12 - Moment of Truth

Summary

Feeling claustrophobic in the editorial cage of The Straits Times, Raja searched for other ways to advance his political ideas to the wider public. Inside him, a philosopher and a political pundit was shrieking to be let out. He found an outlet in radio.

From 1957, he wrote and presented scripts regularly for Radio Malaya. Drawing from his experience working part-time for the BBC in London, he proved to be adept at it. He used dialogue, music and sound effects to translate what could be sonorous topics, such as nationalism and democracy, into fascinating dramas.

Through the voice box, Raja managed to reach a wider audience than he did with the newspaper. The radio was then a pervasive medium of communication, with people from all walks of life turning on their radio sets in coffee shops, offices and homes. This was before the era of the television, which came to Singapore only in 1963.

Amidst the crackling sounds of radio, Raja started a new relationship with the listening public. He used the intimacy of the microphone to insist on the importance of removing barriers between the different races to build a Malayan nation.

His most ambitious project was to animate his ideas through the conversation of a picaresque group of characters for a six-part drama series “Nation in the Making”. The half-hour plays were aired at 7.30 pm every Thursday from 11 July to 15 August 1957. In each programme, listeners were drawn into a discussion between the characters, with explanations of historical developments and past wars. Their attention was paid a thousand fold with the characters asking difficult questions about race, religion and politics, and provoking them to think through the arguments.

The protagonists in this series are the Optimist and the Pessimist. These two characters inform, amuse, outrage, argue through the ebb and flow of dialogue, as they debate what are the essential factors in the making of a nation. Their varied supporting cast includes a “Chinese”, “Malay”, “Indian”, and “student of Malayan history”.