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Authors: Tim Harper,Christopher Bayly

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41.
Bowker to Foreign Office, FO371/69481, TNA.

42.
Furnivall to Dunn, 28 March, 9 April 1948, Furnival Papers, PP/MS 23, vol. I, SOAS.

43.
Bowker to Foreign Office, 12 April 1948, FO371/69515, TNA.

44.
Nu to Cripps, 7 October 1948, Cripps–Nu correspondence, CAB127/151, TNA.

45.
Rangoon to Foreign Office, 3 July 1948, FO371/69483, TNA.

46.
Furnivall to Dunn 12 April 1948, Furnivall Papers, PP/MS 23, vol. I, SOAS.

47.
Maung Maung,
A trial in Burma: the assassination of Aung San
(The Hague, 1962), p. 68.

48.
Clipping from the
Sunday Despatch
, 15 February 1948, Laithwaite Papers, Mss Eur F138/74, OIOC.

49.
Furnivall to Dunn, 12 April 1948 with some additions 2 May, Furnivall Papers, PP/MS 23, vol. I, SOAS.

50.
See Bertil Lintner,
Burma in revolt: opium and insurgency since 1948
(Boulder, 1994).

51.
Report of British Mission, Rangoon to London, 30 June 1948, FO371/69483, TNA.

52.
Ibid.

53.
Rangoon to London, 14 August 1948, FO371/69484, TNA.

54.
Butwell,
U Nu of Burma
, p. 62.

55.
News Chronicle
, 27 August 1948.

56.
News Chronicle
, 23 September 1948.

57.
P. Murray, Foreign Office, to Major A. K. Rugg-Price, FO371/69486, TNA.

58.
For a detailed account of these events and the Karen insurgency see Callahan,
Making enemies
, pp. 124–42.

59.
Ibid., p. 127.

60.
Bowker to Foreign Office, ‘Karen movement and British complicity’, 12 September 1948, FO371/69509, TNA.

61.
Bowker to Foreign Office, 19 June 1948, ibid.

62.
Bowker to Foreign Office, 28 February 1948, ibid.

63.
Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper,
Forgotten armies: Britain’s Asian empire and the war with Japan
(London, 2004), p. 336.

64.
Note by P. J. Murray, 16 September 1948, FO371/69509, TNA.

65.
‘Translation of speech by the Honble Thakin Nu, Prime Minister of Burma, delivered in Parliament on 14 June 1949’, CAB127/151, TNA.

66.
Note by P. J. Murray, 16 September 1948, FO371/69509, TNA.

67.
Bowker to Foreign Office, 15 September 1948, ibid.

68.
Bowker to Foreign Office, 18 September 1948, FO371/69510, TNA.

69.
Bowker to Foreign Office, 21 September, ibid.

70.
Anon to ‘Pop’, 2 September 1948; ‘Skunk’ to ‘Ewan’, 14 September 1948, Tom Driberg Papers, S3 (miscellaneous), Christ Church, Oxford.

71.
Bowker to Foreign Office, 13 September 1948, FO371/69510, NA; cf. Furnivall to Dunn, 14 December 1948, Furnivall Papers, PP/MS 23, vol. I, SOAS.

72.
Bowker to Foreign Office, 13 September 1948, FO371/69510, TNA.

73.
Rangoon to Foreign Office, ‘Burma insurrection’, 13 July 1948, FO371/69516, TNA.

74.
‘Red star over Asia’,
News Chronicle
, 27 August 1948.

75.
Note, September 1948, FO371/69519, TNA.

76.
Murray to Laithwaite, 25 October 1948, Laithwaite Papers, Mss Eur F138/74, OIOC.

77.
Bowker to Foreign Office, 11 November 1948, FO371/69522, TNA.

78.
Bowker to Foreign Office, 18 November 1948, FO371/69519, TNA.

79.
Furnivall to Dunn, 21 September 1948, Furnivall Papers, PP/MS 23, vol. I, SOAS.

80.
Callahan,
Making enemies
, p. 132.

81.
Jonathan Falla,
True Love and Bartholomew: rebels on the Burmese border
(Cambridge, 1991), p. 26; cf. Callahan,
Making enemies
, p. 132.

82.
Falla,
True Love
, p. 27.

83.
Furnivall to Dunn, 24 December 1948, Furnivall Papers, PP/MS 23, vol. I, SOAS.

84.
Furnivall to Dunn, 28 March 1948, ibid.

85.
John de Chazal, memoir, p. 4, Mss Eur D1041/3, OIOC.

86.
Military adviser to UK High Commission in India to London, 30 March 1948, L/WS/1/1187, OIOC.

87.
Correspondence appended to situation report, 28 November 1950, FO371/84243; prime minister Pakistan to prime minister UK, 20 July 1948, DO35/3163, TNA.

88.
K. K. Tewari,
A soldier’s voyage of self discovery
(Auroville, 1995), p. 46.

89.
Roy Bucher to Miss Elizabeth Bucher, 24 September 1948, Bucher Papers, 7901/87–5, NAM.

90.
People’s Age
, 1 February 1948.

91.
People’s Age
, 29 February 1948.

92.
People’s Age
, 14 March 1948.

93.
Military adviser to UK High Commission in India to London, 6 May 1948, L/WS/1/1187, OIOC.

94.
Ashton Wade,
A life on the line
(Tunbridge Wells, 1988), pp. 147–9.

95.
Andrew Gilmour,
My role in the rehabilitation of Singapore, 1946–53
(Singapore, 1973), p. 16.

96.
J. P. Cross and Buddhiman Gurung,
Gurkhas at war in their own words: the Gurkha experience, 1939 to the present
(London, 2002), pp. 178–80; Ahmad Boestamam (trans. William R. Roff),
Carving the path to the summit
(Athens, OH, 1979), p. 95.

CHAPTER 10 1948: THE MALAYAN REVOLUTION

1.
Gent to H. T. Bourdillon, 22 January 1948, A. J. Stockwell (ed.),
British Documents on the End of Empire: Malaya, Part I
(London, 1995), pp. 372–3.

2.
Malaya Tribune
, 13 November 1947.

3.
Gent to Creech Jones, 30 December 1947, 4 January 1948, CO537/3667, TNA.

4.
Thio Chan Bee,
The extraordinary adventures of an ordinary man
(London, 1977), pp. 70–74.

5.
Simon C. Smith,
British relations with the Malay rulers from decentralization to independence, 1930–1957
(Kuala Lumpur, 1995), pp. 97–9, 118–19.

6.
Editorial,
Malaya Tribune
, 15 December 1947.

7.
A. J. Stockwell, ‘British imperial strategy and decolonization in South-east
Asia, 1947–57’, in D. K. Basset and V. T. King (eds.),
Britain and South-East Asia
(University of Hull Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Occasional Papers, no. 13, 1986), pp. 79–90, at pp. 81–2.

8.
‘Note: W. Linehan’, 2 March 1948, CO537/3746, TNA.

9.
Christopher Blake,
A view from within: the last years of British rule in South-East Asia
(Castle Cary, 1990), pp. 84–5.

10.
John Ede interview, OHD, SNA.

11.
Malaya Tribune
, 24 September 1947; Yeo Kim Wah,
Political development in Singapore, 1945–55
(Singapore, 1973), pp. 254–66.

12.
Lady Percy McNiece interview, OHD, SNA.

13.
Lee Kam Hing and Chow Mun Seong,
Biographical dictionary of the Chinese in Malaysia
(Kuala Lumpur, 1997), pp. 88–90.

14.
Yong Ching Fatt,
Tan Kah Kee: an Overseas Chinese legend
(Singapore, 1987), pp. 312–18; Chui Kwei-chiang, ‘The China Democratic League in Singapore and Malaya, 1946–48’,
Review of Southeast Asian Studies
, 15 (1985), pp. 1–28.

15.
‘KMT party funds: their sources and investments’, supplement to Malayan Security Service, Political Intelligance Journal, [MSS/PI], 31 August 1947.

16.
C. F. Yong and R. B. McKenna,
The Kuomintang movement in British Malaya, 1912–1949
(Singapore, 1990), ch. 8.

17.
Lt. Col. T. N. Glazebrook to C.H. Tarner, MI2, 20 April 1948, WO208/3929, TNA.

18.
‘The KMT guerrillas, North Perak’ supplement no. 4 of 1948 to MSS/PIJ, 31 May 1948; Wilfred Blythe,
The impact of Chinese secret societies in Malaya: a historical study
(London, 1969), pp. 388–91.

19.
‘Statement of Yuin See’, appendix A to supplement no. 4 of 1948 to MSS/PIJ, 31 May 1948.

20.
Blythe,
The impact of Chinese secret societies
, pp. 368–78, 392–9.

21.
Ibid, pp. 380–83; Charles Gamba,
The origins of trade unionism in Malaya
(Singapore, 1960), pp. 230–31.

22.
MSS/PIJ, 15 May 1947; ‘Politico-Triad activities in Malaya’, supplement no. 2 to MSS/PIJ, 15 January 1948.

23.
Anthony Short,
In pursuit of mountain rats: the communist insurrection in Malaya
(Singapore, 2000 [1975]), pp. 52–3; Chin Peng,
My side of history
(Singapore, 2004), pp. 202–5.

24.
‘Translation of a cyclostyled pamphlet marked “Passed at the 4th Plenary Conference of the MCP Central Executive Committee held from 17–21 March 1948’, supplement to MSS/PIJ, 30 June 1948.

25.
‘Malayan Communist Party policy’, supplement No. 9 to MSS/PIJ, 31 July 1948.

26.
For example, MSS/PIJ, 6 March 1948.

27.
Clive J. Christie,
A modern history of Southeast Asia: decolonisation, nationalism and separatism
(London, 1996), pp. 183–6; Gurney to Creech Jones, 10 November 1948, CO537/3685, TNA.

28.
Straits Echo
, 20 March 1948.

29.
Firdaus Haji Abdullah,
Radical Malay politics: its origins and early development
(Petaling Jaya, 1985), pp. 44–7.

30.
MSS/PIJ, 31 May 1948.

31.
Straits Times
, 26 April 1948; MSS/PIJ, 15 May 1948.

32.
Shamsiah Fakeh,
Memoir Shamsiah Fakeh: dari AWAS ke Rejimen Ke-10
(Bangi, 2004), pp. 53–4; Ibrahim Chik,
Ibrahim Chik: dari API ke Rejimen Ke-1
(Bangi, 2004), pp. 64–6.

33.
MSS/PIJ, 31 May 1948.

34.
We have drawn here on the richly descriptive and sumptuously illustrated study by Khoo Salma Nusution and Abdur-Razzaq Lubis,
Kinta Valley: pioneering Malaysia’s modern development
(Ipoh, 2005).

35.
Ooi Jin Bee, ‘Mining landscapes of Kinta’,
Malayan Journal of Tropical Geography
, 4 (1955), p. 52.

36.
For this, see Francis Loh Kok Wah’s seminal work,
Beyond the tin mines: coolies, squatters and New Villagers in the Kinta valley, c. 1880–1980
(Singapore, 1988), pp. 66–85.

37.
T. N. Harper,
The end of empire and the making of Malaya
(Cambridge, 1999), pp. 96–101.

38.
For a contemporary assessment see E. H. G. Dobby, ‘Some aspects of the human ecology of South-East Asia’,
Geographical Journal
, 108, 1/3 (1946), pp. 40–51.

39.
State Forest Officer to Resident Commissioner, Perak, 3 July 1947, ibid.

40.
Farmers of Bekor Sakai Reserve and Keledong Saiong Forest Reserve to Resident Commissioner, Perak, 3 January 1948, Pk. Sec/2777/47, ANM.

41.
Petition of Chin Wong Peng and others, ‘Cultivation in Kg Bahru, Kuala Selangor’, 29 August 1946, MU/1437/46, ANM.

42.
Harry Fang, ‘Who are the squatters?’,
Malaya Tribune
, 5 February 1949.

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