Malayan Union

The Malayan Union was formed in 1946 by the British. It was a confederation of the Malay states and the Straits Settlements state excluding Singapore of which was placed as a crown colony under direct British rule. It was conceived to simplify the administration of British colonies in the Malay Peninsula.

Few of the key details of the Union were:

Malayan citizenship that would give equal rights to all would be citizens regardless of race
a citizenship based on the Jus Soli principle
the transformation of the title Sultan to President.

In a way, the Sultans would completely transfer all of their power to the British Crown except in the matter of the culture and religion. The Union would ultimately placed under a British Governor.

The idea of the union was first expressed by the British on October 1945 in the aftermath of the Second World War. Sir Harold MacMichael was assigned the task of gathering the Malay States rulers' approval of Malayan Union in the same month. In a short period of time, he managed to obtain all the Malay rulers’ signature through intimidation.

On April 1st 1946, the Malayan Union official came to existence with Sir Edwand Gent as the first Governor. The capital of the new institution was Kuala Lumpur.

The Malay opposed the creation of the Union. The opposition was mainly caused by the way Sir Harold MacMichael acquired the Sultans’ signature, the erosion of Sultans’ powers and the issue of citizenship where the Malay would not get special privilege.

UMNO, a Malay political association formed by Dato’ Onn Jaafar on March 1st 1946 led the opposition against Malayan Union.

In the end, due to tremendous internal pressure inside the Malayan Union, the British finally conceded to the local opposition. The Malayan Union ceased to exist on January 31st, 1948. It was replaced by a looser Federation of Malaya (Persekutuan Tanah Melayu in Malay) of which later would form Malaysia in 1963.