‘Bapak Malaysia’ Rehabilitated in Royal Commonwealth Ceremony By: Cyril Pereira

Asian Sentinel : A half-century of Malay supremacy dogma allows no room for such Malay leaders​. Malaysia’s almost forgotten first premier, Tunku Abdul Rahman, was rehabilitated marginally recently by the Royal Commonwealth Society on its 60th anniversary, which dedicated the Tunku Room at its Clubhouse in Kuala Lumpur’s leafy Damansara suburb.

Photos spanning the Tunku’s stewardship from 1955 as chief minister, and from 1957 to 1970 as prime minister, convert its walls to history for posterity. The Tunku was the Club’s founding patron in 1971.

Before his death at 87 in December 1990, the Tunku spurned interment in the Heroes Mausoleum of the Federal Capital. The day before he died, a sad Tunku signed his wish to be taken home and laid to rest at the Langgar Royal Mausoleum in the northern state capital of Alor Setar. 

The Tunku was a prince of the House of Kedah, a convivial Anglophile who famously loved Scotch whiskey and horse racing, public indulgence of which has disappeared utterly from today’s modern Malays. A newspaper headline at the time of his rise to power described it as “From Playboy to Prime Minister.”

Mahathir Mohamad at the time of the Tunku’s death was the domineering prime minister from 1981, a crabby Young Turk who had penned a scurrilous letter in the charged atmosphere following racial riots in May 1969, baying for his resignation. Ironically, it was Mahathir, at the Tunku’s death watch in Alor Setar, who nodded for the doctors to turn off life support, as the great man was gone.

The Tunku’s grandson, Tunku Muinuddin Putra, was invited by Club chairman Kesavan Muniandy to unveil the plaque, with two of the Tunku’s granddaughters in attendance. The family is delighted there is finally a dignified place of historic reference to Bapak Malaysia, the nation’s father of Independence. Commonwealth High Commissioners witnessed the dedication, as the event was timed with Remembrance Day, to hear the King’s message read by the British High Commissioner. This quaint ritual of empire was always the Queen’s message before.

The coup

Tunku Abdul Rahman was forced from office after the murderous riots of 13 May 1969. The general election which sparked the riots, resulted in a hung legislature for the state of Selangor, then encompassing the Capital and Parliament, after dramatic opposition gains. Harun Idris, the chief minister of Selangor, panicked. He was the ruling United Malays National Organization Youth Chief and patron of martial arts groups.

Following the riots, Mahathir penned his deeply offensive, totally un-Malay letter to the Tunku, copied to UMNO members, urging resignation. That hurt the genial and charmingly aristocratic Tunku deeply. The UMNO Supreme Council expelled Mahathir although he would be brought back into UMNO as Education Minister in 1974 by the Tunku’s successor. The decline of Malaysia’s excellent education system dates from that.

The Tunku was regarded by his morose deputy Abdul Razak, the father of the jailed 1MDB swindler Najib Razak, and agitators below him -- especially Harun Idris and Mahathir -- as too considerate of other races. The riots gave them the excuse to shove the Tunku aside, declare a national emergency, suspend parliament, nullify the elections, and advance an UMNO-sponsor.

Read it all here (if you cannot get in, use a VPN, apparently they blocked this article.)