Despite the call for a boycott, some 900 delegates from 83 Malay organisations and 300 ketua (village headmen) attended the government’s convention. I spoke in Malay and we discussed problems of Malay education, employment and housing. Not one person raised the question of the resettlement in Crawford, which had been used to trigger the fiery agitation. In five hours of frank discussion, I made it clear that the government would do everything possible to train Malays for top positions, but there could be no quota system for jobs or for the issue of licences for taxis or hawkers.

Kuala Lumpur radio and television blacked out all reports of this meeting. Instead, the Utusan carried a mischievous and dangerous headline the next day: “Challenge to All Malays – UMNO Youths, Lee Kuan Yew condemned, Teacher forced student to smell pork – protest”. This headline was incendiary, forcing a Muslim to do something abhorrent to them, especially on the eve of Prophet Mohammed’s Birthday, a time of great religious significance for all Muslims.

Prophet Mohammed’s Birthday was on Tuesday, 21 July 1964, a public holiday. It was the practice for Malays to congregate in some open space in town and march towards their settlement at Geylang Serai with tambourines and drums, chanting religious verses to celebrate the holy anniversary. This time, the procession was to start at the Padang, but instead of the religious sermons that were usually the order of the day, there were political speeches designed to stir up Malay feelings of hatred.

Othman Wok, minister for social affairs, was present at the Padang with a contingent of PAP Malay Muslims. He was already expecting trouble because, nine days before, at the rally in Singapore, Albar had accused all PAP Malay assemblymen of being un-Islamic, anti-Islam, anti-Malays and traitors to the community. At the Padang itself, he felt something would happen that afternoon because, intermittently during the speeches, there were shouts of “Allahu Akbar” (God is Great), their voices raised in anger, not in praise of Allah.

Esa Almenoar, an Arab lawyer and playboy who was probably the most nonconforming Muslim at the Bar, referred to the Crawford resettlement by quoting a verse from the Koran: “Allah forbiddeth you not that ye shall deal benevolently and equitably with those who fight not against you on account of religion nor drove you from your homes, verily Allah loveth the equitable.” He explained its meaning in this way: “It is clear that Allah does not stop Muslims to be friendly with non-Muslims … but in everything that we do there must be a limit that such people who are non-Muslims who have disturbed our religion and who have driven us from our homes then Islam says such people are cruel wrongdoers.”

I had just finished my round of golf at the Royal Singapore Golf Club at about 6:20 pm when the police alerted me that Malay-Chinese riots had broken out during the procession and the trouble had spread. I dashed home to change and went to police headquarters at Pearl’s Hill, where Keng Swee and I were briefed by John Le Cain, the police commissioner, and George Bogaars, the director of Special Branch. As reports of casualties continued to flow in, first of Chinese victims, then of Malays when the Chinese hit back, Le Cain conferred with police headquarters in Kuala Lumpur and ordered a curfew from 9:30 pm to 6 am. In a radio broadcast at 10:30 that night, I described how, according to the police, the riots had started:

“Sometime after 5 pm, the procession of some 25,000 Muslims passed by the Kallang Gas Works in a predominantly Chinese area. A member of the Federal Reserve Unit (police sent down from peninsular Malaysia) asked a group who were straggling away from the procession to rejoin the main stream. Instead of being obeyed, he was set upon by this group. Thereafter a series of disturbances occurred as more groups became unruly and attacked passers-by and innocent bystanders. The disturbances have spread rapidly throughout the Geylang area. By 7:30 pm, trouble broke out in the city itself.”

I urged a return to sanity:

“What or who started this situation is irrelevant at this moment. All the indications show that there has been organisation and planning behind this outbreak to turn it into an ugly communal clash … But right now our business is to stop this stupidity … Rumours and wild talk of revenge and retaliation will only inflame men’s minds.”

But racial passions had been aroused, and mayhem had broken loose. The news, distorted and exaggerated, soon spread by word of mouth. All over the island, Malays began killing Chinese, and Chinese retaliated. The casualties came to 23 dead and 454 injured, and when the body count was made at the mortuary there were as many Malay as there were Chinese victims. Secret society gangsters had stepped in to protect the Chinese and exact revenge, not least for the harsh behaviour shown towards them by the men of the Malay Regiment and the Federal Reserve Unit, who were mainly Malay. The riots raged on intermittently over the next few days, during which the curfew was lifted for short periods to allow people to go to the market. It ended only on 2 August.

Despite the bloodbath, the Utusan continued its agitation. On 26 July, it published a report from an Indonesian newspaper with the headline, “Lee responsible for Singapore riots”, even as both the federal and Singapore governments were appealing for calm and harmony. Six days later, Albar said they had occurred because

“there is a devil in Singapore who sets the Malays and the Chinese against each other. … why is it that under the British, Japanese, David Marshall and Lim Yew Hock governments no incidents happened in Singapore … It is because Lee Kuan Yew has been trying to challenge and chaff at our spirit of nationalism. You remember … how he ridiculed us by saying, You have received your independence on a silver platter … You can see for yourselves how he has challenged the Tunku: ‘Tunku Abdul Rahman has no calibre’.”

The Tunku himself was away in America, after attending a Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference in London. Speaking over Radio Malaysia from the United States, he said he was shocked by the events, and in a TV interview, said that this was the “most unhappiest moment of my life”. As acting prime minister, Razak flew to Singapore, and I received him at the airport. He told the press that the situation was under control, but serious, and the curfew would go on indefinitely. The cause of the disturbances had been a mischief-maker who had flung a bottle at the procession, he declared. He knew from the reporters that this was not true. I was still hoping the central government would put a stop to all the racist politicking.

I announced over radio and television that plans were afoot to return things to normal, and added boldly that they would include arresting key members of the secret societies and proscribing activities of extremist elements. Meanwhile, we set out to form goodwill committees in all constituencies, getting together grassroots leaders from the Chinese, Malay, Indian and Eurasian communities to restore confidence in each other and discourage the repeating of rumours. I toured the badly affected areas to show that the Singapore government was present, and tried to give people the impression that we could still get things done and restore peace although we were no longer in charge of the police and army. Deep inside, I felt frustrated for I had lost control of the instruments of law and order and could not deal with these blatant racists. Methodically and meticulously, however, we assembled all the data available to expose beyond any doubt their systematic exploitation of the media to work up communal feelings through lies and malicious distortions.