Early Malay Nationalism - Early 20th Century

Early 20th Century

Although the Malaya was effectively governed by the British, de jure the Malays were sovereign over Malaya. A former British High Commissioner, Hugh Clifford, urged "everyone in this country be mindful of the fact that this is a Malay country, and we British came here at the invitation of Their Highnesses the Malay Rulers, and it is our duty to help the Malays to rule their own country." The British government adopted an open "Pro-Malay" policy so that, in the words of High Commissioner Sir Laurence Guillemard, the Malays could be equipped "to take their proper place in the administrative and commercial life of these States."

The local-born non-Malay communities soon began agitating against the government's policies, and began demanding political representation. In 1936, the Malayan-born Indian community asked the British High Commissioner, Sir Shenton Thomas, to grant them a share of administrative appointments. Thomas rejected the request, stating, "...I do not know of any country in which what I might call a foreigner ... has ever been appointed to an administrative post." Later, some commentators attributed this to ignorance on the British' part of the increasing size of local-born non-Malays. Although 1.5 million Chinese migrated to Malaya to work as manual labourers — with a million Chinese workers in Malaya in turn emigrating back to China — between 1911 and 1921, these critics contend that during the same period, the locally-born Chinese community grew from 8% to 17% of the Chinese population domiciled in Malaya. The British nevertheless appeared to view the entire Chinese community as — according to one academic — a "transient labor force", with one government official insisting it would be dangerous to consider the Chinese as having "a tendency to permanent settlement" despite such figures. The locally-born Indian community — comprising 20% of the Indian population, the rest being manual labourers having migrated for similar reasons as the Chinese at around the same time — was likewise largely ignored.

However, the British at the same time took the stance that the Malays were to be left alone to their traditional peasant lifestyle as far as possible, involving only the Malay ruling class in government and administrative issues. Despite the policy of excluding non-Malays from positions of authority, much of the rank and file of the civil service was non-Malays, many of them Indians who the government had specifically brought in for this purpose. A number of historians have described the pro-Malay policies of the British as designed merely to preserve the position of the British, rather than to strengthen that of the Malays; many have characterised the British approach as being one of "divide and rule," where "the towns were Chinese, with their shopkeepers and traders; the villages were Malay, with their farmers and fishermen; the plantations were Indian, with their rubber tappers and labourers," keeping "the races at just the right distance from each other to have the disparate elements of Malaya work in remote harmony".

In the 1920s, the local-born Chinese community began pushing for a greater role in Malayan government. However, they remained in the minority, with much of the Chinese community — which by now made up 39% of the Malayan population — still comprising transient labourers. Nevertheless, the Straits Chinese — which comprised the bulk of local-born Chinese — wanted to be given government positions and recognised as Malayans. One Straits Chinese leader asked, "Who said this is a Malay country? ... When Captain Light arrived, did he find Malays, or Malay villages? Our forefathers came here and worked hard as coolies — weren't ashamed to become coolies — and they didn't send their money back to China. They married and spent their money here, and in this way the Government was able to open up the country from jungle to civilisation. We've become inseparable from this country. It's ours, our country..." Irked Malay intellectuals objected to this reasoning, and proposed an analogy with the Chinese as masons and Malaya as a house. A paid mason, they argued, was not entitled to a share in the ownership rights to a home he built. As such, they opposed any attempt to grant the Chinese citizenship or other political rights.

However, not all Malays were natives of Malaya. A number of other distinct ethnic groups related to the Malays, such as the Javanese and Bugis, migrated to Malaya from elsewhere in the region throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Most of them were quickly assimilated into the Malay cultural identity. Eventually, the Chinese appeals appeared to have some impact on the British. In 1927, the Governor of the Straits Settlements which comprised Penang, Malacca and Singapore, proclaimed that "The Chinese form today a majority of the indigenous inhabitants of British Malaya, and they are perhaps the most enterprising, energetic, provident and frugal of its sons."

In 1938, the leftist Kesatuan Melayu Muda (KMM) was formed by Ibrahim Yaacob and other activists in Kuala Lumpur, with its main goal ostensibly being the formation of Greater Indonesia. During this period, Malay nationalism began to focus on ketuanan Melayu, which in the past had been taken for granted. Some Malays began to worry that the British policies appeared geared towards the creation of a common Malayan nationality inclusive of the Chinese and Indians. Ironically, some of them thus sought to preserve the status quo with the British as a bulwark against the non-Malays, while others began agitating for an independent and sovereign Malay nation, such as Greater Indonesia. There exists some dispute over which goal KMM actually sought, with some former members alleging that the only interest of KMM had been preserving the special position of the Malays, whatever the cost, and others claiming that there had been real plans to overthrow the British. Historians have been unable to verify either claim due to a lack of documentation from the period.

Shortly before the outbreak of World War II in Asia, the British detained several influential KMM leaders. However, most of them were freed during World War II, when the Japanese invaded and occupied Malaya. The former KMM leaders then formed Kesatuan Rakyat Indonesia Semenanjung (KRIS) to carry on KMM's work. However, the planned Greater Indonesia never materialised due to the sudden Japanese surrender after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. With the return of the British, the KRIS leaders formed the Malay Nationalist Party (MNP; also known as the Persatuan Kebangsaan Melayu Malaya or PKMM) to achieve their goals through democratic means. However, the MNP was soon banned by the government as part of a crack-down on left-wing parties, ending the early phase of Malay nationalism.