PM Lee Hsien Loong at the Launch of "The Singapore Lion: A Biography of S. Rajaratnam"

Professor Wang Gungwu, Chairman, ISEAS Board of Trustees
Ms Irene Ng, Member of Parliament, now author as well
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen

I am happy to join you this evening to launch Irene Ng’s biography of Mr S. Rajaratnam.

Mr Rajaratnam, or Raja as we all knew him, was one of Singapore’s founding fathers. This group of men decided in the 1950s that Singaporeans should take charge of our own destiny and fight for independence from British colonial rule. They did not start off as national leaders; they became national leaders only through a hard-fought struggle. Indeed Singapore did not start off as a nation; only after going through tumultuous times, led and guided by the founding fathers, did a national identity gradually emerge.

The main story of Singapore’s modern history is well known: how we attained self-government in 1959, when the PAP was elected to govern Singapore for the first time; how the PAP split with the Communists in 1961, fought and eventually defeated them; how the leaders achieved Merger with Malaya to establish a new Federation of Malaysia including Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak; how and why Singapore split from Malaysia in 1965 to become an independent republic; and how after independence we steadily built up our economy, strengthened our defences, and developed a shared sense of nationhood, to become what we are today, an oasis of prosperity and stability in Asia.

We are all familiar with this history: it is taught in schools, and our students can recite the chronology and outline the key events. But these formative years for our country were not a dry, impersonal, or inevitable unfolding of history. It was very much a human struggle. The individuals on different sides participated vigorously and passionately, and engaged their entire beings to fight for their competing visions of society. Fortunately, the non-Communist group in the PAP eventually won, and brought Singapore onto the right path.

Singa poreans today know the pivotal role played by Mr Lee Kuan Yew. He was leader of the People’s Action Party and after 1959 the Prime Minister. He personified the struggle, but he did not do it alone. Mr Lee had a core team, which included Dr Goh Keng Swee, Mr Toh Chin Chye and Mr Othman Wok, as well as Mr S. Rajaratnam. Each of these men made a unique contribution.

Raja was a writer, philosopher, and propagandist. He overflowed with ideas, and was good at finding the words to best express them. He was an extraordinary man, with high ideals and the deep passion to champion and fight for them. He believed early in a non-communist Malaya, in a multi racial, meritocratic society, and in building a Malayan identity to dissolve and transcend our racial differences. Many of these ideas were ahead of their time when Raja first expounded them in the 1940s and 50s, but over the decades they proved relevant and enduring. Today they appear less striking and original than they truly were, only because they have shaped our values as a nation, and become widely accepted as the way things should be.

In writing this book and bringing Raja to life for a new generation, Irene Ng has performed a signal service. The book gives a vivid sense of the man and his times, and tells an absorbing narrative of Raja’s role in the founding of our nation. Raja’s life after 1963 also deserves detailed recounting, and the second volume will cover that period. This first book tells the fascinating story of his life before that – how he came to hold his beliefs; how his life and experiences influenced his thinking about society and politics; his participation in the anti-colonial struggle, first writing powerful critiques in newspapers against the colonial government and then supporting and joining the PAP in its fight for public support and the people’s mandate; and his contribution as a minister in the new government, where he carved out a role for himself as the ideologist and voice for the team.

Raja came from a reasonably well-off family. His father had come from Ceylon to work in Seremban in Malaya, and did well for himself, first as a rubber plantation supervisor, then a toddy contractor. Raja was born in Ceylon but grew up in Seremban. In Malaya he came to learn about the Chinese who worked in the tin mines, and the Malays who lived in the kampungs. He made friends in school from other races. These early years opened his eyes to the multi-racial nature of Malayan society.

Raja’s father wanted him to become a lawyer, and sent him to London to study. Very quickly he decided that law was not for him and instead turned to left wing social activism. He moved in Fabian circles, made acquaint ances with activists in Britain as well as students from the colonies, read widely, and picked up socialist and nationalist ideas in keeping with the zeitgeist of that period. Raja would eventually spend 12 years in London, including during World War II, when he lived through the Blitz. He never completed his law degree, but gained contacts which would later become useful in Singapore’s struggle for nationhood.

After the War, Raja returned to Seremban with his Hungarian wife, Piroska. His father pressed him to go back to London, finish his studies and become a lawyer. But Raja totally rejected this as a waste of time. He was clear what he wanted to do. His place was in Malaya, which to him had to include Singapore. He found work as a journalist in Singa pore, first with the Tribune, followed by the Singapore Standard, then the Raayat which he founded, and later after the Raayat failed with the Straits Times. He was a fearless critic of both the colonialists and communists. He wrote scathing pieces criticising the unjust and inept policies of the colonial government, as well as the violent and cruel methods of the communists, who had started an armed insurgency in Malaya. More than once Raja received death threats. His office desk was doused with kerosene and set on fire, but he was not intimidated.

Among those he crossed was the iron-fisted General Sir Gerald Templer, the British High Commissioner in Malaya, who ran the military operation against the communist guerrillas. The book tells how after reading a critical article by Raja, Templer summoned the journalist to his office. There, he barked questions at Raja, all the time resting one leg on an open drawer, where a revolver could be clearly seen. But Raja refused to be cowed, kept his cool and calmly defended his stand.

In 1952, Mr Lee Kuan Yew contacted Raja to enlist his support. The postal workers’ union was about to go on strike to demand wage revisions and pension rights. Mr Lee was advising the union, and asked Raja to support the postmen’s cause in the media. Raja did, with sympathetic reports and editorials, the postmen won public sympathy, and the strike succeeded.

It was the start of a long and productive partnership. The two of them and the other first generation leaders continued working together, and gradually their friendship grew. This small group of men shared a common conviction of what Singapore should become – an independent, democratic, non-communist, socialist country, not by itself but as part of Malaya (what is peninsular Malaysia today). They joined hands to found the People’s Action Party. Collectively they gave Singapore the leadership that would see it through formidable challenges and build a nation.

From early on, Raja believed in a Malayan identity, shared by all the races. At that time, such a Malayan identity did not exist, either as a political ideal or a cultural reality. But Raja believed that the only way forward for the population of Malaya was for Chinese, Malays and Indians to submerge their differences and unite under a single shared identity. In his view, Singapore had to be one country merged together with Malaya, because the two societies were really one, and if the two were split, there would be constant rivalry and unproductive quarrels. He was right about this, as events would prove.

Raja worked hard to bring about Merger and Malaysia. When it became clear that the only way to achieve Merger was by forming a bigger federation of Malaysia, Raja went personally to Sarawak and North Borneo (now called Sabah), which were then British territories, to persuade their leaders to join Malaysia.

Multi-racialism was deep in him. He was viscerally against making distinctions between racial groups. He was convinced that racial distinctions existed only in people’s minds and could be eradicated, through proper education. How did he come to hold this conviction? Perhaps it was because of his early environment and formative influences, but I think fundamentally it was in Raja’s nature: he was an optimist and an idealist, who naturally respected and warmed to people of all backgrounds, so that even his opponents, in politics and in international affairs, had a regard and liking for him.

Raja’s faith that race was irrelevant was to be repeatedly contradicted by events. Till today race, language and religion are sensitive issues in many Southeast Asian countries, and will remain so for a long time. Raja saw how politicians whipped up racial passions, and the masses and mobs responded. Race was at the root of the difficulties in forming Malaysia and trying to make the federation work. Race would ultimately cause the federation to fail, and Singapore to be expelled.

But Raja held fast to his convictions. While Singapore was in Malaysia, he pushed for a Malaysian Malaysia against the communalists. The slogan made the multi-racial ideal seem obviously and irrefutably just – what could be more reasonable than for citizens of all races to be entitled to equal rights and opportunities? Raja mobilised people up and down the peninsula, as well as in Sabah and Sarawak, to fight for this just cause. Yet this ideal was far from a truism, and indeed was condemned by the UMNO ultras, who demanded a superior status for the bumiputras – the sons of the land. The unexpected and unintended result was Separation.

This must have been one reason why when the moment came for Singapore to separate from Malaysia, Raja took such a long time to agree. It was not just because of his own family ties in Seremban; he must have felt keenly that he was letting down all the people in the rest of Malaysia who had trusted him and believed in the Malaysian Malaysia ideal he had so eloquently advocated. These are events long ago, but it was a seminal moment whose consequences continue to shape politics and racial relations in both countries till today.

After Independence, Raja’s conviction and optimism inspired him to draft the Singapore National Pledge, containing the words “one united people, regardless of race, language or religion”. It was an aspiration, and not yet a statement of reality. Singapore has since come a long way in uniting our people. But we have not yet achieved the ideal so eloquently set out in the Pledge, and must continue to press on together, to become more and more one people and one Singapore.

Ms Irene Ng has spent four years working on this book. She combed through official records in Singapore, Australia and Britain, dug into volumi nous papers left by Raja, read his oral history in the National Archives, and interviewed his relatives, friends and political foes. This book reflects the enormous amount of work Irene has put in, researching, organising and distilling the material, and writing up a highly readable but serious account of his life. Even those who knew Raja will learn some interesting nuggets about him. For example, I never knew that he wrote short stories while in London, or that later in Singapore he wrote and presented a series of radio plays which set out in dramatic form his belief in building a Malayan nation. Raja unfortunately never wrote up his own life story. In the absence of such a personal account, this book brings us as close to Raja the man as we can get.

For those who lived through the events in this book, this biography will surely bring back memories of those days past – the battles and the uncertainties, the excitement and the relief. But many readers may know little about Raja except that he drafted our National Pledge. For them, this book will convey a vivid sense of what it was like in those days, and how the founding generation overcame great odds to create modern Singapore.

But the enduring message must be to appreciate what sort of person it takes to master events and shape the future of a country. Raja had a favourite quote: that an army of sheep led by a lion is mightier than an army of lions led by a sheep. Raja was indeed a lion. He was the stout-hearted warrior, never wavering, always sustained by the courage of his convictions and his natural optimism. Even in the darkest hour, Raja remained an indomitable fighter. Singapore is fortunate that he was one of our founding fathers. This book is thus aptly titled “The Singapore Lion”. If this generation can imbibe some of Raja’s spirit in our new era and environment, then Singapore will have a bright future.