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Hock Lee bus riots
The Hock Lee bus workers’ strikes began on April 23, 1955. The incident was a result of failed negotiations between the Hock Lee Amalgamated Bus Company and its bus workers. The workers wanted better working conditions while the employers wanted to protect their business interests. The strikes eventually escalated and resulted in a clash among the Singapore Bus Singapore Bus Workers Union, Hock Lee Employee's Union, the Singapore Chinese Middle Schools Student Union and law enforcement on May 12, 1955. The event has been commonly understood as a violent confrontation between colonialists and communists. The event was however also born out of the conditions of colonial society as well as being part of a necessary modernisation trajectory that Singapore was embarking on.
==Background==
The oppression from the Japanese occupation carried forward into post-war Singapore when the British resumed their rule on the island. Decolonisation was underway for many of the European colonies in Southeast Asia, including Burma (1948), Vietnam (1945), Cambodia (1953), Laos (1953), Philippines (1946) and Indonesia (1949). By 1948, Malaya and Singapore were the last foothold the British had in Southeast Asia. The global trend of decolonisation, led the way for the liberalisation of Singaporean politics. The 1948 constitution that reformed the political and judicial systems in Singapore paved the way for Singapore’s first elections in 1948.〔Kevin Tan, “The Evolution of Singapore’s Modern Constitution: Developments from 1945 to the Present Day,” Singapore Academy of Law Journal 1, 1989, 7-8.〕 This partial liberalisation was impeded as the British saw their strategic interests in Southeast Asia being challenged by peasant uprisings especially in Malaya.〔Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper, Forgotten Wars: The End of Britain's Asian Empire (New York; London: Allen Lane, 2007), 420-435.〕 The British then used terrorism of the 'communists' to spark panic and fear in the masses and enacted emergency regulations in 1948, that saw an increased restriction on civil society meetings in Singapore.〔E. Kay Gillis, Singapore Civil Society and British Power (Singapore: Talisman Publishing, 2005), 136.〕 A turning point came as the Rendel Constitution was accepted by the British government and resulted in elections that brought David Marshall and the Labour Front party into power. This new constitution led to the provisional easing of restrictions under Emergency regulations, which in its turn sparked off much interest in politics among the people living in Singapore.〔C.M. Turnbull, A History of Modern Singapore: 1819-2005 (Singapore: NUS Press, 2009), 259; T.N. Harper, “Lim Chin Siong and the Singapore Story,” in Lim Chin Siong in History: Comet in Our Sky, ed. Poh Soo Kai (Petaling Jaya, Malaysia: 2015), 27.〕 This renewed liberalisation led to the establishment of many trade unions during this period which would have alarmed many employers that were worried about their business interests.〔P.J. Thum, “The Limitations of Monolingual History,” in Studying Singapore’s Past: C.M. Turnbull and the History of Modern Singapore, edited by Nicholas Tarling (Singapore: NUS Press 2012), 99; Loh Kah Seng, “Interview with Lee Tee Tong,” in The 1963 Operation Coldstore in Singapore: Commemorating 50 Years, eds. Poh Soo Kai, Tan Kok Fang and Hong Lysa (Malaysia: SIRD, 2013), 373.〕 Oppressive colonial educational and labour policies discriminated against Chinese students and workers.〔Mark R. Frost and Balasingamchow Yu-Mei. Singapore: A Biography (Singapore: Editions Didier Millet, 2009), 356.〕 This led to much unrest, including the May 13 National Service Ordinance unrests which happened in 1954. 1955, in particular was also ridden with workers’ unrest with three significant strikes, the Hock Lee Bus workers’ strike, the Singapore Traction Company strike and the Singapore Harbour Board strike.
Some work has been done to study the significance of certain figures that arose from United States government sources.〔P.J. Thum, "The US, Cold War and Counter-Subversion in Singapore," in Makers and Keepers of Singapore History, edited by Loh Kah Seng and Liew Kai Khiun (Singapore: Ethos Books and Singapore Heritage Society, 2015), 170.〕 The seeds of a communist discourse was being sown by American diplomats, pressuring the British government to take subversive actions against student and labour movements in post 1954 Singapore.〔Thum, "The US,” 160-161.〕 Thus leading to the construction of events like the Hock Lee incident as a violent event instigated by communists. Ramakrishna’s latest work on the communist threat in Singapore necessitates the polarisation of the scholarship on Singapore history and suggests that historians should take sides.〔Kumar Ramakrishna, "Original Sin"? Revising the Revisionist Critique of the 1963 Operation Coldstore in Singapore (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2015), 15-20.〕 Conventional historical narratives have represented the workers and students actions as violent and conceived out of communism. The emerging work on the Hock Lee incident have foregrounded the experiences of the people through the provision of accounts that focus on the social and economic anxieties that were felt by both the students and the workers due to life in colonial society.
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