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Tunku, Chin Peng and prelude to Merdeka [photos]

Thu 2012-May-31 @ MYT 10:51:31 am

1955 was a defining year in Malayan and Malaysian history; momentous political changes took place, the effects of which continue to reverberate into the new millenium. Malaya was in the middle of a war, the seventh year of the Emergency to put down the Malayan Communist Party insurgency. The first federal general elections were held, to allow self-government by Malaya as a prelude to independence. Street parades and marches, and outdoor rallies drew crowds by the thousands. Tunku Abdul Rahman led the UmnoMCA-MIC alliance to a sweeping victory and became Chief Minister. He met with Malayan Communist Party leader Chin Peng to negotiate an end to the insurgency, but the Baling talks failed. The insurgency carried on until 1989 when a peace agreement was finally signed. The treaty allowed members of the communist party to return home from their bases in Thailand. Chin Peng alone has been refused entry. In April this year, when the third Bersih rally was held in Kuala Lumpur, attended by huge crowds, the Malaysian government and three former inspector-generals of police alleged that it was part of a communist plot to overthrow the government. But the last known former communist insurgent, Sitiawan-born Chin Peng, is a dying banished man wanting to come home. He will be 87 in October.

These photos are stills from the colonial film 1955: the year in Malaya by the Malayan Film Unit, in the collection of the Imperial War Museum, London. Among the personalities featured are Jawaharlal Pandit Nehru, prime minister of India; Dato Abdul Razak (later Tun, father of the current prime minister), the education minister; Dato Sardon Haji Jubir (later Tun and governor of Penang), the works minister; and John Davies of Force 136, the British guerilla resistance unit in the second world war, who fought with Chin Peng and his Malayan Peoples AntiJapanese Army to end the Japanese Occupation of Malaya.

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