THE NEW MALAYA
By BARBARA WHITTINGHAM-JONES
TO anyone who lived in Malaya before the war the enoimous change which has taken place in its political climate is little less than sensational. The political consciousness of Chinese, Indian, and especially Malay inhabitants, is evolving with truly tropical rapidity. The new federal constitution, named the " Federa- tion of Malaya," which comes into force on February 1st, is a direct result of this ferment. What this new political set-up is likely to signify to Malaya may perhaps be most nearly assessed by com- paring it with its two immediate predecessors, the pre-war Govern- ment of the Federated Malay States (F.M.S.) and the Malayan Union constitution established April 1st, 1946, which the new federation is to supersede.
The claim made by its British sponsors that the new federation represents " a great advance on anything which existed before " is in some respects an over-statement. When, in December, 1943, " self- government within the Empire " was officially proclaimed as the goal of British policy, a new chapter opened in Malayan constitutional development. This objective has been several times subsequently reaffirmed, and it is clear that the new Federal Legislative Council will mark an advance on the pre-war Federal Council, to some . extent its prototype,' in the evolution towards a fully democratic legislature. In the first place, the new federation will include the whole peninsula apart from Singapore, whereas the pre-war federa- tion comprised only four Malay States—Perak, Selangor, Negri Sembilan and Pahang. Then the new Federal Legislative Council will have a total of seventy-five members, of whom sixty-one are un- officials, as compared with the sixteen European officials and twelve unofficials of the F.M.S. Council. Though at first the new Council will be nominated to represent sectional interests, racial and com- mercial, it has been specifically promised that " elections will be held at an early date."
Viewed from this angle the new Council clearly marks a big advance towards representative government. But in making this comparison it is not to be overlooked that outside the centralised and Westernised F.M.S. there were five Malay States (Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan, Trengganu and Johore) in direct relation with the Crown through the High Commissioner, which, though known as the "Unfederated Malay States" (U.M.S.), were not administratively linked together. Nor is it to be assumed that the administration of the F.M.S. was more "advanced" than that of the U.M.S. Basically the old federation was a new State constructed over the heads of the four existing States to protect and advance the interests of the new immigrant population—Chinese, Indian and British. So far from fulfilling, it arrested the political evolution of the indigenous Malays. Having watched the four Federated States progressively lose their identity and independence in the administrative unit established in 1896 (for the old federation was not a federation in the true sense at all), the other five States successfully resisted the persuasions of tidy-minded British officialdom to join, and until 1941 continued their quiet evolution more or less along traditional lines.
In these five States, therefore, the administration, though under general British direction, retained much of its Malay character. In particular the official language was Malay alike in meetings of the State Councils and in all Courts of Law beneath the Supreme Court, and the official records were kept in Jawi or Arabic script. The administration itself was staffed by Malays, notably in Kedah, where many of the senior positions, such as those of the Secretary to Government, the Auditor-General, the Director of Lands, the State Treasurer, the Superintendents of Customs and of Posts and Tele- graphs, were held by Malays. The Secretary to Government had under him a large secretariat composed of Malays, and he discussed important business with the British Adviser before it was laid before the Malay Ruler. This system offered a marked contrast
to that in the F.M.S., where the British Resident himself handled all important matters through his own extensive secretariat. In Kedah the heads of the technical departments were British officers, but they had Malay assistants and the clerical service Ins restricted to Kedah Malays. Malay nationalists, therefore, contend that the pre-war set-up in Kedah would have been a more appropriate prototype for the new Pan-Malayan Federation than that of the Westernised and artificial F.M.S. Maintaining with Burma and Siam that a national language is an essential quality of nationhood, they are now demanding that not English but Malay speech and Jawi script should be the official language of the federation. In some degree the former U.M.S. will, under the new constitution, lose much of the native character of their administration. If the accepted goal of political evolution is the fulfilment of nationalist aspirations, it is difficult to resist the Malay contention that in these five States, comprising nearly half the land area of the peninsula, the. federation will in certain respects retard rather than advance their progress. Comparison between the new federation and the about-to-be-discarded Malayan Union touches more directly upon what is now avowedly the fundamental issue of Malayan politics—namely, whether Malaya is to be a predominantly Malay or Chinese country. The purpose of the Malayan Union was twofold: (irto tidy up the administration by creating a single central Government for the whole peninsula, and (2) to admit the immigrant Chinese and Indian races to political equality with the indigenous Malay. In both objects the Union failed, and has therefore been abandoned.-- The whole political experiment associated with it did, however, produce the violent political ferment which eventually led to its rejection.
In practice the Malayan Union and the MacMichael " Treaties "- by which it was preceded would have resulted in the virtual dis- appearance of the Malay States and their Rulers as political entities, a development which at this stage would have almost certainly led to the political submergence of the Malays in their own land. But so forcible an application of the melting-pot theory met with an immediate and passionate resistance from the Malays, who early in 1946 rose in a nation-wide protest against the Union proposals, and out of this protest the United Malays National Organisation (U.M.N.O.) was formed under the leadership of fifty-two-year-old. Dato Onn bin Jafaar, the mentri besar, or Chief Minister, of Johore. U.M.N.O. was then invited, under the guidance of Mr. Malcolm MacDonald, sent out as Governor-General to unravel a tangled situ- ation, to participate in framing a draft constitution ; and its proposals published in December, 1946, modified by the recommendations of the minority races, became the basis of the new federation as out- lined in the White Paper [Cmd. 7171] published in July, 1947.
An integral part of the new scheme is restitution of the Malay States and Rulers to their former status, with the addition of new State machinery which will enable the Sultans to become true con- stitutional monarchs and in. some respects to exert a larger influence than formerly upon Malayan affairs. Another change is the separa- tion of Singapore and its large Chinese population so as to enable the Malays to find their feet in the new federation before they are exposed to the full blast of numerical competition which the intro- duction of the ballot-box and the ultimate incorporation of Singapore will one day entail. A more questionable innovation is the creation of the much-controverted Malayan citizenship to enable non-Malay races to acquire civic rights.
A compromise satisfies no one, and even the Malays are uneasy lest the predominantly Malay States in the north should lose their Malay character and go the way of the members of the old F.M.S., a fear for which there is more ground than generally understood. Yet the Chinese protest that the federation unjustly favours the Malays by giving them a majority in the Federal Legislative Council and by retaining the Malay States with, in some respects, enhanced powers and opportunities. Alternative constitutional proposals for a federation having virtually Dominion status with an elected central legislature were put forward by the. Chinese-led opposition. This is composed of two groups—the All-Malaya Council of Joint Action (A.M.C.J.A.) led by the veteran ex-Singapore Councillor, Tan Cheng Lock, and Pusat Tenaga Ra'ayat (P.U.T.E.R.A.) led by Dr. Burhanuddin. A.M.C.J.A. is a Chinese-Eurasian and Indian body ; P.U.T.E.R.A. a group of minority Malays who are anti-royalist and who, having many Indonesians in their ranks, aspire to unite Malaya to the Republic of Indonesia. Though they are interesting .as an example of the range of political thought now stirring in Malaya, there' is' little dou,bt that the adoption of the A.M.C.JA.- P.U.T.E.R.A. proposals now would expose the Malays to the same fate as Little Red Riding Hood's. It is difficult to foresee to what extent this opposition will impede the working of the constitution coming into force on Sunday. For the all-important Chinese wing the portents are ominous. The Chinese hartal staged in October introduced a dangerous precedent and.the reported decision of the Chinese leaders to boycott the federation (a retaliation against the boycott of the Union by the Malays) raises the fundamental problem in an acute form.
Articulate Malay opinion is on the whole solidly behind ILM.N.O., though, to hold its own against P.U.T.E.R.A. in the future, it will have to free itself from a certain aristocratic lethargy and to pay more attention to the publicity weapon so much more ably exploited by its rival. Malayan politics are now taking the form of a contest between the Malay leader Onn and the Chinese leader Tan Cheng Lock, and in corning weeks this personal factor is likely to become increasingly pronounced.
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