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The colonial period of Indonesia did not
immediately start when the Dutch first arrived in the archipelago at
the end of the 16th century. Instead, it was a slow process of political
expansion that took centuries to reach the territorial boundaries of
present-day Indonesia.
During the course of the 18th century the United East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie,
abbreviated VOC) had established itself as the dominating economic and
political power on Java after the crumbling and collapse of the Mataram
empire. This Dutch trading company had been a major power in Asian
trade since the early 1600s, but started to develop an interest to
interfere in indigenous politics on the island of Java in the 18th
century as that would improve their hold on the local economy.
Mismanagement, corruption and fierce competition from the English East
India Company, however, resulted in the slow demise of the VOC towards
the end of the 18th century. In 1796 the VOC went bankrupt and was
nationalized by the Dutch state. As a consequence its possessions in the
archipelago passed into the hands of the Dutch crown in 1800. However,
when the French occupied Holland between 1806 and 1815 these possessions
were transferred to the British. After Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo it
was decided that most parts of the archipelago would return to the
Dutch.
Architects of the Dutch Colonial State in Indonesia
Two names stand out as being architects
of the new Dutch colonial state in Indonesia. Firstly, Herman Willem
Daendels, Governor-General from 1808 to 1811 during the French
occupation of Holland and, secondly, British Lieutenant Sir Stamford
Raffles, Governor-General from 1811 to 1816 during the British
occupation of Java. Daendels reorganized the central and regional
colonial administration by dividing Java into districts (also known as
residencies), each one headed by an European civil servant - called the
resident - who was directly subordinate - and had to report - to the
Governor-General in Batavia. These residents were responsible for a wide
range of matters in their residency, varying from legal matters to
the organization of agriculture. Raffles continued the reorganizations
of his predecessor by reforming the judicial, police and administrative
system of Java. He introduced the land-tax which meant that Javanese
peasants had to pay tax, approximately the value of two-fifths of their
annual harvests, to the authorities. Raffles also had a sincere
interest in the cultures and languages of Java. In 1817 he published
his The History of Java, one of the first academic works on the
topic of Java. However, his administrative reorganizations meant an
increasing intervention in Java's society and economy by foreigners,
which is reflected by the growing number of middle ranked European
officials working in the residencies. Between 1825 and 1890 this number
increased from 73 to 190.
The Dutch system of rule in colonial
Java was both direct and dualistic. Alongside the Dutch hierarchy, there
existed an indigenous one which functioned as an intermediary between
the Javanese peasants and the European civil service. The top of this
indigenous structure consisted of the Javanese aristocracy, previously
the officials that ran the Mataram administration. Now, however, they
had to execute the will of the Dutch center.
The
increasing Dutch dominance over Java did not come without resistance.
When the colonial authorities decided to build a road on the land of
prince Diponegoro (who was appointed as guardian of the throne of
Yogyakarta after the sudden death of his half-brother), he rebelled,
supported by a majority of the Javanese population in Central Java and
turned it into a jihad war. This war lasted from 1825 to 1830
and resulted in the deaths of approximately 215,000 people, mostly on
Javanese side. However, when the Java War was over - and prince
Diponegoro captured - the Dutch were more dominant on Java than ever
before.The Cultivation System in Java
Competing British traders, the
Napoleonic wars in Europe and the Java War implied a big financial
burden on the Dutch kingdom's budget. It was decided that Java should
become a major source of revenue for the Dutch and therefore
Governor-General Van den Bosch ushered in the era of the Cultivation
System in 1830. This system meant a Dutch monopoly on the cultivation of
export crops on Java. Moreover, it were the Dutch who decided what kind
of crops (and in what quantity) had to be delivered by the Javanese
peasants. Generally it meant that Javanese peasants had to hand over
one-fifth of their harvests to the Dutch. In return the peasants
received an arbitrarily fixed compensation in cash which basically had
no relation to the value of the crop on the world market. The Dutch and
Javanese officials received a bonus when their residency delivered more
crops than on previous occasions, therefore stimulating top-down
intervention and oppression. On top of this compulsory cultivation of
crops and traditional corvee-labor services, Raffles' land tax still
applied as well. The Cultivation System turned out to be a financial
success. Between 1832 and 1852 around 19 percent of total Dutch state
income was generated from the Javanese colony. Between 1860 and 1866
this number reached around 33 percent.
Initially, the Cultivation System was
not dominated by the Dutch authorities only. Javanese power holders and
private European as well as Chinese entrepreneurs joined in as well.
However, after 1850 - when the Cultivation System was reorganized - the
Dutch colonial state became the dominant player. But these
reorganizations also opened doors for private parties to start
exploiting Java. A process of privatization commenced in which the
colonial state gradually transferred export production to Western
entrepreneurs.
The Liberal Period of Colonial Indonesia
More and more voices were heard in the
Netherlands that rejected the Cultivation System and supported a more
liberal approach for foreign enterprises. This rejection of the
Cultivation System was both for humane and for economic motives. Around
1870 Dutch liberals had won their battle in Dutch parliament and
successfully eliminated some characteristic features of the Cultivation
System, such as the cultivation percentages and the compulsory use of
land and labour for export crops. These liberals paved the way for the
introduction of a new period in Indonesian history, known as the Liberal
Period (circa 1870 to 1900). This period is marked by a huge influence
of private capitalism on colonial policy in the Dutch Indies. The
colonial state now more or less played the role of supervisor in
relations between Western enterprises and the rural Javanese population.
But - although liberals claimed that the benefits of economic growth
would trickle down to the local level - Javanese farmers suffering
from hunger, famine and epidemics were just as common as under the
Cultivation System.
The 19th century is also known as the
century in which the Dutch made substantial geographical expansion in
the archipelago. Driven by the New Imperialism-mentality, European
countries were competing for colonies outside the European continent for
both economic motives and status. One important motive for the Dutch to
expand its territory in the archipelago - apart from financial benefit -
was to prevent other European countries from taking parts of this
region. The most famous and prolonged battle during this period of Dutch
expansion was the Aceh War that started in 1873 and lasted until 1913,
resulting in the deaths of more than 100,000 people. The Dutch would,
however, never have full control over Aceh. But the political
integration of Java and the Outer Islands into a single colonial polity
had largely been achieved by the start of the 20th century.
The Ethical Policy and Indonesian Nationalism
When the borderlines of the Dutch Indies
began to take the shape of present Indonesia, Queen Wilhelmina made an
announcement in her annual speech in 1901 informing that a new policy,
the Ethical Policy, would be installed. The Ethical Policy
(acknowledging that the Dutch had a debt of honour towards the
Indonesians) was aimed at raising the living standards of the native
population. The means to accomplish this was direct state intervention
in (economic) life, promoted under the slogan ‘irrigation, education and
emigration’. This new approach would, however, not prove to be a
significant success in raising the living standards of Indonesians.
This Ethical Policy implied a profound
side effect. Its educational component contributed significantly to the
awakening of Indonesian nationalism by providing Indonesians the
intellectual tools to organize and articulate their objections to
colonial rule. The Policy provided a small Indonesian elite with
Western political ideas of freedom and democracy. For the first time
people began to develop a national consciousness as 'Indonesians'.
In 1908 students in Batavia founded the
association Budi Utomo, the first native political society. This event
is often regarded as the birth of Indonesian nationalism. It established
a political tradition in which cooperation between the young Indonesian
elite and the Dutch authorities was expected to lead to acquiring some
degree of independence. The next chapter in the emergence of Indonesian
nationalism was the founding of the first mass-based political party,
the Sarekat Islam (Islamic Union) in 1911. Initially, it was formed to
support the indigenous entrepreneurs against the dominating Chinese in
the local economy but expanded its scope and developed a popular
political consciousness with subversive tendencies. Other important
movements that led to the unfolding of indigenous political thinking
were the Muhammadiyah, an Islamic reformist socio-religious movement
founded in 1912 and the Indonesian Association of Social Democrats, a
communist movement founded in 1914 that spread Marxist ideas through the
Dutch Indies. Internal disunity in this latter movement led to the
formation of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) in 1920.
Initially, the Dutch colonial
authorities permitted the establishment of indigenous political
movements but when Indonesian ideologies radicalized in the 1920s (as
seen in the communist uprisings in West Java and West Sumatra in 1926
and 1927) the Dutch authorities changed course. A relative tolerant
regime was replaced by a repressive one in which every suspected act of
subversive behaviour was suppressed. This repressive regime in fact only
worsened the situation by radicalizing the entire Indonesian
nationalist movement. Part of these nationalists established the
Indonesian Nationalist Party (Partai Nasional Indonesia, abbreviated PNI) in 1927 as a reaction to the repressive regime. Its goal was full independence for Indonesia.
Another important occasion for
Indonesian nationalism was the declaration of the Youth Pledge in 1928.
At this congress of youth organizations three ideals were proclaimed, to
wit one motherland, one nation and one language. The main aim of this
congress was to stimulate the feeling of unity between the young
Indonesians. On this congress the future national anthem (Indonesia Raya) was played and the future national flag (merah-putih)
was shown for the first time. The colonial authorities reacted with
another act of suppression. Young national leaders, such as Soekarno
(who would become Indonesia's first president in 1945) and Mohammad
Hatta (Indonesia's first vice president) were arrested and exiled.
Japanese Invasion of the Dutch Indies
The Dutch were powerful enough to curb
Indonesian nationalism by arresting its leaders and suppressing the
nationalist organizations but never were they able to eliminate
nationalist sentiment. The Indonesians, on the other hand, did not have
the power to compete with the colonial rulers and therefore needed
outside help to eliminate the colonial system. In March 1942 the
Japanese, fueled by the desire for oil, provided such help by occupying
the Dutch Indies. Although initially welcomed as liberators by the
Indonesian population, soon they would experience the hardship of the
Japanese rule: scarcity of food, clothing and medicines as well as
forced labour under harsh conditions. The scarcity of food was mainly
brought on by administrative incompetence, turning Java into an island
of hunger. Indonesians working as forced labourers (called romusha) were stationed to work on labour-intensive construction projects on Java.
When the Japanese took over, Dutch
officials were put in internment camps and were replaced by Indonesians
to administer government tasks. The Japanese educated, trained and armed
many young Indonesians and gave their nationalist leaders a political
voice. This enabled the nationalists to prepare for a future
independent Indonesian nation. In the final months before Japan's
surrender, effectively ending World War II, the Japanese gave full
support to the Indonesian nationalist movement. Political, economic and
social dismantling of the Dutch colonial state meant that a new era was
about to emerge. On 17 August 1945 Soekarno and Hatta proclaimed the
independence of Indonesia, two days after the Nagasaki atomic bombing.
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