In furtherance of his political plans to defeat the Communist uprising, General Templer realized that it was important to obtain the support of the Indian population in Malaya, as well as the other communities, and he took an active interest in improving the social conditions of the Tamil rubber tappers and labourers throughout Malaya which had often been neglected. One way he did this was by enlisting the cooperation of P.P. Narayanan, a Federal Legislative Council member, a powerful trade union leader, and the first President of the Malayan Trades Union Congress and General Secretary of the National Union of Plantation Workers.Narayanan had formerly headed the Negri Sembilan Indian Labour Union with H.K. Choudhury. Both had been officers in the INA (Indian National Army) formed by Subhas Chandra Bose in Singapore during the Japanese Occupation with the support of the Japanese to fight alongside the Japanese Army in its advance on India. After the Japanese surrender and the return of the British colonial power to Malaya in September 1945, several INA personnel took the lead of forming Indian sections of the trade union movement and as many of them were anti-British, they were attractive candidates for recruitment by the Communist Party of Malaya but Narayanan was anti-Communist.

The National Union was an amalgamation of five unions and as it formed one of the most powerful trade union groups in Malaya representing in 1953 close to 79,000 members, the majority of whom were Indians, its support for the Government's cause would be of great value.

An approximate breakdown of employees' unions by ethnic groups at the time was Indian 78,984; Malay 15,869; Chinese 12,912; and Others 1,792, from which it can be seen that Indian rubber plantation workers provided an important platform for shaping the direction of the Malayan trade union movement. Templer was shrewd in making this move as according to secret CPM instructions issued just before the outbreak of the first Malayan Emergency, “the progressive mass organisations of the various Trade Unions in Malaya … youth organisations, women's associations” should all come under the direct leadership of the Party “and efforts should be made through Communist-controlled trade unions to create labour unrest … Labour unions could be strengthened as they could be Communists' strongest weapons.”