The Police Must be Part of the People and the People Part of the Police: Policing in the Malayan Emergency, 1948-60

This chapter examines the role played by the Malayan police in the ultimately successful campaign against the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) guerrillas during the first Malayan Emergency (1948-60). The chapter shows that the Malayan police, particularly after 1951, played no small role in hastening the end of the insurgency. The chapter examines the ways in which, from 1952 onwards, the Malayan police were transformed from a largely unpopular and much-feared paramilitary force into a community-oriented, intelligence-driven police service. By the middle of the 1950s, the Malayan police service had become a highly professional outfit well aware of the need to build partnerships with ordinary Malayans-especially the strategically crucial rural Chinese community-so as to establish a climate of confidence that would generate the information flows needed for targeted Police Special Branch and small army unit counterinsurgent operations.