by Harper, Tim
112. Gent to Creech Jones, 1 October 1946, CO537/1579, TNA.
113. Gamba, The origins of trade unionism in Malaya, pp. 100–113.
114. ‘Malayan Communist Party policy’, Supplement No. 9 to MSS/PIJ, 31 July 1948; HQ Malaya Command, Weekly Intelligence Review, 2 April 1946, CO537/1581, TNA.
115. Singapore General Labour Union, ‘An account of experiences derived from strikes’, printed in MSS/PIJ, 31 May 1946.
116. MSS/PIJ, September, 1946.
117. Gamba, The origins of trade unionism in Malaya, p. 196; Min Sheng Pau, 5 December 1946.
CHAPTER 7 1947: AT FREEDOM’S GATE
1. Viceroy (Wavell) to Secretary of State, 21 January 1947, ‘INA and Free Burma Army’, L/WS/1/1578, OIOC.
2. Penderel Moon (ed.), Wavell: the viceroy’s journal (London, 1973), entry for 31 December 1946, p. 403.
3. Wavell to Pethick-Lawrence, 1 March 1947, Pethick-Lawrence Papers, Box 5/73, Trinity College, Cambridge.
4. Moon, Wavell, entry for 27 March 1947, p. 433.
5. Mountbatten to Secretary of State, 20 March 1947, L/WS/1/1578, OIOC.
6. Viceroy’s personal report, 1 August 1947, in Nicholas Mansergh (ed.), The transfer of power in India, vol. XII, The Mountbatten viceroyalty: princes, partition and independence, 8 July–15 August 1947 (London, 1983), p. 455.
7. Attlee to Mountbatten, 17 July 1947, ibid., p. 215.
8. Discussion between Jinnah and Mountbatten, 12 July 1947, ibid., p. 122.
9. ‘Report of the Armed Services Nationalisation Committee’ and minutes, papers of Major-General D. A. L. Wade, 8204/797–2, NAM.
10. New Times of Burma, 13 July 1947.
11. Sri Krishna, special correspondent, Delhi, draft article 4 July 1947, papers of Lady Edwina Mountbatten, MB Q4, Southampton University Library.
12. Ayesha Jalal, The state of martial rule: the origins of Pakistan’s political economy of defence (Cambridge, 1990), p. 29.
13. Viceroy’s Personal Report, 1 August 1947, in Mansergh, Transfer of power in India, vol. XII, p. 452.
14. Ibid.
15. Benjamin Zachariah, Nehru (London, 2004), p. 200.
16. Darbar Notes, no. 6, December 1946, L/WS1/1654, OIOC.
17. Personal memorandum by Lt. Gen. R. A. Savory, 4–9 May 1947, ibid.
18. Discussion between Mountbatten and Gandhi, early July 1947, in Mansergh, Transfer of power in India, vol. XII, p. 50.
19. Meeting of Partition Council, 10 July 1947, ibid., p. 51.
20. Fauj Akhbar: Indian Forces Weekly, 3 May 1947, 7403–28, NAM.
21. Note on ‘The Sikhs’ by Lt. Gen. R. A. Savory, endorsed by Auchinleck 29 September 1947, Savory Papers, 7603/93–92, NAM.
22. Jalal, State of martial rule, p. 43.
23. Lt. Col. Siddiq to Lt. Gen. R. A. Savory, 27 August 1947, Savory Papers 7603/93–83, NAM.
24. W. Alston Papers, vol. X, 8005/151–11, NAM.
25. Ibid., entry for 15–16 August 1947.
26. Nehru to Pethick-Lawrence, 20 October 1947, Pethick-Lawrence Papers, Box 5/76, Trinity College, Cambridge.
27. Statesman, 5 May 1947.
28. Statesman, 10 May 1947.
29. Statesman, 1 May 1947.
30. Statesman, 2 May 1947.
31. People’s Age (Bombay), 20 April, 18 May 1947.
32. Statesman, 6 May 1947.
33. John Tyson to his family, 16 January 1947, Tyson Papers, Mss Eur E341/41, OIOC.
34. John Tyson to his family, 2 February 1947, ibid.
35. Joya Chatterji, ‘The fashioning of a frontier: the Radcliffe line and Bengal’s border landscape, 1947–52’, Modern Asian Studies, 33, 1 (1999), pp. 185–243.
36. An excellent brief account of Nagas and Naga nationalism can be found in Julian Jacobs with Alan Macfarlane, Sarah Harrison and Anita Herle, Hill peoples of northeast India, the Nagas: society, culture and the colonial encounter (Stuttgart, 1990), esp. pp. 151–70.
37. Mildred Archer, ‘Journey to Nagaland, an account of six months spent in the Naga Hills in 1947; entry for 23 8 1947’, typescript in Archer private collection cited in Jacobs, The Nagas, ch. 14, n. 24.
38. William Saumarez Smith, ‘Seventy four days in 1947’, p. 27, Mss Eur C409, OIOC; Dash, Bengal Diary, vol. IX, p. 106, Centre of South Asian Studies, Cambridge.
39. Statesman, 15 August 1947.
40. Tapan Raychaudhuri, Romonthon Atharba Bhimratipraptar paracharit charcha (Calcutta, 1993), p. 98, cited in Sandip Bandyopadhyay, ‘The riddles of partition: memories of the Bengali Hindus’, in Ranabir Samaddar (ed.), Reflections on partition in the East (Calcutta, 1997), p. 68.
41. Statesman, 4 August 1947.
42. Statesman, 8 September 1947.
43. Statesman, 30 October 1947.
44. Dash, Bengal Diary, vol. X, p. 6, Centre of South Asian Studies, Cambridge.
45. Samar Sen, ‘Birthday’, translated by Subhoranjan Das Gupta, ‘Poems on a divided world’, in Samaddar, Reflections on partition, p. 201.
46. Attlee to Nehru, 17 July 1947, Mansergh, Transfer of power in India, vol. XII, p. 214.
47. Angelene Naw, Aung San and the struggle for Burmese independence (Copenhagen, 2001), p. 186, citing Wavell to Pethick-Lawrence, 4 January 1947, in Mansergh, Transfer of power in India, vol. XI, p. 503.
48. Naw, Aung San, p. 188.
49. Dawn [Karachi], 6 January 1947.
50. New York Times, 6 January 1947, cited in Uma Shankar Singh, Burma and India 1948–62 (Delhi, 1979), p. 43.
51. Dr R. H. Taylor, ‘Interview with U Kyaw Nyein’, 19 November 1976, Mss Eur D1066/2, OIOC.
52. See CAB 133/3, TNA; the key documents are printed in Hugh Tinker (ed.), Burma. The struggle for independence 1944–48, vol. II: From general strike to independence, 31 August 1946 to 4 January 1948 (London, 1984), pp. 271–84 and following.
53. Taylor, ‘Interview with U Kyaw Nyein’.
54. Ibid.
55. Cabinet India–Burma Committee meeting, 22 January 1947, L/WS/1/1578, OIOC.
56. E.g. summaries in Rance to Pethick-Lawrence, 9 January 1947, in Tinker, Burma, vol. II, pp. 242–3.
57. Central intelligence staff Singapore telegram, 5 January, military appreciations 1946–7, Rance Papers, Mss Eur F169/5, OIOC.
58. John H. McEnery, Epilogue in Burma 1945–48 (Tunbridge Wells, 1990), p. 173.
59. Rance to Laithwaite, 28 January 1947, Rance Papers, Mss Eur F169/4, OIOC; Rance to Pethick-Lawrence, 22 January 1947, Tinker, Burma, vol. II, p. 328.
60. Rance to Laithwaite, 28 January, 1947, Rance Papers, Mss Eur F169/4, OIOC.
61. Naw, Aung San, pp. 188–9; ‘Bogyoke Aung San speaks to press conference,’ 3 February 1947, M/4/2590, OIOC.
62. Tom Driberg, Ruling passions (London, 1978), p. 217.
63. Naw, Aung San, pp. 191–2.
64. Taylor, ‘Interview with U Kyaw Nyein’.
65. Naw, Aung San, p. 198.
66. Narrative of Arthur George Bottomley, Mss Eur E362/2, OIOC, reproduced in part in Tinker, Burma, vol. II, pp. 841–8.
67. Ibid., p. 842.
68. ‘Note of a meeting of a Karen deputation with the Governor on Tuesday 25 February, 1947, ibid., pp. 437–8.
69. Pethick-Lawrence to Rance, 3 April 1947, Rance Papers, Mss Eur F169/2, OIOC.
70. Aung San to the frontier peoples, Times of Burma, 15 June 1947.
71. ‘Frontier Areas Commission of Enquiry; Recommendations and Observations’, 24 April 1947, R/8/33, OIOC.
72. New Times of Burma, 5 June 1947.
73. Rance to Burma Office, 29 May 1947, Rance Papers, Mss Eur F169/2, OIOC.
74. Rance to Listowel, 3 June 1947, ibid.
75. Rance Papers, Mss Eur F169/6, OIOC.
76. McEnery, Epilogue in Burma, pp. 98–9.
77. New Times of Burma, 14 June 1947.
78. New Times of Burma, 11 June 1947.
79. New Times of Burma, 3 June 1947.
80. New Times of Burma, 31 May 1947.
8
1. New Times of Burma, 4 June 1947.
82. Governor of Burma to Secretary of State, 16 July 1947, Rance Papers, Mss Eur F169/13, OIOC.
83. Ibid.
84. Khin Myo Chit, ‘Memoir’, f. 105, Mss Eur D1066/1, OIOC.
85. Governor of Burma to Secretary of State, 19 July 1947, 12.00 hours, Rance Papers, Mss Eur F169/13, OIOC.
86. Governor of Burma to Secretary of State, 19 July 1947, 16.25 hours, ibid.
87. Khin Myo Chit, ‘Memoir’, f. 105.
88. McEnery, Epilogue in Burma, p. 110.
89. G. E. Crombie to Laithwaite, 19 July 1947, Laithwaite Papers, Mss Eur F138/74, OIOC.
90. New Times of Burma, 22 July 1947.
91. June Bingham, U Thant of Burma: the search for peace (London, 1966), pp. 164–6.
92. Governor of Burma to Secretary of State, 20 July 1947, Rance Papers, Mss Eur F169/13, OIOC.
93. Governor of Burma to Secretary of State, 22 July 1947, 12.45 hrs, ibid.
94. Governor of Burma to Secretary of State, 20 July 1947 15.25 hrs, ibid.
95. Taylor, ‘Interview with U Kyaw Nyein’.
96. G. E. Crombie to Laithwaite, 23 July 1947, Laithwaite Papers, Mss Eur F138/74, OIOC.
97. Rance to Laithwaite, 29 July 1947, ibid.; in the event it was Lord Listowel, the new secretary of state, and not Cripps who visited the country.
98. Laithwaite to Rance, 6 August 1947, ibid.
99. R. E. Gibson, Govt Burma, to R. E. McGuire, Burma Office, 24 July 1947, Rance Papers, Mss Eur F169/13, OIOC.
100. J. A. Moore’s statement, Governor of Burma to Secretary of State, 28 July 1947, ibid.
101. Governor of Burma to Secretary of State, 28 July 1947, second telegram, ibid.
102. New Times of Burma, 28 July 1947.
103. McEnery, Epilogue in Burma, p. 112.
104. Governor of Burma to Secretary of State, 2 August 1947, Rance Papers, Mss Eur F169/13, OIOC.
105. Maung Maung, A trial in Burma: the assassination of Aung San (The Hague, 1962), p. 27.
106. Governor of Burma to Secretary of State, 27 August 1947, Rance Papers, Mss Eur F169/13, OIOC.
107. Richard Butwell, U Nu of Burma (Stanford, 1963), p. 88.
108. See ‘Lord Listowel in Burma’, correspondence and press releases, Laithwaite Papers, Mss Eur F138/74, OIOC.
109. Laithwaite to Rance, 7 November 1947, ibid.
110. Frank N. Trager, Burma from kingdom to republic (London, 1966), p. 97.
111. Sangayama Monthly Bulletin, 1, 6 October 1953, p. 10; cited in Gustaaf Houtman, Mental culture in Burmese crisis politics: Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy (Tokyo, 1999), p. 205.
112. Rance to Laithwaite, 12 November 1947, Laithwaite Papers, Mss Eur F138/74, OIOC.
113. Balwant Singh, Independence and democracy in Burma, 1945–52, the turbulent years (Ann Arbor, 1993), p. 58.
114. Rance to Laithwaite, 17 November 1947, Laithwaite Papers, Mss Eur F138/74, OIOC.
115. ‘Speech to Orient Club, 27 December 1947’, Rance Papers, F169/6, OIOC.
CHAPTER 8 1947: MALAYA ON THE BRINK
1. T. A. Keenleyside, ‘Nationalist Indian attitudes towards Asia: a troublesome legacy for post-Independence Indian foreign policy’, Pacific Affairs, 55, 2 (1982), pp. 210–30.
2. For the conference, Nicholas Mansergh, ‘The Asian Conference’, International Affairs, 23, 3 (July 1947), pp. 295–306; Philip Hoalim, The Malayan Democratic Union: Singapore’s first democratic political party (Singapore, 1973), pp. 20–24. For Sjahrir’s role, Rudolf Mrázek, Sjahrir: politics and exile in Indonesia (Ithaca, 1994), pp. 334–9.
3. Abu Hanifah, Tales of a revolution: a leader of the Indonesian revolution looks back (Sydney, 1972), p. 236.
4. Mohamed Noordin Sopiee, From Malayan Union to Singapore separation: political unification in the Malaysia region, 1945–65 (Kuala Lumpur, 1974), pp. 56–71; Clive J. Christie, A modern history of Southeast Asia: decolonisation, nationalism and separatism (London, 1996), pp. 39–47. Robert Cribb and Lea Narangoa, ‘Orphans of empire: divided peoples, dilemmas of identity, and old imperial borders in East and Southeast Asia’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 46, 1 (2004), pp. 164–87.
5. Alfred Lelah interview, OHD, SNA; ‘A profile of the late Mr Albert Abraham Lelah’, The Scribe [Journal of Babylonian Jewry], 70 (October 1998), http://www.dangoor.com/70012.html. For the refugees in India, Joan G. Roland, The Jewish communities of India: identity in a colonial era (New Brunswick, 1998), p. 222.
6. Jacob Ballas interview, OHD, SNA.
7. Chan Heng Chee, A sensation of independence: a political biography of David Marshall (Singapore, 1984).
8. Manicasothy Saravanamuttu, The Sara saga (Singapore, n.d. [1969]), p. 134. MSS/PIJ, May 1946.
9. Gerald de Cruz, Rojak rebel: memoirs of a Singapore maverick (Singapore, 1993), pp. 68–73.
10. Malaya Tribune, 28 November 1947.
11. Rajeswary Ampalavanar, The Indian minority and political change in Malaya, 1945–1955 (Kuala Lumpur, 1981), pp. 18–19.
12. For Thivy, Michael Stenson, Class, race and colonialism in West Malaysia: the Indian case (Queensland, 1980), pp. 141–51; ‘Draft proposals for an All-Malaya Indian Organisation (MIC) to be inaugurated at the All-Malayan Indian Conference, Kuala Lumpur 1–4 August 1946’, Thivy Papers, Perpustakaan Universiti Malaya. See also S. Arasaratnam, ‘Social and political ferment of the Malayan Indian community, 1945–55’, Proceedings of the First International Conference Seminar of Tamil Studies, Kuala Lumpur April 1966 (Kuala Lumpur, 1966), pp. 141–55.
13. Malayan Security Service, Political Intelligence Journal [MSS/PIJ], 15 April 1947.
14. MSS/PIJ, 30 June 1946, 31 August 1947, John Dalley Papers, RHO; Ampalavanar, The Indian minority and political change in Malaya, pp. 25–32.
15. See Halimah Mohd Said and Zainab Abdul Majid, Images of the Jawi Peranakan of Penang; assimilation of the Jawi Peranakan community into the Malay society (Universiti Pendikikan Sultan Idris, 2004), pp. 53–57, 104–7; Khoo Boo Teik, Paradoxes of Mahathirism: an intellectual biography of Mahathir Mohamad (Kuala Lumpur, 1995), p. 81–8.
16. ‘British Defence Committee in South East Asia, 10th meeting’, 12 March 1947, CO537/2503, TNA.
17. MSS/PIJ, 30 September 1947; UK High Commission Ceylon to Commonwealth Relations Office, 10 April 1948; FARELF to War Office, 13 April, 28 April, 4 May, 14 May 1948; ‘Aide Memoire’, DO35/2406, TNA. Charles Gamba, The origins of trade unionism in Malaya (Singapore, 1960), p. 208.
18. Gent to Creech Jones, 11 May 1947, in A. J. Stockwell (ed), British Documents on the End of Empire: Malaya, part I (London, 1995), p. 335.
19. M. V. del Tufo, Malaya: a report on the 1947 census of population (London, 1949); Charles Hirschman, ‘The meaning and measurement of ethnicity in Malaysia: an analysis of census classifications’, Journal of Asian Studies, 46, 3 (1987), pp. 555–82.
20. Utusan Melayu, 18 November 1946.
21. Malaya Tribune, 13 November 1947.
22. Gamba, The origins of trade unionism, p. 436.
23. C. S. V. K. Moorthi, President of Selangor Estate Workers’ Trade Union, 24 March 1947, Thivy Papers.
24. R. Shlomowitz and L. Brennan, ‘Mortality and Indian labour in Malaya, 1877–1933’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 29 (1992), pp. 57–75.
25. Pierre Boulle, Sacrilege in Malaya ([1958] Kuala Lumpur, 1983), pp. 35–6, 44.
26. For a first-hand description of a planter’s work see Margaret Shennan, Out in the midday sun: the British in Malaya, 1880–1960 (London, 2000), pp. 176–81. For the quotation, Henri Falconnier, The soul of Malaya ([1931] Singapore, 1985), p. 52.
27. Gamba, The origins of trade unionism, pp. 32–3, and for general conditions on estates, pp. 252ff.
28. ‘Report: Work on the plantations’, FS13622/49, ANM.
29. ‘Special meeting of the Malayan Union Labour Advisory Board… 3 July 1947’, MU Labour/167/47, ANM.
30. We are gr
ateful to Dr Emma Reisz for her comments. See also, J. Norman Palmer, ‘Estate workers’ health in the Federated Malay States in the 1920s’, in P. Rimmer and L. Allen (eds.), The underside of Malaysian history: pullers, prostitutes and plantation workers (Singapore, 1990), pp. 179–92.
31. Stephen Dobbs, Tuan Djek: a biography (Singapore, 2002).
32. Scorpio, ‘ITBA’, The Planter, 22, 9 (September 1947), p. 235.
33. ‘Planters in Malaya’, The Times, 9 October 1951.
34. S. K. Chettur, Malayan adventure (Mangalore, 1948), pp. 249–50.
35. Ravindra K. Jain, ‘Leadership and authority in a plantation: a case study of Indians in Malaya (c. 1900–42)’, in G. Wijeyewardene (ed.), Leadership and authority: a symposium (Singapore, 1968), pp. 163–73; P. Ramasamy, ‘Indian war memory in Malaysia’, in P. Lim Pui Huen and Diana Wong (eds.), War and memory in Malaysia and Singapore (Singapore, 2000), pp. 90–105.
36. Arasaratnam, ‘Social and political ferment of the Malayan Indian community, 1945–55’, pp. 141–55.
37. This paragraph and the next is drawn from ‘[Draft] Summary of reports regarding recent disturbances on estates in South Kedah’, in Gent to Creech Jones, 8 April 1947, CO537/2173, TNA; K. Nadaraja, ‘The Thondar Pedai movement of Kedah, 1945–47’, Malaysia in History, 24 (1981), pp. 95–103; Leong Yee Fong, Labour and trade unionism in colonial Malaya: a study of the socio-economic and political bases of the Malayan labour movement, 1930–1957 (Pulau Pinang, 1999), pp. 164–7, and Gamba, The origins of trade unionism, pp. 252–303.
38. Gamba, The origins of trade unionism, p. 284.
39. Brazier to Commissioner for Labour, 19 September 1947, LAB/158/47, ANM; For example, ‘Trade dispute Rengo Malay Estate, 12 November 1947’, LAB/139/47, ANM.
40. Quoted in Gamba, The origins of trade unionism, p. 296.
41. Gimson to Creech Jones, 4 March 1947, CO537/2171, TNA; Malaya Tribune, 14 February 1947.
42. Minutes of sixth Governor General’s conference in Singapore, 11 March 1947, in Stockwell, British documents: Malaya, Part I, pp. 303–6.
43. Labour Report for October 1947, LAB/54/47, ANM.
44. Malaya Tribune, 16 October 1947.
45. Chin Peng, My side of history (Singapore, 2004), pp. 195–6; ‘Lawlessness and insecurity’, The Planter, 23, 10 (October, 1947), pp. 240–44.