All-Malaya Council of Joint Action

Infobox Political party
name_english = All-Malaya Council of Joint Action
name_native =

leader = Tan Cheng Lock
foundation = December 14 1946
dissolution = 1948
headquarters = Singapore
newspaper =
youth_wing =
membership_year =
membership =
ideology =
national =
international =
colors =
website =
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The All-Malaya Council of Joint Action (AMCJA) was a coalition of political and civic organizations in Malaya formed to participate in the development of a constitution for post-war Malaya in preparation for independence and to oppose the Constitutional Proposals for Malaya (also known as the Federation Proposals or the Anglo-Malay Proposals) which eventually formed the basis of the Federation of Malaya Agreement cite book | last = Hill | first = Micheel | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = The Politics of Nation Building and Citizenship in Singapore | publisher = Routledge | date = 1979 | location = Florence | pages = 285 | url = | doi = | id = | isbn = 0415100526 ] .

History

Background

In seeking to solve some of the administrative incoherence in the pre-war British ruled Malaya, a policy of constitutional development which incorporated the twin goals of constitutional unity and a common citizenship within Malaya was developed as the basis for eventual self-rule and independence of the territory cite book | last = Dupont | first = Jerry | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = The Common Law Abroad: Constitutional and Legal Legacy of the British Empire | publisher = William S. Hein & Co. | date = 2000 | location = Buffalo | pages = 1228 | url = | doi = | id = | isbn = 0837731259 ] . The first proposal called for the Federated Malay States and Unfederated Malay States to be joined into a larger federation styled the Malayan Union. It was expected that Penang and Malacca would be severed from the Straits Settlements to join the new federation while Singapore remained a separate Crown Colony Citation | first = Colonial Office | last = Great Britain | author-link = | first2 = | last2 = | author2-link = | editor-last = | editor-first = | editor2-last = | editor2-first = | contribution = | contribution-url = | title = Malayan Union and Singapore; Summary of proposed constitutional changes | year = 1946 | pages = | place = London | publisher = HMSO | url = | doi = | id = Cmd 6949 ] .

Significant Malay opposition to the Union was spontaneous and widespread as it was seen as a departure from the traditional pro-Malay policies of the British and the removal of sovereignty of the Malay rulers while a significant majority of non-Malays were generally divided or indifferent to the proposals cite book | last = Hwang | first = InWon | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = Personalized Politics: The Malaysian State Under Mahathir | publisher = Institute of Southeast Asian Studies | date = 2003 | location = Singapore | pages = 400 | url = | doi = | id = | isbn = 9812301852 ] cite book | last = Kratoska | first = Paul H. | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = South East Asia, Colonial History | publisher = Taylor & Francis | date = 2001 | location = London | pages = | url = | doi = | id = | isbn = 0415247845 ] . The preoccupation with post-war rebuilding and the lack of an existing Malaya-centric political discourse meant that even the community most likely to view Malaya as their home like the Straits Chinese and second generation non-Malays failed to appreciate the implications of the Union until it was abandoned by the British. Only openly anti-colonial movements like the radical Malayan Communist Party (MCP) and the more moderate Malayan Democratic Union (MDU), established by English educated left-leaning middle-class intellectuals in Singapore in 1945, emerged to support the proposal with the caveat that Singapore was included in the Union .

With the widespread opposition among the Malays, the British administration entered into secret negotiations with the Malay aristocracy and the United Malay National Organisation (UMNO) as they were unwilling to allow the Malay opposition to the Union develop into an anti-British attitude in the same way that had happened in the Dutch East Indies where the locals were engaged in an open armed rebellion against the Dutch. When news that the British had agreed to the demands of the conservative Malays and the Anglo-Malay Proposals included institutionalized handicaps against the non-Malay community and the absence of a road map towards Malayan independence, a united front was mulled to oppose the proposals.

United front proposed

On November 19 1946, a meeting was held to discuss the formation of a united front. Attending this meeting were cite book | last = Yeoh | first = Kim Wah | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = Political Development of Singapore, 1945-1955 | publisher = Singapore University Press | date = 1973 | location = Singapore | pages = 320 | url = | doi = | id = | isbn = 0821404865 ] :

All Malaya Hartal

The ACCC considered the Revised Constitutional Proposals as being autocratic and irresponsible and it threatened to delay the independence of Malaya indefinitely. A decision was made to cooperate with PUTERA-PMCJA (later PUTERA-AMCJA) because it had exhausted all constitutional channels of appeal (the ACCC was a participant in the Government Consultative Committee) and appeal to the British Parliament for the establishment of a Royal Commission to review and reverse the Revised Constitutional Proposals .

Agitation against the Revised Constitutional Approvals grew throughout September with a successful hartal organised in Malacca and Ipoh in protest. Emboldened by the success, the ACCC decided to launch a country-wide strike and invited PUTERA-AMCJA was invited to support the strike. A decision was made to hold the strike, to be known as the All Malaya Hartal, on October 20 1947 to coincide with the opening of the session of the British Parliament where the Revised Constitutional Proposals were to be tabled and debated .

The hartal turned out to be a major success [Indian Daily Mail, 1947-11-14] although UMNO held counter demonstrations in the more rural areas like Senggaram and Bagan Datoh contributing to the rise in ethnic tensions and the cancellation of the planned strike in those areas .

Decline and dissolution

Despite the success of the All Malaya Hartal, the government granted no concessions and differences began to emerge between the ACCC and PUTERA-AMCJA. A second Hartal was planned for February 1 1948 but was aborted when financial support from the ACCC was not forthcoming and was reduced to isolated strikes by the PMFTU . Kuomintang sympathizers had also begun to lobby for the withdrawal of ACCC support from the PUTERA-AMCJA due to the intensification of the Chinese civil war [cite book | last = Thompson | first = V | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = The Left-wings in Southeast Asia | publisher = | date = 1950 | location = New York | pages = | url = | doi = | id = | isbn = ] .

The implementation of the Federation of Malaya constitution based on the Revised Constitutional Proposals on February 1 1948 and the decision of the MCP to launch an armed rebellion marked the beginning of the end for the PUTERA-AMCJA coalition and AMCJA as a whole. With the declaration of the nationwide emergency, the constituent organizations either withdrew from the coalition, went underground, or in the case of the MDU, voluntarily dissolved itself and the AMCJA ceased to exist as a body.

Mainstream political developments in Malaya in the following decade came to be dominated by conservative and pro-British groups with a distinctive impact on the historical development of independent Malaya, and later Malaysia, for the next few decades .

References