One of a Kind (2nd Edition)

MERGER AND SEPARATION

TWO

be ignored, especially since anti-colonialism was the rallying point of rampant communism

in the region.

Under the Colonial Office, Singapore, Penang and Malacca had been one administrative entity

as the Straits Settlements, but with seamless interaction with the peninsular Malay states. With

the abortive implementation of the proposal to create the Malayan Union on 1

April, 1946,

Penang and Malacca were relinquished to Malaya. But the Malayan Union scheme had been

decisively rejected by the Malay community because it offered political and constitutional

equality with indigenous Malays for Chinese, Indian and other immigrants who had settled

in Malaya. So, the scheme was abandoned three months after inauguration. In its stead, the

Federation of Malaya was created on 1

February, 1948, with Penang and Malacca as member

states, under British rule until the Federation was granted full independence in 1957. The

Federation of Malaya constitution provided for Islam to be the state religion and for Malays

to be regarded as ‘princes of the soil’ or ‘bumiputra’ with exclusive special privileges. In the

meantime, Singapore had been left a separate British colony. By 1959, Singapore had been

granted internal self-government and was on track for independence from Britain. Under the

circumstances, merger with the Federation of Malaya was a logical proposition. But, logical

or not, the main objection which had led to the creation of the United Malays National

Organisation (UMNO) and derailed the Malayan Union—namely the British initiative to

promote constitutional equality for all citizens of Malaya—should have been revisited more

diligently by all concerned before the merger was mooted, let alone implemented.

Ironically, by 1961, both Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, Prime Minister of self-governing Singapore

and Tunku Abdul Rahman, founding Prime Minister of Malaya and later of Malaysia, had

concluded—for different reasons—that Singapore should merge with Malaya. For Mr. Lee,

the division of Singapore from Malaya was an arbitrary technicality. At the time, to him,

Singapore had no future by itself. It needed the Malayan hinterland and common market,

while Malaya had much to gain from the strategic location of Singapore and its outstanding

natural harbour. The Tunku, on the other hand, had concluded that the British would exit

the scene soon, leaving a separately independent Singapore, thereby presenting a base for the

further communist subversion of the Malay Peninsula, where armed communist insurgency

had barely been crushed. Neither was he blind to the economic benefits of incorporating

Singapore into the Federation. However, he was extremely uncomfortable with the robust

politics of the colony, more so with its predominantly Chinese population. In addition to

their de facto economic domination, Singapore’s one million Chinese combined with Malaya’s

2.3 million Chinese would pose a threat to the political dominance of Malaya’s 3.4 million

Malays.

For the Tunku, it was a case of damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. In the

end, he acquiesced to Malaysia because the Borneo territories and Singapore’s own Malay

population of about 150,000 would contribute additional Malay and indigenous populations

to maintain Malay domination, while the Borneo territories would more than double Malaya’s

territorial assets and access to natural resources. In August 1961, agreement in principle was

reached between Singapore and Malaya on the merger and discussions were held in London in