TRIBUTE ABDUL - Perdana Library

M. SARAVANAMUTTU
Dance Hall in Penang. It was the custom in those days for Government
officers in South Kedah to take advantage of the weekly Thursday
half-day and Friday holidays to run up to Penang and Thursday
and Friday nights were usually spent at the Wembley Dance Hall
which was the only night club in those days. The proprietor, the late
Mr Heah Joo Seang, kept an open table and most of us used to
gather at it.
As a result of these trysts, my acquaintance with Rahman ri
pened into a warm friendship, assisted no doubt by his earlier con
tact with my younger brother. We had many interesting talks and I
soon learned that the young Tunku was imbued with a very vibrant
independent spirit. In fact the independent character of the Kedah
Royal House was already well known in those days. It was said that
the underlying reason for the first abdication of the late Sultan Abdul
Hamid, Rahman's father, was not the alleged mental illness but really
because he was riled by the constant British requests for concessions.
So he appointed his next brother, Tunku Mahmud, and then his
eldest son, the late Tunku Ibrahim, was made regent when the Sultan
became really ill.
Tunku Ibrahim himself was no less independent. I remember
Sir Cecil Clementi telling me of the difficulty he had in meeting Tunku
Ibrahim. When he went to Alor Star, he would be told that the
Regent had gone to Penang, and when he followed him there he
found he had gone off to Singapore! Kedah was not prepared to
come into the Federated Malay States as they saw that the Sultans of
the Federated States were mere figure heads and the real rulers were
the British Residents. It was this that led to Sir Cecil dementi's
now famous Decentralisation Speech at the meeting of the Rulers"
Council at Sri Menanti in 1932 which advocated more local autonomy
for the Malay States so that they could all come into a Federation
of the whole of Malaya - a consummation which was not achieved
till 1948.
There is no doubt that Tunku Abdul Rahman inherited this independent
spirit from his father whose youngest son he was though
unku denies that he was the favourite because he was considered too
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