Tan Cheng Lock: father of the ‘Malayan consciousness’

One of Malaysia’s founding fathers, Tan Cheng Lock, was among the first leaders to articulate the need to instil a Malayan-centred political consciousness among the Malayan Chinese, says academic Toh Chen Chun.

In “One Country, One People: The Life and Legacy of Tun Tan Cheng Lock”, a biography of the MCA founder, Toh noted that Tan used his growing standing among the British to highlight the need for them to change their policies towards their Malayan subjects.

Toh, a co-author of the biography, said Tan spoke at length during a 1920 lunch with Straits Settlements governor Laurence Guillemard about the need to encourage Malaya’s “sons of the soil” to take a “livelier and more active interest in the welfare of the country of their birth”.

“Whether they are Malays, Eurasians, Indians or Chinese, they have made this country their permanent home.

“They are the sons of the soil, they are part and parcel of the empire whose governments and institutions are so firmly founded in the great and grand principles of liberty,” said Tan, who believed at the time that Malaya’s future was to be an autonomous part of the British empire.

Toh said it was thanks to this speech, during which Tan also strongly advocated the admission of Malayans into the civil service, that Guillemard later appointed him as an unofficial member of the Straits Settlements legislative council in 1923.

Tan used the opportunity to promote his political ideas at the council, and three years later unveiled his vision of a “self-governing British Malaya with a federal government and Parliament”.

In a speech in 1926, he called for Malaya’s leaders to “foster and create a true Malayan spirit and consciousness amongst its people” and to “build up a Malayan community with a Malayan consciousness”.

“Cheng Lock was one of the first leaders to articulate the need for all Malayans to think of themselves as Malayans first instead of prioritising their ethnic groups.

“In contrast to the rise of Malay nationalism among the Malays and China-centred nationalism among the Chinese, Cheng Lock strongly advocated a Malayan-centred self-governing political entity,” Toh said.

Still an uphill battle

Toh noted, however, that inculcating this vision in the Malayan Chinese community was an uphill battle for Tan, who found it easier to convince the English-educated elite of his concept of a “Malayan consciousness”.

He said the “Laukehs” and “Sinkehs” – terms referring respectively to the first wave of mass Chinese immigrants who came to Malaya before the mid-19th century and the more recent arrivals after World War I – regarded Malaya as a temporary place to earn money before retiring to their ancestral villages in China.

“As a Peranakan, Cheng Lock could not speak Mandarin or any Chinese dialect. This made it hard for him to convince both Laukehs and Sinkehs to accept his concept of a Malayan consciousness.

“Given their China-centric orientation, Cheng Lock found it difficult to appeal to them to participate in local politics and regard Malaya as their home,” he said.

It was later in 1951, when Malayan politicians, including Umno founder Onn Jaafar, agreed to grant citizenship to all non-Malays born in Malaya, that Tan argued that the “only effective way of weaning the China-born Chinese from being obsessed with Chinese national politics is to make a generous offer of Malayan citizenship”.

“One Country, One People: The Life and Legacy of Tun Tan Cheng Lock” is published by UTAR Press and can be purchased for RM130 by emailing [email protected].

All proceeds from the sales will be donated to the Tun Tan Siew Sin Student Loan Fund at TARUMT.

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