Signs from Allah: History, Science and Faith in Islam
153. Indonesia – Struggle for Independence - 6
By Professor Nazeer Ahmed
Concord, CA

The diverse Islamic community in Indonesia had its own specific concerns. The loss of independence to the Netherlands was considered a disgrace by the ulema who longed for the establishment of a Shariah-based state. However, it was the merchant community of Muslims that made the first political move.
Their primary concern was not so much religion but the economic domination from the Chinese. The colonial government had established a social hierarchy in which the Europeans occupied a privileged position at the top, the Chinese served as intermediaries while the native Javanese occupied the bottom rung of the ladder. International trade was controlled by the Dutch, the retail trade was delegated to the Chinese while the islanders were relegated to subsistence farming and hard labor. There was a great deal of resentment against the Chinese merchants who often sided with the Europeans in the political dialectic between the Dutch and the Javanese.
To address the grievances of the merchants, a Muslim Traders Association was established in 1909. In addition to encouraging trade, the Association emphasized Islamic education. The agenda found a resonance with the large majority of Muslims and the Association grew rapidly. In 1912 it changed its name to Sarekat Islam. By 1914 it had more than 250,000 members and 100 branches throughout the islands.
There were other strands in the Muslim political milieu. The educated elite sought a reformation of the community through Western education. In this sense their orientation was similar to that of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan of Aligarh in India who sought to uplift the Islamic community in India through modern, Western education. The reformist group started the Mohammediya movement in Yogyakarta in 1912.
Neither the Sarekat Islam nor the Mohammediya were fully responsive to the aspirations of traditional Islam. This need was filled in 1926 through the establishment of Nahdatul Ulema. The Nahda emphasized the traditional values in Islam and served as a balance to the reformist thrust of Mohammediya and the mercantile thrust of Sarekat Islam. In time, the Nahdatul Ulema grew to be the largest religious organization in Indonesia. It established a vast network of schools, the pesantrans, to impart traditional Islamic education to the children. The pesantrans were boarding schools for boys and girls, usually located in the back country and provided the poor peasants the only chance to impart education to their children. Even to this day, the pesantrans form the backbone of rural education and are an important element in the social-religious milieu of Indonesia.
The political resurgence in the early part of the century nurtured some of the giants who guided the destiny of Indonesia towards independence. Two of these stalwarts were Achmad Sukarno (1901-1970) and Muhammed Hatta (1902-1980). Sukarno was born in Java in 1901, the son of a school teacher. He studied in Dutch primary schools and in 1927 graduated as a civil engineer from Technische Hogeschool in Bandung. He was fluent in Dutch, English and French besides his native Javanese and was a powerful and persuasive orator. While a student, he met Tjokroaminoto, a nationalist and came under his influence. In 1928 he established the Indonesian Nationalist Union (PNI) together with Tjipto Mangunkusumo, Kihadjar Dwantara and Douwes and advocated self-rule for the islands. Sukarno knew firsthand the impact of European colonial rule on the Indonesian workers. The sight of unbridled colonial exploitation fostered in him a distaste for capitalism and a liking for socialism. However, at his core he was a nationalist rather than a socialist and his goal was independence from the Dutch rather than a socialist state.
The Dutch, weary of nationalists, and alarmed at the activities of Sukarno, arrested him, charged him with sedition and sentenced him in 1929 to exile in the island of Flores. When he was released in 1931, he returned home to Java, a mass hero who championed the cause of Indonesia’s independence. In 1932 he dissolved the PNI and founded the Indonesia Party which demanded complete independence from the Netherlands. The party came under intense surveillance from the colonial authorities and was dissolved in 1934. Sukarno was arrested again and imprisoned in Flores.
In the 1930s, Sukarno saw an opportunity for Indonesia’s independence in the rise of imperial Japan. As the Japanese imperial army marched across Manchuria and Eastern China, Sukarno sensed the possibility that the Japanese invasions might spill over into the East Indies. He was willing to help the Dutch against such a possibility provided that independence was first granted to Indonesia. Just as the British paid little heed to similar demands from Gandhi in India, the Dutch brushed off Sukarno’s overtures confining him instead for eight long years in prison.
The political dynamics changed with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (December 1941). In February 1942 Japan invaded the Dutch East Indies and quickly overran the islands. The Dutch retreated almost without a fight. Sukarno was carted in haste from place to place, taken to Sumatra, but was abandoned by the Dutch in their hasty retreat. The Japanese saw an opportunity in using the young Sukarno for their own agenda. On his part Sukarno saw an opportunity to use the Japanese to gain Indonesian independence. Their interests were a mirror image each of the other. Sukarno helped the Japanese providing Indonesian labor for their war effort while the Japanese allowed Sukarno to develop a cadre of young men trained in military discipline. This was the beginning of the Indonesian army which fought a valiant guerilla war against the Dutch when they tried to reestablish their empire after the war. A persuasive orator that he was, Sukarno worked tirelessly to infuse a sense of nationhood among the Indonesian people. In 1943 he was decorated by the Emperor of Japan for his assistance in the war effort. Necessity dictated politics. The war was the trigger for the independence of Asia and Africa. Sukarno played the politics of necessity but later he expressed regret for the assistance he had rendered the occupying Japanese.
Power is the arbitrator of politics. The Second World War transformed the power balance in Asia. The lightning Japanese advance across Asia destroyed the myth of an invincible Europe and provided an impetus to the political forces seeking the emancipation of Asia. Without the war, the colonial era would have lingered on much longer.
The independence struggle for Indonesia was not a one-man show. It was a corporate struggle involving several significant personalities. One of them was Mohammed Hatta.Born into an affluent family in 1902 on the island of Java, Hatta lost his father in early childhood and was brought up in his mother’s family. A bright student, he attended Dutch language schools and at the age of nineteen proceeded to the Netherlands where he stayed till 1931 and studied law.
The youthful Hatta was a political activist. In the Netherlands he joined the Indonesische Vereneging (Union of Indonesia) of which he became chairman in 1926. He was also the editor of a magazine Free Indonesia. Indonesische Vereneging became an advocate of noncooperation as a means to gain independence for Indonesia. In support of this goal, Hatta attended conferences all over Europe where he met and made friends with some of the future leaders of Asia including Nehru of India, Ramadan Bey of Egypt and Sedar Senghor of Africa. These activities alarmed the Dutch. The headquarters of the organization were raided in 1927, Hatta was arrested and put in jail. When he was brought before a judge with charges of disturbing the peace, Hatta gave a famous speech in which he passionately argued for an equal partnership between Indonesia and the Netherlands and an end to the colonial relationship.
In 1931 Hatta returned home to an Indonesia torn by conflicts between rival groups of activists and the arrest of Sukarno. Most of the members of Sukarno’s PNI party had joined the Partindo party. The Dutch educated elite had formed a new PNI party. Partindo was a political party with mass appeal whereas the more moderate new PNI focused on education and training. Hatta became the chairman of the new PNI in 1931. When Sukarno was released from prison later that year, he tried to bring about reconciliation between the new PNI and Partindo. When this effort failed, he joined the Partindo party.
The Dutch colonial administration would not tolerate the development of a mass movement led by Partindo. Sukarno was arrested once again in 1933 and exiled to the island of Ende. Hatta was critical of Sukarno at this stage. He believed that Sukarno’s mass movement was untimely. Hatta emphasized a more moderate approach emphasizing disciplined noncooperation. The moderate approach was no more acceptable to the Dutch than the mass approach of Sukarno. With Sukarno and his Partindo out of the way the Dutch moved against the new PNI. Hatta was arrested along with other leaders of Partindo and imprisoned in Glodok.
When the Japanese occupied Indonesia in 1941 they transferred Hatta to Jakarta. Here he met Sukarno. The old animosities between the two were forgotten and the two together formed a tactical alliance with the Japanese to assist their war effort in return for a promise of independence. Sukarno, the consummate orator, infused a sense of nationhood in his people, trained them militarily and made them ready to fight the Dutch should they attempt to recolonize Indonesia. In November 1943, Hatta and Sukarno were honored by Emperor Hirohito of Japan for their cooperation with the Japanese.
The Japanese were at first lukewarm towards the independence of Indonesia. The islands were a rich source of men and materials, both essential for the war effort and sustaining the empire. After the battle of Midway (June 1942), the tide of the Pacific war turned in favor of the Allied powers. As the Japanese war crumbled and defeat seemed imminent, the Japanese hastily set up a Committee to prepare for the independence of Indonesia (BPUPKI).
On August 9, 1945, the Indonesian leaders Sukarno, Hatta and Radjiman were flown to Vietnam to meet with Japanese Air Marshall Terauchi. They were informed that Indonesia would be granted full independence on August 24. However, events overtook a planned, smooth transfer of power. The Americans dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima on August 6 and followed up with another bomb on Nagasaki on August 9.
(The author is Director, World Organization for Resource Development and Education, Washington, DC; Director, American Institute of Islamic History and Culture, CA; Member, State Knowledge Commission, Bangalore; and Chairman, Delixus Group)