NAME : Tunku Abdul Rahman
OCCUPATION : Prime Minister
BIRTH DATE : February 8, 1903
DEATH DATE : December 6, 1990
PLACE OF BIRTH : Alor Setar, Malaysia
PLACE OF DEATH : Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
FULL NAME : Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj ibni Almarhum Sultan Abdul Hamid Halim Shah (Jawi: تونكو عبدالرحمن ڤوترا الهاج ابن المرحوم سلطان عبدالحميد حاليم ش)
Tunku Abdul Rahman was a Malaysian politician who served as the first Chief Minister of the Federation of Malaya (1955–1957), before becoming the first Prime Minister of an independent Malaya (1957–1963), remaining Prime Minister following the formation of Malaysia in 1963, when Sabah and Singapore joined the federation, until his retirement in 1970. He was a Prime Minister of Malaysia (1963–1970).Commonly known simply as "Tunku" or "The Tunku" (a Malay royal title), Tunku Abdul Rahman is widely regarded, even by his critics, as Malaysia's founding father, the architect of Malayan independence and the formation of Malaysia. As such, he is often referred to as Bapa Kemerdekaan (Father of Independence) or Bapa Malaysia (Father of Malaysia).
Synopsis
A Malayan governmental figure since graduating from college, Tunku Abdul Rahman became his country’s first prime minister and foreign minister after it gained its independence, continuing in that post when the federation of Malaysia was formed in 1963.
Tunku Abdul Rahman was born February 8, 1903, in Alor Setar, Kedah, in Malaya, a country then under British control. He was the twentieth child of Sultan Abdul Hamid Halim Shah and Che Manjalara, the sultan’s fourth wife. In 1913, he went to study at Debsurin School in Bangkok, and in 1919, he was awarded a scholarship to further his studies at Cambridge University. After a lengthy trip from Singapore aboard a cargo ship, during which he contracted malaria, Tunku disembarked in the village of Little Stukeley, England. He graduated from Cambridge in 1925 and returned in 1926 for an honors degree in law. He sat for the bar exam in 1930 but failed to complete a section of the test and therefore did not pass on this first try.
Childhood
Tunku Abdul Rahman was born on 8 February 1903, in Alor Setar, Kedah, the seventh son of Sultan Abdul Hamid Halim Shah, the twenty-fifth ruler of the Kedah Sultanate. Tunku's mother was Che Manjalara, the fourth wife of Sultan Abdul Hamid. At that time, cholera and malaria were very common all over Kedah and at least two of Tunku's brothers and his older sister died from cholera while Tunku himself suffered from intermittent attacks of malaria until he left for London in 1920.
College
When Tunku was 16, he won a scholarship to further his studies at Cambridge University.
After about a year, Tunku realised that he was making very little progress in his studies. After a meeting with Mr. Ezekiel, his guardian, in the office of the Crown Agents, Ezekiel arranged for Tunku to move to Cambridge and to be taught by and live with a Mr Basil Atkinson. Atkinson was an experienced tutor and he prepared Tunku to sit for university entrance examinations known as "Littlego". The following year, he took the entrance exams and he obtained high marks for all his papers with a Pass for the whole examination. He was accepted as an undergraduate at St Catharine's College, one of the colleges of the University of Cambridge.
Five years after sailing from Singapore, at the age of 23, he sailed home. The Crown agents secured Tunku a berth in a passenger ship, which stopped atPenang. Tunku Ibrahim, the Regent and his eldest brother, was unhappy with Tunku's choice of degrees and he ordered Tunku to return to England to be admitted to the English Bar. On Tunku's initiative, the Malay Society of Great Britain was formed, with Tunku Abdul Rahman of Negeri Sembilan as President and Tunku Abdul Rahman of Kedah as Honorary Secretary and the driving force. In May 1930, Tunku sat for Part One of the Bar examination. Although he managed to pass three papers, his failure in one paper resulted in him failing the whole examinations in Part One. Tunku sailed to Penang in January 1931. Since Tunku was on a State scholarship, he was automatically a government servant when he returned. Tunku Ibrahim, was still the regent and he told Tunku that he was in disgrace for failing the Bar examinations in London.
Personal Life
Tunku married at least four times. It was in Kulim that Tunku married his first wife, Meriam Chong who was the daughter of his friend, Chong Ah Yong, a Thai Chinese. Soon after Meriam's conversion to Islam, she learnt to pray, and when the fasting month began, she persuaded Tunku to do so too. A year after their marriage, Tunku's daughter Tunku Khadijah was born. A year later, a son Tunku Ahmad Nerang was born. A month after Meriam gave birth to her second child, she contracted a severe attack of malaria and died from a medical blunder, an injection of undiluted quinine.
On Meriam's death, Tunku wrote a letter to his former landlady in England,Violet Coulson. When the news of Meriam's death reached Violet, she dropped everything and turned up in Singapore. They were secretly married by the Kadi in the Malay mosque in Arab Street according to Muslim rites. After conversion, Violet's Muslim name was Puteh Bte Abdullah. Violet went to live in Penang because they had no approval of the Ruler or Regent. Tunku Ibrahim, the Regent, was strongly opposed to mixed marriages, but when he died unexpectedly in 1934 and was succeeded as Regent by Tunku Mahmud, the Sultan's younger brother, he consented to the marriage. Though their marriage went well, Tunku's responsibilities in the public service were all-consuming and after a separation where Violet returned to London, they were divorced amicably in 1947.
He then married Sharifah Rodziah Syed Alwi Barakbah, with whom he had no children but they adopted four, Sulaiman, Mariam, Sharifah Hanizah (granddaughter) and Faridah.
Wanting to have more children of his own, he secretly married another Chinese woman named Bibi Chong, who converted upon marriage. He had two daughters with her, Tunku Noor Hayati and Tunku Mastura
Professional Life
In 1931, Tunku Abdul Rahman received an appointment as a cadet to the Kedah civil service and was later an assistant district officer in Kulim. In 1933, he passed the cadet's law exam on his first attempt, and finally, in 1939, he retook the English bar exam he had failed nine years before and passed. In 1949, he was called to the bar and was then named deputy public prosecutor in the Malayan Federal Legal Department, a position he left in 1951 to embark upon a political career.
Law Studies
Tunku applied for 18 months' study leave and arranged to return to England to resume his law studies. He arrived in Liverpool on 27 December 1946 and travelled by train to London, and remained there for the next 18 months.
When he passed all his law exams, Tunku sailed back to Malaya on the P.&.O. Corfu in January 1949 to be met by his wife, children and friends in Penang. A few days later he called on the Secretary to the Government to inform him that he was now a qualified advocate and solicitor, but the reception was neutral. Tunku was instructed to report to the State Legal Advisor for duty as a deputy public prosecutor.[1] His work was routine and he spent his days reading case files.
A Life In Politics
Abdul Rahman became president of the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) and spearheaded the alliance between the UMNO and the Malayan Chinese Association (1951) and that of the UMNO and the Malayan Indian Congress (1955). His Alliance Party won a sweeping majority in the election of 1955, and Abdul Rahman became the first chief minister of Malaya. In August, he used his first broadcast as chief minister to declare his determination in seeking independence from Britain without bloodshed.
Malayan Independence
In January 1956, Abdul Rahman led a mission to London to negotiate for Malayan independence, in the end securing immediate self-government for Malaya and the promise of independence by August 1957. That promise was kept, and Abdul Rahman became independent Malaya’s first prime minister (a post he would retain when the Federation of Malaysia, which consolidated the countries of Malaya, Singapore, Sabah, and Sarawak under one umbrella, was formed in 1963). At midnight on August 30, he stood at the flagpole in Merdeka Square, in Kuala Lumpur, when the Union Jack was lowered for the last time and the new Federation flag was raised.
In September 1970, with his power slipping and Singapore gone from the Federation for five years, Abdul Rahman relinquished his post as prime minister. He died in 1990 at the age of 87.
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