High Commissioner of Malaya
On 22 January 1952 Winston Churchill appointed Templer British High Commissioner in Malaya to deal with the Malayan Emergency. Working closely with Robert Thompson, the Permanent Secretary of Defence for Malaya, Templer's tactics against the communists were held up as a model for counter-insurgency. In military terms Templer concentrated his efforts on intelligence. Templer famously remarked that, "The answer lies not in pouring more troops into the jungle, but in the hearts and minds of the people." He demanded that newly built villages, where ethnic Chinese were resettled away from the jungles and beyond the reach (and influence) of the guerrillas, look inviting. To further gain the "hearts and minds" of the non-Malays, who were the main source of communist support, Templer fought to grant Malayan citizenship to over 2.6 million Malayan residents, 1.1 million of whom were Chinese. Templer sought "political and social equality of all" Malayans.
He instituted incentive schemes for rewarding surrendering rebels and those who encouraged them to surrender and used strict curfews and tight control of food supplies to force compliance from rebellious areas and flush out guerillas. Crops grown by the communists in response to these measures were sprayed with herbicide. These restrictions were lifted on so-called White Areas which had been found to be free of communist incursion.
When Templer left Malaya in 1954 the situation had dramatically improved, though the rebels remained a force to be reckoned with. In response to an article in Time Magazine that "the jungle had been stabilised", he declared "I'll shoot the bastard who says that this emergency is over". The Malayan government eventually declared the Emergency over in 1960. He was advanced to GCMG for his work as High Commissioner in the Coronation Honours List in June 1953.
The Malaysian Government arranged for the Main Hall at the Royal Military College, Kuala Lumpur in Sungai Besi, Kuala Lumpur, which had been established in 1952, to be named the "Tun Templer Hall" after him. They also named Templer's Park, a nature reserve established in 1955 in Rawang, after him.
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“Leadership does not always wear the harness of compromise. Once and again one of those great influences which we call a Cause arises in the midst of a nation. Men of strenuous minds and high ideals come forward.... The attacks they sustain are more cruel than the collision of arms.... Friends desert and despise them.... They stand alone and oftentimes are made bitter by their isolation.... They are doing nothing less than defy public opinion, and shall they convert it by blows. Yes.”
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