Tunku Abdul Rahman was born on February 8 , 1903, in Alor Setar, Kedah.

He was born in a
building known as the "Istana Tiga Tingkat" of the Three-Storey Palace which looked like a
pagoda in the palace complex known as Dalam Kota. Tunku was the twentieth child of Sultan
Abdul Hamid Halim Shah, the twenty-fourth ruler of Kedah. Tunku's mother was Che
Manjalara, the fourth wife of Sultan Abdul Hamid. Together with his mother and her other
children, Tunku lived in the pagoda. As soon as he was old enough, Tunku ran outside the
palace enclosure to play with boys of his own age who lived in the town. His mother strongly
disapproved of it but she was too preoccupied with caring for the Sultan and Tunku's nurses
were unable to control him. At that time cholera and malaria were very common all over
Kedah and at least two of Tunku's brother and an elder sister died from cholera while Tunku
himself suffered from intermittent attacks of malaria until he left for London in 1920.

When Tunku was four years old, he was vaccinated. Although he tried to elude his mother's
servants , he was finally caught and taken to his grandmother's room where the painful
innoculation took place. When Tunku was six years old , one day , as he was toasting
keropok (fish fritters) in his mother's kitchen , a lit fragment of firewood fell on his left ankle
and burnt him. It was extremely painful. Tunku, wishing to conceal the accident from his
mother, wrapped a cloth around his ankle and hoped that it would heal. But the wound turned
septic and it was three years before it healed completely and Tunku was able to resume his
football games outside the palace. When Tunku was nine years old, he was circumcised
together with seven other boys who were his playmates from town. The event took place in a
room in the palace complex . The Royal Circumciser performed the minor operations in only
a few seconds but the healing was slow. All the patients, including Tunku, remained in the
palace for three weeks. Malay and Javanese shadow plays were performed nightly for their
entertainment.

Tunku's formal education started when he was about six years old at the only Malay
elementary school in Alor Setar. His mother had hoped that the school would keep him out of
mischief but he often ran away from class. When a small English medium school was opened
by a teacher named Mohamad Iskandar, Tunku's mother sent him there instead. In the
afternoon, Tunku was taught to read the Quran. When Tunku's eldest brother. Tunku Yusuf
returned to Alor Setar from England, he realized that Tunku was not making any progress in
his studies. He decided to take Tunku with him to Bangkok by sea from Singapore in 1913.
In Bangkok, Tunku was admitted to the Debsurin School, where lessons were taught in
Siamese. Tunku was never lonely because he possessed an unrivaled capacity for making
friends with people of all communities. His best friend was Tavil Guptarak. They attended
the same school and were inseparable. Tunku Yusuf spent his time on military operations
againts bandits. In 1915 , he contracted pneumonia in the jungle and died on his return to the
Siamese capital. Tunku then returned to Kedah accompanied by his brother's widow. His
mother then sent him to study in the Penang Free School. It was that Tunku began to
developed a keen interest in his studies and twice obtained a double promotion.

When Tunku was 16, he was awarded a scholarship which allowed him to further his studies
at Cambridge University. He managed to get a seat onboard an old 9,000-ton cargo ship
which carried only 12 people. Tunku boarded the vessel in Singapore. When the ship loaded
cargo in the Klang River, Tunku contracted a fresh infection of malaria. He had high fever
during the voyage and barely recovered when the ship arrived at Tillbury on June 1 , 1920.
Here , a representative named Eccles met him to take him to his temporary new home in
Little Stukeley near Huntingdon. The Rev. Edgar Vigers, the elderly Rector of the parish,
lived in a brick Recotry which was three storeys high. He supplemented his income by
tutoring teenage boys who needed coaching before they sat for a variety of minor
examinations. He had registered his name with his Crown Agents, and they sent him some
students, including Tunku. Most of the boys were English but when Tunku arrived, there
were three siamese boys.

[edit] Career
Upon his return home, Abdul Rahman worked in the Kedah public service and was appointed
as District Officer of Kulim and Sungai Petani. In colonial Malaya, almost all the District
Officers were British. Abdul Rahman, who was the only Malay District Officer at that time,
had the people's interest at heart. This made him cross swords with the British Administration
many times.

However, the British Administration in Kedah could not do anything as he was a prince and
the son of the Sultan. However, him angering the colonial administration cost him many
chances of promotion to higher offices.

Some time later, he returned to England to complete his law studies at the Inner Temple but
was forced to stop in 1938. At the outbreak of World War II, he returned to Malaya.

During the Japanese Occupation of Kedah, the Tunku was responsible for saving many lives,
both Malay and Chinese. He being of royal blood was highly revered by the Japanese and
could not be touched by them, and he used this to his advantage. Many people from Kulim
today lay claim to owing their lives to the Tunku.

He resumed his studies at the Inner Temple in 1947. And in 1949, he qualified for the Bar.
During this period, Abdul Rahman met Abdul Razak Hussein (later known as Datuk and
Tun). He was elected president of the Malay Society of Great Britain, and Abdul Razak, then
twenty-six, was his secretary.

[edit] Politics
After his return to Malaya in 1949, Abdul Rahman was first posted at the Legal Officer's
office in Alor Star. He later asked to be transferred to Kuala Lumpur, where he became a
Deputy Public Prosecutor. He was later appointed as president of the Sessions Court.

During this period, nationalism was running high among the Malays, with Datuk Onn Jaafar
leading the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) in the struggle against Britain's
Malayan Union (see History of Malaysia). Abdul Rahman joined UMNO and became active
in Malayan nationalist politics. He was popular and later became head of the Kedah branch of
UMNO.

In August 1951 an internal crisis in UMNO forced Datuk Onn Jaafar to resign as party
president. Abdul Rahman was elected as the new president, eventually holding the post for 20
years.

[edit] Road to independence

In 1954, Abdul Rahman led a delegation to London to seek independence for Malaya, but the
trip proved to be unfruitful. The British were reluctant to grant independence, using the
excuse that there needed to be evidence that the different races in Malaya were able to work
together and cooperate before independence could be obtained.

Race relations was the cause of Onn Jaafar stepping down. He wanted UMNO to be open to
the Chinese and Indians but UMNO members were not ready to accept this. His successor,
Abdul Rahman saw a way around this by forming a political alliance with the Malayan
Chinese Association called the Alliance Party. The coalition proved to be popular among the
people. The Alliance was later joined by the Malayan Indian Congress (MIC) in 1955,
representing the Indian community.

In the same year, the first federal general election was held, and the Alliance Party
(Perikatan) won fifty-one out of the fifty-two seats contested. Abdul Rahman was selected as
Malaya's first Chief Minister.

Tunku Abdul Rahman proclaiming Malayan independence.

Later in 1955 Abdul Rahman, along with Tun Sir Tan Cheng Lock and Tun V. T.
Sambanthan, made a trip to London to negotiate Malayan independence, and 31 August 1957
was decided as the date for independence. When the British flag was lowered in Kuala
Lumpur on independence day, Abdul Rahman led the crowd in announcing "Merdeka!"
(independence). Photographs of Abdul Rahman raising his hand, and recordings of his
emotional but determined voice leading the cheers, have become familiar icons of Malaysian
independence.

[edit] Premiership
Abdul Rahman dominated the politics of independent Malaya (which became Malaysia in
1963), and led the Alliance to landslide wins in the 1959, and 1964 general elections.

The formation of Malaysia was one of Abdul Rahman's greatest achievements. In 1961 he
made a speech at the Foreign Correspondents Association of Southeast Asia in Singapore,
proposing a federation Malaya, Singapore, Sabah, Sarawak, and Brunei. On 16 September
1963, with the federation of all these states except Brunei, Abdul Rahman was formally
restyled Prime Minister of Malaysia.
However, the racial factor was worsened with the inclusion of Singapore, which increased the
Chinese proportion to more than 40%. Both UMNO and the MCA were nervous about the
possible appeal of Lee Kuan Yew's People's Action Party (PAP, then seen as a radical
socialist party) to voters in Malaya, and tried to organise a party in Singapore to challenge
Lee's position there. Lee in turn threatened to run PAP candidates in Malaya at the 1964
federal elections, despite an earlier agreement that he would not do so (see PAP-UMNO
relations). This provoked Abdul Rahman to demand that Singapore withdraw from Malaysia.

On 7 August 1965, Abdul Rahman announced to the Parliament of Malaysia in Kuala

Lumpur that it should vote yes on the resolution to have Singapore leave the Federation,
choosing to "sever all ties with a State Government that showed no measure of loyalty to its
Central Government" as opposed to the undesirable method of repressing the PAP for its
actions. Singapore's secession and independence became official on 9 August 1965.

At the 1969 general election, the Alliance's majority was greatly reduced. Demonstrations
following the elections sparked the May 13 racial riots in Kuala Lumpur. Some UMNO
leaders led by Tun Abdul Razak were critical of Abdul Rahman's leadership during these
events, and an emergency committee MAGERAN took power and declared a state of
emergency.

Abdul Rahman's powers as Prime Minister were severely curtailed, and on 22 September
1970, he was forced to resign as Prime Minister in favour of Abdul Razak. He subsequently
resigned as UMNO President in June 1971, in the midst of severe opposition of the 'Young
Turks' comprising party rebels such as Mahathir Mohammad and Musa Hitam. The duo later
became Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia respectively.

In 1977, having acquired substantial shares in The Star, a Penang-based newspaper, Abdul
Rahman became the newspaper's Chairman. His columns, "Looking Back" and "As I See It",
were critical of the government, and in 1987 Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad banned the
newspaper. This led to a split in UMNO, with Abdul Rahman and another former Prime
Minister, Tun Hussein Onn, setting up a new party called UMNO Malaysia, but its
registration was quashed by Mahathir Mohamad, who set up his own UMNO Baru ("New
UMNO"). Abdul Rahman later supported Semangat 46, a splinter group of UMNO led by
Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah. He campaigned actively for the latter in the General election of
1990, but was already in very poor health. The well-educated, visionary Tunku clashes with
Mahathir's brand of nationalism that was meant to help the economically and socially stunted
Malays of Malaysia (allegedly due to the effect of colonial British 'divide and rule' system).

[edit] Death

Tunku Abdul Rahman died on 6 December 1990 at the age of eighty-seven, and was laid to
rest at the Langgar Royal Mausoleum in Alor Star.