his charge; his aim to provide, without prejudice or afterthought, for all who
wish to know the Means of Knowledge....The good Archivist is perhaps the
most selfless devotee of truth the modern world produces.'20
For Jenkinson, working on medieval and early nation-state records in the Public
Records Office in London in 1906, the archival records exist for their evidential
nature as a 'true' account of what happened. The archivist was thus a 'keeper'
of the 'truth' for others to seek out. This vision of the archives supporting
the search for 'truth' was part of the Enlightenment tradition that Jenkinson
identified with, and included historiography, which John Bury (1867-1927)
in his Inaugural Lecture on assuming the chair of Regius Professor of History
at Cambridge in 1902, declared 'A Science.' It is a practice of history that
G. R Elton as Regius Professor of History also defended, that a close and
meticulous reading of the documents could lead the historian to an objective
reconstruction of the past.21
But if Parkinson and his students were committed to this practice of history
based on the archival documents, and were therefore not prepared to venture
beyond the archival documentation of the nineteenth century into the
undocumented twentieth century, others were not so constrained and prepared
to venture into the contemporary history of Singapore's struggle for nationhood.
One author was S Rajaratnam, a journalist turned politician and founding
member of the Peoples' Action Party. Reflecting on the 'PAP's First Ten Years'
for the Party's tenth anniversary celebrations in 1964, Rajaratnam justifiably
pointed out that the Party had much to be proud of. It had 'achieved one of its
fundamental objectives: the independence of Singapore through merger with
the Federation of Malaya' and been able to thwart 'the manoeuvres of both the
right-wing reactionaries and the communists on the far left with a fair degree of
success.'22 Rajaratnam recalled the birth of the PAP in the discussions of
'a small group of trade unionists, teachers, lawyers and journalists' in the
basement dining room of Lee Kuan Yew's Oxley Road residence. As Rajaratnam
noted, the odds of the group establishing a new left-wing political party 'were
seemingly against it because left-wing parties appeared to have had brief and
unhappy lives'.23
According to Rajaratnam, what prompted this group of politically inexperienced
men to push ahead with the establishment of a new left-wing party was the
promulgation of a new constitution for Singapore proposed by a committed
chaired by George Rendel, which Rajaratnam and his colleagues assessed would
not be favourable to left-wing politics. For Rajaratnam, the major aim of the new
party was to end colonialism, because they believed that if they could succeed,
then all would be well. Towards this end, they 'underestimated the significance
of racial, cultural and communal factors in the politics of our country.'24 The
bulk of the essay then outlines the dilemmas and choices facing the party as
130
COLONIAL LEGACY IN SOUTH EAST ASIA -
THE DUTCH ARCHIVES
20 Jenkinson repeated this vision of the archivist as the guardian of evidence in four of his addresses, and is
here quoted from the Inaugural lecture for a new course in Archive Administration delivered at University
college, London, 14 Oct 1947, reprinted in his Selected writings of Sir Hilary Jenkinson258. See also:
'Memoir of Sir Hilary Jenkinson', in Davis, Studies presented to Sir Hilary Jenkinson.
21 Bury, 'The science of History', Elton, The practice of history and Elton, Return to essentials..
22 Rajaratnam, 'PAP's First Ten Years', Full text published in: Rajaratnam on Singapore, 180
23 Rajaratnam on Singapore, 181.