The Kelantan Uprising 1915

Department of History, National University of Singapore
The Kelantan Rising of 1915: Some Thoughts on the Concept of Resistance in British Malayan
History
Author(s): J. de V. Allen
Source: Journal of Southeast Asian History, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Sep., 1968), pp. 241-257
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of Department of History, National University

of Singapore
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THE KELANTAN RISING OF 1915:

Some Thoughts on the Concept of Resistance in British
Malayan History

J. de V. Allen

This does not claim to be an adequate account of the 1915

Kelantan Rising. On the contrary, it is designed to show how

little we yet know about it. It is not even mentioned in most

English-language histories of Malaya.1 There is a certain amount

about it in the Colonial Office files, but it will be an important

part of my argument that these do not reveal what we most want

to learn. My main intention is to suggest that a fuller study of

it would make as good a starting-point as any for a more general

review of the role played by armed Malay resistance in the history

of the British period in Malaya. I shall further suggest certain

lines which thinking on this subject might follow, but only very

tentatively. If this article stimulates such new thinking along any

lines at all, it will have achieved its purpose.

It will be useful to begin by characterising, as fairly as is possible

in a short space, what I believe to be present thinking among

English-language historians of Malaya about the role of armed

Malay resistance from 1874 to 1957. It is, I believe, much the same

as past thinking about the role of armed resistance in most British

and even non-British colonial territories, Historians of the British

Empire generally used to accept as basically true the explanations

provided by colonial administrators themselves for armed out

breaks against their administration, and historians of British

Malaya were no exception; but while more recently historians of

other British domains, notably Central and East Africa, have

begun seriously to question these explanations, and to suggest that

1. R. O. Winstedt, Malaya and Its History, 1962 edn., e.g., makes no mention of it;

nor, more surprisingly, does R. Emerson, Malaysia, 1937; and it is omitted from

the historical summary in J. M. Gullick, Malaya, 1963. Most remarkable of all,

there is no account beyond a short footnote on it in Chan Su-ming, 'Kelantan

and Trengganu, 1909-1939', JMBRAS XXXVIII. i (1965), although it is mentioned

in a passage which she quotes (p. 178). A brief and typically deprecating account

of the Kelantan Rising by a former British Administrator, emphasising its

triviality and suggesting that its leader, To' Janggut, may have had Indian blood

(because he had a beard) appears in Malaysia, the British Association of Malaysia's

magazine of April 1968, and a similar though slightly fuller account of the

1928 Trengganu Rising in the issue of the previous month.

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THE KELANTAN RISING OF 1915

armed resistance, or the threat of it, played a much more important
and consistent role than has hitherto been realised, nobody has yet
seriously raised the question of whether this was also true about
Malaya, and of why such armed resistance as did occur in the Malay
States after 1875 really broke out. There is of course no reason
why what historians decide was true of one part of the colonial
Empire should prove equally true of another: 'resistance' in Malaya
may well have played a totally different role from 'resistance' in
East Africa or elsewhere, and even assumed a different form. But

the question is still worth considering.

In so far as one can generalise, imperial historians have tended

to underestimate the importance of 'resistance' (which term I shall

hereafter use to include both actual and threatened armed op

position to colonial rule) as a factor taken into account by the

British when deciding what reforms to introduce into colonial

societies, and still more the rate at which they should introduce

them. This is because the sources they have generally used are

the records of British colonialists who had themselves, in most

cases, an interest in minimising the importance of such resis anee.2

Historians have admitted, of course, that considerations of security

have been taken into account from time to time, especially just

after an outbreak of violence; but they neglect the extent to which

such considerations sometimes modified the whole tone, and even

the institutions, of the administration.

They have divided such outbreaks of resistance as occurred into
to imply that there was no such
three rough categories, designed

thing as 'permanent' or 'general' resistance to colonial rule, and
to purely
that violence was normally localised and in response

transient grievances. These categories would be as follows: i)

'Initial resistance' to the imposition of British rule. This is

?generally represented as being exclusively ? the work of former leaders
chiefs, aristocrats, making a last-ditch stand
witchdoctors etc.

against the loss of their privileges. 'The masses' are envisaged as

being involved either through customary obedience or because they

are misled and know no better, ii) 'Sporadic resistance' to continuing

British rule. This is generally attributed to a local grievance
? over a new tax, for instance, or some land reform; or it may

be (and this almost constitutes a separate category) the result of

the emergence of some 'freak' religious movement whose leaders

manage to 'mislead' the masses once again with promises of

2. The history of the central Malay States, 1874-1896, is an exception. There it

suited British officials to stress the need to proceed in their own time and along

the lines they themselves thought best lest they should share the fate of J. W.
Birch ? but their real reason was
to minimise interference from Singapore and

London.

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THE KELANTAN RISING OF 1915

invulnerability or future bliss; and iii) 'Incipient independence

movements'. These are generally acknowledged to differ from

outbreaks in the other two categories in that they transcend tribal,

cultural, or historic boundaries and have at least a little 'genuine'

support. It would be conceded that they are led by 'new middle

classes', generally Western-educated; but it would often be alleged

that they were in some respect the consequence of 'outside inter

ference'. And they would almost invariably be regarded as

unconnected with outbreaks in categories i) and ii).

The debt owed to colonialist sources by the authors of these

interpretations of resistance movements is too obvious for comment.

This is not to say, of course, that the interpretations are necessarily

wrong. But let us see where East African historians, for instance,

have found them unsatisfactory. Associated with the threefold

distinction according to types of leadership and causes is a

distinction according to date. 'Initial resistance' might be expected

up to ten or fifteen years after the British arrived; 'sporadic

resistance' any time thereafter; but 'incipient independence move

ments' would not generally have been recognized, within East

Africa, before 1945.3 Yet two major outbreaks, the Maji Maji

Rebellion against the German administration in Tanganyika in the

early years of this century and the so-called Mau Mau rising in

Kenya in the 1950s, do not fit the pattern appropriate to the years

when they occurred. This is not the place to consider either event;
but we may briefly note
that further investigation of these and

other outbreaks suggests that the threefold division mentioned

above cannot easily be sustained since all resistance movements

tended to arise from the same sort of cause in whatever period.

Moreover it would be dangerous to assume that outbreaks which

would normally be placed in categories i) or ii) according to their

B. This is not the place to summarise recent Central and East African historio

graphy. Suffice it to say that it is a good deal more sophisticated than this

account suggests. My aim here is merely to provide a framework for criticism

of older ideas. To those who wish to know more about it, I recommend T. O.

Ranger, 'Connections between "primary resistance" movements and modern
Africa Social
mass nationalism in East and Central Africa', University of East
and Shona
Science Conference Paper, Dec. 1966; idem, 'The role of Ndebele

religious authorities in the rebellions of 1896 and 1897', The Zambesian Past
(eds. R. Stokes & R. East
Brown), 1966; esp. p. 96; idem, 'Revolt in Portuguese
Africa', St. Anthony's Papers XV (1963), pp. 54-80; J. Iliffe, 'The Organisation of

the Maji Maji Rebellion', Journal of African History VII. iii (1967); J. Lonsdale,
analysis', African Affairs
'The emergence of African Nations: a historiographical

vol. LXVII (no. 266), Jan. 1968; and, for an extreme viewr, the contribution of

A. B. Davidson of Moscow University in Einer ging Themes of African History

(ed. T. O. Ranger), 1968.

I am indebted to my colleagues in Makerere, Dr. D. Denoon and Dr. G.

Uzoigwe for discussions which helped me to formulate my own ideas of what the

concept of resistance might involve: they are not, however responsible for these

ideas.

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THE KELANTAN RISING OF 1915

date or nature are irrelevant to independence: the link between

the so-called Mau Mau and Kenya's independence is clear; and

President Nyerere of Tanzania appeals openly to memories of the

Maji Maji as the inspiration of his country's uhuru.4

Let us now turn to Malay resistance to the British. Most

English-language historians have followed the threefold schema

mentioned above in dealing with it. Thus they have characterised

the Perak and Negri Sembilan Wars of the 1870s and the Pahang

Rebellion of the 1890s as 'initial resistance'; if they mention the

Kelantan rising of 1915 and the Trengganu rising of 1928 at all,

it is as examples of 'sporadic resistance'; while they have accepted

Malay agitation against the Malayan Union scheme in 1945-6

(although it did not spill over into violence) as the origin of the

Malay nationalist movement.5 They see no connection between

the three groups, and pay little attention to the first two. Indeed,

the Malay community before 1941 is generally characterised as

without reservation wholly loyal to Britain and quite disinterested

in the politics of independence;6 this in spite of the fact that Britain

never in fact enjoyed twenty-five consecutive years of peaceful rule

unchallenged by a Malay resistance movement of some kind. If

we wish to challenge this assumption along the lines that similar

ones have been challenged elsewhere, we will have to show that

at least some of the outbreaks were more serious than has been

recognised and that there is at least some comparison between the

causes of post-1945 nationalism and these earlier phenomena,

preferably a link between the actual movements themselves. This

article is merely intended to suggest that the Kelantan outbreak

may have been a good deal more serious than has been recognised.

But if that could be proved, there would be further implications.

First word of the disturbances in Kelantan reached London in
they were very minor ? little more
May, 1915, and suggested that tax hitherto in the State had been
than a tax riot.7 The normal
land was not taxed and in a bad
a produce-tax.8 Thus unused

4. G. K. Gwassa & J. Iliffe, Records of the Maji Maji Rising (i), Dar-es-Salaam,
1968, p. 29.

5. Dr. W. Roff's recent work The Origins of Malay Nationalism 1967 traces it back

a good deal further than 1945 but does not set out to trace any possible important

links between it and the Perak or Sungei Ujong Wars or the Pahang, Kelantan or

Trengganu Risings.

6. As recently as 1965 V. Purcell declared that before the Second World War
since
Malay nationalism had 'scarcely come into being'. South and East Asia

1800, Cambridge, p. 152.

7. CO 273/426. Young to CO telegrams of 3.V.1915 and S.v.1915, confidential des

patch of 5.V.1915 and tel. of ll.v.1915.

8. At least so the Adviser said in the despatches. But W. A. Graham, Kelantan,

1908, pp. 74 and 92 suggests that while it was true that unused land was

untaxed, padi-land at least was taxed by acreage, (Graham, Siam's Adviser in

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THE KELANTAN RISING OF 1915

year the tax-burden was automatically lower. This had recently

been replaced by a land-tax which had the advantage that it was

much easier to work efficiently and that it provided a constant

amount of revenue annually; but it was conceded that it might result

in some hardship in a bad year. It looked as if it had been a bad

year: the price of copra had fallen and padi-harvests were said to

have been poor. This had led to disturbances in one of the outly

ing districts, Pasir Puteh, and one of the policemen sent to arrest

the ring-leader, who was known as To' Janggut, had been killed.

The District Officer in Pasir Puteh was a Singapore Malay and,

although George Maxwell, the Acting Colonial Secretary, described

him as a competent man, it appeared that he had made himself

very unpopular. After the attempt to arrest To' Janggut failed,

he fled and a mob of some 200 people sacked his office and went

on to loot and burn the bungalows of some Europeans planters

nearby. Two hundred troops were being sent from Singapore to

deal with the affair.

Even in these first reports there were hints that what had
occurred
tax-riot. might turn out to be something a little more than a mere

The an.i-land tax movement in Pasir Puteh district had

been led by one Engku Besar. He was the grandson of the

Tengku Sri Mahkota who was said to have been the last of a

dynasty which had administered the district during the nineteenth

century more or less independently of Kota Bahru.9 There was

therefore the possibility that it was in part a secession movement.

Then it was suggested that the Engku Besar's movement received

some support from highly-placed people in Kota Bahru itself: the

Tengku Besar and the Tengku Bendahara, both uncles of the

Sultan, and one Engku Chik Penambang were mentioned in this

context. All three were members of the State Council. It was

thought that they might have ideas of replacing the Ruler with one
of their own number probably Engku Chik
? This

Penambang.

would involve overthrowing British rule. It was pointed out that

Kelantan Malays were convinced that Britain was losing the war

and that, especially in view of the Singapore Mutiny which occurred

January to March of 1915, she would be unable to send troops to

Kelantan, notes that the introduction of this system in padi-land led to peasant

suspicions). It is likely that fruit etc. was subject to a produce-tax. But most

of the population lived by growing rice; and it is hard to see why bad rice

harvests should have led to hardship only as a result of the latest tax-reform.
This should have been the case ever since Graham's time ? unless, of course,

it had previously been possible to pay one's tax the following year, in which case

one could make up for a bad harvest by planting less for the next harvest and
so paying less tax.

9. This is presumably Wan Jaffar's 'sub-State' of Limbat referred to by Graham,
1908, pp. 41-3. Although he makes no mention of the title Tunku Sri Mahkota

in connection with it.

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THE KELANTAN RISING OF 1915

Kelantan. The arrival of the 200 soldiers caused great surprise.

Both the secession theory and the anti-British theory received some

support from the declaration of To' Janggut, described as Engku

Besar's right-hand man, that he intended "to drive out all Europeans

and all foreigners of every nationality, to establish the old regime

and. ...to have taxes only once in every three years".

Governor Sir Arthur Young did not have a very high opinion

of the British Adviser, Kelantan, Langham-Carter, and certainly

such of his despatches as found their way to London show him in

a very bad light. Singapore therefore asked, first his assistant,

Farrer, then the Acting Colonial Secretary, George Maxwell himself,

to enquire further. This may indicate concern lest the incident
was being played down; it may on the other hand ? and
this is
perhaps more likely, in view of Young's attitude throughout ? show

that Young thought Langham-Carter was inventing a number of

other, unnecessary causes for what had occurred in order to exonerate

himself of blame for introducing the new tax without explaining it

properly. Both Farrer and Maxwell confirmed ? what Langham
Carter denied ?
that the new tax-system was a major cause of the

trouble, and that it had not been adequately explained. But

neither suggested that it was the only ?major cause; nor was either
able to play down the events if, indeed, that was what
really hoped they would
Young do ? in view of what happened after the

arrival of the troops. In fact further reports which were sent from

Singapore in June and July, far from reducing the affair to a minor

scuffle, tended to magnify its possible importance.10

The first attempt to arrest To' Janggut took place on April 28th,

but it seemed that the Malay District Officer had been forewarned

of trouble. From that date Pasir Puteh was evidently in rebel

hands for at least three weeks. In early May the troops reached
Kota Bahru Ruler was said to be terrified ?
from Singapore. The

it would be interesting to know whether he was more terrified of
the troops or the rebels ? and availed himself of his traditional

right to summon all the rakyat of the State to his aid by krah.11

Although there had only been some 200 'activists' involved in the

10. CO 273/426. Young to CO confidential of 18 v. 1915, and of 25.v. 1915; 249

and confidential of 2.vi. 1915.

11. This use of krah may have been very significant. In Kedah the Sultan had

employed krah against the Chinese Rising in Kulim shortly before the British

takeover, and resisted efforts to abolish it on the grounds that it was the only

way he had of defending his State. If the Kelantan Ruler now sought to use

it, it seems far more likely that he had ideas of using ? it against invading foreign
troops than against Kelantan rakyat in Pasir Puteh but we cannot be sure;

he may genuinely have felt that what was happening in Pasir Puteh was aimed

against himself and his government. In any case, Langham-Carter was strangely

insistent that it would be unwise to use krah to get the Pasir Puteh Road built

after the troubles: he preferred a punitive tax, and this was imposed.

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THE KELANTAN RISING OF 1915

attack on the District Office and the European bungalows in Pasir

Puteh, it was noted that the entire population of the district was

solidly behind Engku Besar and To' Janggut. The Sultan sent two

of his Ministers, the Dato S'tia and the Dato Mentri, to negotiate.

The rebels were reported to have demanded a free pardon which

'the Sultan and the British Adviser' refused. Thereupon the troops

began to advance upon Pasir Puteh. .The road only ran part of the

way. On May 23rd they encountered an armed group of Malays

whose numbers are not recorded but who seem likely to have far

outnumbered 200 since they were led by, besides Engku Besar and

To' Janggut, Penghulu Adam, 'Che Isakak, and Haji Said. The

Malays advanced to the sound of gongs12 and the British subse

quently acknowledged the extreme bravery shown in the battle by

To' Janggut, who was said to have become invulnerable. Unfortu

nately for him, he was shot down and his supporters then lost heart,
so that the Singapore troops were able to press on and retake Pasir

Puteh without further opposion.

That was not the end of it, however. Penghulu Adam gave

himself up but Engku Besar, Haji Said and Che' Sikak fled to Ulu

Kelantan or Trengganu. The troops were presently replaced by

the Malay States Guides, but it was not until August that Young

was able to report that these had been withdrawn.13 It now tran

spired that violence had not been limited to the Pasir Puteh

District. There had been incidents in Pasir Mas and Ulu Kelantan

as well. The question was also raised whether the Ruler himself
might not have been behind the whole ? if not actively, then

thing

at least passively, for fear of his throne: he had tried to oppose the

use of the troops. It was at all events clear that there was wide

spread xenophobia throughout the State ? and this did not just

mean intolerance of non-Kelantan Malays: it included Europeans

and Sikhs as well. But non-Kelantan Malays in the administration

were particularly resented. Langham-Carter said that there were

only 34 of them as opposed to 381 Kelantanese, and that all the

police were Kelantanese.14 But he did not say how many of the

top posts were occupied by outsiders. And it emerged that the

Ruler had recently petitioned the Adviser to improve the position

of Kelantan Malays in the administration, but nothing had been

done. Indignation was said to have reaallchedforeiganerpsitch? where the
to drive out hence To'
Kelantan people wanted

12. Graham, 1908, pp. 42-3, speaks of the beating of gongs as characteristic of

Kelantan Malay warfare. 100 new (Indian) police were

13. CO 273/427. Young to CO conf. of 12.viii.1915.

sent to Kelantan at the same time.

14. This may not refer to police officers. If it does, it is difficult to know who the
referred, unless they were employed by the
Sikhs were to whom the despatch

Duff Development Company.

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THE KELANTAN RISING OF 1915

Janggut's declaration to this effect, wThich, it will be noticed, took

precedence over his aim of changing the tax-system. Langham

Carter, at least, believed that a much bigger uprising was planned

for late May but it fizzled out when To' Janggut was wounded.

Maxwell and Farrer did not mention this possibility. But they cast

doubt upon the original assumption that the trouble had risen out of

bad harvests and the fall in copra prices, and stressed that it was

genuinely believed that the British Empire was on the verge of

collapse at the time when the rising began. the rising ? although
? is the Governor's
Not the least interesting despatch concerning

not because it is in any way informative

summing up.15 As we have seen, every fresh despatch contained

more evidence (though none of it conclusive) suggesting that what

had happened had been a fairly widescale, if somewhat ill-organised,

outburst of six years of opposition to British rule.16 Young now

suddenly declared that he did not believe that the rising was wide

spread nor that it had derived any inspiration from Kota Bahru.
He added ? in defiance of the one piece of evidence upon which
he, Farrer and Maxwell had been agreed from the start ? that he

did not believe that the land-tax was its cause, but that it had been

'seized upon as a pretext'. He did not say what he thought the
Office ? who had very lit le
real cause was nor did the Colonial the start ? ever ask. He did

to say about the whole affair from

say, however, that Langham-Carter would have to be moved;17

although when the Ruler of Kelantan asked of his own accord that

this should be done, Young tried to make it a condition that

Kelantan should pay the difference between his Adviser's salary and

the salary of the post to which he would have to be 'promoted' in

the Federated States. The Colonial Office woke up at this point

and observed that Langham-Carter must be moved anyway, whether

the Ruler accepted this condition or not. And even Young con

ceded that the affair showed the importance in the Unfederated

15. Young to CO of 20.vii.1915 in CO 273/427, in which Maxwell's, Farcer's and

Langham-Carter's reports and recommendations are enclosed.

16. W. A. Graham, an Englishman employed by the Government of Siam, was

sent to be Adviser in Kelantan as a result of an agreement between Bangkok

and London in 1902; but Britain formally assumed such powers as Siam had

previously exercised over the State only as a result of the Anglo-Siamese Con

vention of 1909, which was supplemented (the previous relationship between

Siam and Kelantan being obscure to, and misunderstood by the British) in 1910

by a 'Treaty' between Britain and Kelantan following the normal pattern of such

agreements between Britain and the Malay States. H. W. Thompson, who had

been seconded to Siam from the Malayan Civil Service, and who later returned

to it, provided some link between the periods before and after 1909 but not

much of one; and the transfer of power to Britain as represented by the

Singapore establishment which also dominated the F.M.S. represented a major

break with previous de jure arrangements.

17. Young to CO conf. of 12.viii.1915. Oddly enough, Young mentioned in this

despatch that the State Council was considering a lightening of the tax-load.

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THE KELANTAN RISING OF 1915

States of the Adviser being somebody who was acceptable to the

Ruler.18

It was of course in Young's interest that Whitehall should not

get too concerned about what had happened in Kelantan. First of

all, in the previous year and the early months of 1915, he had had

'showdowns' with the Rulers of both Johore and Kedah. In the

case of Johore London had backed him throughout but his dispute

with Kedah had led to all sorts of complications and his final victory

had only been a very narrow one.19 It is nowhere clearly stated

what Langham-Carter had done to make both Young and the Ruler

so keen to send him elsewhere but it is possible that if the Kelantan

Ruler had carried his complaints to the Colonial Office as the Regent

of Kedah did he might have won much sympathy there.20 There

may have been other reasons for playing down what had occurred.

There was, for instance, the question of roads. In 1913 the F.M.S.

had lent Kelantan money to build roads21 but two years later the
road to Pasir Puteh ? thirty miles, of which seven had already been
built in 190722 ? was not yet complete
and as both Farrer and

Maxwell pointed out this was one of the factors which enabled the

rising to take place as it did. Roads were now made an urgent

priority, and at Langham-Carter's suggestion a punitive tax was

imposed, on the instructions of the State Council, to provide funds.

Then there was the question of schools. The 1914 Annual Report,

which arrived in the middle of the disturbances and no doubt was

read more carefully than usual, complained that there were very few

schools in Kelantan, although it did mention one at Pasir Puteh:

attendance was described as erratic but not on the whole good, but

it was emphasised that Kelantan children were potentially better

material than their counterparts on the West-coast States.23 Farrer

repeated the call for more schools in his proposals for policy to be

18. CO 273/444. Young to CO conf. of 25.ii.1916 citing the Sultan of Kelantan to

Young of 8.?.1916. In 1901 the Sultan of Pahang had written to Swettenham

asking for Butler to be replaced as British Resident, Pahang, and the Governor

firmly refused. Chamberlain backed him and had the reply sent in his name.

CO to Swettenham of 21.v.1901, CO's Despatches conf., 1901, Singapore National

Library.

19. See J. de V. Allen, 'Anglo-Kedah Relations 1905-1915' JMBRAS XLI, i (1968).

20. In 1933 Sultan Ismail of Kelantan told his Adviser that "in days gone by he

had been very perturbed over the mixed marriages and personal eccentricities of
some of ." Governor
his Advisers . . B. A. Kelantan to Clementi of 6.ix.l933,

Clementi Papers, File: Malaya 8. It is unlikely, however, that this referred to

Langham-Carter. Sultan Ismail came to the throne only in 1920.

21. Young to CO conf. of 6.xi.l913, CO 273/400. As usual, Young reported that he

had consulted the Unofficial members of Federal Council about this, but had

not yet consulted the F.M.S. Rulers though he had 'little doubt they would

agree'. It is hard to see why the unofficials should have agreed except in the

hope of getting Kelantan into the Federation.

22. Graham 1908, p. 57. There is even a picture of it, p. 64.

23. CO 273/426.

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THE KELANTAN RISING OF 1915

adopted after the rising.24 Other recommendations for the future

which throw some light on the position as it had been were an

improved police force and a lightening of the tax-load. One

begins to wonder whether the people of Kelantan had got anything

at all from six years of British control except heavier taxation.

Singapore's long-term policy for Kelantan is fairly explicitly

spelled out in these despatches. Maxwell, who had been involved

in the 1910-1911 crises with Kedah when he was Adviser there (and

who later defended the Federation, with its large European adminis

tration, against threats of decentralisation to the Malays), although

he praised the Singapore D.O. of Pasir Puteh, affirmed that it was

imperative that more European officials be sent to Kelantan as soon

as possible. "In this connection," he added,

"I may say that I am of the opinion that Kelantan is

certain to enter the Federation before many years are over ?

possibly as soon as Pahang and Kelantan are linked by

railway. The Malays are unable to take their part in the

administration of the State and the work falls upon a very

small staff of European officers".25

Young expressed the same hope when he reported to London that

the cost of maintaining the Malay States Guides in Kelantan was

to fall upon the State Government itself, the idea being that as its
become more inclined to join
debt to the F.M.S. swelled it would

it.26 It is tempting to see the same motivation behind all Young's
with
parsimonious dealing Kelantan ? the attempt to make it pay

for Langham-Carter's 'promotion' on which he was already deter

mined, for instance, mentioned above; and the infamous decision of

1912 to charge Kelantan for the ?300,000 paid to the Duff Develop

ment Company by the F.M.S. for a Deed of Cancellation.27 This

also explains why it was always the F.M.S. that lent money to the

Unfederated States, not the Colony.28 One might even go further

and suspect that the Governor was guilty of encouraging misrule

24. Memo of 31.V.1915 in Young to CO conf. of 20.vii.19I5, CO 273/426.

25. Maxwell's recommendations enclosed in Young to CO conf. of 2.vi.l915, CO

273/426. Anderson had also thought that when the railway 'was complete
Kelantan to Stubbs pr. of 28.vii.1909 filed with
could be federated: Anderson

Anderson to CO 245 of 3.viii.l909, CO 273/350.

26. Young to CO Conf. of 20.vii. 1915, CO 273/427.

27. Emerson 1937, pp. 255-6. The assumption that Kelantan should pay for the

Deed of Cancellation, while technically based on the supposition that Kelantan

was responsible for the Duff Concession in the first place (although both Siam

and Britain had approved it), was no doubt in practice justified by the argu

ment that as soon as the matter was straightened out the railway could be

completed and Kelantan could enter the Federation, to its own huge advantage.

But it was really the F.M.S. railway, and Kelantan never joined the F.M.S.

28. $1000 for the Sultan of Trengganu's visit to Singapore in 1910, e.g., came out

of F.M.S. funds, although this was not apparently a loan. Federal Council Pro

ceedings, 2.xi.l910.

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THE KELANTAN RISING OF 1915

as well as bankruptcy in Kelantan and Trengganu in the hopes of

getting them into the Federation, but this would be hard to prove.29

Be that as it may, I have mentioned elsewhere my suspicions that

Young and Maxwell were, during 1914-5, planning behind White

hall's back to extend the Federation. Kedah certainly suspected

them of it, and there was pressure on Johore and Trengganu in the

same direction.30 If rumours to this effect had reached Kelantan,

then we need not search elsewhere for reasons for rebellion.

If we return to the files to try to make out what was really going

on in the Malay camp, as opposed to the British one, several

possibilities present themselves. First of all, it is certainly quite

possible that there was a move, perhaps an anti-British move, to

replace the Ruler by one of his uncles. Difficulties over the

succession, rival claimants and subsequent pretenders, were endemic

in Kelantan.31 As long ago as 1904 Engku Chik Penambang had

been mentioned as 'the only relative of the Raja' who favoured

Siamese rule, because he hoped it might lead to his own succession.32

The Ruler himself was agreed by all sources to be weak and

vacillating, and his position was not made any stronger in the early

years of his reign by the fact that he was not recognised as a Sultan.33

It is equally quite possible that the Ruler himself was, by 1915,

heartily tired of British rule and prepared to join his relatives in

a revolt against it if such a revolt looked like succeeding. He had

sent protests to Siam against the British takeover by the Treaty of

1909.34 He was reported to be particularly aggrieved by the new

29. When in 1917 the Sultan of Trengganu ? asked for a European police officer,
Young told him none could be spared a decision which the Colonial Office

regretted. Young to CO 68 of 6.??.1917, CO 273/459. One year later a police

scandal was one of the reasons for the appointment of a commission to enquire

into the affairs of Trengganu which led ultimately to the abdication of Sultan

Zainal Abidin's successor and the signing of a new Treaty. Young to CO 277

of 8.X.1918, CO 273/473.

30. 'Anglo-Kedah Relations, 1905-1915' and 'The ancien regime in Trengganu, 1909

1919, JMBRAS XLI.i (1968), pp. 23-53, & 54-94.

31. Graham 1908, pp. 50-52; cp. Clementi Smith to CO conf. of I7.vi.1891, Gover

nors' Despatches (conf.) 1891, Singapore National Library.

32. Anderson to CO 107 of 23.xi.1904, Governors' Despatches (Conf.) 1904 ibid.

There Engku Chik Penambang was described as an 'uncle' of the Ruler.

33. According to Graham, (1908, pp. 41, 46) Muhammad II (also known as Raja

Snik) was the first Ruler upon whom the Siamese conferred the title of Sultan.

He was known as Sultan Mulut Merah. His successor and the two Rulers

following him were also known as Sultan, but the fourth in line, the second Raja

Snik, (Muhammad IV) did not assume the title of Sultan (p. 53) until it was

granted him by Britain in 1910 (see below). Perhaps this was because the two

preceding Sultans had both 'died suddenly'; but perhaps Siam with-held the

title intentionally.

34. FO to CO of 28.V.1908, CO 273/343. The Times correspondent also reported

this opposition. Times of 24.V.1909. CO reaction was typical: one official

suspected Graham's influence, another the 'Malay rajahs who have been run

ning the various departments' (minutes of 29.V.1908). That Kelantan might

not want to be British was inconceivable.

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THE KELANTAN RISING OF 1915

border between his state and Siam fixed by an Anglo-Siamese
convention at the River Tabal, which cut off a large portion of his
territory and many subjects.35 Then there was a serious incident
early in 1910 when a European police officer arrested the To' Kweng

of His Highness' country district for embezzlement in the royal

presence: the Ruler wanted the officer concerned sent away and the

To- Kweng pardoned, but the Adviser refused to do either, although

the Ruler declared that Graham, the former Siamese Adviser, would

have deferred to him in such a matter.36 Later that year he asked

to be recognised by the British as Sultan, but was reported to be

extremely 'alarmed' wrhen Governor Sir John Anderson proposed

that in exchange he should recognise the Adviser as a Resident.

'Resident' was a title used only in the Federated States. Anderson

protested that, contrary to popular belief, the distinction between

an 'Adviser' and a 'Resident' was in fact negligible, but he gave

way and let the Ruler have his Sultanship without any quid pro

quo.37 The Ruler for his part queried the Adviser's right to fly

the Union Jack over his residence but said no more about it when

the Adviser was firm.38 All this suggests at the very least that court

circles had their eyes open and were anxious to avoid any commit

ment which might lead them into Federation at a later date. The
?
general report of them is that they wrere a feeble lot is Anderson
had said they were all fit for an ? but there no reason
asylum39

why we should accept this estimate without question: Jervois

thought the Maharaja Lela of Perak an imbecile old man but he

proved capable of fierce resistance later on.40 It seems by no means

out of the question that by 1914-1915 the Kelantan Royal family

was thinking along the same lines.

But it seems to me important that we should consider yet another

possibility. This is that the Kelantan rising really was, in origin,

35. Anderson to CO of 2.viii.l909, CO 273/350.

36. B. A. Kelantan to Anderson of 14.vii.1910 in Anderson to Collins pr. of 21.vii.

1910 end. with Anderson to CO 96 of 20.ii.1911, CO 273 372.

37. Anderson to CO tel. of 6.X.1910 and conf. of 26.X.1910, Governors' (Conf.)

Despatches 1910, Singapore National Library; Anderson to CO tels, of 28.ixl910

and 30.ix.1910, CO 273/362. The discrepancy between the dates is odd, but

not important. At the same time that this was arranged the Ruler's eldest

son was recognised by Britain as heir apparent.

38. B.A. Kelantan to Anderson of 14.vii.1910, cited in fn. 35.

39. ' . . . the Sultan and the wicked uncles who form his council are fit only for
? with the possible
an idiot asylum . e.xce' Aptniodnerson of the Raja Muda. It is not
opium, Thomson
says, but women . to Stubbs pr. of 28.vii.1909

end. in Anderson to CO 245 of 3.viii.l909, CO 273/350. Stubbs, a CO official

who had toured Malaya a little earlier, reported in 1911 that all the East-coast
or criminal lunatics' but he could not recall
rajahs 'looked like degenerates
it was the Yam Tuan Muda of Trengganu or the Raja Muda of
whether

Kelantan who was 'reported to display no interest in anything but pederasty'.

Minute of 21.iiU911 on Anderson to CO 105 of 22.ii.1911, CO 273/372.

40. C. N. Parkinson, British Intervention in Malaya, 1960, p. 211.

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THE KELANTAN RISING OF 1915

a popular revolt. To support this theory we have the names of the

five actual leaders of the attack on the Singapore troops: apart from

Engku Besar, all appear to be commoners (To' Janggut being the

nickname of Haji Mat Hassan).41 It is indeed possible that they

were acting under orders from above, as the British suspected, but

it is by no means certain. I have suggested elsewhere42 that, during

the last decades of the nineteenth and the first of the twentieth

century, there emerged in neighbouring Trengganu a local leader

ship which was independent of the arislocracy and did not hesitate

to criticise it. Although the same is unlikely to have happened

to the same extent in Kelantan, wrhere the Royal House, by its

ownership of land (which was more important in a rice-bowl state),

managed to centralise political power into its own hands much more

successfully, yet there is likely to have been some counterpart to the

Trengganu seyyids and hajis wTho held their own so successfully

against raja oppression. We are told that at the village level in

Kelantan leadership was generally divided between the To' Kam

pong (subordinated through the To' kweng to the Royal Family in

Kota Bahru) and the imam.43 Supposing, as seems likely, the Royal

House's control over the Pasir Puteh district was weak on account

of the fact that it had been, until recent, troublous limes, indepen

dent:44 it seems then likely that the imams? the hajis and such
seyyids as there were ? would stronger
have been correspondingly

there. The British noted in 1910 that they would have to 'walk

warily' in Trengganu for fear of a rebellion of the Pahang type.45

Perhaps they should have walked more warily also in Pasir Puteh.

All this is largely surmise: but there are two important facts to
support it. First of all, there is the historical connection between

the Pahang rebels and the 'independent' Eastern part of Kelantan:

the ruler of the latter gave asylum and, later, armed aid to the

Orang Kaya of Semantan, and it was only when both were defeated
and exiled to North Siam that Kota Bahru took over the adminis

41. It is just conceivable that this nickname had significant overtones. According

to Graham a Raja Janggut came from the East to overthrow the first Ruler of

Kelantan with Trengganu aid and superseded him (pp. 39-41). But since the

word Janggut only means 'beard' this need not be pressed too far.

42. 'The ancien regime in Trengganu, 1909-1919', JMBRAS XLI. i (1968), pp. 23-53.

43. Graham 1908, pp. 31, 113; Chan Su-Ming, 'Kelantan and Trengganu', JMBRAS

XXXVIII. i (1965), p. 161, quoting Graham, declares that prior to the appoint

ment of the To' kampong the imam had been the only local influence, and

that the two functioned side by side for 30-40 years before the imam lost all

temporal authority.

44. Assuming, as seems fair, that the 'independent state of the Tenku Sri Mahkota'

is the same as 'Raja Wan Jaffar's sub-state' (see fn. 9), then it was not ruled

from Kota Bahru until after its local chief had been exiled to North Siam,

along with the Orang Kaya Semantan, in 1894. Graham 1908, pp. 43-4.

45. Anderson to Stubbs pr. of 28.vii.1909 in Anderson to CO 245 of 3.viii.l909, CO

273/350.

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THE KELANTAN RISING OF 1915

tration of the district.46 Secondly, the Trengganu seyyids, with

their close connections with the Turkish-Arab world, rapidly formed
the First World War
something like an anti-British party when

began.47 They thus put their Ruler, Sultan Zainal Abidin, whom

they had hitherto at least respected (if not actually supported) on

account of his piety, in a difficult position: if he sought too much

comfort from the British, he risked finding himself sucked into the

Federation. If, on the other hand, he insisted on preserving his

alliance with anti-British elements, he stood to lose his throne (as

his son did almost immediately after his succession in 1918).48 It

may be supposed that the Kelantan Royal Family was in a no:

entirely dissimilar position. On the one hand, they had the example

of what had happened to Kedah when its Regent tried to stand out

against the Governor.49 On the other hand, there were powerful

forces in the country working against British power. As it

happened (the British, at any rate, thought it was coincidence) the

Sultan of Trengganu visited Kota Bahru just at the time of the

Pasir Puteh outbreak. When he returned home, he asked for more

British officials.50 The Kelantan Royal House may have felt rather

less inclined to commit themselves until they saw which side was

going to win, and this prevarication may have given rise to all the
But the
stories that they (or some of them) actually led the rising.
been the
real initiators of the movement may all the same have also some
attack on
hajis and the imams ? especially those in Pasir Puteh but
elsewhere
in the state ? some of whom actually led the

May 23rd, 1915.51

There is little point here in going further. There is too much

hypothesis already. But enough has been said, I hope, to cast at

least a serious doubt on previous interpretations (or non-interpreta

46. See fn. 44.

47. 'The ancien regime in Trengganu', cited above, deals with this in some detail.

48. ibid. There was still a clear 'nationalist opposition' party in the Trengganu

State Council in the 1930s, led by the Dato Luar, Auditor-General and Superin

tendent of Education, described as a 'foreign Malay'. B.A. Trengganu's Report

on the Working of the Adviser System in Trengganu forwarded by Governor

Clementi in his despatch to CO of 7.xi.l932, Clementi Papers, File 13.

49. B.A. Kelantan to Anderson of 14.vii.1910, cited in fn. 35, pointed out that the

Ruler's query of his (the Adviser's) right to fly the Union Jack over his resi

dence, and the incident regarding the arrest of the To' Kweng, took place just

after the receipt of a telegram from Kedah containing an 'official communique'

denouncing Britain's conduct. He described events at this time as part of the

"Kedah backwash".

50. Young to CO 336 of 28.vii.1915 enclosing the Trengganu Report for June,

1915, CO 273/427.

51. The Engku Besar, Che Isakak and Haji Said, it will be recalled, took refuge

either in Ulu Kelantan or in Trengganu. Sultan Zainal Abidin was said to

be doing his best to help capture them (ibid.; in 1896 he was described as
'after some demur' ? Mitchell to CO conf.
helping to catch the Pahang rebels

of 13.V.1896, Governors' (Conf.) Despatches 1896). The northernmost district
of Trengganu was ruled
by the third generation of a family intermarried with

the Kelantan Royal House.

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THE KELANTAN RISING OF 1915

tions) of what happened in Kelantan in 1915. Enough has been
general attitude of English
said, too, to render suspect the more

language historians to the role of armed resistance by the Malays
rising was not,
in the British period. It is true that the Kelantan
if it might have
as it turned out, a very big affair. But it looks as in a number of

been. And, small as it was, leads run off from it

interesting directions. First of all, there is the stated reaction in

Kelantan to British pressures on Kedah a few years earlier and the

possible link between the Kelantan outbreak and the visit of the

Sultan of Trengganu. Events in Kelantan were therefore not, in the

strict sense of the word, isolated in space. Then, if it is true that

the rising was really led by penghulus and hajis of East Kelantan,

there are possible connections between it and what had happened

in Pahang twenty-five years earlier and also between it and the

Trengganu Rising (also blamed on tax-reforms and also associated

with a local haji who claimed invulnerabilty52) thirteen years later.

It would not, in that case, be isolated in time either. Nor would

it be without major implications for the social structure of Malay

society. If the rakyat of Kelantan and Trengganu (and perhaps also

part of Pahang53) were prepared to rebel against British Rule with

out the sanction of the aristocracies of their respective States, then

the aristocracies were likely to be faced with the choice of joining

them or relying more heavily than hitherto on British support,

whether they liked it or not, to remove rakyat grievances. Sultan

Zainal Abidin's request for more British officers shows which he

chose. With the failure of the rebellion, Kelantan moved in the

same direction.54 Only in Kedah and, to a lesser extent, Johore, did

the traditional regimes manage to survive the pressures to which

they were subjected during this decade and emerge in more or less

full control of their States after 1919. Kedah, in particular, did so

by having such an efficient administration that peasant grievances

did not arise.

The other question which is prompted by the above reflections

52. Emerson 1937, p. 266; Memo by H. P. Bryson and W. F. N. Churchill in the

Papers of the British Association of Malaysia, Royal Commonwealth Society

Library, London, Item 11. 4.

53. M. C. Ff. Sheppard, 'Trengganu', JMBRAS XXII. iii (1919) suggests that Red

Flag and White Flag Malay Secret Societies were connected with the 1928

Rising (pp. 64-66). Governor Guillemard to CO secret of 25.xi.1922 in CO

273/518, enclosing Malayan Bulletin of Political Intelligence for November, 1922,

mentions that during the First World War there had been 'some revival' of

Malay Secret Societies in the Perak River area and in the Temerloh District

of Pahang, perhaps connected with the fear that Britain might lose the war.

It is worth considering whether these Secret Societies might not provide a link,

if one exists, between the Perak W7ar of 1875, the Pahang Rebellion, the Treng
ganu and Kelantan Risings, and even ? in view of
since 1945 who come from Temerloh the number of Malay leaders
and central ?

Pahang Malay 'incipient

independence movements' in more recent years.

54. Several more Europeans were sent to Kelantan in 1915 in spite of the shortage

of personnel caused by the war. E. Pepys, e.g., became D.O. of Pasir Puteh.

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THE KELANTAN RISING OF 1915

on the Kelantan Rising is whether it, and fear of other risings like

it, substantially modified the tone and institutions of British Rule

in Malaya in a liberalising direction. In the short run it clearly

did not. Young merely sent troops and more European officers and

used the occasion to increase Kelantan's debt to the F.M.S. He

did, however, transfer Langham-Carter, and it may be assumed

that even before the First World War ended rather more attention

was paid to Kelantan's development than would otherwise have been

the case. Great care was taken in subsequent years over the choice

of an Adviser, and the Ruler and his Council were reported to take

a lively and useful interest in the question of the appointment of

Kelantan Malays to the Civil Service.55 Above all, the fact remains
States never were ? except
that Kelantan and the other Unfederated

during the unsavoury little interlude of 1945-8 ? forcibly federated.

In 1920 George Maxwell himself wrote a memorandum to the

Colonial Office suggesting that it was in the Federated States that

British administration had gone awry, and hinting that Young had

erred in seeking to force Federation elsewhere without first dealing

with this problem.56 Young himself agreed, by that date, that it

seemed impracticable to enlarge the Federation for the time being,
if it were
and explicitly stated that compulsion would be necessary
may, after
decided to do so.57 It begins to look as ifMalay resistance

all, have played some part in preventing the spread of a purely
colonial-type administration,
such as was associated with the F.M.S.

all over the Peninsula.

A caution, however, is here necessary. It may be that fear of what

might happen among the rakyat in Kelantan, Trengganu, Kedah and

Johore should have influenced Britain in her decision not to extend

the Federation; I myself feel that there would have been wide

spread resistance at the popular level in at least the Northern States:

but such evidence as there is suggests that, except in Trengganu, the

risk of resistance at the popular level was underestimated, and it was

fear of the sort of non-violent resistance practised by the Royal
Families of Kedah and Johore to law-courts, the Houses
?
appeals

of Parliament, and the Crown i?tsewlf,hichinsistliendg on observation of the
British Governors, and
letter and spirit of the Treaties

London, too, to try for decentralisation in the F.M.S. first, in the

hope of the later securing a looser union of all the States.
It is true that the Governors ? Anderson
in particular ? were

struck by the sheer size of the populations of the Unfederated

55. B.A. Kelantan to Governor Clementi of 16.ix.1933 and B.A. Kelantan to

Governor Clementi of lO.i.1931 in Clementi Papers, Files Malaya 8 and Malayan
Federation (i) 10 respectively.

56. Notes on a Policy in Respect of the Unfederated Malay States by W. G. Maxwell,
Eastern no. 135, dated 15.X.1920, CO 717/10.
57. Young pr. to Dixon of ll.ix.1920 quoted ibid.

.256

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THE KELANTAN RISING OF 1915

States. The Malay population of Kelantan in 1909, it was noted,

was larger than the Malay populations of all the Federated States

added together.58 The unwritten corollary of this was that a Kelan

tan War would have been a very different proposition from the

Perak War of 1875, especially when British arms were needed else

where during the First World War. But Singapore thinking does

not seem to have appreciated that not only were the populations of

the Unfederated States far larger, but their social and political

structure was inevitably very different from that of the central States

cinentrthaalitsedearlieKr edapherio?d.5m9 uch It was probably not enough in 1909 even in
less in Kelantan or Trengganu ? to keep

an eye on the raja class: it was necessary to see to it that the rakyat

were satisfied as well. But Britain patently had not done this in

Kelantan. When trouble occurred, it was automatically assumed

that the rajas must be behind it. What Y? ouantg and Maxwell seem to
have feared more than a popular rising least consciously and on
the surface ? was Britain's
another crisis such as those which shook

relations with Kedah between 1909 and 1915 ?a battle fought in

the chambers of Penang lawyers, atWestminster and in the corridors

of Whitehall. When Young advised against widening the Federation

in 1920, it was not Kelantan he was thinking of: "it requires", he

wrote,

"very strong reasons before taking the step to force the

Unfederated States to join the Federation, and certainly

Johore and Kedah will never join without compulsion."60

If Young's attitude was typical, then it might be the case ? I would
not put itmore strongly than that ? that 'resistance' as I have defined
it above ? armed ?
resistance played a smaller role in Malaya (at

least between 1909 and 1920) than the peculiar sort of resistance

practised ? by Kedah and Johore in which even the threat of resort
to arms while it no doubt existed ? was never mentioned. I doubt,

however, if the role it played was so small that it can be ignored
by historians altogether.

58. Anderson to Stubbs pr. of 28.vii.1909 encl. in Anderson to CO 245 of 3.viii.l909,

CO 273/350. In 1905 the population of Kelantan had been estimated at 'about

300,000' (FO to CO, File 27579 of 28.vii.1908, CO 273/343) which figure Graham
reckoned to be if anything on the small side in 1908 (1908, pp. 17-8). The 1911

census, however, estimated 286,500. This is lower than the number of FMS.

Malays given in the 1901 census figures (about 313,000) and in the 1911 census
may have been going
figures (about 421,000) but still large enough. Anderson

on Swettenham's estimate for Kelantan of 600,000.

59. Pace Graham (1908, pp. 70-71), it seems impossible that the Kelantan aristocracy

of 1900 could have exploited and oppressed some 250-300,000 rakyat with the

same random nonchalance that the Perak or Pahang aristocracy of) 1870-1880

exploited a rakyat of 30-50,000. Far more sophisticated political institutions

must have been necessary; and it may be assumed that the rakyat of Kelantan

may not altogether have lacked their own institutions, organisations and move

ments to resist oppression.

60. vid. fns. 55 and 56.

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