Although he tried his best to anticipate the moves that were being made against him and his kingdom, (going as far as embarking upon a series of modernising and secularising reforms that even the colonial authorities would never have dared to attempt in the Straits Settlements and the Federated Malay States), Sultan Abu Bakar could not affect a radical change in the dominant imperialist meta-narrative which configured him as a disabled native Other, albeit a sovereign one.

The Sultan's downfall did not come in the form of a political or military defeat; he was never deposed and sent into exile.

Instead, the fall of Sultan Abu Bakar was due to the fact that working as he did from within the margins of a colonial order of knowledge and power which configured Anglo-Malay relations, he could not hope to reverse the violent hierarchy which configured him as well as his race and culture as weak and disabled.

Despite the fact that he had managed to penetrate deep into the inner sanctums of imperial power and authority, the Sultan's entry, like that of the Malay race within the colonial order of knowledge, was a disabling one which reconfigured him in the exotic, caricatured terms of the pavonina oriental sovereign that was so beloved by the colonial propagandist and orientalist writer alike.

After such a prolonged period of contact with the West, tales of the Sultan's munificence and profligate splendour were widely circulated in both popular Victorian fiction as well as the official's reports bound for London.

Wayward despot

When she visited his Istana in 1889, Florence Caddy noted for her readers' benefit that "the Sultan had bought in London the famous gold dinner-service made for Lord Ellenborough when Governor-General of India".

His own demonstrations of largess were invariably noted with great interest, and his behaviour (particularly when he overstepped the boundaries of Western protocol and decorum) were sibilantly reproached in newspapers and colonial reports alike, thus adding to the image of the wayward Asian despot whose state was in desperate need of intervention and 'protection'.

And even when he did try to emphasise the markers of difference between himself and his curious western audience (for he was careful not to alienate himself from his own culture and public), the Sultan's insistence on emphasising his Malay and Islamic credentials won him little understanding and instead brought only raised eyebrows, muffled guffaws and the odd monocle popping out of an astounded eye-socket. (1)

For the late Victorian era, as we have seen, was one which regarded all natives as weak and feeble, while all Muslims were either fanatics or corrupted hypocrites. Being a sovereign native Muslim ruler did not alter these perceptions but amplified them instead.

While no Malay ruler may have enjoyed the degree of contact with Europeans as he did, it would also be true to say that no Malay ruler managed to titillate the imagination of Westerners as much as the Sultan did either.

Thus his entry into European high society, though unprecedented, was nonetheless a success de scandale at best. At worse, it reduced him to a crude racist caricature of the incapable feudal Malay monarch.

Albert Baker

The culmination of this ongoing struggle to define his persona led to the conflation of his native Malay and Islamic identities into the figure of the exotic oriental despot, whose wealth and extravagance became both the object of official censure as well as Western orientalist fiction and fantasy.

The tales of exotic harems amidst the splendour of Johor were already being disseminated by writers like Florence Caddy. The Sultan's own exploits would add to the development of the image of the licentious native sovereign already being developed on his behalf, with one case in particular standing out amongst the rest:

On Nov 6, 1893, The Times reported the court proceedings of a certain 'Miss Mighell vs The Sultan of Johore'. More revelations were to follow, and soon the facts were brought under a most unfavourable light.

Though she was never asked to give evidence in court, Mighell had managed to put a case against the Sultan on account of a breach of promise on his behalf.

The court (and the public at large) were soon to learn that the two of them first met in 1885 on the Sultan's third visit (when he outwitted High Commissioner Frederick Weld) where he introduced himself to her as 'Albert Baker'.

The implication was that Mighell had become Abu Bakar's mistress (assuming the name of 'Mrs Baker' for herself) and that a promise of marriage was made that was later unfulfilled. The promise was never kept, and Gullick reports that "Mighell sued for damages for breach of promise of marriage and for the return of a pair of diamond buckles, or their value".

Lurid details

Trivialised though the issues had become, the lurid details, once brought into the glare of public scrutiny, were enough to set the seal of disapproval upon the Sultan for good. Gullick adds that "Queen Victoria and her advisers, more straight-laced than the Prince of Wales, would not have welcomed the scandal. Prudently, the Sultan departed from London society".

It is ironic that what saved the Sultan from further humiliation and scandal was the groundwork that he had done earlier in 1885 itself. For by winning the recognition from the British of his status as Sultan of Johor (an independent sovereign of an independent state), he had effectively won himself the privilege of immunity from the law as well, which had no jurisdiction over a foreign monarch.

While some observers like Gullick (1992) have argued that the outcome of the case was in itself a diplomatic victory for the Sultan (albeit a Farouk one), the overall impact of the Mighell case was to add to the increasing repertoire of vignettes and moral tales which spoke of the corruption of the East and the foreboding threat of the ominous black peril from abroad.

The sovereign status of Sultan Abu Bakar and the other Malay rulers were thus regarded as of little worth, for they were still the rulers of the Malays, whose collective image as a race of lazy and backward natives we have already examined earlier.

Despite his incessant and tireless diplomatic manoeuvres to head off the plots and stratagems planned against him and his state by the colonial officials in Singapore, Sultan Abu Bakar had managed to win a string of battles but only to lose the ideological war in the end. (2) Sic Transit Gloria il Mundi : So passes the glory of Abu Bakar

A gentleman

Thus in 1891, when Vanity Fair decided to have a series of portraits of 'foreign monarchs', Sultan Abu Bakar made one of his final and lasting appearances in the cultured and literary circles of European high society. The caption beside his portrait read as follows:

"He is something more than an ordinary Eastern potentate; for by occasional visits to Europe he has acquired much polish and some diplomatic skill; by the good application of which he has satisfactorily shaped himself into a gentleman.

"He is a pleasant-looking person, who farms out a number of monopolies, which include opium and gambling; yet though he can play a good game of billiards, he neither smokes nor gambles.

"He is quite an enlightened Prince; and being a firm ally of the British government, has often been decorated. He is an admirer of Western beauty; which he often summons to his Palace for its lavish entertainment."

Such was the lot of Sultan Abu Bakar of Johor. The decorations he received from the colonial powers came not only in the form of gilded baubles and ribboned trinkets, but also in the form of the barbed literary 'adornments' bestowed upon his exotic image by the pen of Florence Caddy as well as the malicious critiques by his embittered enemies like Frank Swettenham and Weld.

The only independent Malay ruler of the only independent Malay state had been reduced to a caricature of the anglophile Eastern potentate, slavishly enamoured by Western beauty and typically corrupt in his lifestyle as well as in his business and political interests.

The fact that Britain itself was heavily engaged in the opium trade as well as other monopolies in the Malay lands was conveniently left out altogether.

In 1895, Sultan Abu Bakar died at the age of 60 of Bright's disease (a chronic inflammation of the kidneys) which was further aggravated by the onset of pneumonia while staying at Bailey's Hotel in London.

His trip was yet another attempt to win support and recognition of his rule and he had brought with him his successor, the Tengku Mahkota Ibrahim, as part of his efforts to withstand any further British incursions upon his kingdom after his demise.

Colonial prejudice

Two months before he passed away he introduced a new constitution for his kingdom which expressly forbade the alienation of any of its territory to any other foreign power.

But none of Sultan Abu Bakar's moves could protect him from the prejudice of the colonial administration itself. By then his much maligned reputation had already preceded him, and had established a grip on the Imperial imaginary.

Immediately after his death The Times was quick to remind its readers in its disparaging obituary of the "possible financial embarrassments resulting from Oriental lavishness of generosity mingled with the more European qualities of his character" while the official historians and functionaries of the Empire would record for posterity's sake every minute detail of his failings and misdemeanours. (2)

The fact that Sultan Abu Bakar was probably one of the few Malay rulers who had constructed a native bureaucracy which could effectively fend off the advances of the British expansionists while fighting within the increasingly restrictive terrain of colonial relations was soon forgotten.

Gullick has noted that "among the Malay rulers of the period up to 1920, only the Maharaja (later Sultan) of Johor exploited the possibilities of playing off the Colonial Office against the High Commissioner".

Forgotten, too, was the fact that the Sultan had managed to rule for 33 consecutive years and that he had managed to thwart the expansionist designs of half a dozen High Commissioners and their staff in Singapore.

Under the economic policies of Sultan Abu Bakar and his son, the Sultanate of Johor had proved to be the only Malay state that could withstand the immense competition from the Chinese and other migrant communities that had come to its shores.

Fatal admiration

At a time when "direct colonial rule brought with it European racial theory and constructed a social and economic order structured by race" (3), Sultan Abu Bakar had proven that the Malay race, which was regarded as 'naturally' incapable of standing up to economic competition from Europeans and other non-Malays, could not only fend off the advances of other competitors but also beat them at their own game if given half the chance.

In the end, however, Sultan Abu Bakar's achievements were easily dismissed and trivialised by the jaundiced gaze of a colonial order of knowledge which could never acknowledge the achievements of the natives, while registering only the vaunted triumphs of its own White Rajahs.

Thus it was that Sultan Abu Bakar, the Malay ruler who once outflanked the furious Governor Weld, would be remembered in the popular fiction of the Empire as yet another exotic oriental despot, disabled and corrupted due to his culturally-determined 'native' characteristics and whose sovereignty was held cheap and laid low by his own fatal admiration of Western beauty.

Sultan Abu Bakar's heir, Sultan Ibrahim, would likewise suffer under the combined pressure of the entire colonial establishment. He would not be spared any of the Residents' and Governor's excoriating slander either, which proved to be just another variation of the same racist theme.

His attempts to play off contending Western powers against each other earned him the enmity of the new Governor, Frank Swettenham, who thought that the upstart Malay ruler was getting "too clever" for his own good and "lacking the good Malay qualities" of other obedient and pliable Malay rulers such as Sultan Idris Shah of Perak.

After blocking all of the Sultan's initiatives and even taking control of the Jama'ah Penasihat Johor (Advisory Board) in London, the colonial authorities managed to force the friendless Sultan Ibrahim to accept a British financial adviser to the court of Johor in 1909.

Kingdom ends

In 1914, he was finally cornered into accepting a British adviser who was answerable to the High Commissioner and Governor of the colonies in Singapore. Johor had finally come under indirect British rule, and this marked the end of the Kingdom's formal status as an autonomous Malay kingdom, though Sultan Ibrahim fought to preserve what little there was of it right to the end. (4)

The institution of the Malay Kerajaan (government) had thus been defeated by the colonial order of power-knowledge which permitted the native Other to enter its complex of power relations only as long as it lived up to Western ethnocentric prejudices regarding the limitations and disability of weaker, inferior native races.

The Malay Rajas and Sultans had learnt, in the most bitter and painful way, that while they were allowed to enter the club, they were nonetheless barred from becoming equal members. Among the Malay-Muslims themselves, only the reformists of the Kaum Muda were truly cognizant of Sultan Abu Bakar's achievements as a ruler.

Years later, the reformist thinker Syed Sheikh al-Hadi would write of Sultan Abu Bakar thus:

"Does a rational man remember Sultan Abu Bakar of Johor because of his fine shirts, his imposing palace or his medals? No. He is remembered because of his glorious and honourable work in rescuing an Islamic state that had fallen into a wild tiger's mouth.

"He founded a government for his community and descendants. He kept his government independent during his lifetime, while many other rulers sold their states cheaply in crowded markets." (5)

The End.

Endnotes

(1) Gullick writes that "European contemporaries of Sultan Abu Bakar, among whom he was generally well liked, tended to emphasise the many western elements of his regime and lifestyle. Yet in both respects he preserved a shrewd mixture of Malay tradition and Western innovation.

"He was strict in his observance of the Islamic ban on drinking alcohol. He was insistent on the observance of Malay custom when he deemed it appropriate." (See Gullick, Rulers and Residents . 1992. pg. 11)

(2) Gullick, pg. 273. n.127. Gullick's extensive research has revealed the extent of the Sultan's debts after his death in 1895. His personal debts were at a tune of 150,000 to 200,000. The Johor government was left with debts that had accumulated on his behalf as well.

The costs of building and construction to the building company of Wong Ah Fook alone were around 500,000. To the Chartered Bank the Johor government owed another estimated 150,000 to 200,000. (Gullick, pg. 13. n. 125)

(3) Charles Hirshman, The Making of Race in Colonial Malaya: Political Economy and Racial Ideology . Sociology Forum. Volume 1. Number 2. Cornell University, 1986. pg. 330.

(4) Andaya notes that "in the last weeks of Johor's independence, Ibrahim showed that he was still his father's son.

"His final acceptance of an adviser with extended powers was made with the proviso that certain privileges be maintained in Johor, such as the wearing of the Johor uniform and the preference for Johor Malays in government appointments.

"Something of that unique place gained for Johor in British Malaya has lingered to the present day" (pg. 200). It is therefore ironic to note that what little powers and privileges that the Crown of Johor had managed to keep for itself (such as the Johor Guard of Honour) have in fact been taken away from it by the post-colonial Federal Government of Malaysia, after the two major Constitutional crises.

(5) Syed Sheikh al-Hadi, Ash-Sharaf: Kemuliaan dan Kehormatan. In Al-Imam , II.8. (4 February 1908). In Elijah Gordon, The Real Cry of Syed Sheikh al-Hady . MSRI, 1999. Pg. 177.