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To’ Janggut: Legends, Histories, and Perceptions of the 1915 Rebellion in Kelantan
This book deconstructs a popular legend concerning a 1915 uprising against the British rule led by To' Janggut, or "Old Longbeard" in the Malay state of Kelantan.
The story of To' Janggut rebellion is recounted in folk tales, newspaper reports and scholarly publications, and the author uses previously classified official reports and hitherto unknown photographs to shed further light on the episode. In his account, incidents presented in one version are revised, contradicted, or denied in others, but as the story unfolds the author also reveals unexpected links between different presentations of events.
Although the 1915 rising was a relatively minor incident in a remote part of rural Kelantan, the episode has captured the imagination of the people of Malaysia. In revisiting the event, Cheah's purpose is not to establish the facts of what took place but to consider the broader significance of the uprising by reassessing the meanings and functions of history, biography, photography and other genres. Cheah Boon Kheng's reconstruction of various versions of the incident serves as a form of argumentation, and raises a number of questions. For example, did To' Janggut rebel against the Sultan, or was he used by the Sultan? Did the Kelantan aristocracy support the Sultan, or were they attempting to unseat him? Was the incident a tax rebellion, or an anti-colonial rising? In the end, the reader is left to ponder which version (if any) can be said to represent historical truth.
The story of To' Janggut rebellion is recounted in folk tales, newspaper reports and scholarly publications, and the author uses previously classified official reports and hitherto unknown photographs to shed further light on the episode. In his account, incidents presented in one version are revised, contradicted, or denied in others, but as the story unfolds the author also reveals unexpected links between different presentations of events.
Although the 1915 rising was a relatively minor incident in a remote part of rural Kelantan, the episode has captured the imagination of the people of Malaysia. In revisiting the event, Cheah's purpose is not to establish the facts of what took place but to consider the broader significance of the uprising by reassessing the meanings and functions of history, biography, photography and other genres. Cheah Boon Kheng's reconstruction of various versions of the incident serves as a form of argumentation, and raises a number of questions. For example, did To' Janggut rebel against the Sultan, or was he used by the Sultan? Did the Kelantan aristocracy support the Sultan, or were they attempting to unseat him? Was the incident a tax rebellion, or an anti-colonial rising? In the end, the reader is left to ponder which version (if any) can be said to represent historical truth.
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First published January 1, 2006
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About the author
Boon Kheng Cheah
13 books5 followersBoon Kheng Cheah was regarded as the foremost scholar on the modern political history of Malaysia as well as a pioneer of the country’s social and oral history. Although prioritizing the political history of a multiethnic, multicultural, and multireligious Malaysia, his spread of specialization ranged from the Japanese occupation, communism to oral history, peasant robbers, women in palace politics, and nation-building. He produced ground-breaking work that will remain as standard texts and authoritative references.
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October 1, 2012
This book chronicles the events and the context of the rebellion by one Haji Mohd Hassan bin Munas, popularly known as To’ Janggut or Tok Janggut. (Janggut is the Malay word for beard). Professor Cheah, a retired history professor in Malaysia, has given his personal analyses of the rebellion which took place in the town of Pasir Puteh, 30 miles southeast of Kota Bharu, the capital of Kelantan state in Peninsula Malaya. The main thrust of the book is to position it as a scholarly treatment of the events leading up and slightly beyond the act of the “rebellion” which took place on 24 May 1915. As of today, there have been no published scholarly reviews of the book. But there are many online discussions of the book in English and in the Malay language.
Part 1 of the book from chapter 1 to 4 provides a factual background leading to the rebellion and the facts of the rebellious acts. Chapter 1 puts in context the history, politics and Kelantanese society at the time of the “rebellion”. Chapter 2 is an annotated bibliography of the sources and interpretations of the historiography of To’ Janggut. Chapter 3 provides a romanticised genre the legend. In other words, To’ Janggut has become folk history for the ordinary people in Kelantan especially in the immediate years after the rebellion was put down and the “hero” died. This is further developed in chapter 4 where poems, folk stories and a ballad to To’ Janggut are illustrated.
Part 2 of the book from chapter 5 onwards provides different accounts of the rebellion from the perspectives of different actors such as the press (media), the residents of Pasir Puteh, the colonial administrators and member of the Kelantan royalty.
Chapter 5 covers the newspaper versions of the “rebellion”. An interesting point raised is whether there was really an uprising in Kelantan. The newspaper accounts used different terms such as a “disturbance” or a “riot” and eventually the word “rising” meaning an up-rising against authority.
Chapter 6 provides the voice of the people of Pasir Puteh and how they related to To’ Janggut’s dissatisfaction with the events of the day. Chapter 7 and 8 details the attempts by the colonial administrators to suppress textual and pictorial evidence of the rebellion. This shows that censorship of the media and official statements are not issues of present day discourse. Chapter 9 describes the events of the actual rebellion, To’ Janggut’s role and the roles of the ringleaders. Chapter 10 is an interesting chapter where Sultan Mohammed himself alleged to have played the role of what would be seen today as the “double-agent” between the colonial administrators and his own court. Chapter 11 as the concluding chapter may seem pessimistic where it says that the facts associated with To’ Janggut the person and To’ Janggut role in the rebellion will continue to be debated.
The book should best be read as a set of themes which are themselves inter-locked with each other. The themes are a) the roles played by the colonial administrators, who recently took control of Kelantan state from the Thais, as a result of the 1909 Anglo-Siam Treaty. (Chapter 1, 7), b) the roles played by the royalty in the Kelantan court (Chapter 7, 10), c) the media portrayal of the event and the shaping of public opinion (Chapter 5), d) the economic implications of the “unfair” land tax system (Chapter 1), and last but not least the views and beliefs of the inhabitants of Pasir Puteh and Kelantan (Chapter 4, 6).
In the aftermath of the rebellion when To’ Janggut was shot by the security forces (the Malay States Guides), his body was hung upside down for four hours in the town square of Kota Bharu. Various folk versions claimed that the body was displayed, from anything between one to four days, as instructed by the colonial authorities. To’ Janggut, being a Muslim, would then be seen by the inhabitants as being treated in an un-Islamic manner, which would no doubt had inflamed the emotions of some inhabitants. The irony is that the act of being displayed publicly was order by none other than the Sultan himself.
To develop the arguments further, readers of this book may want to ask themselves how should the 1915 Kelantan “rebellion” as an event be categorised or labelled and what implications would there be whenever each of these categories be used . Therefore, should the event be one of or a combination of 1) an act of a civil disobedience / protest against an unfair land tax system, 2) an outpouring of anti-colonial sentiments, 3) A rebellion against the Sultanate of Kelantan, or 4) a reaction towards outsiders in general, such as the district officer from Singapore?
As explained by the author, in spite of various efforts by various scholars as seen in the discussions in chapter 2, the information on the event may not fully be accounted for, and even if they were so, they may not be reliable as eye witnesses would give their accounts differently. And if the nuances of categorisation and labelling were to be hastily and inappropriately or insensitively done, the subsequent world views of writers and readers of history would be coloured and the protagonists may become essentialised into stereotypes.
Cheah is not the first scholar to study the 1915 rebellion in some depth. An earlier study was conducted by Allen in 1968. Prior to this piece of work the only specific accounts of the 1915 rebellion were newspaper accounts, legendary folklore through oral transmissions, and reports by the colonial administrators. Two other works that provide a good context to the 1915 rebellion are Cheah (1994) and Kershaw (1977). After this book was written there was a period where undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations and theses started to examine this forgotten event in some detail. There were also scholarly works written in Bahasa Malay which could mean that further interpretations of the event may yet reveal themselves.
In the broader context, this book (as published in 2005) is a welcomed addition to the field of subaltern studies as shown the works of Pandey (1997) and Guha (1988). It clearly shows that the voices of various actors can and need to be given a hearing if only to demonstrate the multiplicity of interpretations of an event. Stoler (1992) who describes the politics of colonial narratives should add weight to the book’s arguments that there were conflicts officials working within the colonial administration.
References
1. Allen, V. (1968) The Kelantan Uprising of 1915: Some Thoughts on the Concept of Resistance in British Malaysian History. Journal of Southeast Asian History, 9, 214-57.
2. Cheah, B.K. (1994) Feudalism in Pre-Colonial Malaya: The Past as a Colonial Discourse. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 25(2), 243-269.
3. Guha, R. (1988) The Prose of Counter-Insurgency. In Guha, Ranajit and G.C. Spivak (eds) Selected Subaltern Studies. Oxford University Press.
4. Kershaw, R. (1977) The ‘East Coast’ in Malayan Politics: Episodes of Resistance and Integration in Kelantan and Trengganu. Modern Asian Studies, 11(4), 515-541.
5. Pandey, G. (1997) In Defense of the Fragment: Writing about Hindu-Muslim Riots in India Today. In Ranajit Guha, A Subaltern Studies Reader 1986-1995. Minneapolis University Press.
6. Stoler, A.L. (1992) In Cold Blood: Hierarchies of Credibility and the Politics of Colonial Narratives. Representations, 37, 151-189.
7. Wikipedia (2012) Tok Janggut. URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tok_Janggut Accessed on 31 Aug 2012.
Part 1 of the book from chapter 1 to 4 provides a factual background leading to the rebellion and the facts of the rebellious acts. Chapter 1 puts in context the history, politics and Kelantanese society at the time of the “rebellion”. Chapter 2 is an annotated bibliography of the sources and interpretations of the historiography of To’ Janggut. Chapter 3 provides a romanticised genre the legend. In other words, To’ Janggut has become folk history for the ordinary people in Kelantan especially in the immediate years after the rebellion was put down and the “hero” died. This is further developed in chapter 4 where poems, folk stories and a ballad to To’ Janggut are illustrated.
Part 2 of the book from chapter 5 onwards provides different accounts of the rebellion from the perspectives of different actors such as the press (media), the residents of Pasir Puteh, the colonial administrators and member of the Kelantan royalty.
Chapter 5 covers the newspaper versions of the “rebellion”. An interesting point raised is whether there was really an uprising in Kelantan. The newspaper accounts used different terms such as a “disturbance” or a “riot” and eventually the word “rising” meaning an up-rising against authority.
Chapter 6 provides the voice of the people of Pasir Puteh and how they related to To’ Janggut’s dissatisfaction with the events of the day. Chapter 7 and 8 details the attempts by the colonial administrators to suppress textual and pictorial evidence of the rebellion. This shows that censorship of the media and official statements are not issues of present day discourse. Chapter 9 describes the events of the actual rebellion, To’ Janggut’s role and the roles of the ringleaders. Chapter 10 is an interesting chapter where Sultan Mohammed himself alleged to have played the role of what would be seen today as the “double-agent” between the colonial administrators and his own court. Chapter 11 as the concluding chapter may seem pessimistic where it says that the facts associated with To’ Janggut the person and To’ Janggut role in the rebellion will continue to be debated.
The book should best be read as a set of themes which are themselves inter-locked with each other. The themes are a) the roles played by the colonial administrators, who recently took control of Kelantan state from the Thais, as a result of the 1909 Anglo-Siam Treaty. (Chapter 1, 7), b) the roles played by the royalty in the Kelantan court (Chapter 7, 10), c) the media portrayal of the event and the shaping of public opinion (Chapter 5), d) the economic implications of the “unfair” land tax system (Chapter 1), and last but not least the views and beliefs of the inhabitants of Pasir Puteh and Kelantan (Chapter 4, 6).
In the aftermath of the rebellion when To’ Janggut was shot by the security forces (the Malay States Guides), his body was hung upside down for four hours in the town square of Kota Bharu. Various folk versions claimed that the body was displayed, from anything between one to four days, as instructed by the colonial authorities. To’ Janggut, being a Muslim, would then be seen by the inhabitants as being treated in an un-Islamic manner, which would no doubt had inflamed the emotions of some inhabitants. The irony is that the act of being displayed publicly was order by none other than the Sultan himself.
To develop the arguments further, readers of this book may want to ask themselves how should the 1915 Kelantan “rebellion” as an event be categorised or labelled and what implications would there be whenever each of these categories be used . Therefore, should the event be one of or a combination of 1) an act of a civil disobedience / protest against an unfair land tax system, 2) an outpouring of anti-colonial sentiments, 3) A rebellion against the Sultanate of Kelantan, or 4) a reaction towards outsiders in general, such as the district officer from Singapore?
As explained by the author, in spite of various efforts by various scholars as seen in the discussions in chapter 2, the information on the event may not fully be accounted for, and even if they were so, they may not be reliable as eye witnesses would give their accounts differently. And if the nuances of categorisation and labelling were to be hastily and inappropriately or insensitively done, the subsequent world views of writers and readers of history would be coloured and the protagonists may become essentialised into stereotypes.
Cheah is not the first scholar to study the 1915 rebellion in some depth. An earlier study was conducted by Allen in 1968. Prior to this piece of work the only specific accounts of the 1915 rebellion were newspaper accounts, legendary folklore through oral transmissions, and reports by the colonial administrators. Two other works that provide a good context to the 1915 rebellion are Cheah (1994) and Kershaw (1977). After this book was written there was a period where undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations and theses started to examine this forgotten event in some detail. There were also scholarly works written in Bahasa Malay which could mean that further interpretations of the event may yet reveal themselves.
In the broader context, this book (as published in 2005) is a welcomed addition to the field of subaltern studies as shown the works of Pandey (1997) and Guha (1988). It clearly shows that the voices of various actors can and need to be given a hearing if only to demonstrate the multiplicity of interpretations of an event. Stoler (1992) who describes the politics of colonial narratives should add weight to the book’s arguments that there were conflicts officials working within the colonial administration.
References
1. Allen, V. (1968) The Kelantan Uprising of 1915: Some Thoughts on the Concept of Resistance in British Malaysian History. Journal of Southeast Asian History, 9, 214-57.
2. Cheah, B.K. (1994) Feudalism in Pre-Colonial Malaya: The Past as a Colonial Discourse. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 25(2), 243-269.
3. Guha, R. (1988) The Prose of Counter-Insurgency. In Guha, Ranajit and G.C. Spivak (eds) Selected Subaltern Studies. Oxford University Press.
4. Kershaw, R. (1977) The ‘East Coast’ in Malayan Politics: Episodes of Resistance and Integration in Kelantan and Trengganu. Modern Asian Studies, 11(4), 515-541.
5. Pandey, G. (1997) In Defense of the Fragment: Writing about Hindu-Muslim Riots in India Today. In Ranajit Guha, A Subaltern Studies Reader 1986-1995. Minneapolis University Press.
6. Stoler, A.L. (1992) In Cold Blood: Hierarchies of Credibility and the Politics of Colonial Narratives. Representations, 37, 151-189.
7. Wikipedia (2012) Tok Janggut. URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tok_Janggut Accessed on 31 Aug 2012.
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