Modern Asian Studies 43, 5 (2009) pp. 1149–1187. C 2008 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S0026749X08003752 First published online 28 October 2008 ‘The Crucible of the Malayan Nation’: The University and the Making of a New Malaya, 1938–621 A. J. STOCKWELL Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey, TW20 0EX, UK. Email:
[email protected] Abstract Like so many features of the British Empire, policy for colonial higher education was transformed during the Second World War. In 1945 the Asquith Commission established principles for its development, and in 1948 the Carr–Saunders report recommended the immediate establishment of a university in Malaya to prepare for self-government. This institution grew at a rate that surpassed expectations, but the aspirations of its founders were challenged by lack of resources, the mixed reactions of the Malayan people and the politics of decolonisation. The role of the University of Malaya in engineering a united Malayan nation was hampered by lingering colonial attitudes and ultimately frustrated by differences between Singapore and the Federation. These differences culminated in the university’s partition in January 1962. In the end it was the politics of nation-building which moulded the university rather than the other way round. ‘We Can only Carry on with the Existing Arrangements’ In 1961 that architect of colonial universities, Sir Alexander Carr- Saunders, recalled that before the Second World War colonial administrators had ‘displayed very little sympathy with local aspirations for university education.’ ‘They had,’ he continued, ‘little understanding of the part played in the modern world by universities,’ 1 I acknowledge with thanks comments on earlier versions of this article from participants in the ‘Conference on Asian Horizons,’ National University of Singapore, Singapore August 2005; the ‘Imperial History Seminar’ of the Institute of Historical Research, London, and the Centre of South East Asian Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, London.