page_title: Ketuanan Melayu
section_title: Pre-independence
hierarchical_section_title: Ketuanan Melayu / Pre-independence
caption_attribution_description: First Durbar (Conference of Rulers) held at the Astana Negara in Kuala Kangsar, Perak, Federated Malay States (present-day Malaysia) in 1897. Seated, left to right: Hugh Clifford (Resident of Pahang), J.P. Rodger (Resident of Selangor), Sir Frank Swettenham (Resident-General), Sultan Ahmad (Pahang), Sultan Abdul Samad (Selangor), Sir Charles Mitchell (British High Commissioner), Sultan Idris (Perak), Tuanku Muhammad (Yand di Pertuan Besar of Negeri Sembilan) and W.H. Treacher (Resident of Perak).
context_page_description: Ketuanan Melayu is a political concept emphasising Malay preeminence in present-day Malaysia. The Malays of Malaysia claimed a special position and special rights owing to their long domicile and the fact that the present Malaysian state itself evolved from a Malay polity. The oldest political institution in Malaysia is the system of Malay rulers of the nine Malay states. British colonial government transformed the system and turned it first into a system of indirect rule, then in 1948, using this culturally based institution, they incorporated the Malay monarchy into the blueprints for the independent Federation of Malaya.
  The term Tanah Melayu in its name which literally means "Malay homeland", assumes proprietorship of the Malay states. In this way Britain strengthened Malay ethno-nationalism, Malay ethnicity and culture and Malay sovereignty in the new nation-state. Though other cultures would continue to flourish, the identity of the emerging political community was to be shaped by the "historic" political culture of its dominant Malay ethnic group.
caption: The British recognised the Malay Rulers as sovereign over Malaya.
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