Background and Causes of National Liberation War
In 1948, the Communists and the British colonial government in Malaya entered a period of guerrilla fighting which has become known to history as the Malayan Emergency.
The name derives from the state of emergency declared by the colonial administration in June 1948 to extend the powers of the police and military. The state of emergency was officially lifted in July 1960.
In the broadest context, the events leading to the emergency include the following:
This article focuses on the immediate antecedents to the Emergency, beginning shortly after the Japanese surrender and British reoccupation in August and September 1945.
Labour unions.
In September to December 1945, General Labour Unions (GLU's) arose, sometimes with MCP guidance. They organised themselves as regional bodies rather than trade-specific bodies; this was consciously done in an effort to promote racial integration since particular racial groups tended to predominate in particular trades, e.g.; Chinese in mines, Malays in the civil service, often Indians on plantations.
A number of short strikes were held, not necessarily involving entire GLU's. They had little material result but demonstrated a capacity to act.
There were considerable economic grounds for labour unrest. Real wages were below the pre-war level in 1948 compared to 1939 wages had risen about 3 times but the cost of living had gone up 4 times, so the real wage was about 3/4.
Normal pre-war rice consumption had been per day. In April 1946 the rice ration in Singapore for an adult male was reduced from per week; in mid-August it was further reduced to per week, where it remained until an increase in December.
The "Annual Report of the Colony of Singapore for 1946" reported that the majority of infant deaths were due to rice shortage and lack of proper food.
A survey of working-class families in the "Report" for 1947 found that only 22% of them had sufficient food energy in their diets and that 30 to 40% of the children suffered from malnutrition.
In its internal reports in 1945 the British administration recognised the tendency of such conditions to produce unrest, and stated that the strikes were motivated by economic conditions rather than a political programme.
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;. . . the main cause of the recent disturbances is the lack of rice.
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;When our allotment of rice for December and January was substantially reduced, we found ourselves in a serious predicament. To have distributed the rice equitably throughout the whole country would have entailed a substantial reduction of the ration in Singapore as well as throughout the Mainland. From every point of view, however, we had to safeguard the position in Singapore.
The political repercussions of such an announcement would we knew be serious, and our problem was to redistribute rice on such a basis as would minimise the unrest and disorder which it was only reasonable to expect would follow the new announcement ...
Singapore mishandled could paralyse the whole country, and ... could seriously hamper our military operations in Java.
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;On account of the political situation existing in neighbouring countries it was always possible that the strikes would take a 'political' turn and it is even surprising in retrospect,
that considerations of this kind played such a comparatively small part.
As to the economic grounds for the strike there was never any doubt.
The cost of living has risen out of all proportion to the level of wages so much so that the strikers' demands were first and foremost for an increased rice ration and only secondly for increased pay.
The causes of the unrest are thus primarily economic.
Nevertheless, the British administration was not tolerant of the disturbances.
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;Arrest all picketers.
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;There have been a few major incidents in the country towns necessitating shooting on a very small scale and this had had a most salutary effect. . . .
50,000 tons of rice would go far towards a solution (and arrests on a larger scale).
In October 1945 the Chinese-language newspapers "Shih Tai Jit Pao" and "Pai Ma Tao Pao" were closed and their editors and staffs convicted and imprisoned for sedition because of their use of the term "economic exploitation".
A large strike, peaking at 18,000 workers on 17 December, broke out in Singapore. At that point, some members of the administration began taking the position that the strikes are political, not economic.
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;the reasons for this strike are purely political. There is no question at all of wages or conditions of labour.
The leaders of the General Labour Union (GLU) and other Associations cannot, in my opinion be regarded as Trade Union leaders in any real sense. They are purely political leaders attempting to subvert the law and bring the British Military Administration into hatred and contempt.
Historian Daud Latiff argues that the British were restrained from taking even harder measures against the strikes at this stage for two reasons:
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;If we arrest a few [dissidents] now we shall probably provoke retaliation
which will enable us to arrest many more,
but it will be a sort of running battle which will lay us open to misrepresentation
both in this country and in the world.
It will "look" like an aggressive act during a period of comparative peace. It seems to me that if we are content to wait a little longer another opportunity will come, not perhaps as good as the last one, but still good enough to enable us to take the most widespread and effective action without fear of adverse public opinion.
Protest and strike.
Beginning on 29 January 1946, a large strike occurred, centred around Singapore. It was largely in protest over the arrest and conviction (after two acquittals) of the former head of the Selangor section of the MPAJA, Soon Kwong, for punishing
a Japanese collaborator on 10 September 1945, when the MPAJA was still in partial control of the country.
150,000 to 200,000 workers walked off the job; by the 31st Singapore was at a "standstill"; Soon Kwong was released on 3 February.
A large demonstration was called for 15 February 1946, the fourth anniversary of the fall of Singapore. The organisers claimed that it was in memorial to the thousands of Malayans who had fallen in the defence of Singapore or been executed by the Japanese in the three weeks after that; but the authorities felt that it was an impertinent celebration of Britain's embarrassing defeat. They banned the demonstrations and on 14 February arrested 24 leading activists and placed them under deportation orders. On the 15th, demonstrators were confronted by troops who killed one and wounded 17 in Singapore and killed 17 in Johore.
Also in February, labour set up a country-wide organisation called the Pan Malayan General Labour Union (PMGLU). Over the ensuing 12 months there was a rapid expansion of trade unionism throughout Malaya, with the PMGLU as the guiding force; by April 1947 the PMGLU had a membership of 263,598—over half the total work force—and encompassed 85% of the individual trade unions.
The attitude of the Malayan worker became more assertive during this period; for instance, "A strike was reported of Chinese and Indian hospital workers because they no longer wanted to be addressed as 'boy' ...",
and workers began to see their subjection to physical punishments as unacceptable.
Historian T. N. Harper writes of the period:
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;
Union organisation developed a spontaneous momentum from below.
Indian Labour Unions appeared in the localities.
Ex-INA Indian National Army men led these organisations in many States, although there were exceptions to this.
The Indian Labour Union in Kedah was led by a driver and coffeeshop owner, A. M. Samy, whose earlier connection with the INA was less pronounced.
He exercised dominance over large areas of the State through a "thondar pedai", a militant Dravidian youth militia, that enforced strike action and picketed toddy shops.
"Thondar pedai"-style movements were a feature of Indian Labour Unions elsewhere; for example, in the Johore Bahru division of the Rubber Workers' Union "thondar pedai" orderlies wearing red arm bands organised meetings, and members subscribed a dollar a month to support the organisation.
Some of the Indian Labour Unions became affiliated with the PMGLU, others did not—most notably P. P. Narayanan's Negri Sembilan Estate Indian Workers' Union, which opted to remain a communal entity to fight the pay differential between Chinese and Indian workers.
The period saw a considerable upsurge in the number of strikes: in March 1946 the docks and tin smelter at Penang were "paralysed"; in April a railway strike began which lasted several weeks; there was striking among Indian plantation labourers along the entire west coast of the peninsula; and unrest continued in Singapore.
The journal "British Malaya" wrote in September 1946 that "there have been an average of 27 strikes a week for the last seven weeks ..."
Between April 1946 and March 1947, 713,000 worker days, or 2 per employee, were lost to strikes in Malaya, and in Singapore, 1,173,000 worker days, ten per employee, were lost.
The government countered this movement by changing some of thelaws and regulations on trade union activity, and resuming the enforcement of others that had been left in abeyance after the war.
By, at latest, early 1947, the ordinary trespassing law was being used to keep union organisers from addressing the workers on plantations. For instance in late March 1947, a large police force came to the Dublin estate in Kedah to arrest a Federation of Trades Unions official for trespassing as he was speaking to a group of workers there.
When the workers closed ranks around the official to protect him the police opened fire, killing one worker and wounding five.
Incidents such as this demonstrate that the situation was already somewhat revolutionary in that the workers were disputing, at least to some extent, the rights of private property, and the establishment was willing to use severe measures against them. Indeed, among Indian estate labour in Kedah in early 1947 there appears to have been something almost akin to the formation
of soviets:
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;The situation throughout February was that labourers were virtually in control of many of the estates and there seems to have been an almost complete breakdown in managerial authority. Labourers began taking over estates and managers were forced to retreat to the safety of neighbouring towns.
In a clash at the Bedong estate on 3 March 1947, 21 labourers were injured; "the strike leader died of injuries received at the hands of the police a few days later"; 61 were sentenced to six months' imprisonment.
The 1940 "Trade Union Ordinance" required that unions in Malaya (unlike those in Britain) be registered, which meant that they had to open their books and other processes to inspection by government officers. The registration provisions were not initially enforced after World War II but beginning around the time that the civil administration (Malayan Union) took over from the British Military Administration (BMA) in April 1946, moves were made to require
trade unions to register.
The registration rules were somewhat restrictive; for instance government employees and non-government employees could not belong to the same union or even to unions affiliated with each other, and union funds could not be used for political purposes. Under these rules the GLU's were un-registerable and therefore could not operate legally.
The Singapore GLU (SGLU) reached an accommodation with the Trade Union Adviser in Singapore, S.P. Garrett, whereby it could reorganise as a Federation (not a union) and operate legally without registering. Accordingly, the SGLU became the Singapore Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU) in August 1946 and was (temporarily) safe from the law.
Shortly afterwards (25 August) the PMGLU on the peninsula, hoping for a similar application of the rules, reorganised itself as the Pan Malayan Federation of Trade Unions (PMFTU). However, the Trade Union Adviser in Malaya, John Brazier, was less sympathetic than Garrett and he and the registrar, Mr. Prentiss, quickly thwarted this move by ruling that all of the Federation's branch unions, which had to register, could not accept the guidance of any non-registered entity, and could not remit a portion of their funds to a federation or use funds for sympathy strikes. This left the PMFTU and its affiliates in legal quicksand, although no moves were taken yet to prosecute them.
The labour movement was dealt a serious legal blow in October 1947 when the right not to be fired merely for the act of striking, which had been somewhat customary although