indian dominated private sector where each ethnic group employed its own people, since few Malays engaged in businesses, most were now locked into a traditional peasantry.81
A young Malay intelligentsia with an increasingly radical outlook developed out of vernacular secondary education. This led to certain problems with organisational coherence and popular support, but as teachers and journalists they had ample opportunity to publicise their ideas. They mainly came from the teacher training college in Perak which Sultan Idris had opened in 1913. The Sultan Idris Training College produced a kind of teacher very different from what the British had intended. Since pupils came from the families of farmers and fishermen from allover the peninsula, there was a big effort to emphasise general Malayness rather than association by state.
The occasional use of Dutch textbooks drew attention to the connexion to Indonesia. O.T. Dussek, the headmaster, was well respected by the Malays for his furtherance of their culture. He opened translation and publishing shops and taught pupils how to work in them. The pupils were aware that the narrow curriculum was intended to keep them in their place and away from the opportunities of the rich or other ethnic groups. A revolutionary spirit developed, and there was much exchange with Indonesians, who were admired for their political ability. By the 1920s, a wealth of publications throughout the peninsula stressed the necessity of advancement for Malays, the protection of Malay rights, and the need for intensified Malay participation in government and over time the housing pattern in Singapore shifted. Malay neighbourhoods were pushed to the periphery by wealthier groups such as Chinese or Arab traders. Reformers began to found support clubs for the Malay working class; most of them were "learning" clubs led by Arabs and Jawi Peranakan who associated themselves with the Malays and Malay development. During the depression Malay reservations - land that could only be owned by Malays and that could not be used in any business venture - were expanded to protect Malays "from creditors and themselves." This indicated that the British had not yet perceived a change in the Malay population, which was being slowly advanced by the new Malay intellectual groups.
The Kesatuan Melayu Muda was the first Malay national organisation. It was inspired by left-wing Indonesian groups and students from Cairo. They were the first to address the issue of colonialism. While there was a wide variety of opinion, they shared a general disgust at the superiority displayed by traditional elites and the British. The conservative, British-educated Malay youths and the old elites stood to profit most from the "protection of the Malay," and therefore did not show much interest in any initiative for change. Their main interest was to stop non-Malay immigration and influence. Of course, by the 1920s the self-defmition of Malay was much narrower than that of pre colonial times, which led to the exclusion of the Jawi Peranakan. Common people were usually afraid to join any non-traditional organisation that might be viewed as subversive by the British and the Kaum Tua. To the common Malays, the sultans did not seem necessarily weaker under better British organisation, since most of the power taken from them did not affect everyday life. English-educated sons of rulers administered local areas just as they had done before, only now it was done on behalf of the British. The English-educated elite was chauvinist or ethnicist rather then politically nationalist. The ernacular-school intelligentsia was mistrusted as too radical by both the common people and the British. The religious modernists moderated their activity as education was improved. All of them - the vernacular-school intelligentsia, the Westernised conservative elite, and the religious modernists - had conflicts with the old elites and the masses. It is noteworthy, however, that it was those educated in English language schools and instilled with British values that went on to blame other ethnic groups for the problems of the Malay community.83
World War II interrupted the British colonial venture in Malaya. Upon their return, the British were confronted with many conflicts that remained unresolved or that had been exacerbated during the war, especially that of the division of ethnic groups. British views of their subjects had changed; some were more enlightened, yet others were outright racists. Overall the divide between opinions had become considerably wider.
After the war, Malaya's Chinese campaigned to reopen their schools, since they had many illiterate and unemployed youths to contend with since the number of schools had dropped drastically during the war. There was little connexion between Chinese villagers and the wealthy Chinese who lived in large towns and who before the war had financed Chinese education via the Malayan Chinese Association. During the Emergency, the new villages into which many Chinese were forced to relocate were also isolated from the bulk of the urban Chinese population. The British generally perceived Chinese education campaigns as a threat since there were few employment opportunities for graduates who did not speak English.84
The Emergency was declared in 1948. With it came a large contingent of British soldiers who added their preconceptions about the population to an already volatile mix. British policy makers did not perceive the Malayans as one group of people. Moreover, their treatment of the Chinese created an authoritarian atmosphere not unlike that of a police state.
Victor Purcell, a high ranking colonial official in charge of Chinese affairs, and later a historian at Cambridge University, described Malaya during the Emergency as a police state. He was very critical of the fact that General Gerald Templer, who was appointed High Commissioner after Sir Henry Gurney's death at the height of the ,was a soldier rather than a politician. For Purcell, the main failure of the colonial government was that the people of Malaya were not taught to govern themselves in a plural society. They were even discouraged to do so, through activities and statements of people such as Templer, who saw the role of the British in Malaya as a long-term venture.
The conflict between officials such as Purcell and officials of General Templer's kind concerned the building of Malaya's future. Purcell believed that the only sensible approach would be to cede the power of government to the people of Malaya as soon as possible. He wanted to encourage the development of moderate political parties and interfere in their affairs as little as possible. He felt that Malaya needed much more sensitivity than it received from the colonial government, and that it was impossible to create a strong local government under the stringent British control that people such as Sir Ti Cheng Lock described as a police state. He also accurately observed that the appointment of a soldier to the post of High Commissioner had no impact on the development of the Emergency. He established in his works that the eventual calming of the situation could be attributed mostly to a communist directive issued in 1951 that
ordered the termination of the shooting war. (Templer also profited from, but failed to acknowledge, initiatives implemented by Gurney and Briggs before him, such as the slow but eventual success of the relocation programme.) Purcell also proved that Templer was well aware of the communist directive while giving his reports to parliament in which he claimed that the improved situation was entirely due to his policy.85Overall, most colonial officials of the time were performing a careful balancing act, since one of the main goals, irrespective of their support for a longer or shorter commitment in Malaya, was to better integrate the Chinese without upsetting the Malays. A considerable number of Malays protested that the establishment of the new villages in which the Chinese were forced to resettle was a violation of Malay land rights, since the Chinese were forced to purchase the land they occupied from the colonial government. 86
Another contrast in the literature can be found between stories 10ld by British soldiers in their memoirs and opinions expressed by academics or officials. Donald MacKay was a planter and soldier in Malaya. His opinion helps to demonstrate the new views of colonial subjects that had developed among the British, since although he wrote his book from a soldier's perspective he showed insight into political developments both in England and in Malaya. MacKay regarded Templer's appointment as a good idea, although part of his argument was that it helped the morale of the soldiers that they were not noted by a politician anymore. Despite that, he attributes much of what was achieved through colonial policy to others such as Gurney and Briggs. MacKay considered the resettlement programme a good idea. He was aware of its shortcomings, but as someone who had to face the problems of guerrilla warfare on a daily basis, he appreciated that something was done to aid the soldiers. Both MacKay and Purcell agree that it was the communist directive of 1951 that helped to calm the Emergency rather than any significant military achievements on Britain's part. Generally, the views of the British plantation owners and other expatriates were much closer to the soldiers' opinions than to those of the officials or academics. Since they were one of the main targets of the communist insurgents, they were sometimes more at risk than the soldiers in the jungle, who the guerrillas tried to avoid in fear of losing their camps and supplies.87
One publication worth mentioning is a book called Jungle Green by Arthur Campbell, a British Army officer who served in Malaya for several years. The book was first published in London in 1953. Campbell promotes a negative attitude towards the Chinese, which in some sections extends into outright racist propaganda. It deals with Chinese and their situation in Malaya. It stereotypes the Chinese community as a homogenous indecisive mass, with no sense of commitment or trustworthiness. To the outrage of many, this book was not only distributed to every soldier serving in the British forces in Malaya, but also endorsed by General Templer as a credible work. It is impossible to evaluate how many soldiers were influenced in their opinion towards the Chinese population by Campbell's book, but it has to be considered a major failure of the colonial government that they actively promoted a negative sentiment against part of the population that they were claiming to protect. 88
The British held many different stereotypes concerning their subjects. Many of them were based as much on the class one belonged to as on one's ethnicity.Disagreements within the colonial government created an inconsistent policy, again defined by divisions of both ethnicity and class. The social distance between those Malays who were considered worthy of an English education and those who remained in the vernacular school system was much greater than, for example, that of a Malay peasant son in a vernacular school and that of a Tamil estate labourer's child. After the war, the division of British opinion became even greater: there was not only a conflict as to an appropriate transition process for Malaya - and the character of the postcolonial state-to be - but also between the enlightened integrative approach of men such as Victor Purcell, and outright racist propaganda by men of Arthur Campbell's persuasion.During the immediate post-war period, those Malayans who were fortunate enough to have received a secondary education often were those who promoted reform and self improvement within their own ethnic group.
One of the fascinating periods in Southeast Asian history for the study of resistance and collaboration is the Japanese occupation and the subsequent return of the colonial powers. In most of Southeast Asia this unanticipated chain of events created new and deep divisions, but also unlikely alliances. In British Malaya, where Malays, Chinese, Indians, and Orang Ash had been largely separated from each other for several decades these events created a multitude of different reactions, which did not come to an end with the return of the British. The Emergency period from 1948 to 1957 imposed much hardship and many difficult choices on Malaya's people.
Since most of these choices were based on ethnic background, this chapter will address each ethnic group and its experience of World War II and the Emergency separately. Due consideration will be given to the question of how both class and ethnic background affected a person's decision to support Britain or not. Outside influences such as the Chinese revolution or the Indonesian independence movement affected people's outlook upon the future and their role within it. Since British resources were overstretched due to World War II and its aftermath in Europe, Malaya became a low-priority possession,which in turn gave leeway to local initiatives.
To understand the situation better, a closer look at the demographic makeup of Malaya's population is useful. In 1947, there were slightly more Chinese than there were Malays (44.7% and 43.5% respectively), roughly 10% Indians, and a number of other Asians and indigenous people. This made the idea and the process of nationalism - or any unified movement of all ethnic groups - more complicated than in other colonial states.89 The Malays, or at least those who were able to express themselves through local authorities or newspapers, felt threatened that the Chinese would constitute the majority in the nascent nation state. Since the Chinese already controlled virtually all of Malaya's non-European trade and commerce, the thought of giving them even more power - especially political power - was frightening.90
In 1941, the Japanese occupied Malaya via the land route from Thailand, and destroyed most of the British land and naval forces in a single sweep. It had been considered impossible to take over the country in such a way; therefore, the British retreat was chaotic and little organised structure was left behind. The British tried to evacuate the Malay sultans, but they refused to leave, believing that another Asian power would give them back their country faster than a Western one. Additionally, the Japanese seemed to be the ideal force to rid the Malay leaders of what they perceived as their Chinese problem.91 As the new occupiers, the Japanese took the British divide-and-rule strategy a step further. They quickly became aware of the ethnic tensions within Malaya's population and exploited them whenever possible, actively encouraging mistrust between the different groups.
After the war, the situation in Malaya and in the rest of Southeast Asia changed.The myth of white supremacy was severely damaged, and nationalist and communist groups were active throughout the region. Also, when the British returned to Malaya, their own community was divided. Those who had been captured and interned during the war held a considerable grudge against those who got away and had what they called a "comfortable" war. After the war it took most colonial powers some time to return with their officials and military forces, since money and troops were scarce and rebuilding Europe was considered a priority. It took nineteen days after the Japanese surrender for the first British reoccupation force to land in Penang, and considerably longer to reoccupy the rest of the peninsula. In the meantime, Japanese troops maintained a form of law and order in the areas where they had a large presence. In outlying areas those MPAJA guerrillas who had not disbanded controlled the local population.92
After the return of the British from late 1945 to early 1946, there was much disagreement among the British as to just how soon Malaya should become an independent nation. In January 1946, a white paper was issued from London; it proposed the creation of a Malayan Union, excluding Singapore, which was to remain a colony.
This caused an uproar among the Malays because, under this plan, every person who had resided in the colony for nineteen years, (only ten of which had actually to have been spent there), was to receive citizenship; this included a very large number of Chinese. The Malays reacted with the formation of the United Malay National Organisation (UMNO), a moderate, Malay dominated party, which aroused Malays to work together to achieve independence and preserve the special privileges they had held under British rule. UMNO pressure was successful and the Union plan was abandoned in favour of the creation of the Federation of Malaya on 1 February 1948.93
For the purpose of evaluating the position of the Malay community during World War II and the Emergency one has to address both the situation of the upper class and the intellectuals, on the one hand, and of the general population, mostly rural farmers and landowners, on the other. The Malay sultans and their families who had hoped to re establish their pre-colonial powers under the Japanese were now concerned with not losing any more of their privileges and superior rights that the colonial administration had granted them. From the 1920's onwards, many intellectuals and other members of the upper class who had the money to send their children elsewhere in the Muslim world to be educated did so. While studying abroad, many of them came in touch with the idea of Islam infused nationalism, especially at the University of Cairo in Egypt, which had a strong nationalist base at this time. Several new ideas about national identity were thus brought into the country, but since they were mostly based on Islam, they necessarily excluded the Chinese and most of the Indian community in Malaya. 94 After the end of World War II, a number of affluent Malays became active in politics. While they did not propagate the idea of an Islamic state, they did want to keep the Malay sultanates intact.
They founded several moderate political parties, the most important and persistent of which was the UMNO. The UMNO was eventually led by Tungku Abdul Rahman, the son of a sultan, who became Malaysia's first Prime Minister after independence in 1957.
In the process, UMNO formed a coalition with the Malayan Chinese Association and the Malayan Indian Congress; all these parties advocated the idea that peace and independence could only be achieved if the people of Malaya were to overcome their prejudices and reservations against the other ethnic groups and work together.95
Most of the Malay population lived in rural areas. Therefore their main exposure to the Chinese community during the war and the Emergency was through the guerrilla forces and the squatters. This created hostility towards the Chinese, since they were either settled on land the Malays felt was rightfully theirs or tried to requisition food through threats or violence. Rural Malays were also one of the main target groups for Japanese propaganda during the occupation. It was in these areas that most of the post-wa reprisals took place. For these reasons the divide between the two groups was wider after the war than it had been before under the British divide-and-rule policy. It was therefore difficult for moderate Malays and Chinese in the cities involved in parties such as the MCA and UMNO to convince potential rural followers to unite for the good of the country. 96
While the upper echelon of Malays initially saw their future without the Chinese, which was to be achieved with the help of the Japanese, they adjusted quickly after the war and joined moderate Chinese and Indian organisations in creating a united future.
The experience of Malay peasants and fisherman was direct rather than abstract, which naturally made it harder for them to overcome ethnic prejudices, but since the traditional pattern of following one's ruler had not broken down with the war experience, the leadership of elite politicians such as Tungku Abdul Rahman convinced many to follow the lead of the UMNO.
The Chinese community in Malaya played a crucial role in the developments throughout World War II and up to independence. Since most Chinese did not have the same privileges as Malays under the British, they founded their own groups and organisations and were politically more oriented towards China than towards Malaya. The question of "homeland" was a critical one and the meaning of the term slowly changed in the early decades of the twentieth century. The Chinese in Malaya were under quite a strong influence from mainland China. The Chinese Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had branches in Malaya, and overseas Chinese were invited to participate in mainland politics by taking part in Chinese elections and receiving a certain number of seats in various government assemblies.
Another aspect of life for the pre-war Chinese community was the influence of the Chinese consulates in Malaya. The fIrst permanent consulate was established in 1881 in Singapore; Penang followed in 1893, Api in 1913 (relocated to Sandakan in 1933) and Kuala Lumpur in 1933. The consulates were closed during World War II but reopened in 1946. All charges that were brought against Chinese people in Malaya were to be reported to the consulates. Since the post-war consulates were run by the KMT, which was at that time fIghting for survival against the communists in China, this was particularly unpleasant for people with communist affiliations. On the other hand, many Chinese in Malaya saw the consulates as a place where they could request help in their dealings in Malaya when they felt unfairly treated. The attachment between China and Chinese abroad thus certainly operated both ways. After they had established themselves in China in 1912, the Chinese KMT government also tried to exert influence over what its people abroad read. To achieve this, all Chinese language newspapers published in Malaya were monitored by the Chinese government. (Hara showed, however, that their influence over content was limited, since the only threat against unwanted content that was ever actually enforced was the refusal of distribution in mainland China.) The government also sent out inspectors to control and report on the state of Chinese schools.
And while there were attempts to extend control, the Chinese population of Malaya developed an attachment to their new country without giving up their Chinese heritage. In January 1950 all of these consulates were closed after Britain recognised the new government of the People's Republic of China.97
During World War II, the Japanese treatment of the Chinese was particularly brutal and drove many Chinese into rural areas. Much of this mistreatment was due to the violent Chinese-Japanese past. When the Japanese forces occupied Singapore, they rounded up thousands of Chinese men in Singapore and conducted a mock trial, which left a large number of the Chinese dead and others deported into labour camps. After this, the occupation forces extracted several million Straits dollars from the leading Chinese clans and families. The money was described as a gift of atonement for past crimes committed by the Chinese against the Japanese. This event scared a large number of Chinese, who evacuated into rural areas where they settled as squatters or joined the guerrilla forces (and, in doing so, precipitated an unprecedented pressure on the Orang Ash and their territories. It also caused a split in the Chinese community, since those who "bought" their lives through this money transfer to the Japanese were viewed as collaborators.98
During the weeks before the invasion, British military officers such as Spencer Chapman had begun training local people, mainly Chinese. as a clandestine resistance force in case of an invasion. The training was never completed. however, because of the surprising speed of the occupation. Many of the trainee officers became members of the MP AJA. It is important to understand that although the MP AJA was largely communist led and inspired, a considerable number of the Chinese who took to the jungle did so for other reasons: their previous affiliation with the British forces, the miserable situation in the towns; and the insecurity in squatter areas.99
Before the war, parts of the Chinese community already had strong affiliations with either the Kuomintang (KMT) or the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in China. Those who did not were most likely to be part of a social, commercial, or clan organisation that had affiliations with either of the two parties. While these developments seem to indicate a quite active political climate, they were not considered to have had much to do with Malaya as a country. Although the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) certainly was a locally oriented branch of the CCP, the British regarded its main leaders as foreign activists. This manifested itself in the occasional deportation of Marxists. 100
While there was no general outbreak of violence or nationalist uprising during the immediate post-war transition period, there were several unfortunate reprisals against people who were accused of being collaborators. However, these reprisals were not limited to actual collaborators; "collaboration" was also used as an excuse to settle old scores. Most of the violence took place between the Malays and the Chinese, but there were also several incidents of Chinese attacking other Chinese. The Chinese squatters, especially those who lived on the very edges of the jungle, had willingly or by force supported the MP AlA during the war; the habit of giving food and support to whoever posed a serious threat was deeply ingrained in their minds by the end of the war. The post-war reprisals carried out by the MP AlA against supposed collaborators, made it easier for future guerrillas operations, since people were once again intimidated and reminded that the violence did not end with the Japanese occupation. 101
In the meantime the Malayan Communist Party had reabsorbed most of the disbanded MP AlA guerrillas and was mainly involved in the labour movement.
However, some of the guerrillas remained in the jungle as the MP ABA; they carried out occasional attacks, but only after they had joined the MCP's newly created Malayan Races Liberation Army (MRLA) did these attacks become more organised and frequent.
In 1947, the MCP - frustrated by strict British regulation of unions, an improving economy, and internal disagreements - decided to pursue its ends with armed struggle once more.102
In 1948 guerrilla attacks on planters, plantations, colonial institutions, and white people in general escalated; this intensification of violence fmally caused the British to declare an Emergency. However, the attacks kept increasing in force and violence until about 1951/52. A few days before Sir Henry Gurney's death on 6 October 1951, Chin Peng, the leader of Malaya's Communist Party, issued a directive, also known as the "October Manifesto." This directive included a new policy and strategy, since the campaign so far had not had the desired effect. The exact wording of the directive is unknown, but it ordered an end to the shooting war. Attacks continued for some time after the directive was issued, since it often took a long time to reach the different jungle camps. 103
Purcell demonstrated that the Chinese community was actually made up of many splintered organisations and groups and was not as homogenous as portrayed in some of the literature. He noted that it was a natural reaction for them to form protective societies, since their legal status in Malaya did not provide them with the security of a community.
Several of these organisations later developed into the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA), which was a local moderate party that was affiliated with the UMNO and eventually the Malayan Indian Congress (MIC).104 Another sign that the Chinese community became more rooted in Malaya during the Emergency was the Chamber of Commerce merger, which brought together different Chinese commercial groups across Malaya. Purcell nearly goes so far as to say that what made it difficult for the Chinese community to take hold in Malaya was its own internal diversity.105
The mistreatment of the Chinese during W orId War II mentioned above was one of the reasons why most of the resistance force was Chinese. The frustration caused by lack of resistance on the part of the rest of the population helped to spark the feeling that if they, the Chinese, were the ones who defended the country in wartime, then they should be given the same rights in it as everybody else when peace and independence were secured. This sentiment certainly is more nationalist in character than communist.
While the communists in the MP AJA and later the MP ABA and MRLA were inspired by communism in China, it is telling that many of those who were deported to the People's Republic of China for their political activities returned or at least tried to return to Malaya. They felt that they did not belong in the Chinese revolution of the mainland. 106
In regard to the period of the Emergency, it seems practical to divide the Chinese community into three groups, the guerrillas, the squatters, and the essentially conservative middle and upper class Chinese in the cities. The guerrillas lived in the jungle and usually only emerged to attack, recruit, or requisition food. They took inspiration from both communism in the USSR and in the PRC. However, certain directives captured from the MRLA appear to have been written to adjust communist ideals and policy to fit local circumstances. 107 Here it is important to emphasise that the communists themselves had trouble applying similar policies in both China and Malaya, which makes it seem futile for an outsider to attempt to provide a single formula to explain all communist developments across Asia or the world.
The Chinese squatters were probably in the worst situation. Since they illegally occupied the land that they lived on and cultivated, they were continuously faced with the threat of being chased away. On the other hand, if they moved closer to the jungle, where harassment by the landowners was less likely, they were more exposed to the threat posed by guerrillas.
During the Emergency in the early 1950s the colonial government implemented a resettlement programme called the Briggs Plan. Its purpose was to resettle most Chinese squatters to areas that were safe from the guerrillas and where the villagers could build a permanent home without the continuous threat of being chased away. The main objective was to cut the insurgents off from their supply base. This same strategy was later used by the Americans in Vietnam. Purcell described the resettlement programme as very difficult for the people who were relocated: the process was slow and the new villages were not adequately protected. In reality, then, rural Chinese villagers had an unpleasant choice: if they resisted the communists, they would most likely be shot; if they resisted the government, they would be placed in detention camps, which were not unlike the new villages. Purcell viewed the main problem this way: while the British blamed the rural Chinese for not associating themselves with Britain's plans for Malaya and especially for not committing themselves against the communist insurgents, they gave them very little encouragement to join their side. 108
The more prosperous Chinese, who mainly lived in the cities, were those whose opinions were published in newspapers. They were the founders of the MCA and they were in touch with the colonial administration. Many of them had been affiliated with the Kuomintang in China and after the communists triumphed there they felt that their real home had to become Malaya, since they were appalled by the treatment of non communists in their home country. Most of Malaya's commerce was in the hands of this group, so they also had economic reasons for their attachment to the new country. 109
Some of these sentiments were expressed in a speech given by Sir Tan Cheng Lock, President of the Malayan Chinese Association, in 1953: "Thanks to the emergency, Malaya has in many respects become a police state in which the power of the executive has been tremendously increased at the expense of the individual. Though there has been much talk of fighting for the hearts and minds of the people, in actual practice we Malayans are not permitted to co-operate with government on equal terms, so that there is a lack of confidence and contact between government and people, and the government has struck no root in the life of the people.“110 This small excerpt from Tan's critical speech makes reference to failures of British policy during the Emergency. He addressed the notion of political powerlessness, especially during the overextended Emergency period, the feeling of being trapped in a police state while being disconnected from an administration that claimed to try to win the people's confidence and, most importantly, the sentiment of Malayans as one group of people. If there is one general statement to be made about the Chinese community in Malaya, then, it probably is that no matter what a person's class or political affiliation, all of them, even the communists, had centred their lives on Malaya. Their decisions were largely influenced by outside forces; many had no choice but to comply with Japanese, British, or guerrilla forces. Therefore, after the Emergency, they looked towards those leaders who would be able to provide them more secure future in Malaya.
The Indian community of British Malaya innitially made a relatively smooth transition from British to Japanese rule and back again, since their services as clerks, watchmen, and above all as labourers were desperately needed by both regimes. However, many Indian labourers were "recruited" to work on the Siamese Death Railway from which only slightly more than half returned. There was also a strong recruitment effort by pro-Japanese Indians into the Indian National Army under the command of Subhas Chandra Bose, who had the intent to liberate India from British oppression. III Their situation worsened considerably with the onset of the Emergency. Most of Malaya's Indian population remained on the plantations as labourers. Unfortunately, plantations became a main target of the communist insurgents, since they were located at the edge of the jungle and were often inefficiently secured. If there was an attack-on a white planter, his accompanying clerks, drivers, and assistants were usually killed as well. Those Indians who were in the colonial defence forces such as the military or police were in the same situation as the British soldiers, and seem to have shared their general opinion about the conflict. Since they were relatively well armed, and the guerrillas tried to avoid large scale involvement with the military, they were generally safer than their compatriots on the estates. Contemporary descriptions of the workers' quarters nearly always include notes on the families of labourers. Unfortunately, on occasion, the communist insurgents used labourers' families to obtain food or to organise a surprise attack on the plantation owner. In Donald MacKay's monograph there are several accounts of women and especially children being murdered in front of their families in order to extract aid from the workers. 112 MacKay does not specify his sources for these accounts, but their detail and intensity seem to indicate that they were based on his personal experience and first hand accounts of his fellow soldiers and planters in Malaya.
By the time the Emergency began, the Indian government had limited labour emigration to Southeast Asia to such an extent that the majority of the Indian population in Malaya had either been in the country for a long time or had been born there; therefore they tended to perceive Malaya as their home country. 113
In the case of the Orang Asli, some of the most secluded groups such as the Temiar-Senoi and the Semai, played a significant role in aiding British forces during the Japanese occupation. They also provided guides to the Chinese communists during the Emergency, only to side again with the British once the Emergency concluded.
Of the several different tribal groups across the peninsula, those most involved in and affected by the occupation and the Emergency were the Semai and the Senoi. These were the two groups who lived on and around the main mountain range that runs approximately through the middle of the peninsula. This part of the Malay jungle was considered nearly impassable. Since the Orang Ash were knowledgeable of this terrain they were the key to superior manoeuvrability through the jungle. Some of the tribes who were eventually involved in aiding the Communist guerrillas met them through British introduction. Spencer Chapman and other British soldiers left behind after the British retreat, made contact with the Orang Asli on the main ridge, mostly the Temiar-Senoi.
At the beginning of the occupation, it was rather difficult to contact the Orang Ash since they would form trust relationships with foreigners only very reluctantly; however, their previous exposure to British anthropologists and administrators helped people such as Chapman in their pursuits. It is most likely that since they helped him and several of the Chinese guerrillas travel through Japanese occupied areas, they continued this practice after the war once the communist guerrillas had taken to the jungle and were in need of guides. Their main reasons for being involved in such relatively dangerous enterprises was that of gaining rewards and keeping their territory peaceful by accommodating the foreigners and passing them on to the next tribe as quickly as possible. Other reasons for guide services for both the British and the guerrillas were that they offered the possibility of obtaining much needed medical supplies and later even food stuffs, since many of their fields were destroyed in the course of the Emergency.1l4
Indeed the destruction of Orang AsH gardens and fields by the Royal Air Force was an unfortunate outcome of the Emergency. The colonial forces had determined that one of the reasons why the guerrillas could survive in the jungle on relatively sparse supplies from the outside was because they had taken up slash-and-burn farming.
Unfortunately, it took the British pilots some time to figure out that the slash-and-burn fields planted by the communists looked very different from the ones planted by the Orang Ash. Eventually the pilots learned that the guerrillas would plant neat little garden like plots as opposed to the rather wild and random-looking planting style of the Orang Asli. However, by the time they were able to effectively distinguish the two styles, the Chinese had caught on to this, too, and began cultivating their fields in the same chaotic way. It is difficult to establish the number of victims among the Orang Asli, since those who had been recorded as casualties were mainly those who were involved in incidents outside the jungle. It is probably impossible to establish correctly how affected they may have been, either by direct casualties through the bombings or other violent encounters in the jungle and by the destruction of their livelihood. 115
The Orang Ash, even more than Indian plantation labourers, did not have much choice regarding the multitude of people who invaded their forest. They simply decided that collaboration was the means by which their seclusion from the outside world could be re-established the fastest. The simple fact that the number of Orang AsH casualties was never even approximated by the British says enough about their standing in society.
During World War II and the Emergency, the pre-war Malayan pattern of ethnic divisions continued. However, during this turbulent period, the choices that people made showed clearly that class differences were often more important than ethnic ones. These difficult times seem also to have had a catalytic effect in terms of inspiring the growth of political parties and nationalist sentiment. Most of those who were active in the UMNO, MCA or MIC were from the affluent upper classes. In the post-war period it was they who started to acknowledge the need for political cooperation among ethnic groups to establish a peaceful and independent state. (Continued in P.4)
Visiting Malaysia Then and Now P.1.
72 Loh, Separatism. 34-49,92-103.
73 Sandhu, Indians. 67-69.
74 Ibid., 258-261.
75 Ravindra K. Jain South Indians on the Plantation Frontier in Malaya (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970). 432-448.
76 Loh, Separatism, 104-121.
77 Winstedt, Malaya. 47-49.
78 Roff, Malay Nationalism. 1-31.
79 Ibid., 32-55.
80 Ibid., 56-90.
81 Ibid., 91-121.
82 Ibid., 126-177.
83 Ibid., 178-247.
84 T. N. Harper The End of Empire and the Making of Malaya. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) 188-194.
85 Victor Purcell Communist or Free? (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1955),5-9,184-216.
86 MacKay, Malayan Emergency, 61-62.
87 MacKay, Malayan Emergency, 9-14,61-65,122-132,139-152.
88 Purcell, Communist, 240-247.
89 Sandhu Indians, 175.
90 Kheng, Red Star, 3-13.
91 Andaya, Malaysia. 247-251.
92 Kheng Red Star, 127-147.
93 Harper, End of Empire, 55-62,83-86.
94 Roff, Malay Nationalism, 87-90,224-225.
95 Kheng, Red Star, 271-293.
96 Kheng, Red Star, 195-232.
97 Hara, Malayan Chinese. 33-73.
98 Kheng, Red Star, 20-25.
99 Chapman, Jungle is Neutral, 28-33. 100 Purcell, Chinese in Malaya, 209-221.
101 Kheng, Red Star, 157-194.
102 MacKay, Malayan Emergency, 26-30, 48-53.
103 Ibid., 11-17, 118-121.
104 The Malayan Indian Congress was the main political representation of Malaya's Indian population, the MIC followed similar political lines as the other two parties.
105 Purcell, Communist, 27-31, 66-68,103-104.
106 Hara, Malayan Chinese. 54-60, 64.68.
107 Purcell, Communist, 131-141.
108 Purcell, Communist, 71-83.
109 Hara, Malayan Chinese, 98-101.
110 Speech by Sir Tan Cheng Lock, President of the Malayan Chinese Association, given on 27 December 1953. As found in Victor Purcell's Communist or Free? (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1955),9.
111 Sandhu, Indians, 182-184.
112 MacKay, Malayan Emergency, 68-69.
113 Sandhu, Indians, 180-194,299-301.
114 Chapman. Jungle is Neutral. 235-266.
115 MacKay, Malayan Emergency, 134-140, 148.
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