! ί. Λ CORNELL MODERN INDONESIA PROJECT Department of Dolan Studies 102 Dost Avenue Cornell Universi ty Ithaca, New York BANDUNG IN THE EARLY REVOLUTION 1945-1946 A Study in the Social History of the Indonesian Revolution JOHN R. W. SMAIL MONOGRAPH SERIES MODERN INDONESIA PROJECT Southeast Asia Program Department of Asian Studies Cornell University Ithaca, New York $3.50 SEAP Publications £op{j Do not remove from room 213 640 Stewart Avenue« BANDUNG IN THE EARLY REVOLUTION, 1945-1946 A Study in the Social History of the Indonesian Revolution JOHN R„ W. SMAIL I * MONOGRAPH SERIES MODERN INDONESIA PROJECT Southeast A sia Program Department of Asian Studies Cornell University Ithaca, New York 1964 « * C 1964 by Cornell Modern Indonesia Project * < 111 FOREWORD Studies of contemporary Indonesian history thus far have been largely confined to developments at the national level, and the selection and interpretation of events has been for the most part pitched to their national and international relevance. This has been particularly true of most studies dealing with the Indonesian revolution. The lack of con- centrated studies in depth for this period has denied us access to strata of historical development and aspects of the revolutionary process, which the more broadly focused studies cannot easily cover. It is by his con- centration on the local events in one particular area during this period that Dr. Smail has been able to give a deeper understanding and added perspective to the history of the revolution. His is the first study of local history during the Indonesian revolu- tion and one of the very few for any part of Indonesia in the modern period. He gives us a detailed narrative and analysis of events in and around the city of Bandung in West Java between August 1945 and March 1946. The story which he tells is an absorbing one in its own right and he brings out many aspects of Indonesia’s revolutionary history which have hitherto been ignored or passed over lightly. These include the development of both regular and irregular military organizations as mani- festations of a militant youth movement, the group interests lying behind the fundamental conflict between policies of negotiation and of militant struggle, the relation of the general anarchical conditions which pre- vailed during these early months to major political and social changes in both urban and rural areas. After preliminary training at Cornell, Dr. Smail spent two and a half years in Holland and Indonesia doing field work, and received his doctorate from Cornell in 1964. Since 1962 he has been at the University of Wisconsin, teaching Southeast Asian history in the Program in Com- parative Tropical History there. Ithaca, New York June 29, 1964 George McT. Kahin DirectorV PREFACE « This work deals with events in and around the city of Bandung in West Java during the first seven or eight months of the Indonesian Revolution, an historical episode beginning with the proclamation of Indonesian independence on August 17th, 1945 and ending with the evacuation and partial destruction of the city by the Indonesians on the night of March 24th, 1946. It is a study of local history in a restricted period of time but at the same time it is in- tended as a contribution to the social history of modern Indonesia. Some- thing should be said about how these two purposes are related and what sort of study results from this approach to the history of the Revolution. The essential factor here is the change of perspective inherent in any study of local history, but particularly obvious in this case since there has been no previous work on the local history of the Revolution. By stationing myself in Bandung, and not in Jogjakarta, Djakarta or The Hague, and looking outward from there I necessarily see the Revolution differently. From the point of view of these capital cities the Revolution took the form of a struggle between the Dutch and the Indonesians, the climactic crisis in the history of the Netherlands East Indies, and it was problems of Dutch-Indonesian relations which occupied men's hands and dominated their thoughts. Since the participants normally saw the Revolu- tion this way and since, moreover, this particular anti-colonial struggle was part of a much larger process across most of the world it is under- standable that our conceptions of the Revolution, and most of what has been written about it, should be dominated by this side of it, which may be called its foreign relations aspect. (1) From the point of view of Bandung, however, the Revolution takes on a very different appearance. What is important here is not what is dis- tinctive about the history of the Bandung area itself--in this regard the history of any locality will present essentially the same appearance though in detail these histories differ widely--but the simple fact that Bandung is not the capital city and the local level is not the national one. At the local level it is no longer possible to see the Revolution exclusively or even primarily as a struggle between the Dutch and the Indonesians. What we see instead is the domestic side of Indonesian history in a time of rapid and far-reaching change, a social revolution as well as simply a nationalist one. In spite of its concentration on foreign relations, of course, the literature on the Revolution does contain a good deal of material of one sort or another on domestic affairs. But this material remains more or (1) See my "On the Possibility of an Autonomous History of Modern Southeast A sia," Journal Southeast Asian History II/2 (July 1961) 72-102, esp. 94-102, for a fuller statement of the argument presented here and in the following paragraphs.VI less securely fixed in a framework dominated by the theme of the Dutch- Indonesian conflict and it cannot be fully understood until it has been shaken free from this dominant framework and considered in its own terms. The purpose of this work, therefore, is not simply to lay out a body of factual material--the history of the Bandung area as such--but also to try to es- tablish, by use of this material, a frame of reference for the general domestic history of the Revolution. The limited scope of the subject treated here is advantageous as it permits the building up of a mass of local detail, the minutiae which define a distinct historical world and pro- vide a footing for steps further afield. I hope to be able to show that one can see a coherent history of the Revolution in which the anti-colonial struggle appears as only one of many elements, and not always even a very important one. This history, I must emphasize, is every bit as artificial and in- complete as the one which is concerned overmuch with the Dutch-Indonesian conflict. By pushing aside the story of that conflict I am not suggesting that it is unimportant but simply that our preoccupation with it has con- stricted our understanding of the Revolution. Sooner or later, as material accumulates and the perspective broadens, it will be possible to write a full history of the Revolution. When that time comes the elements which I have distinguished here for analytical purposes, foreign relations and domestic history, will have to be brought together in a coherent whole. But as the case stands at present I think that the distinction is useful and that much can be learned by segregating domestic history and treating it as much as possible in its own terms. The nationalist revolution by which Indonesia achieved its indepen- dence from the Dutch proceeded by a series of fairly evenly spaced steps-- two major political agreements, in 1946 and 1948, and two major military actions, in 1947 and 1948-49--from the proclamation of independence in 1945 to the transfer of sovereignty in late 1949. The social revolution which accompanied it, however, followed a very different pattern, its most important results being achieved in the first half-year or so after the proclamation of independence, the period to which this work is devoted. This period, in Bandung as in most of Java and Sumatra, was one of ex- treme disorder, even anarchy; in these conditions the old order of Netherlands Indies society, already modified by the Japanese interregnum, was broken down and its pieces began to form into a new Indonesian order. The same disorder and rapid change which give this period its im- portance in the domestic history of the Revolution, and of modern Indonesia, also largely determined the character of the materials used in this study. The history of the early Revolution is still highly controversial in some respects and I have understandably not been given access to any col- lections of unpublished archival material. But it is doubtful in any case whether surviving collections are at all extensive. In the turmoil of the early Revolution the archives of many existing organizations were scattered or destroyed, while newly-formed organizations were in most cases too for- mal or loosely-organized to have begun keeping records yet. The few pieces of such material which I have seen have been very valuable in checking data obtained in other ways, and this, I think, is all that one could expect of the rest of what has survived if it were made available.Vll Fairly complete runs of contemporary newspapers published in Bandung, Djakarta and elsewhere have survived and have provided much useful information, as have a number of books, pamphlets and other materials which are contemporary or nearly so. With a few notable ex- ceptions, however, these sources tend to concentrate on the anti-colonial aspect of the Revolution and contain only scattered material of direct rele- vance to social history. Their chief value has been to give a chronologi- cal frame of reference for data obtained from interviews, and to provide a contemporary check on some of this interview material. The bulk of my material, therefore, has come from interviews. A few of these came out of a two weeks visit to Holland and England in April 1961 but the great majority were the product of two years of field research on Java, from April 1959 to 1961, when I was living in Bandung. My wife also interviewed a group of people who were students and teachers in a Bandung secondary school at the outbreak of the Revolution, and my assistant B. Tupan collected a large number of life histories from the in- habitants of a kampung (neighborhood), here called "Babakan," in the city of Bandung. An historical study of this kind, based primarily on interviews, is bound to differ in some respects from works based on conventional docu- mentary sources. It is obvious, to begin with, that interview material, even though checked wherever possible against contemporary sources, can never be as precise as the historian would like. Human memory simply cannot meet all the demands the historian puts on it. This is particularly true as regards the kind of concrete detail--dates, figures, names and the like--which one acquires almost effortlessly in the course of most ordi- nary historical research. The factual detail presented in the following pages has required a disproportionate amount of effort to assemble and check, but it is far from complete and on many points it is not, and can- not be, more than approximately accurate. Fortunately the range of un- certainty on points of fact is in most cases fairly narrow and does not seriously detract from the value of the conclusions to be drawn from the material. Thus it is often a matter of some importance, in the context of Bandung history, whether an event occurred in late November or early December, or whether a particular military unit was large or small, and such questions are often difficult to settle. But when one steps back a pace to see how this information can illuminate the general social history of the period, such problems become much less important. It remains true, however, that there are many gaps and uncer- tainties in the material provided by these interviews. A degree of imper- fection is inevitable in a work of this kind; it is a price worth paying, I believe, for what is almost the only way in which much of the social his- tory of the Revolution can be studied. The contemporary written sources being what they are, interviews have in fact provided much of the material even for the diplomatic and national-level political history of the Revolu- tion that we have. For most aspects of its social history they are quite indispensable. I have included in the text, along with quotations from cited sources, a fair number of excerpts from interview notes made by myselfviii or my assistant. (2) The former are identified by a single asterisk and » the latter by a double one. These are not literal quotations but para- phrases, no more and no less accurate as renditions of what informants actually said than paraphrases in newspaper reports and other published » sources. On the few occasions where quotation marks are used inside such passages they indicate as accurate as possible a translation of words actually used by the informant. I have nowhere identified the people whom I or my assistant interviewed because I undertook from the beginning to preserve their anonymity and because in most cases no useful purpose would be served by doing so. Spelling follows current Indonesian usage: consonants are as in English, vowels as in Italian, except for dj pronounced as j_, tj as ch, sj as sh, and j as y. I have retained the older oe (pronounced "oo"f~in the names of organizations and newspapers but have replaced it with the modern u in all personal names, though this was rarely done before 1947. Indonesian terms used in the text have been given English plurals with an s (e. g. pemudas) except where they are double-barrelled noun-modifier combinations: thus badan perdjuangan may be either singular or plural. I have distinguished carefully throughout between the capitalized "Revolution," referring to the period, and lower-case "revolution," re- ferring to the sociological phenomenon, and have tried to avoid using the term in its third sense, as in "The Revolution finally triumphed." This study was made possible by the willingness of several hundred people--in England, Holland and various parts of Java, but particularly in and around the city of Bandung--to give their time and open their minds to an alien scholar; by the assistance of many officials of Bandung City, Bandung Regency and West Java Province and other government and pri- vate institutions in Indonesia and the Netherlands; and by the generosity * of many individuals who loaned or gave me documents, manuscripts and rare surviving collections of the Bandung newspapers from the years 1945 and 1946. It is impossible to name all of them and equally impossible to draw a meaningful line between those who contribued more and those who contributed less, and so I will name none. Though they remain anonymous it is to them that I owe my largest debt. I would like to express a very special gratitude to Professor George McT. Kahin of Cornell University, not only for the advice and guidance which he has given me on this study but also for all that he has done through the years, as teacher and friend, to encourage me in my work. I am grateful, too, to Professors Knight Biggerstaff and John M. Echols of Cornell for the training and friendship which they have given me through- out, and to Professor W. F. Wertheim and his associates at the University of Amsterdam for their generous assistance. Among the many fellow- students who have contributed to my intellectual growth I must single out Daniel S. Lev, with whom I have shared every step in the research on which this work is based. I would like to pay special tribute to the intel- ligence, conscientiousness and energy of my research assistant, B. Tupan, , (2) I have adopted here the practice followed by Clifford Geertz in his The Religion of Java (Glencoe Illinois I960) and outlined on pp. 385-6 there.IX the value of whose work will be apparent in the following pages. There is no way to express the full measure of my gratitude to my wife, Laura, for her help at every stage of this study; during the years of its making she has contributed much to its content and form, patiently endured the vagaries which it brought out in me, shared my pleasure in it and sustained me in dark moments as it grew. Both the field research and the writing of this study were made pos- sible by the financial help of the Ford Foundation, which granted me a Foreign Area Training Fellowship. The Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, the Cornell Southeast Asia Program and the Program in Comparative Tropical History at the University of Wisconsin also supported various phases of my work with generous grants. In preparing this work I have drawn information and received help from many people and organizations but I would like to make it absolutely clear that the use which I have made of this information and help has been entirely my own, and that I alone am responsible for any deficiencies in this work and for the views which it expresses. In these pages I have tried to treat the social history of the Revolu- tion objectively and not to pass moral judgments or to take sides, either as between Indonesians and Dutch or as between groups within Indonesian society. Asa political man I have my opinions, anti-colonial among others, and as a human being I have my sympathies and aversions, but I do not consider that I have any right to express these in a scholarly study and hope that I have been able to control them. I am aware that an effort to be objective about an event so important in the life of a society, and in the lives of so many individuals within it, may hurt the feelings of a few on all sides. I am even more poignantly aware that an effort to make an ob- jective analysis of an event which generated such powerful forces of idealism and brought so much suffering and exaltation must take much of the poetry out of it. I have what I believe are good scholarly reasons for making this effort, and within the limitations imposed by my plan I have done what I could to convey something of the human significance of this event. I hope some day to do more. Madison, Wisconsin John R. W. Smail June 1964TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page PART ONE: THE CONTEXT I. HISTORY.......................................... 3 II. DJAKARTA, AUGUST 1945 15 PART TWO: BANDUNG IH. AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER 1945 35 IV. OCTOBER AND NOVEMBER 1945 ...................... 55 1. Revolutionary Beginnings.................. 55 2. The First Pemuda Organizations............. 76 V. DECEMBER 1945 TO MARCH 1946 .................... 99 1. The Revolutionary Climax................... 99 2. The Rural Revolution...................... 116 3. Pemudas and Politicians ................ 128 VI. BANDUNG LAUTAN API............................. 147 GLOSSARY ...................................... 159 WORKS CITED o.o.. ....... ............. 165 1JS .... o««. ....... ·. ....... ...... 171 Java and West Java ....................... 171 Bandung Regency........................... 173 Bandung City ο.ο«*β.»».·.«.ο·...·..ο». 175 xi« PART ONE: THE CONTEXTtCHAPTER I HISTORY The city of Bandung, next to Djakarta the largest in West Java and the third largest in Indonesia, lies about 2400 feet above sea level in an up- land rice bowl, an oval about twenty-five miles long and ten miles wide surrounded by an impressive fringe of mountains reaching up as high as 7500 feet. Its original location was on the Tjitarum River on the site of the present-day town of Dayeuh Kolot (Old Capital) but in 1810 it was moved to its present location on slightly higher and less marshy ground at the northern edge of the bowl's floor, at the foot of the slopes leading up to the locally-famous cratered volcano Tangkuban Prahu. In August 1945, at the threshold of the Revolution, the city of Ban- dung was what it had been through most of the earlier years of the twentieth century and is today, an administrative and educational center. Like most cities in Indonesia it had little industry; in economic terms it depended on the services it performed for government and private offices and schools and for the plantations established during the previous six or seven decades in the mountainous areas around the bowl. Like any large city it was a transportation center: running next to each other through the center of the city were one of the two main east-west railroad lines on Java and an im- portant trunk road, while a net of smaller roads radiated out from the city to every corner of the bowl. In August 1945, after three and a half years of Japanese occupation, the plantations were almost inactive, com- merce and education were stagnant; in the city proper there lived, some- what precariously, a population of about 437, 000. (1) Bandung can be divided roughly into three zones. (See map. ) South of the main highway is the older part of the city, oriented toward the main square (alun-alun) on which the residence and office of the regent (bupati) fronts. Between the main highway and the railroad track and along the northern side of the latter is the main business district: the main city market (Pasar Baru--New Market) to the west of the square and the Euro- pean downtown area, with shops, hotels and offices, to the east. North and east of the business district is the European suburban area, developed (1) /Municipality of Bandung/, Perdjoangan Kemerdekaan dalam Kota Bandung (Garut 1946) pp. 3-4 of the separately paginated appendix, which consists of a report on the state of the city in mid-September 1945. The figures given there and quoted here and below are based on municipal records compiled from reports of births, deaths and moves rather than on a census (the most recent having been made 15 years earlier, in 1930) and are therefore only approximately accurate. For this reason they have been rounded off to the nearest thousand. 34 mostly in the 1920's and 1930's, in which are located most of the schools, the Technical College and some of the more important office buildings. Much the largest group in the population of the city in August 1945 was that of the Indonesians, numbering about 380, 000. Most of them were Sundanese--the original inhabitants of the mountainous interior of West Java--but there was a relatively large group of Javanese and a sizeable number of Minangkabaus, Bataks and other ethnic groups native to the various islands outside Java. Roughly two-thirds of the Indonesians lived in the part of the city lying south of the railway tracks but about one-third lived in small neighborhoods (kampungs) scattered through the European business district and suburban area and around their fringes. (2) The 40, 000 Chinese, most of them merchants, had their largest concentration around the main market, south of the tracks too, while the remainder lived in small pockets along the main streets and individually in most of the areas occupied by Indonesians. The third major element in the population was that of the "Euro- peans "--pure Dutch, Eurasians and other nationalities--16, 000 of whom were on the rolls of the municipality at this time. (3) In 1940, just before the war, there had been 27, 000 in this category (4) but the Japanese had placed practically all of the Dutch and many of the Eurasians in the intern- ment camps located in the suburban area itself and near the satellite town of Tjimahi to the west and those of course were still in the camps at the time of the Japanese surrender. Most of the 16, 000, almost all Eurasians, lived in the suburban area but others were scattered, in the way the Chi- nese were, throughout the town. The rural surroundings of the city of Bandung can best be described in terms of their administrative organization. The city was, as it had (2) I have used the railroad tracks as the dividing line here because they served this function in the troubled period between December and March, at a time of large-scale population movement. Using this line I have calculated the distribution of the Indonesians from figures for the 19 wards (desas) of the city given in Perdjoangan Kota Bandung (Appendix) 2-3. The figures given there cover all population groups, not only Indonesians, and have therefore been adjusted on the rough assumption that one-fourth of the Chinese and four-fifths of the "Europeans" lived to the north of the tracks. (3) This figure includes about 700 non-Dutch Europeans, and the pre-war figure given below also includes an unstated but demographically not very important number of non-Dutch. In August 1945 there were also about 300 Indians and 600 Arabs in Bandung, adding a round thousand to the grand total for the city. (4) L. van der Pijl (ed), Bandoeng en haar Hoogvlakte (Bandung ca. 1949) 36. This figure is not fully comparable to the 1945 one because the boundaries of the municipality had been extended several times during the Japanese occupation, taking in new areas whose European population did not appear in the pre-war totals for the city. The numbers involved could not have been more than a few thousand, however.5 been since the 1860's, the capital of the residency (keresidenan) of Prian- gan, one of five in West Java. Three provinces--West, Central and East Java--had been formed between 1926 and 1930 but the Japanese occupation authorities on Java had abolished them and in 1945 the residency was, as it had been before 1926, the highest level of administration below the cen- tral one. The resident, in Dutch times always a Dutch official, was a Japanese but beneath him, in a new post created by the Japanese, was an Indonesian vice-resident. At the next level down, Priangan residency was divided into six parts: five regencies (kabupatens), each headed by a regent (bupati), and the city of Bandung itself, headed by a mayor. (5) The regency of Ban- dung, which along with the city is the area we are chiefly concerned with here, occupied virtually the whole area of the Bandung bowl, its boundaries following the watershed line of the mountain fringe quite closely. Ex- cluding the city, enclaved within it, Bandung Regency in 1945 had well over a million inhabitants, almost all Sundanese; it was the largest of the five regencies, having about a third of the population of the residency. (6) It was divided into nine districts (kewedanans), headed by district officers (wedanas), and twenty-seven subdistricts (ketjamatans), headed by sub- district officers (tjamats). The subdistrict was the lowest administrative unit headed by an appointed official of the pamong pradja corps; below it was the village (desa), averaging about ten to each subdistrict, headed by an elected headman (lurah). The mountainous interior of West Java--Priangan in the broad geo- graphical sense, rather than the narrow administrative one--began the transition from pre-history to history in the sixteenth century, consider- ably later than the main areas of central and east Java. Sparsely occupied by the Sundanese, still practicing shifting cultivation over wide areas in the hills, this region was little influenced by Indian civilization as repre- sented in the Sundanese trading states of Taruma (5th-7th centuries A. D. ) and Padjadjaran (14th-16th centuries A. D. ) located in the area of modern Bogor in the foothills to its north. More powerful and sustained forces were needed to open up this remote and almost empty area and these were generated by the dynamic movements in Javanese society in the more highly developed centers to the east in the 16th and 17th centuries. First, (5) The five regencies of Priangan were, and are, Tjiamis, Tasikmalaja, Garut, Sumedang and Bandung. Bandung regency, though it had its seat in the city, is not to be confused with the latter. The re- gency office, as mentioned above, was on the main square, in the southern, and predominantly Indonesian, part of town, while the munici- pal and residency offices were in the north, reflecting their Dutch origins. The regents and the mayor, like all the officials mentioned below, were Indonesians--Sundanese to be more precise. (6) The 1930 census gave a figure of 1, 203, 288 for Bandung Re- gency. Encyclopaedic van Nederlandsch-Indie, 2nd ed, vol 8 (The Hague 1939) 1751. No estimates for any date between 1930 and 1945 are available and in view of the disruption and boundary changes of the Japanese period it would be misleading to give more specific figures.6 around the middle of the 16th century, came Islam, carried by the newly founded Javanese harbor states of Tjirebon (Cheribon) and Banten (Bantam) on the north coast of West Java, and soon sinking deeper roots among the Sundanese than among the Javanese themselves. Then, around the turn of the century, the rising power of the central Javanese state of Mataram be- gan to be felt in the Sundanese interior, introducing the Javanese economic, social and cultural system along with its political dominance. During the three centuries from about 1600 to 1900 the main theme in the social history of Priangan is found in the spread and rooting of these Javanese patterns in Sundanese society. The key to this process was the network of petty vassals, later called regents, set up here as elsewhere by Mataram. The regents themselves easily accepted not only the Java- nese political system so favorable to their interests but also the refined culture of Java. Their courts (dalems), modelled on that of Mataram, be- came centers of Javanese literature and arts; in them it was chiefly Javanese, a language whose layered structure reflects and reinforces a strong sense of social hierarchy, which was used until well on in the 19th century. (7) It was through the regents’ courts that Javanese influence spread and around them that the Sundanese of Priangan very slowly began to settle down, giving up shifting cultivation for permanent sawah (irrigated field) cultivation of wet rice, and thereby changing from mountaineers to peasants as the Javanese had before them. Once started, this process continued on its own, unaffected by the breaking of the political connection with Mataram. In the late seventeenth century, its strength declining fast, Mataram transferred Priangan to the Dutch East India Company whose headquarters had been established at Batavia (Djakarta) early in the century. For a time the Dutch paid little attention to their new territory but in the early eighteenth century they dis- covered that it was well suited for the growing of coffee. Within a few de- cades they had developed the production of Priangan coffee to the point that it had become their most valuable export, a position which it held for more than a century. The Dutch obtained their coffee through the regents by requiring the planting of coffee bushes and levying forced deliveries against low prices. Otherwise, until late in the 19th century, they concerned themselves little with the internal affairs of Priangan, leaving most matters to the regents. The latter profited greatly from the connection, receiving large sums for their services in connection with the production of coffee and getting Dutch support and the right to tax and administer their regencies as they chose. The strong position of the regents, the peace enforced from a distance by the Dutch--between the mid-seventeenth century and 1945 Priangan was almost entirely quiet--and the coffee money passing out from the regents' courts all contributed to the development of a more Javanese pattern of (7) Javanese, like Sundanese which it has influenced, may be viewed as a set of interlocking dialects, different ones of which are used according to the relationship between the speaker and the person he addresses: the tu-vous principle carried to an extreme. For a good brief description see Geertz, The Religion of Java 248-60.7 society, with a growing base of sawah-cultivating peasants and a small superstructure of prijajis (aristocrats) centering on the regents. (8) By the end of the 19th century Sundanese society in Priangan had taken its place as little more than a variation on the main Javanese system. (9) As this process reached its climax, however, a new cycle of change was beginning. Hitherto Dutch influence in Priangan had been felt only in a demand for coffee and a measure of outside control imposed on the regents --factors which under the circumstances promoted Javaniza- tion rather than Westernization--but the 19th century expansion of the West brought far more powerful forces to bear. Economic penetration came first: the first railroad line connecting Djakarta and Bandung was opened in 1884 and the two or three decades before 1900 saw the appear- ance of increasing numbers of private plantations growing tea, cinchona, and coffee in the mountainous areas of Priangan. About the turn of the century the impact of the modern West began to be felt on a broader front. This process is best illustrated by the rapid growth of the town of Bandung. (10) Indonesians "Europeans" Chinese Total* 1846 11, 000 9 13 11,000 1893 22, 000 500 1, 200 24,000 1905 41, 000 2, 000 4, 000 47, 000 1930 130, 000 20, 000 17,000 167,000 1940 164,000 27, 000 26,000 217,000 1945 380,000 16, 000 40, 000 437,000 including Indians and Arabs (8) "Aristocrats" covers the prijajis' hereditary status, their mili- tary origin and their knightly ethic but fails to indicate the fact that they were not independent barons but officials or agents serving the regents, and later the Dutch, in an administrative hierarchy. The prijaji class fell into two quite distinct parts: upper prijaji (the regents and their closer rela- tives--called menak in Sundanese) and lower prijaji. (9) The main sources for Priangan up to about 1900 are F. de Haan, Priangan, de Preanger-Regentschappen onder het Nederlandsch Bestuur tot 1811, 4 vols (Batavia 1910-12) and J. W. de Klein, Het Preangerstelsel (1677-1~871) en zijn Nawerking (Delft 1931). The memoirs of P. A. Achmad Djajadiningrat, Herinneringen (Amsterdam/Batavia 1936) give an excellent picture of life in West Java in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (10) Encyclopaedic van Nederlandsch-Indie, 1st ed, vol 1, 98; ibid. , 2nd ed, vol 5, 355 and vol 8, 1753-4; Pijl (ed), Bandoeng en haar Hoogvlakte 9, 10, 36, 71; Perdjoangan Kota Bandung (Appendix) 3-4. The great increase in Indonesian and Chinese population between 1940 and 1945 is accounted for by substantial enlargements in the territory covered by the city between those years, while the decrease in the European popu- lation, as mentioned above, is due to internment by the Japanese.8 The nine Europeans in Bandung in 1846 and the few dozen there some thirty- years later were a minority even within the small elite of Bandung; they fitted themselves into special niches in the larger society and to a great extent adapted themselves to its culture. But another thirty years later, in 1905, there were 2, 000 Europeans in the town of Bandung alone and, quite aside from their preponderant political and economic position, there was no question of absorbing such numbers into the old social system. In- deed within the elite of the regent’s capital it was now the Sundanese prijaji who were a minority and the question was what place they (and other Indo- nesians) would take in the new urban society and what adjustment, if any, they would make to its European culture. The first four decades of the 20th century saw a radical trans- formation of the Indonesian elite in Bandung. The most important influ- ence behind this change was that of Western education which became in- creasingly available for Indonesians--though there were never enough schools to satisfy the demand--after about 1910. Western education broke down parochial barriers both intellectually and socially; it provided an- other criterion for prestige besides birth and Islamic learning; above all it was a passport to the small number of better jobs made possible by the developing economy: as clerks in private businesses and government offices, as civil servants, as teachers, as doctors, lawyers and engineers. These two factors, education and new jobs, tended to break down the single hierarchical prijaji class. Among Indonesians, the members of the upper prijaji families were given preferential access to Western educa- tion, particularly in the better schools--a fact which caused a great deal of bitterness. But lower prijaji, if only because of their greater numbers, were probably a majority of those who obtained this education, and con- siderable numbers of non-prijaji did too. The broader range of jobs open to members of this new educated class had the same effect. The pamong pradja (general administrative service) remained a prijaji stronghold, dominated by the quasi-hereditary regents. (11) But the other govern- ment services, particularly the government school system, and above all the professions, did not have this special class character. Finally, as has already been indicated by the use of "Indonesian" instead of "Sundanese" above, the educated class developing in Bandung was no longer homogeneous. In the broader sense, this was true of the whole Netherlands Indies where the breaking down of parochial barriers was promoting the development of a single national elite but in Bandung it was true in a more limited sense as well. Considerable numbers of Java- nese and Sumatrans came to Bandung, which was becoming an educational center of national importance, to go to school and some stayed on in vari- ous occupations. The normal processes of appointment and transfer (11) On friction within the pamong pradja between upper prijaji, blocking the way to promotion to the higher positions, and lower prijaji, see generally R.A.A.A. Soeria Nata Atmadja, De Regenten Positie (Ban- dung 1940) (giving the upper prijaji position) and Sewaka, l'jorat-Tjaret dari Djaman ke Djaman (Bandung 1955) (giving the lower prijaji position). ¥he latter, Sewaka's merndrs, gives a good picture of the West Java pamong pradja world in the interwar period.9 brought many non-Sundanese, particularly Javanese, to the large govern- ment offices in Bandung, some of which like the railways and the Post, Tele- graph and Telephone service had their national headquarters there. The educated elite which grew up in Bandung in the early twentieth century, while predominantly Sundanese, thus had strong minority ethnic elements in it, a circumstance which had an important effect on politics there. So far we have been considering only the social and cultural changes within the secular elite in Bandung as it broadened out from a culturally traditional Sundanese aristocracy whose sole occupation was rural administration into a Western-educated national urban elite spread out over a variety of white-collar and professional occupations. But this Indonesian elite was only part of a larger urban elite whose dominant ele- ment was Dutch and which also included a sizeable number of Eurasians and some Chinese. Out of the social tensions produced throughout this complex plural elite by the rapid changes of the 20th century there emerged a number of political movements. The most important of these for our purposes was the Indonesian nationalist movement. (12) The term is somewhat misleading for it suggests a movement more exclusively political than it actually was. Thus the Pagoejoeban Pasoen- dan (Sundanese Association), founded in 1914 and the most consistently active nationalist organization in Priangan up to 1942, devoted at least as much effort to founding and running some fifty schools, a savings bank and cooperative and other economic and socialprojects, a women’s aux- iliary and scout movement and drill club, and a daily newspaper, as it did to political activity as such. (13) This is not to speak of the many formally non-political associations which were formed in the 1920's and 1930's and took their part in the same broad social movement. (14) The pre-war nationalist movement had as much Samuel Smiles as Samuel Adams in it. (12) From the large literature on the nationalist movement, see particularly George McT. Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia (Ithaca 1952) 1-100; W. F. Wertheim, Indonesian Society in Transition, 1st ed. , (The Hague 1956) 65-74 and 312-18; Robert Van Niel, The Emergence of the Modern Indonesian Elite (The Hague I960); and the works by Blumberger, Pluvier and Benda cited in notes 13 and 16 below. (13) J. Th. Petrus Blumberger, De Nationalistische Beweging in Nederlandsch-Indie (Haarlem 1931) 38-40, 293-6; J. M. Pluvier, Over- zicht van de Ontwikkeling der Nationalistische Beweging in Indonesie in the Jaren 1930 tot 1942 (The Hague 1953) passim; Par tai Kebangsaan Indonesia"?, 40 Tahun Berdjoang! (Bandung 1955); and the pamphlet Riungan Tepang Sono ("Reunie") (Bandung 1958). (14) For example, Himpunan Saudara (Fraternal Association), the largest and most successful of a class of benevolent societies, deposits in which built up individual burial and education funds and ordinary savings accounts; Taman Siswa (Garden of Pupils), the Javanese independent school movement, which operated a number of schools in Bandung; Persis (Persatuan Islam--Islamic Union), a fundamentalist Islamic organization, with its national center in Bandung, which produced two of the most im- portant post-war Islamic political leaders, Mohamad Natsir and Isa Anshary.10 Insofar as it was political the nationalist movement was not simply a matter of campaigning for the removal of the Dutch. During the 1920’s and 1930’s most educated men in Bandung came to think of themselves as Indonesians!, but nationalism as an ideology or a political slogan had a very different appeal to different groups among them. For those to whom it appealed most strongly--those who joined the political parties of the nation- alist movement, both "non-cooperative” like the PNI and "cooperative" like Pagoejoeban Pasoendan (15)--it was a powerful weapon against Dutch colonial rule. But it was also a weapon which these men, who can be labeled the nationalist politicians, (16) could use in domestic politics against groups whose political claims rested on different grounds--notably the pamong pradja, particularly the regents, whose position rested on their aristocratic status, and the Islamic elite. For that matter it was used by nationalist politicians against each other: by non-cooperators against cooperators,' and by the more strictly national parties against those, like the Pagoejoeban Pasoendan, which though avowing their nation- alism were frankly based on a single ethnic group. (17) The developments described here were almost entirely confined to the urban elite, chiefly in the city of Bandung itself but also to some extent in the smaller regency and district towns in the residency. In the early decades of the twentieth century change was taking place in the villages, mainly because of population pressure, but it took the form of what has been called the "rococo elaboration" of the traditional rural system, (18) (15) The PNI (Partai Nasional Indonesia--Indonesian National Party) founded by Sukarno in 1927 was the first and most famous of the fully nationalist parties. The terms "non-cooperative" ("non") and "co- operative" ("co") were used mainly in the 1930's, the chief formal distinc- tion being that the former were unwilling and the latter willing to take part in elections for the various legislative councils, particularly the Volks - raad (People’s Council) at the national level. (16) Harry J. Benda, The Crescent and the Rising Sun; Indonesian Islam under the Japanese Occupation (l*he Hague 1958) uses the term "secular nationalists" for this group. This term, along with "nationalists," will be used occasionally below for variety. Typically, but not invariably of course, the nationalist politicians were lower prijaji by social origin and teachers or members of the professions by training and occupation. (17) This issue was raised against the Pagoejoeban Pasoendan by the PNI in the late 1920's and by the Bandung branch of Parindra (Partai Indonesia Raja--Greater Indonesian Party) in the late 1930's. It should be noted, however, that this Parindra branch was led by Javanese and that the main public rivalry in Bandung politics in the period thus took the form of competition between ethnic cliques. Earlier the proto-nationalist organization Boedi Oetomo (Noble Endeavor), formed in 1908, had had to have two branches in Bandung, one for Javanese, the other for Sundanese. Blumberger, Nationalistische Beweging, 38. (18) Clifford Geertz, The Development of the Javanese Economy: a Socio-Cultural Approach (Cambridge Mass 1956, mimeo) 32-3.11 rather than of progressive change. Above all, Western education, the great catalyst, hardly penetrated the villages where most people remained illit- erate even in Sundanese. The most important rural elite group, the tradi- tional ulamas (Islamic scholars), retained their position in rural society and it is doubtful if the strong modernist Islamic movement made much of an impression in rural Priangan. Nor, for that matter, did the nationalist movement. To be sure the Sarekat Islam (Islamic Association) gained a large following in the rural hinterland of Priangan as elsewhere on Java in the years after about 1914 when it suddenly burgeoned into a mass movement. But the bonds between the urban leadership of the party and its peasant "members” were frail and did not long survive the resumption of a tougher Dutch policy after 1919. The more or less Communist-led rebellion in 1926, the tail end of the Sarekat Islam movement in the rural areas, appeared in a num- ber of places in Priangan, notably in Tjiamis Regency and near Tjitjalen- ka in Bandung Regency. Politically it was insignificant but it is interesting as an example of the kind of simple rural anarchy, directed characteris- tically at the local pamong pradja rather than the Dutch, which appeared again on a larger scale in the early months of the Revolution. Finally, Sukarno’s PNI, which was founded and had its headquarters in Bandung, was quite active in certain district towns in Bandung Regency in its hey- day in the late 1920's. Like Pagoejoeban Pasoendan’s schools and other activities in such towns it influenced small groups of better-educated people rather than the great mass of the peasantry. Dutch policy is often held responsible for keeping the nationalists from the ordinary people but the main reason was much simpler: the urban and rural worlds were too far apart socially and culturally. (19) It took the totalitarian methods of the Japanese and in particular the special conditions which prevailed at the beginning of the Revolution to bring them together. In 1941 the Pacific War broke out and on March 9th, 1942 the Netherlands Indies was surrendered to the Japanese. The Dutch, along with many of the Eurasians, were sent to internment camps and the coun- try was placed under Japanese military administration: Sumatra and Java under two different Army commands, the rest of the archipelago under the Navy. The three and a half years of Japanese rule brought about great changes in Bandung and the surrounding country. (20) (19) See for example the marvelously comic description of a trip to a village by a group of nationalist "wild school" teachers in Soewarsih Djojopoespito's autobiographical novel Buiten het Gareel, 3rd printing (Amsterdam 1947) 205-25. See also H. J. Friedericy, "De Bevolking van Nederlands-Indie en het Nederlands Gezag in het Decen- nium voor de Japanse Invasie," in H. Baudet and I. J. Brugmans (ed), Balans van Beleid (Assen 1961) 76 and passim. (20) Benda, Crescent and Rising Sun is the most complete and reliable source on the Japanese occupation. To the literature on this period cited there should now be added I. J. Brugmans (ed), Nederland- sch-Indie onder Japanse Bezetting (Franeker I960), a collection of pri- mary material, and John O. Sutter, Indonesianisasi; Politics in a Changing Economy, 1940-1955 (Ithaca 1959) Vol I, 132-272, which is useful on economic conditions.12 To begin with there was the general disruption of the social and economic system occasioned by the war conditions and by Japanese exploit- ation for their war effort. The plantations and the parts of the economy de- pendent on them were crippled by the disappearance of the market for most of their products. Forced deliveries of large quantities of rice brought a lower level of consumption generally and starvation in a few cases. (21) The hundreds of thousands of Romushas, members of a labor corps theo- retically voluntary but filled out by compulsion where necessary, who suf- fered appalling casualties, were drawn mainly from the poorer areas of Central Java, (22) but considerable numbers were drawn from Priangan as well. The Japanese, who used the residency as their main unit of ad- ministration, attempted to make each one economically self-sufficient, for greater flexibility in any coming fighting; this disrupted local trade and gave rise to a great deal of bribery, blackmarketing and smuggling. Finally, the tremendous inflation created by the pouring out of an unbacked currency was felt in every corner of the society. The disruption caused by these measures, coming after the placidity of the last years of Dutch rule-- even today called by ordinary people the djaman normal (normal period)-- did a great deal to prepare people for the revolution to come. The second main reason for these changes lay in the methods used by the Japanese. The Dutch regime was autocratic but it was also conser- vative; it sought to smother the political effects of the rapid social change of the 20th century in an atmosphere of rust en orde (calm and order) and in this it largely succeeded. The characteristic devices of Dutch control were political banishment, preventive arrest, restrictions on political meetings, after-publication censorship, and the encouragement of moderate debate in public organs like the Volksraad which had only limited powers. The Japanese regime was even more autocratic but above all it was totali- tarian. It brought the conflicting forces in Indonesian society out into the open and set them to vigorous action, controlling them by the threat of Kempeitai (Military Police) brutality, by manipulating their rivalry and by a ceaseless rush of activity. The characteristic devices of Japanese rule were relentless propaganda, indoctrination courses, a great variety of new organizations of all sorts, and a sustained effort to destroy rust en orde and mobilize the whole people for the short-term needs of the war ef- fort and the long-term purposes of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. (21) These rice levies were the main cause of the two brief revolts in 1944, in the West Java regencies of Tasikmalaja and Indramaju, both of which were led by Islamic elements. (22) Tan Malaka, Dari Pendjara ke Pendjara, vol II (Jogjakarta n. d. ) 170. There is little reliable and detailed information on the romushas and the literature (e. g. Benda, Crescent and Rising Sun 156, Wertheim, Indonesian Society in Transition 264-6, Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution 128, Sutter, Indonesianisasi ITT87), with its all-Java or all-Indonesia perspective, does not concern itself with the origins of the romushas, but my interview material from Priangan, as far as it goes, supports Tan Malaka's contention.13 Amid this welter of activity important changes took place within the Indonesian elite. The most obvious consequence of the Japanese conquest was that many Indonesian civil servants quickly rose to higher rank,, moving into many of the positions left vacant when their Dutch and Eura- sian occupiers were put into the internment camps. The Japanese, to be sure, filled most of the highest posts and the colonial pattern was main- tained in its essentials but in this way, quietly and automatically, a vested interest came into being which was bound to obstruct any effort to return to the pre-war situation. More important, the Japanese brought forward two of the three main pre-war elite groups, the nationalist politicians and the Islamic leaders, and assigned them political roles far more important than they had had under the Dutch, who had feared and obstructed both. The nation- alists, headed at the national level by Sukarno and Hatta who had been in banishment from the early 1930's, were brought together in a series of organizations, of which the last and most effective was Djawa Hokokai (People's Service Association of Java), formed in early 1944. Other Indo- nesian elite groups, notably the pamong pradja who headed most of its local branches, as well as Chinese and other associations, were repre- sented in Hokokai and it was firmly controlled by the Japanese military authorities but it was the nationalist politicians who profited the most from it. Its Java-wide system of branches and its auxiliaries provided them with a network by which they were drawn together into a more effective political force. Its propaganda activities gave them license to spread their influence and ideas over far wider circles than they had been able to reach before the war. The comparable organization created for the Is- lamic elite was the Masjumi (Madjelis Sjuro Muslimin Indonesia--Consul- tative Council of Indonesian Muslims), established in late 1943, as a fairly well-integrated federation of existing Islamic associations on Java. During the Japanese occupation the third main elite group, the pri- jaji in the pamong pradja, suffered a marked decline from the favored position they, and particularly the regents among them, had enjoyed under the Dutch. The general administrative system which they manned re- mained as before the principal device by which the regime maintained its control over the masses of the people, and most of its officials retained their positions or were transferred routinely. Its decline, therefore, was chiefly in terms of prestige, particularly in relation to the nationalist politicians and Islamic leaders who had opposed it vigorously before the war and were now given such prominence by the Japanese. Nor did its role in applying Japanese measures do anything to raise its prestige with those affected. One further feature of the Japanese system must be noted: the special attention given to organizing and indoctrinating the youth. Aside from intensive indoctrination in all schools the Japanese established a number of youth organizations of which the largest and most important was Seinendan (Youth Corps), which had branches on all administrative levels down to the subdistrict, as well as additional branches in large government and private offices. Asa mass organization, with about half a million members on Java, (23) Seinendan drew its membership (23) M. A. Aziz, Japan's Colonialism and Indonesia (The Hague 1955) 230.14 from all sorts of social backgrounds, but its urban branches, with a rela- tively high proportion of educated young men, were better organized and were more important as channels leading up to later revolutionary youth organizations. Like Gakutotai (Student Service Corps), •which was com- posed of students in secondary and higher schools, it was given some mill· tary drill and much propaganda and was used on light labor details. (24) Late in 1943 the Japanese took a further step in establishing Peta (Pembela Ta nah Air--Defenders of the Fatherland) a volunteer army de- signed to strengthen the defenses of Java (and Sumatra and Bali) in case of Allied landings. (25) In the course of the next two years, sixty-six battalions containing some 35, 000 soldiers were formed on Java, given their own officers and sound training up to the company level. It was a radical departure from the Dutch policy of recruiting troops chiefly among Eurasians and two Christian ethnic groups in the Outer Islands (the Ambonese and Menadonese) and supplying them with few but Dutch and Eurasian officers. A year later two subsidiary semi-military organiza- tions were formed and given training by Peta units: Hizbullah (Army of Allah), affiliated with Masjumi, and Barisan Pelopor (Pioneer Corps), affiliated with the nationalist politicians of the Hokokai. By their strong emphasis on youth training, and particularly by establishing these mili- tary organizations, the Japanese thus made an important contribution to the development of an incipient new elite group which was to come to sudden prominence in the early days of the Revolution. (24) Keibodan (Auxiliary Police Corps) is sometimes listed as a youth organization (e. g. Benda, Crescent and Rising Sun 252) but was in fact recruited from all age groups. (25) Peta was quite distinct from Heiho (Auxiliary Troops), formed in late 1942. Heiho enlisted men--it had no officer ranks- -were directly attached to Japanese Army units; considerable numbers were sent out of Java and some died in fighting in New Guinea and the Moluccas. Heihos were also used as internment camp guards and in other auxiliary functions on Java. Peta battalions, though ultimately under Japanese command, were distinct military entities and their members were re- cruited on the express commitment that they would not be sent out of Java.CHAPTER II DJAKARTA, AUGUST 1945 Two elements are essential to a true revolution: fundamental change in the political structure of a society, brought about by forces generated within that society, and a degree of anarchy, which facilitates and colors that change. In August 1945 Indonesia was ready for funda- mental change. The long-term process of economic and social change dating from about the beginning of the century had generated serious tensions throughout Netherlands East Indies society and three and a half years of totalitarian manipulation by the Japanese had greatly exacer- bated them. It is not to rely too much on hindsight to say that sooner or later these tensions would have had to find their expression and at least partial resolution in some sort of fundamental change, not only in the position of the Dutch at the apex of the old system but also in the rela- tive positions of the various Indonesian elite groups themselves. These changes might have come about in many different ways. What made the Revolution which began in August 1945 a true revolution was that at this time the existing political organization of Indonesian so- ciety, hitherto held together by Dutch and Japanese autocracy, began to break down. Fundamental change, when it did come to Indonesia, there- fore, came under conditions of profound disorganization, at times and in places amounting to real anarchy. These near-anarchic conditions, of course, strongly affected the character and particularly the extent of the change which took place. In this environment all claims to political power--established and new, by groups and by individuals--were sub- jected to the same drastic test. The immediate cause of this breakdown cannot be sought in Ban- dung or indeed inside Indonesia at all; it is to be found in the history of the Pacific War as it drew to a close. The rapid decline of Japanese power during 1945 brought about a situation resembling that of Brinton's classical revolutionary pattern in many important respects, with the Japanese military government playing the role of the ancien regime. But that regime was after all only a surrogate and its increasing weakness was due ultimately to its approaching defeat by the Allies outside, and not by the Indonesians inside. The increasing hopelessness of the Japanese cause in the last year of the war need not be dwelt on here. What is important in this con- text is the effect it had on Japanese-Indonesian relations in Djakarta. (1) (1) In writing this chapter I have relied heavily on Benedict Anderson Some Aspects of Indonesian Politics under the Japanese Occupation: 1944- 1516 Up to about the end of 1944 it was the Japanese military authorities on Java who held the initiative in their dealings with the nationalist politicians of the Djawa Hokokai, as well as the Masjumi and pamong pradja leaders. But the declaration by the Japanese Premier Koiso in September 1944 that Indonesia would be given "independence" at some unspecified time in the future indicated that the tide was turning and that the Japanese were be- ginning to need the cooperation of the Indonesians, particularly the elite, as much as the latter needed the Japanese. During the early months of 1945 the Indonesians became more insistent in their demands, both gen- erally and specifically in regard to the carrying out of this promise. On April 29th the membership of a Badan Penjelidik Kernerdekaan Indonesia (Committee for Research on Indonesian Independence) was announced and between May 28th and June 1st the committee held its first meeting. (2) The Japanese had intended it to be what its name suggests, a forum for general discussion, but the Research Committee ignored its instructions and its handful of Japanese members and by the end of its second and last session, from July 10th to 17th, had produced a complete draft constitu- tion for an independent Indonesia. Though the Japanese retained full mili- tary control and final say on when this "independence" was to be declared, the political initiative in Djakarta had clearly passed to the Indonesians. Instead of competing for Japanese favor and trying to stretch to the utmost what was given them, they were now pressing hard for more and more extensive concessions, and it was the Japanese authorities who were on the defensive. This shift in the balance of power between the Japanese and the Indonesian elite as a whole was accompanied by what are from our point of view here even more significant shifts in the balance of power within the Indonesian elite itself. For one thing, with Japanese control slacken- ing, the nationalist politicians began to cut away at the position of the Masjumi leadership in political affairs at the highest level. (3) Taking advantage of their better (Western) education and greater political exper- ience as well as the broader scope and greater relevance of their nation- alist ideology at a time when the dominant issue was increasingly the question of national independence, they made steady progress at the ex- pense of their Masjumi opposite numbers. In organizational terms the nationalists demanded boldly in February that the Masjumi and Djawa Hokokai be united in a single organization, in which they could well hope to be dominant. This was ignored at the time by the Japanese, but in early July the formation of a new all-inclusive organization, the Gerakan 1945 (Ithaca 1961), which covers the same period in much greater detail and offers an analysis similar on most important points to the one developed here. Points of detail in the following narrative, if not other- wise documented, are drawn from or consistent with his work. (2) For a more or less complete record of the Research Commit- tee debates, taken from the official transcript, see Muhammad Yamin (ed), Naskah Persiapan Undang-Undang Dasar 1945 (Djakarta 1959) vol I. (3) Benda, Crescent and the Rising Sun 169-94, gives a detailed narrative and analysis of this process.17 Rakjat Baru (New People's Movement) was announced, not explicitly a mer- ger but potentially one in effect, and as the occupation ended serious and controversial efforts were under way to achieve just this. In ideological terms the struggle centered on the question of the place of Islam and specifically Islamic law in the constitution being drafted by the Research Committee. Here the dispute was bridged over by a com- promise more favorable to the secular nationalists by which a provision of doubtful legal significance specifying that Islamic law should apply to all Moslems was inserted into the preamble rather than into the body of the constitution. The fact that even this provision was swiftly eliminated on August 18th when the draft constitution was revised for promulgation shows the rapid erosion of Masjumi power at the national level, as does the fact that it was not until 1946 that a Ministry of Religion was first established. In the increasingly open political situation which was developing during 1945 the somewhat artificial position which Masjumi had gained at the highest levels of the Indonesian political system thanks to the sponsorship of the Japanese was rapidly being eaten away. Islam as a political force was still primarily a rural phenomenon and it was in the countryside rather than in the central government of the explicitly secular Republic, where Masjumi was to become only one of a number of important political parties, that it played its most important role during the Revolution. (4) The most striking development during the last months of the Japa- nese occupation, however, was the rapid rise of a new group of militant younger generation leaders to an important position in the political elite of Djakarta. The Japanese had paid particular attention to the training and indoctrination of the younger generation through the schools and such or- ganizations as Seinendan and Peta, but they had not given them much of a role to play in political affairs generally, let alone in the restricted world of manipulation and intrigue at the top of their system. From about May 1945, however, this system was beginning to break down. As the politi- cal situation opened out and the forces of Indonesian nationalism began to press harder on the Japanese, an opening was created for the more mili- tant members of the younger generation. At this point, as they began to take their place as a distinct new element on the political scene, we may begin to speak of them as the pemudas, the term which was used for them throughout the Revolution. The ordinary dictionary meaning of the word "pemuda" is "youth" or "young man" but in the context of the Revolution it had the connotation of militancy and referred to the special political role of the younger generation of that time, the "Angkatan ’45" (Generation of 1945). Though naturally not all young men were pemudas in this sense, the term in its ordinary political usage may be translated as "young revolu- tionary activist," and will be used in this way throughout this work. (5) (4) The position of the pamong pradja, never so important as the Masjumi leaders and nationalist politicians in specifically political affairs at the upper level, did not change much in the late Japanese period. The attacks on them, by both the nationalist politicians and radical popular movements, came in the more disturbed conditions of the first half-year of the Revolution. (5) The counterpart, golongan tua (older generation), was less of- ten used in this political sense, mainly because the elements it stood for were more varied in composition and did not present such a new and remarkable phenomenon.18 The first appearance of the pemuda movement on the public scene was a meeting of an organization called Angkatan Muda (Younger Genera- tion) at the Villa Isola just north of Bandung in mid-May, at which about a hundred pemuda representatives from Surakarta, Semarang, Surabaja, Jogjakarta, Bandung and Djakarta were present. The history of the Angkatan Muda and its relations with its twin, the Angkatan Baru (New Generation), have not yet been satisfactorily described and the evidence concerning the Isola meeting is incomplete and conflicting. It is clear, for example, that certain Japanese played a part both in the founding of these organizations and in the meeting itself, but not at all clear what their motives in doing so were, how closely they were in accord with offi- cial Japanese policy, and how much influence they really had. Neverthe- less it is significant that pemuda organizations with specifically political purposes appeared on the public scene at just this time and there is no doubt that, whatever the Japanese involved in them were doing, these or- ganizations and the meeting served an important function in improving communications among the small groups of better-educated pemudas in the larger cities on Java and in increasing their importance on the politi- cal scene. It is fairly well established, moreover, that the Isola meeting culminated in the expression of what was to become the main pemuda slogan of this period, the demand for greater speed in the movement toward independence. (6) In the following weeks pemudas in or connected with the Angkatan Muda and Angkatan Baru became increasingly vocal, and in Djakarta the pemuda movement began to exert increasingly strong pressure on the es- tablished Indonesian leadership. An incident which occurred at an early meeting of the committee appointed to set up the Gerakan Rakjat Baru on July 6th gives a characteristic example of pemuda activities at this time. This committee was the first such important Japanese-sponsored organ to have representatives of the younger generation on it, itself an impor- tant indication of the change of the times. But the pemudas attending this meeting were not content simply to take their seats in an organization controlled by the older generation; they wanted to turn the Gerakan Rakjat Baru into a more militant body than had been planned, either by the Jap- anese or the nationalist politicians. According to one story, they pre- sented a statement of their own principles: We, the youth of Indonesia, want an independent Indo- nesia right away and want it to be achieved by our own ^national) efforts, on the basis of our own strength. Whoever stands in the way of our cause is an obstruc- tionist and a traitor. (7) (6) On the Angkatan Muda and Angkatan Baru see particularly Anderson, Indonesian Politics under the Japanese 51-6 and passim; Benda, Crescent and Rising Sun 191; Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution 114; and Sidik Kertapati, Sekitar Proklamasi 17 Agustus 1945, 2nd rev ed (Djakarta 1961) 59-61. (7) Sidik Kertapati, Sekitar Proklamasi 64.19 They asked the committee, in effect, to endorse this as the program of the Gerakan Rakjat Baru. When this was not accepted Chairul Saleh launched into a tirade against the leadership of the committee and shortly after, by prearrangement, most of the younger generation members walked out of the meeting. (8) An event like this, with Japanese present of course, would have been impossible even two months earlier; the participants would simply have been arrested by the Kempeitai, probably tortured and perhaps killed. But the Japanese authorities were fast losing their grip on the situation, at least in the higher political circles in Djakarta. A political vacuum was developing and into it were pushing--or being pulled--not only the leading nationalist politicians, who were increasing their pressure on the Japa- nese and at the same time building up their predominance over the Mas- jumi and the pamong pradja, but also this new and far more militant group of pemudas. This is the classical pattern described by Brinton: the faltering ancien regime, the moderates in the middle, the more violent radicals pushing hard from below. (9) As far as the situation in Djakarta was concerned the Revolution was already in its first stage. Meanwhile the Pacific War was drawing to a close. During its last month the Japanese, under increasingly heavy Indonesian pressure and re- duced by their desperate situation to clutching at straws, made a series of hasty changes in their plans for granting "independence.·* Up to about early June they had been thinking of these plans in terms of years but in mid-July the date was suddenly advanced to September. On August 7th it was announced that a Panitia Persia pan Kemerdekaan Indonesia (Prepara- tory Committee for Indonesian Independence) would be formed immedi- ately. (10) On August 8th Sukarno, Hatta and Dr. Radjiman, the chairman of the Research Committee, were flown to Saigon to the headquarters of General Terauchi, the commander of all Japanese forces in Southeast Asia. There Terauchi informed them of a further acceleration in the time- table: assuming that the new Preparatory Committee could complete its work in time, Indonesia would be given its independence, with reserved powers for the Japanese of course, on August 24th. They arrived back in Djakarta on August 14th and at the airport announced the good news to a waiting crowd. But at almost the same time Radio Tokyo was reporting Japan's acceptance of the Allies' demand for unconditional surrender. The Japanese surrender transformed the political situation in Indo- nesia. The political vacuum which had been developing there during the preceding three or four months, significant though it was, had been con- fined almost entirely to the restricted sphere of Djakarta politics. Rapid (8) Anderson, Indonesian Politics under the Japanese 57-8, follow- ing different sources, gives a somewhat different version of the formal issue at stake on this occasion. (9) Crane Brinton, The Anatomy of Revolution (New York 1938). (10) A partial list of Preparatory Committee members was an- nounced on August 15th. The old Research Committee was quietly dis- banded.20 and far-reaching changes were taking place in the upper reaches of the political system established by the Japanese, but the system as a whole was still intact and running more or less as before. Below, the public played no part in events of the period and indeed had hardly any idea of what was going on; above, the principle of continued Japanese control, even after "independence," was not openly challenged except by a few of the more impassioned pemudas. At one stroke, however, the surrender removed the raison d'etre of Japanese rule. The Japanese army remained of course, and the mach inery of the military government did not simply disappear--far from it. But its vital principle was snuffed out and the Japanese no longer had any incentive to maintain it except insofar as they might be punished by the Allies for failing to do so or be themselves endangered by its complete collapse. The country was thus suddenly left without a real government. The depth of the political vacuum was accentuated by the fact that the Allies who had defeated the Japanese were unable for some time to replace them in Indonesia. The atom bombs and the Russian declaration of war had considerably speeded up the long-expected Japanese surrender and the event itself caught the Allies unprepared for a prompt reoccupa- tion of the Netherlands Indies. The unpreparedness was graphically il- lustrated the following day when authority over Java, Bali and Lombok was briskly transferred from General MacArthur's command, where it had lain during the war, to Lord Louis Mountbatten's South Bast Asia Command. (11) SEAC had very little information on Indonesia and no plans for its re occupation, but above all it lacked troops and shipping for the task. In spite of strong Dutch pressure and increasingly disturbing reports from Indonesia which somewhat advanced the earliest landing plans, it was not until September 29th that the first British battalion landed at Djakarta and four weeks more until the whole 23rd Indian Divi- sion was ashore on Java. Though Allied power was not directly exercised in Indonesia dur- ing this period it nevertheless exerted a strong indirect influence on events there. For one thing, simply the knowledge that the Allies were bound to come sooner or later was an important factor in the situation. Their coming was certain to have important consequences but until they actually arrived there was no way of knowing what these consequences would be. The Indonesians groped through the first phase of their revolu tion under the shadow of an impending intervention whose strength and goals they had virtually no way of assessing. A second way in which indirect Allied influence was felt in these weeks was through the Japanese administration. SEAC itself, at first, (11) David Wehl, The Birth of Indonesia (London 1948) 32. Mountbatten, to be sure, had known since June that this change was in prospect. For the background see Idrus Djajadiningrat, The Beginnings of the Indonesian-Dutch Negotiations and the Hoge Veluwe Talks (Ithaca 1958) 8-17. Sumatra had been assigned to SEAC from the beginning.21 had little to do with this. As early as August 18th it instructed the Japa- nese commander on Java that, pending further orders, he and all comman- ders subordinate to him would be held responsible for the maintenance of public order on Java, but there is no published evidence that it gave the Japanese any specific orders about the Indonesian Republic until early September. (12) Anderson has shown, however, that from the beginning, even before the SEAC order on August 18th, the Japanese authorities understood the terms of surrender to mean that they were to be held re- sponsible not only for preserving order in the police sense but for main- taining the political status quo as well. (13) The desire to preserve the status quo so as not to displease the Allies was nothing like as strong an incentive to action as rule in the name of Japan, and it led easily to prag- matic compromises whenever Indonesian militance seemed likely to be as dangerous as later Allied retribution. But it propped up the Japanese administration enough to make it a serious obstacle to Indonesian inde- pendence. (14) The profound political vacuum created by the Japanese surrender and sustained by the absence of the Allies offered a great opportunity to the Indonesian elite. They were suddenly presented with the possibility-- and the necessity, if they were to achieve their goal of independence--of extending their activities from the restricted sphere of Djakarta politics out to the whole field covered by the now moribund Japanese regime. The problem before had been to influence the timing and form of the "in- dependent" Indonesia to be granted by the Japanese and the methods had been those of maneuver within a totalitarian system. The problem now was to create a really independent Indonesia and the methods were to be those of mass organization and open appeal to the public. There were many uncertainties involved: not only the reaction of the Allied powers but that of the Indonesian public itself. Above all there was the immediate problem of how to deal with the Japanese administra- tion with its virtual monopoly of organized military force. It was inev- itable, under the circumstances, that a fierce dispute over policy should (12) On September 3rd Mountbatten instructed General Terauchi, in Saigon, to dissolve the Republic but the latter apparently made no at- tempt to carry out the order. Rajendra Singh, Post-War Occupation Forces; Japan and South-East Asia, in Bisheswar Prasad (ed), Official History of the Indian Armed Forces in the Second World War, 1939-1945 (n. p. 1958) 223; H. J. van Mook, Indonesie, Nederland en de Wereld (Amsterdam 1949) 79; C. E. L. Helfrich, Memoires (Amsterdam 1950)11/233. (13) Anderson, Indonesian Politics under the Japanese 94-8. (14) Here, as throughout, I am speaking of the attitudes and be- havior of the official Japanese authorities on Java: the commander of the Japanese 16th Army, his staff and the great majority of the 16th Army commanders in the field. For the special case of Admiral Maeda and some of his Navy colleagues, the most important of the small group of Jap- anese who deliberately aided the Indonesians, see Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution 115-21 and Anderson, Indonesian Politics under the Japanese 96-8 and T26.22 break out at this point. This dispute was at first confined to the elite groups active at the time of the surrender, chiefly in Djakarta itself, but it soon spread out to involve politically active elements throughout Indonesian so- ciety, and it remained the most important issue in Indonesian politics dur- ing the whole period of the Revolution. The issue was whether to pursue the goal of independence by means of perdjuangan (struggle), that is armed revolutionary action, or by means of diplomasi, a term used broadly in this period to cover all forms of negotiation and peaceful dealings, The main dividing line on this issue, which corresponds to the dif- ference between Brinton's radicals and moderates generally, was one of age. In general the younger generation, as the definition of the term "pemuda" indicates, stood for perdjuangan while the older generation leaders stood for diplomasi. There were exceptions of course and there were many people who took up positions between the two extremes. More important, as we shall see, many individuals and groups changed their positions on the issue at different times during the Revolution and in dif- ferent circumstances. But the main pattern remains clear. So, too--in broad terms at least--are the reasons for this pattern. The pemudas stood for revolutionary struggle because they were fitted for it by age, temperament and in many cases recent training, and because they had little to lose and much to gain in doing so. The older generation leaders stood for negotiation because they were the best equipped to conduct it and because the social disruption which was bound to occur in the course of a revolutionary struggle would necessarily threaten their predominance in the Indonesian political system as it was. In the excitement of the Rev- olution, and of the passionate dispute over perdjuangan and diplomasi which lasted through the whole of it, it is doubtful if many of the partici- pants espoused the views they did out of calculated self-interest, or were even fully aware that their interests were involved. But they were, and both the dispute itself and its place in the history of the Revolution be- come clearer when this is kept in mind. The fact that the main distinction between the radicals and moder- ates of the Indonesian Revolution was one of generations is particularly interesting in the light of the importance attached to class analysis in the Western literature on revolutions, and illustrates once again the point that the concept of class in its ordinary sense is not of much use in elu- cidating the social history of modern Indonesia. The hostility displayed by both nationalist politicians and pemudas in the early months of the Revolution toward the pamong pradja, most of whom were drawn from the prijaji class, certainly had an element of class feeling in it. But the unimportance of class bonds even here is strikingly illustrated by the fact that in Bandung as elsewhere on Java practically all of the younger mem- bers of the prijaji class, if they were politically active at all, conformed to the pemuda pattern. Indeed young prijaji, usually deliberately drop- ping their titles and often abbreviating their long prijaji names, constitu- ted a large proportion of the pemuda leadership. At the same time the fact that both pamong pradja and nationalist politicians come under the heading of older generation leaders generally favoring diplomasi indicates a significant degree of affinity between these groups. This is hardly sur- prising in view of the fact that most nationalist politicians came from the prijaji class themselves and had usually had the same kind of Western23 education. The rivalry between these two groups, when it existed, was far more a matter of belonging to different and competing institutional struc- tures than of class differences in the ordinary sense, and they were at least as often to be found cooperating against the pemudas as opposed to each othe r. The rise of the pemuda movement at this time provides a particu- larly good illustration of the general irrelevance of class factors in the Revolution. On the one hand, the very fact that the pemuda group was de- fined by age meant that it included both well-educated and ill-educated (upper- and lower-class) youths. ... There were differences between these two elements--for one thing a large proportion of the pemuda leaders came from among those with a better education--but they were overridden by the similarities. On the other hand, the educated pemuda leaders came from practically the same backgrounds as the nationalist politicians; it was not class but age and the fact that they did not have the vested interest of high standing in the existing institutions which played the most impor- tant part in their advocacy of perdjuangan. The very existence of active pemuda groups from about May had meant that there had already been some friction between the pemudas and the older generation on the subject of perdjuangan and diplomasi. But the first serious clash came in the days immediately after the Japanese sur- render as the elite groups in Djakarta first came to grips with the poten- tialities and problems of the new vacuum of power. As the news of the surrender spread among the elite--it was a week before it was publicly announced--it became clear that the plans for the Japanese-sponsored in- dependence so hopefully announced by Sukarno and Hatta on August 14th could no longer be carried out. Something would have to be done by the Indonesians themselves if they wanted their independence. The pemudas, who had been opposed to the idea of a Japanese-sponsored independence in any case, now forcefully proposed a unilateral declaration of indepen- dence followed by a general seizure of power from the Japanese. (15) The older generation leaders, represented in the affairs of the next few days chiefly by Sukarno and Hatta themselves, were naturally opposed to this program. They felt that it was foolhardy to think of attacking the greatly superior Japanese forces and that much the same results could be achieved, and with far less risk, by negotiating some kind of under- standing with the Japanese authorities. (16) Moreover the very vehe- mence of the pemudas, which was demonstrated by the brief kidnapping of Sukarno and Hatta on the 16th--they were taken, by one of the pemuda factions, to the small town of Rengasdengklok just to the east of Djakarta before dawn and brought back shortly after dark--was itself useful to the moderate leaders in their dealings with the Japanese. The latter had no desire for the violent disturbances that an attempted coup, even if unsuc- cessful, was likely to bring. (15) They were joined in these opinions by a number of nationalist politicians, notably Sutan Sjahrir and his supporters. (16) See, for example, Mohammad Hatta, "Isi Proklamasi,*' in Darius Marpaung (ed), Bingkisan Nasional (Djakarta 1955) 8-11.24 At Rengasdengklok a compromise agreement was reached in prin- ciple: Sukarno and Hatta would join in an open declaration of independence while the pemudas would call off at least their immediate plans for an armed uprising. There remained, however, the important question of how to phrase the proclamation. After the two leaders had gone to discuss the matter with the second in command of the Japanese military adminis- tration and gained what amounted in the context to a tacit go-ahead, the debate over the phrasing of the text continued vigorously until early in the morning of the 17th. The draft supported by the pemudas was still highly militant: The Indonesian people hereby declares its independence. All government organs shall be seized by the people from the foreigners who still hold on to them. (17) This was too strong for Sukarno and Hatta, and for the other older genera- tion leaders present at this final meeting, including many of the members of the new Preparatory Committee, and they gained acceptance of the more diplomatic phrasing now familiar: We, the people of Indonesia, hereby declare the inde- pendence of Indonesia. Matters concerning the transfer of power, and other matters, will be arranged in an orderly manner and in the shortest possible time. It was a compromise, the first sentence in effect the result of the strong pemuda pressure on the two leaders, the second sentence reflecting the older generation's determination to proceed by negotiation with the Jap- anese rather than by force. Given that both sides wanted independence and were disputing mainly about the means of achieving it, however, it was on balance a victory for the older generation. A few hours later, on the morning of the 17th, Sukarno formally read the proclamation of independence at a small public gathering outside his house. With this act the independence movement passed outside the bounds of Djakarta politics; the conception of a truly independent Indo- nesia was sent forth to be tested among the people and in the outside world. In Djakarta it remained now to give some shape and reality to this con- ception. The first thing that had to be done was to establish an Indonesian state. On August 18th, the day after the proclamation, the Preparatory Committee met and, after a short discussion in which some changes were made, adopted the constitution drafted by the earlier Research Committee. (17) Adam Malik, Riwajat dan Perdjuangan sekitar Prokla.masi Kemerdekaan Indonesia 17 Agustus 1945, 3rd rev ed, (Djakarta 1*)5ό) 54 I have followed the translation given in Anderson, Indonesian Politics under the Japanese 84, except for the word "mempertahankannja," here given as "hold on to" and there as "control." The former suggests that the Japanese would be attacked only if they did net hand over the offices in question while the latter suggests an immediate attack regardless of what the Japanese were thinking of doing.25 The provisions of interest here established the offices of president and vice- president, a legislature, and a cabinet responsible to the president. A body of transitional regulations in effect suspended the constitution temporarily: one of these gave the president virtually absolute powers for a period of six months, another stipulated that until the legislature and certain other bodies were formed their powers would be exercised by the president with the assistance of a national committee (komite nasional). The main poli- tical institutions--presidency, cabinet and national committee--were thus established in principle. It remained to man them and bring them into effective action. There was no difficulty in filling the presidency: at the same meet- ing, by acclamation, Sukarno was elected President and Hatta Vice- President. On the 19th the Preparatory Committee specified the division of tasks among twelve ministries but no cabinet was appointed for the time being; as a matter involving practical administrative control this touched on the delicate relationship with the Japanese. We will return to this issue in a moment. The problems which arose in the course of establishing the Na- tional Committee give a good idea of the political situation at that time. The kind of committee to be established and the functions it would per- form depended entirely on what kind of national policy was to be pursued; that is, in terms of the dominant issue of the time, whether it should be a policy of negotiating with the Japanese for a gradual transfer of author- ity as the nationalist politicians wanted, or a policy of seizing power im- mediately as the pemudas wanted. This fundamental issue came into the open at the very beginning, on the morning of August 18th, just before the Preparatory Committee opened its meeting. Three Djakarta pemudas (Sukarni, Wikana, Chaerul Saleh), appointed by Sukarno to make the Pre- paratory Committee more representative, insisted that the Preparatory Committee was only a puppet creation of the Japanese and demanded that it be replaced with a true Komite Nasional Indonesia, symbolizing a com- plete break with the Japanese, which would meet in public "among the people." When Hatta, supported by Sukarno, rejected this demand the pemudas promptly walked out. (18) The pemudas, thus, envisaged a Komite Nasional which would be an executive committee for revolutionary struggle while the older gen- eration saw it as an advisory council supporting the executive in a policy of moderation. The older leaders' conception of the Komite Nasional was not made explicit on the 18th when the Preparatory Committee wrote the national-level Komite Nasional (i. e. KNIP) into the constitution, or on the 19th when the Preparatory Committee decided that there should be local Komite Nasional's (i. e. KNI's) attached to the provincial governors and residents as well. (19) But it was implicit and shows quite clearly in the (18) Malik, Riwajat Proklamasi 63; Sidik Kertapati, Sekitar Proklamasi 100-1. (19) In this period half a dozen variants were in common use for the national-level Komite Nasional, and two or three for those at the lower levels and great care must be exercised to make sure which is26 statement of the Preparatory Committee after its third and last meeting on August 22nd delcaring that KN's should be formed at every level and describing their functions: 1. To express the desire of the Indonesian people to live as a free nation. 2. To unite people of all classes and occupations (to achievqj perfect national unity. 3. To assist in keeping the people calm and join in protecting the public welfare. 4. To assist (the President) in carrying out the desires of the Indonesian people and, at the local level, to assist local government (in preserving] public order. (20) The four-day delay between the first passing mention of a Komite Nasional on the 18th and this more complete policy statement, and the further seven-day delay between this statement and the inauguration of the KNIP on the 29th, may be a reflection of the dispute between the older nationalists and the Djakarta pemudas over the function and membership of the body. (21) If so, the composition of a short-lived working com- mittee to prepare for the KNIP which was announced on the 24th is sug- gestive for it was divided about equally between members of these two groups; the conclusion would be that this committee negotiated a settle- ment of the dispute. (22) Be that as it may, the size (136 members), composition (broadly representative rather than confined to revolutionary activists), executive committee (three of four associated with the moder- ate line) and formal status (explicitly subordinate to the President) of the KNIP when it was finally inaugurated on the 29th made it quite clear that the older nationalists had succeeded in establishing their conception of its function and, moreover, in getting the pemudas to accept it. (23) This being referred to. KNIP (Komite Nasional Indonesia Pusat--Central KNI) and KNI (Komite Nasional Indonesia) eventually established them- selves as the commonest terms for the KN's at the national and local levels respectively and will be used here throughout. (20) Koesnodiprodjo, Himpunan Undang-Undang, Peraturan- Peraturan, Penetapan-Penetapan Pemerintah Republik Indonesia, 1945, rev ed (Djakarta 1951) 117. A few details on the procedure to be followed in establishing KNI's were provided but in effect the urgent advice to form them was simply announced to the public at large, and their forming left to local initiative. (21) Japanese resistance was probably a factor in the first delay, and the complications introduced by the parallel plans for a single state political party, announced on August 22nd and abolished on the 31st, were probably a factor in the second delay. For a discussion of the very little which is known about the state party see Anderson, Indonesian Politics under the Japanese 111-112. (22) Tjahaja (Bandung daily), 25 Aug; Sutter, Indonesianisasi 11/280. (23) Many pemudas became members and one (Adam Malik) became 3rd Vice-Chairman on the executive committee. On the inauguration of the KNIP see Koesnodiprodjo Himpunan 1945 121-7; for a list of members, Tjahaja 27 Aug.27 settlement remained in effect until mid-October. During this period the KN1P remained essentially a symbol, which is just what the nationalist leadership wanted it to be; the members of its executive committee at- tended cabinet meetings and that was about all. (24) After August 29th it did not meet in plenary session again until October 16th; the very fact of its meeting then was an indication of the change which had taken place in the interim. While the dispute over the KNIP was going on a far more important problem was facing the new Republic. As Sukarno put it towards the close of his radio speech to the nation on August 23rd: To proclaim independence is easy. To make a constitu- tion is not difficult. To elect a President and a Vice- President is easier still. But to establish the organs and offices of authority for the administration of the state, as well as to seek international recognition, es- pecially under conditions such as the present, in which the Japanese government is still obliged by the inter- national status quo to remain in this country to run the administration and maintain public order--these tasks are not easy. (25) Without control over an administrative system the Republic would be no more than an expression of sentiment, but any effort to establish one--or more accurately to try to take over the existing machinery--brought the Indonesians up against the Japanese authorities and the Allies behind them. The Japanese were in control of the pamong pradja network, the technical services, utilities, and railroads, and they had no intention, if they could possibly help it, of yielding this control. (26) The pemudas and the national leadership, of course, were in total disagreement about how to go about capturing this civilian apparatus. Once again, at least in the early weeks of the vacuum period, the leader- ship prevailed. Instead of attempting, or permitting an attempt at, an immediate and general seizure of power, they began a long series of man- euvers aimed at gradually weakening Japanese authority over the civil servants and strengthening their own, so that in the end it would seem only natural for the system to be run by the Republic. (24) SeeA.G. Pringgodigdo, Perubahan Kabinet Presidensiil Mendjadi Kabinet Parlementer (Jogjakarta n. d. ) 24-7, for some of the miscellaneous activities of the KNIP's ordinary members in this period. (25) Koesnodiprodjo, Him puna n 1945 249, quoted and translated in Anderson, Indonesian Politics under the Japanese 117. I have changed the translation slightly. (26) For a graphic illustration of the enormity of this problem as it appeared to men still partly living in the atmosphere of the Japanese occupation see Yamin (ed), Naskah Persiapan 1/467-73, for a transcript of the last half-hour of the Preparatory Committee meeting on August 19th.28 In the beginning the emphasis was on negotiations with the Japa- nese authorities, in Djakarta mainly carried out by Sukarno and Hatta themselves» There is very little information on these negotiations, which began almost immediately after the proclamation of independence, but certainly they had advanced far enough by August 29th for Sukarno to be able to announce some results publicly at the inauguration of the KNIP. Concerning the transfer of authority, because the status quo has been announced and because the Japanese mili- tary government has no authority to do anything but main- tain security and public order, the result is that our meeting with the Japanese authorities can only be in a private capacity. The result is a "gentleman's agree- ment" which among other things stipulates that authority in the government offices and services will as far as possible be handed over to Indonesian officials. (27) The formation of the first cabinet provides a good example of this "gentleman's agreement" in operation. We have seen that the Preparatory Committee, in its meeting on August 19th, had come to a decision on the number of ministries the new Republic would have and how the various administrative functions would be divided among them but had not ap- pointed any ministers. Some time in the last week of August an under- standing was reached with the Japanese by which the leading Indonesian bureau and department heads and advisers (Sanyo) in the various depart- ments of the Japanese military administration were to be appointed to the corresponding cabinet posts. These men would wear two hats, serving simultaneously as Republican ministers and as high officials under the Japanese. (28) This understanding reached, the first cabinet of the Republic was sworn in on September 2nd; of ten ministers holding eleven portfolios only Subardjo (then working in Admiral Maeda's Navy liaison office in Djakarta) and Amir Sjarifuddin (then in jail) held no position in the Japanese Army administration. (29) By this neat device both the Indonesian leadership and the Japa- nese were satisfied. The former now had a cabinet, both an important symbol of the state they were constructing and a means by which they could expect to increase their control over the rank and file of the civil service. The Japanese authorities, for their part, continued to consider the ministers as officials subordinate to them and could use this fact both (27) Koesnodiprodjo, Himpunan 1945 122. ("gentleman's agree- ment" is in English in the Indonesian text. ) See also A. G. Pringgodigdo, Perubahan 20. (28) The logic of this formula required that the men chosen as ministers should have the highest possible rank in the Japanese system. Four of the prospective ministers were therefore promoted within the Japanese system in late August, just before the cabinet was sworn in. Sutter, Indonesianisasi II/285-8. (29) Sutter, Indonesianisasi 11/286; A.G. Pringgodigdo, Perubahan 20. The formation of the cabinet was not announced publicly until Sep- tember 5 th.29 to hinder the drift of the Indonesian civil servants toward the Republic and to justify themselves to the Allies who wanted the status quo preserved. Only the pemudas were not satisfied. Of all the things the Republic needed if it was to become an effec- tive state, however, the most important and at the same time the most difficult to obtain was a national army of some kind. Here, of course, the Republic faced the most serious Japanese resistance. The Japanese army authorities might be brought to tolerate symbolic acts like the pro- clamation of independence and the promulgation of a constitution, the elec- tion of a President and the appointment of a KNIP, the flying of flags and singing of the Indonesian anthem, Indonesia Raya. They could hope that the drift of the administrative system in the direction of the Republic, countenanced under the "gentleman’s agreement," would not be too far ad- vanced by the time the Allies came to extricate them. But they could hardly tolerate the growth of Indonesian military strength, let alone con- template a general transfer of military authority to the Indonesians. It was not only that the Allied reaction would be unpleasant; Japanese lives would be seriously endangered. The military issue, therefore, was the most important test of the fundamentally different methods proposed by the pemudas and the nationalist politicians for dealing with the powers on the outside, and the most important issue on which they clashed. The military difficulties of the Republic began with the disarming and disbanding of Peta a few days after the proclamation of independence-- on Java, probably between the 18th and 20th. (30) It was done by the Jap- anese themselves and from their point of view is quite understandable; Peta could be of no possible use to them now and its sixty-six battalions (on Java) with some 35, 000 well-trained soldiers represented a consider- able potential danger. It was natural that the Djakarta pemudas, with their plans for a rising against the Japanese, also appreciated the potential value of Peta and some of them are reported to have urged Sukarno on the 19th to pro- claim it as the core of a new national army. (31) Nor is it surprising, in view of their cautious and gradual approach to the much less delicate problem of taking over the civilian administration, that the nationalist (30) Brugmans (ed), Japanese Bezetting 536 (statement by the Jap- anese Army commander on Java) says this was done on the 19th. Adam Malik, Riwajat Proklamasi 66-7 and Sidik Kertapati, Sekitar Proklamasi 102, say the evening of the 19th. A. H. Nasution, TNI (Djakarta 1956) 1/66-7, says the 18th and 19th. Umar Bahsan, Peta dan Peristiwa Reng- asdengklok (Bandung 1955) 60, implies that in the case of his battalion it began late on the 18th or early on the 19th. There may have been a series of orders from Djakarta and certainly the dates and times varied somewhat in different parts of Java. On how the disarming was managed and Peta reactions to it see below pp. 44-5. (31) Adam Malik, Riwajat Proklamasi 66-7 and Sidik Kertapati, Sekitar Proklamasi 103 (following and amplifying Adam Malik).30 leaders made no effort to pull Peta out from under the Japanese in the first days of the Revolution, (32) and did nothing to try to prevent its disarming when they learned about it. What is interesting is that the little evidence we have indicates that they actually encouraged the disarming of Peta. On the 19th a sub-committee of the Preparatory Committee proposed that Peta be disbanded. It is an organization formed by the Japanese Army and in an international context its position makes no sense. For this reason it is hoped that Peta will be disbanded formally and quickly by the Japanese Army. (33) This proposal, which somewhat paradoxically went on to recommend the establishment of a "strong national army," was accepted without discus- sion by the Preparatory Committee. From another source we catch a glimpse of Abdulkadir, a member of the Preparatory Committee and one of the leading Peta battalion commanders (daidantjos), actively urging the rebellious Peta unit in Rengasdengklok to agree to being disarmed. (34) Though the position taken by the nationalist leaders is clear enough from this, their motives are not. It is possible that, knowing of Japa- nese plans to disband Peta and convinced of the latter's ability and deter- mination to carry out these plans, they wanted to make sure that this would not be the occasion of an outbreak of revolutionary violence. It is conceiv- able that they feared that the Japanese might use Peta against the Repub- lic. (35) They may well have doubted their ability to control Peta if it should come through intact Whatever their feelings at the moment, however, it is evident that on balance they could see the possible danger involved in any effort to preserve Peta more clearly than the possible advantages. Where military matters were concerned, though they saw the necessity of having a national army, they were extremely cautious. (32) But see the sources cited in note 31 where it is asserted that Sukarno, though very doubtful, did eventually sign a draft proclamation to this effect. Nasution, TNI 1/66, reporting the same incident, says he did not. (33) Yamin (ed), Naskah Persiapan 1/463. The phrase "di kalangan internasional," translated above as "in an international context," might be more freely rendered as "in the eyes of the Allies." See also ibid. 464. (34) Umar Bahsan, Peristiwa Rengasdengklok 60-1. This was very early on the morning of the 19th, not long before the Preparatory Com- mittee meeting mentioned above. See also the cryptic remarks by Gatot Mangkupradja in his preface to ibid. , p. 3; Sidik Kertapati, Sekitar Prok- lamasi 102-5; and Adam Malik, Riwajat Proklamasi 66-7. (35) This possibility is suggested in Sidik Kertapati, Sekitar Proklamasi 102. It must be kept in mind that the Japanese kept Peta units more or less segregated and that the nationalist politicians knew little about what was going on in the minds of the younger Peta officers at this time, except that they were under strong Japanese discipline and influ- ence The anti-Japanese sentiment shown by the revolt of the Peta battal- ion in Blitar (East Java) in February 1945 was balanced by the fact that other Peta battalions had been used to suppress it.31 Their next step shows this very clearly. On August 22nd the Prepara- tory Committee announced the establishment of the BKR (Badan Keamanan Rakjat- -People's Security A gency), whose function, as Sukarno explained the next day, was to "help in maintaining security." The BKR was set up formal- ly as a section of the BPKKP (Badan Penolong Keluarga Korban Perang-- Organization for Aid to the Families of War Victims) which was established at the same time. Both the BKR and the BPKKP were to be organized on a territorial basis, from the national level through the residency and on down to the village, and were to be under the supervision of the "Komite Nasional." (36) It is useful for an understanding of the nature of the BKR to know that its parent organization, the BPKKP, was organizationally a continuation of BPP (Badan Pembantu Pradjurit, later Badan Pembantu Pembelaan) which during the Japanese period had given assistance to Peta members and their families. Oto Iskandardinata, the head of the former BPP, continued as head of the BPKKP. At the same time he was the senior advisor (Sanyo) of the Tianbu, the Japanese administration's Department of Public Safety. (37) What we have here, therefore, is the general pattern of the "gentleman’s agreement" applied to the special case of security matters. In the cabinet, when it was announced, Oto was formally only a minister of state without a portfolio. No minister of defense was appointed until early October. But it is clear that in these early weeks, as far as the relations between the Re- public and the Japanese authorities were concerned, Oto's position in the military field was analogous to that of the ministers with portfolios in the less sensitive fields. Analogous, not identical, for in the other fields the ministers were placed over mainly Indonesian-staffed organizations while here the only real troops were Japanese and remained, of course, under complete Japanese control. What,then, was the BKR supposed to do? The answer, evident from its territorial structure, from the character of its parent body and the lat- ter's antecedent, from its subordination to the national committees at the different levels, and from all public statements, was that it was intended to be a kind of special police force. "The BKR was not an army but a local assistance corps for preserving public order."(38) The national leader- ship’s whole military policy, in fact, came down in the last analysis to little more than an effort to maintain public order. On this issue, though it had its own reasons for wanting order rather than revolutionary disorder, it had for practical purposes yielded in its diplomatic struggle with the Japanese. (36) See Koesnodiprodjo, Himpunan 1945 118-20 for the Preparatory Committee announcement on August 22nd, and p. 248 for Sukarno's com- ments in his speech on the 23rd. Presumably what was meant was the "Kom- ite Nasional" at each level concerned but as we have seen the term is am- biguous. From as early as August 23rd (see ibid. 248) former members of Peta were urged to join the new BKR, along with members of Heiho (the Japanese auxiliary force) and other pemudas. Former Petas formed the backbone of the BKR in most parts of Java but in West Java at least they generally joined as individuals rather than in organized units. (37) Sutter, Indonesianisasi 284; Nasution, TNI 1/76. In mid-Septem- ber, however, the BKR was brought directly under the "Komite Nasional" (KNIP and/or local KNI's) and the link through the BPKKP was broken. Soeara Merdeka (Bandung newspaper) 19 Sept. (38) Nasution, TNI 1/71.PART TWO: BANDUNGCHAPTER III AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER 1945 The news of the proclamation reached the Bandung office of Domei (the Japanese news agency) by radio at noon on August 17th. From there it began to make its way about town, pursued closely by an official Japa- nese denial which arrived an hour later. (1) At the office of the Bandung newspaper Tjahaja the official denial, the presence of Tjahaja's Japa- nese adviser, and the reluctance of the managing editor, made it impos- sible to publish the news. Some of the younger reporters quickly made up a large poster which they placarded outside the building; when the adviser pulled it down they put it up again. This scuffle continued for a time and then they gave up and went off to print up some broadsides instead. These broadsides were one of the main channels through which the news of the proclamation spread in Bandung. Once launched, the news spread extremely fast. Quite a few men went home from their offices early in the afternoon, having heard of the proclamation there or seen a broadside on the way back, and found that their wives and neighbors already knew. By evening the news had reached almost everyone in Bandung and within a day or two it had reached all but the most remote desas outside the city. The news spread fast but what did it mean? From the literature on the subject one gets the impression that the significance of the procla- mation was self-evident, that everywhere it was understood as soon as it was heard. (2) There is good reason to doubt this. To begin with, on the 17th most people had not yet heard rumors of the Japanese surrender, let alone positive confirmation. Without this indispensable piece of con- text the ordinary man had no way of assessing the significance of the proclamation. (1) This information comes from the original texts of the two Domei radio news reports concerned. Yet the literature seems to be unan- imous in reporting that the early effort to broadcast the news over the Domei network from Djakarta about noon on the 17th failed. Anderson, Indonesian Politics under the Japanese 86; Adam Malik, Riwajat Prokla- masi 60; and Sidik Kertapati, Sekitar~Proklamasi 96-8, render this established story, the latter two in circumstantial detail. (2) For passages which pass directly from mention of the proclama tion to mention of a strong popular response to it see, for example, Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution 136; Anderson, Indonesian Politics under the Japanese 87; and Adam Malik, Riwajat Proklamasi 57^ In the latter, as generally in the Indonesian ephemeral literature and oratory on the sub- ject, it is explicitly stated that the response was both strong and immediate 3536 **He (a barber) said he heard about independence from his neighbors. At first he didn’t know what was meant by inde- pendence and only realized when some people said that now Indonesia was no longer ruled by Japan, because Japan had surrendered to the Allies. (3) **She (the daughter of a laborer) heard the news from neigh- bors. She said she certainly felt happy but only began to feel this way a day later after hearing that independence meant that the country would no longer be ruled by Japan. Educated men were hardly better off in this respect. Many of them, familiar with the rapidly maturing plans for a Japanese-sponsored pseudo-independence, simply assumed on first hearing of the proclama- tion that it was part of the Japanese program. *He (a pemuda intellectual teaching in a school in Solo) told me that word of the Japanese surrender reached him through the underground and that he knew the proclama- tion was to be broadcast soon. When it was, he went to the principal of his school and tried to make clear to him, by showing him the text, that it was not the Japanese- planned independence but the real thing. But the principal called together the staff and students and after reading out the proclamation led the assejmbly in giving the Japanese salute. He y_the young teacher! was the only one who re- fused to do so. It was certainly good news that Indonesia was now free, whatever that meant exactly. But most people needed more information. In the four or five days that followed, the information began to come in and people began to be able to form a clearer picture of what was happening. There is no way of reconstructing the content and timing of rumors--concrete facts like the Japanese surrender certainly spread easily this way--but we can get some idea of how the news spread in and around Bandung from the pages of Tjahaja. The issue of the 17th, appear- ing after the news of the proclamation was widely known (it was an after- noon paper), could only have added to the prevailing uncertainty; an editorial and two news stories referred implicitly to the Japanese-planned independence while nothing was said about the proclamation. On the 18th the news from Djakarta was brief and similarly ambiguous but at least it was provided with large headlines. On the 19th, for the first time, came convincing news; a Sunday extra using only the largest typefaces and con- taining, besides confirmation of the proclamation, the text of the pre- amble to the constitution, a document which could not easily be interpreted as part of a Japanese-sponsored independence. Further information from the Preparatory Committee followed in the next two days. But it was not (3) The reader is reminded that passages like this, marked with a double asterisk, are drawn from the field notes of my assistant, while those marked with a single asterisk are from my own field notes.37 until the 22nd that there came the official announcement of the Japanese surrender, to establish beyond doubt the context in which all this was taking place. And it was probably not until Sukarno's radio speech on the evening of the 23rd that most people in Bandung and elsewhere were brought face to face with the awesome fact that the old order had crashed and a new era was beginning. The historian looking at events at the national level sees a logical sequence of events starting with the futile expedient of the Japanese pseudo-independence in the last months of the war, passing through the surrender and the proclamation, and continuing directly into the early days of the Revolution. But to the great majority of Indonesians--not only the peasant masses but most of the educated class as well--the news of mid-August came as a great surprise, a break in the continuity of their lives. They were not prepared. They were not prepared in the first place because they were ill- informed. The peasant and the urban kampung dweller had almost no way of knowing that Japanese rule was drawing to a close. The newspaper reader had something more to go on. In Bandung, Tjahaja reported the establishment of the two independence committees, followed Sukarno and Hatta to Saigon and back, and announced the decision to grant indepen- dence; it also reported the fall of Germany, the Allied landings at Tara- kan on Borneo and the Russian entry into the war. On August 9th it even carried a Domei report saying that "some damage has been done in Hiro- shima by a B-29 raid. . .In this raid the enemy apparently used a new bomb, the character of which is now being investigated." But the unfavor- able war news was reported briefly and not followed up, while the prepara- tions for independence were revealed in such a blare of publicity that their propaganda purpose was quite obvious. The type of independence intended was not in doubt: Question: Is the^grant of Indonesian independence subject to any specific conditions. . . ? Answer \ by HattaJ,: Yes, many conditions are stipulated, for ~ example during the war Indonesia will remain under the leadership of the Japanese Army. . . (4) It is hardly surprising that some people, hearing of the real independence, should mistake it for the false one. Some people, of course, were able to read between the lines. Others--a few dozen in Bandung--had access to radio news from abroad. Pools of information were slowly spreading out around the little groups of politicians and pemudas and Japanese officers who were involved in the decisive events going on in Djakarta. But even people who had a fairly good idea of the trend of events--even many of the Djakarta elite itself--were not fully prepared. It must be remembered that though Japan was on the brink of capitulation outside Indonesia and giving ground (4) In a press interview on August 15th reported in Tjahaja 16 Aug.38 steadily in Djakarta the Japanese occupation forces remained in undis- turbed military control of Java and the other important islands. Indo- nesians still had to stop and bow as they passed Japanese military posts, the flow of propaganda continued undiminished, the familiar totalitarian system was still intact. Indeed it was some time after the news of the Japanese surrender before people could entirely free themselves from the Japanese world they had lived in. It was well into September before the Japanese calendar (2605 - 1945) ceased to be widely used and Tokyo time (one and a half hours different from Java time) was officially aban- doned; and political reactions moved approximately in step. Finally, Indonesians were not prepared for the news of mid-August because in a larger sense no one can be prepared for the beginning of a revolution. The Japanese regime had seemed permanent not only be- cause of its totalitarian grip on the public mind but also because it was the existing regime. When it fell--replaced by a Republic that was at first only an idea--the whole social order came into question. The news came as a shock. "A time in which change has come suddenly like the sky falling on the earth," Sukarno called it on August 23rd. (5) Allowing for bias a clear picture of the atmosphere comes through in this entry from the diary of a Dutch writer who had been living underground in Bandung: Sunday, 19 August. . . The proclamation of the "Republic" has aroused more fright, astonishment and fear than joy and enthusiasm among the people. Like the Europeans, they feel uneasy. They do not know where they stand, who are now their masters; their so-called "leaders," the Japanese or the Dutch. (6) And without any bias: *He (a lower-class man who had been a militant revolu- tionary) started off by giving an impression of the atmos- phere immediately after the Japanese surrender. People were happy but at the same time they were bimbang (confused and worried). They were bimbang because they knew that Indonesia had become independent but didn't yet know what this Independence was. It was like waking up still sleepy, looking around, trying to get your bearings, or like a dream. This atmosphere of uncertainty prevailed for several weeks. The political vacuum of this period is usually thought of in terms of the affairs of the rival governments involved--Japanese, Republican, British, Dutch--but for most Indonesians it meant that they were suddenly de- prived of all convincing government. The existing regime had collapsed, (5) Koesnodiprodjo, Himpunan 1945 245. The early part of this speech gives a good picture of the mood of the time. (6) Brugmans (ed), Japanese Bezetting 614.39 the political situation was suddenly opened wide and everything became pos- sible. At first there was general paralysis: *He (an educated pemuda working at the time in the mayor’s office) described the mood of the early post-surrender period. Nobody knew which way to turn, what was going to happen. Most were fearful, afraid for themselves, afraid independent Indonesia would not succeed. People hesitated, waiting for leaders who were bold enough to step forward. He said that the Japanese occupation had brought in the horizon, not merely to within Indonesia but to within the bounds of each residency. It took a real wrench to break out of this. Even after people began to take action of one sort or another, however, this feeling of waiting persisted. Shock and inertia kept the shell of social order substantially intact while the forces which were to destroy it, anarchy from below and intervention from outside, were clearly visible. During most of August and September an air of unreality pre- vailed; for a time all sorts of people--nationalist leaders, militant pemudas, Kempeitai troops, looters, Dutch from the internment camps--pursued their own courses in Bandung without seriously im- pinging on each other. It was only at the end of the period, in the latter part of September, that these antithetic forces which had been gathering converged in a sudden explosion that marked the real be- ginning of the revolution. After the first week of paralysis had passed, the strongest influ- ence coming in to those who were waiting in Bandung was that of the Republican leadership in Djakarta. This leadership conveyed a strong sense of purpose, it gave instructions for specific things which had to be done, above all it spoke in the name of the widely shared ideal of an independent Indonesia. Its right to do so was accepted from the very beginning, a consequence of the dominant position it had obtained during the Japanese occupation. The influence of the Republican leadership, transmitted through all media of public communications, was felt widely through the Ban- dung area. It was felt first and most strongly, however, by the small group of nationalist politicians in the city. These men had long- standing associations with the national leadership and v>ere closely linked with it through the network of organizations developed under Jap- anese auspices, particularly the Djawa Hokokai and its affiliates such as Barisan Pelopor. They had risen rapidly during the occupation and through their positions in the local branches of these organizations had a well-publicized local prominence. They had the same advantage in political skill, the same long-standing nationalism, the same inter- ests to defend as the nationalist politicians in Djakarta. It was natural that in the political vacuum prevailing in Bandung it should be they who held the initiative at first. The first step was the formation of KNI's (local National Commit- tees), beginning at the residency level for the residency had become,40 under the Japanese, the basic political as well as administrative and eco- nomic unit. The Preparatory Committee's instructions for the formation of KNI's at the residency level had been announced in Djakarta on August 19th and were known in Bandung no later than the 21st. Indeed a commit- tee of sorts, "to assist the local authorities," had been formed around the 22nd. (7) But it was only after Sukarno's radio speech of the 23rd that, as the Tjahaja news story put it, it became "clearer what policy we had to follow." On the 24th, therefore, a twenty-two man KNI was estab- lished for Priangan Residency and in the evening a four-man executive committee chosen. The members of these organs, and the organizations or social groups they represented, were as follows: (8) Organizations Dr. Suratman Erwin M. Sjafei (not yet named) Suparto Bratanata Niti Sumantri Djawa Hokokai Masjumi Pamong Pradja Police Emma Sumanegara Ir. Ukar Bratakusumah Anwar Sutan Pamuntjak Ir. Abdulkarim BPP (9) BPPP (Badan Pembantu j^radjurit Pekerdja--Work Soldiers Aid Board) Fujinkai (women's affiliate of Hokoka i) Barisan Pelopor Hoko Tai Iku Kai (10) Kyoiku Hokokai (educational affiliate of Hokokai) (7) Tjahaja 25 Aug. The phrase translated "local authorities" ("pemerintah daerah") refers in the context to the Fuku-sjutjokan (vice- resident) R. Puradiredja, who was the highest Indonesian member of the pamong pradja in the residency, the Sjutjokan (Resident) being a Japanese. He did not assume the title of Residen (Resident) until the end of September when the formal ties between the civil servants and the Japanese administration were finally broken. (8) Lioc. cit. The subheadings "Organizations" and "Social groups" are not in the original list. The title "Mr." indicates one holding a degree in law--Meester (Mr. ) in de Rechten--while "Ir." stands for Ingenieur (Indonesian: Insinjur), i. e. engineer. (9) For the BPP see p. 31. (10) I have not been able to identify the Hoko Tai Iku Kai but the first and last parts of its name indicate that it was affiliated with the Djawa Hokokai. Pamuntjak, a leading member of the Priangan Barisan Pelopor, was a nationalist politician.41 Social groups Sanusi Hardjadinata Mashudi Dr. Djundjunan (not yet named) K. H. Hidajat Dr. Purwo Prof. Ir. Roosseno "Men considered necessary" merchants pemudas pentjak-silat (11) government officials other than pamong pradja (kantoran) mosque officials (pekauman) doctors technical experts (teknik) Ir. Laoh Pupela Suntil Mr. Muljadi Mr. Sjafruddin Prawiranegara The executive committee (Pengurus Harian) consisted of: Niti Sumantri Chairman Ir. Ukar Bratakusumah Vice-Chairman Anwar Sutan Pamuntjak Member Hamdani Member Mr. Sjafruddin Prawiranegara Head of Secretariat One might suppose, from the wide variety of organizations and groups listed opposite the KNI members’ names, that the Priangan KNI was a broadly representative body, in accordance with the Prepara- tory Committee's announcement of the 22nd and Sukarno's speech of the 23rd. This impression was largely illusory, however. Whatever or- ganization or social group they were supposed to be representing, the great majority of these KNI members were secular nationalist politicians. As far as the first subdivision is concerned the bias is shown by the nature of the organizations represented: five of the ten were part of the Hokokai network, while BPP and BPPP were dominated, and here repre- sented, by nationalist politicians. Occupational groups like doctors and technical experts had, of course, long played an important role in the nationalist movement, while men like Sanusi Hardjadinata and Dr. Djundjunan (both active members of Pagoejoeban Pasoendan) were hardly typical of the groups they stood for. To put it another way: of the three major elite groups besides the nationalist politicians, the Islamic element was here represented by only three men (Sjafei, Hidajat and Sjafruddin) and the pamong pradja and pemudas by only one each. The imbalance in the membership of the main body of the KNI gives an indication of the unusual prominence of the nationalist politicians in this early phase but one must beware of attaching too much real importance to it. Throughout the Revolution this and other KNI's (and their successor (11) For pentjak-silat, the Indonesian art of self-defence, see p.88.42 organizations), like the KNIP itself in the capital, met only rarely in plenary sessions. Ordinary members, though they gained a certain pres- tige from their membership and in some cases undertook activities of a more or less official character, were of little real importance in the acti- vities of such bodies. Practical power was in the hands of the executive committees. It is therefore particularly significant that in the case of the Priangan KNI the chairman and the three other members of the exec- utive committee were all pre-war secular nationalist politicians. We are dealing here not with a representative body but with what was in ef- fect an organizational form of a single elite group. (12) It is not particularly surprising that the Islamic elements, which as we have seen were rapidly losing the position in urban elite politics given them by the Japanese, should have been so poorly represented in the Priangan KNI. Nor is the presence of only a single pemuda on the main body of the KNI hard to account for; pemudas had only just begun to play an important role at the national level, in Djakarta, and they were still a negligible political factor at lower levels. It is more interesting, however, to note that the Fuku-sjutjokan, Puradiredja, though he was the highest-ranking member of the pamong pradja in the residency and was soon to become resident, had no place in either the KNI or its executive committee. Instead, one member of the pamong pradja was appointed to the KNI to represent the pamong pradja as an organization on the same basis that other government services like the police, and social groups like the doctors and merchants, were represented. At the same time nothing was said on the occasion of the formation of the Priangan KNI to suggest that the KNI was to be formally subordinate to the future resi- dent, Puradiredja, as the KNIP was to the president. This situation was the result of the definite change in the balance of power between the nationalist politicians and the pamong pradja fol- lowing the establishment of the Republic by the former. As Sukarno put it at a meeting of the highest-ranking pamong pradja in Djakarta on Sep- tember 2nd, "0fou^must not suppose that. . .the leadership of the Repub- lic thinks of the pamong pradja as no more than clerks or errand boys. We are not degrading the pamong pradja; we are lowering their position, putting them in the proper place." (13) At the national level, of course, (12) Membership lists and biographical data for KNI’s at other levels are not complete enough to warrant detailed analysis of the sort given here to the composition of the Priangan KNI. Nevertheless such material as there is in contemporary sources (cited below in connection with the formation of these other KNI's), along with interview material, tends to confirm the picture given here for the Priangan KNI, particularly as regards the strong position of nationalist politicians in these organs. (13) Tjahaja 4 Sept. Actually Sukarno used the older term for pamong pradja, "pangreh pradja," which had a much more "feudal" con- notation. The fact that the newer term, "pamong pradja," quickly re- placed the older one in general usage during the early months of the Revolution is in itself a clear indication of the widespread desire to "put them in the proper place."43 the executive was firmly in the hands of nationalist politicians and it was therefore possible to distinguish clearly between executive and advisory functions and to subordinate the KNIP to the president. But from the re- sidency level down, given that there was no question for the time being of dispensing with the existing system of civil administration or the pamong pradja themselves, the national leadership--and for that matter the local politicians--could not do this. The result was to leave the KNI’s, in gen- eral controlled by nationalist politicians, independent of and co-equal with the pamong pradja officials at their respective levels, and to leave the way open for these KNI’s to assume some of the executive powers pre- viously vested in the pamong pradja. We have been talking here about the theoretical relationship. But we shall see that in practice too a good deal of authority was to accumu- late in the hands of local KNI’s in the coming months and that the extent of the executive powers of the pamong pradja was to continue to be a lively issue throughout the Revolution. The Priangan KNI was established promptly on August 24th-- indeed before the KNIP itself--and the lower levels followed in their turn as the example of Djakarta and Bandung began to be felt more widely. A KNI for the city of Bandung was established on August 29th, with a judge, Sjamsuridjal, as its chairman. (14) The five regencies of Priangan Residency formed their KNI’s no later than a series of simultaneous meetings held on September 2nd. In the case of Bandung Regency, how- ever, the central KNI for some time served mainly as a liaison committee for two branches covering respectively the eastern and western halves of the regency. (15) In Bandung Regency, because of the existence of these two inter- mediate KNI’s, no KNI’s were organized at the district level. (16) From the few contemporary newspaper references to subdistrict KNI’s it is evi- dent that these were in most cases established during the first week in September. (17) (14) Perdjoangan Kota Bandung 5. (15) For the regencies of Tjiamis, Tasikmalaja, Garut and Sume- dang see Tjahaja 5, 6 and 10 Sept. For a description of the special ar- rangement in Bandung Regency see Tjahaja 29 Aug; for the regional KNI in the western half (with its center at Tjimahi) Tjahaja 5 Sept; for the regional KNI in the eastern half (with its center at Tjiparsg) Tjahaja 6 Sept. (16) I have no evidence on whether district KNI’s were organized in other regencies or not. The district had lost some of its importance as an administrative level during the Japanese occupation and there was some talk at this time about the possibility of abolishing it. See, for example, Yamin (ed), Naskah Persiapan 1/444. (17) Tjahaja 31 Aug, 4 and 5 Sept. It is impossible, on the basis of existing material, to be certain that all subdistricts, in Bandung Re- gency or elsewhere, had KNI’s but in every case which I have enquired about there was one.44 There is no contemporary evidence on village KNI's but from inter- view material it is clear that though some villages had them others did not. At this level, remote from the urban milieu in which the politically con- scious elements were concentrated and where nationalist politicians had need of a vehicle for their claims to political power, it was essentially a matter of chance whether a KNI would be organized or not. (18) Finally, preparations for a KNI for the newly reestablished pro- vince of West Java were made at a meeting in Bandung on September 9th and it was formally inaugurated on October 3rd. (19) This delay in setting up what was supposed to be the most important KNI below the national level was due to the fact that for practical purposes no political entity West Java existed at this time. Though a governor, Sutardjo Kartohadikusumo, had been appointed on September 2nd, (20) he re- mained in Djakarta until November, while a small secretariat operated theoretically in the name of the skeleton KNI in Bandung. In the longer run the governors did begin to assume a certain importance in the affairs of West Java, but the KNI faded away completely--indeed the October 5th report announcing its establishment is the last published reference to its existence. Throughout the Revolution, in West Java at least, the highest effective unit of administration and politics, below the national level, on the Indonesian side was the residency. It remained for the Dutch to make an operating unit out of the provincial area. By early September, then, KNI’s had come into being in many places, joining the original and most important one at the residency level. In these early weeks they were chiefly occupied with spreading informa- tion, emphasizing the twin themes of independence and maintaining public order. In connection with the latter, KNI's and KNI members soon be- came involved in the work of setting up local branches of the BKR, the People's Security Agency whose establishment had been announced by the Preparatory Committee in Djakarta on August 22nd. Before we take this up, however, a word must be said about the circumstances in which the Japanese-trained Indonesian army, Peta, was disbanded. Though anti-Japanese sentiments were on the increase inside Peta during 1945--the revolt of the battalion in Blitar (Bast Java) in February is the best-known example--members of Peta were among those who found the news of the Japanese surrender and the proclamation most difficult to believe. Living inside the constricted and intensely satis- fying world which military discipline creates, and partly insulated from disturbing political influences by Japanese design, they were easy prey for the sudden Japanese action in the days after the proclamation. This was particularly so since the Japanese concealed their intentions under (18) On rural KNI's in general see below p. 118. (19) Tjahaja 10 Sept; Soeara Merdeka (successor of Tjahaja-- see below n. 32) 5 Oct. The chairman and dominant figures in the West Java KNI was Oto Iskandardinata, the leading Sundanese political figure, who before the war had been head of the Pagoejoeban Pasoendan and a member of the Volksraad. (20) A.G. Pringgodigdo, Perubahan 23.45 a variety of cover stories and in some cases apparently sweetened the separ ation by distributing money and cloth. (21) *He (a platoon commander (sjodantjo) in the Peta battalion stationed in Tjimahi) told me that before the proclamation of independence a close friend, a civilian, had informed him of the Japanese surrender. He didn't believe it but at his friend’s urging agreed to tell his fellow officers and to try to persuade them to make off with their weapons. They were even less inclined to believe the news than he was, however. On August 17th or 18th he came across a broad- side announcing the proclamation; seeing it he began to be faintly doubtful, no more. The next day the Japanese came to disarm his battalion. They talked first to the battalion commander (daidantjo), Arudji Kartawinata, who then sum- moned his officers and told them to prepare the troops for disarming. On the way to do this, he and two others began to like the idea less and less so they returned to Arudji and urged him to permit the hiding of at least half the weapons. He refused, but in the end on their own initiative they managed to secrete about two dozen rifles. The rest were all dumped into trucks and the Japanese drove away. The Japanese had no check-lists and a great many more could have been saved. The same incident is described, from a different point of view, by Nasution. According to him, the Japanese brought the Peta battalion commanders together, area by area, on August 18th and 19th and ex- plained that because the enemy had changed his tactics, new weapons would be issued to Peta. The Tjimahi battalion commander, whom I and some friends asked on the evening of the 18th to revolt, refused and pointed out that the Japanese had that morning promised a "reformation of weapons," at which they would provide artillery, etc. At that "reformation," two hours later, he was disarmed. (22) (21) Anderson, Indonesian Politics under the Japanese 115. (22) Nasution, TNI 1/66-7. This story of the Japanese col- lecting the Peta battalion commanders on an area by area basis (pre- sumably residencies) and telling them misleading stories is more con- vincing than the story of a mass arrest of battalion commanders at Bogor which is reported in Anderson, Indonesian Politics under the Japanese 115-6. A number of other men in the Bandung area made efforts like Nasution's to persuade Peta units to revolt or run away with their weapons but all failed.46 Peta was thus disbanded, its units broken up, most of its weapons safely back in Japanese hands. (23) But the personal ties, the military skills and the militant self-confidence developed in Peta, particularly among the company commanders (tjudantjos) and platoon commanders (s jodantjos), could not be erased in a few hours' work. In the days which followed the disbandment, as they began to believe in the reality of the Republic and to appreciate its need for an armed force, these younger officers began to meet and make plans. In time their initiative was to make a large contribution to the formation of an Indonesian army and they themselves were to form the largest single group in its officer corps. But in the short run, like most pemudas, they were confused and unorganized and waiting for leadership. The initiative lay in the hands of older and better-established men. These men, as we have seen, had a clear idea of what they wanted in the way of an armed force and were soon at work recruiting the junior Peta officers and enlisted men--along with some ex-Seinendan members, ex-Heiho's and others--into a network of BKR units. In Bandung the formation of the BKR, at the residency level first of course, began on the evening of August 26th with a meeting of former Peta officers called to hear an explanation of the government's plans given by Oto Iskandardinata and Kasman Singodimedjo. (24) At this meeting former Peta battalion commanders were assigned to organize BKR branches in the five residencies of West Java, Arudji Kartawinata and Sutalaksana being assigned Priangan where their battalions had been.(25) The choice of the battalion commanders to organize the BKR's made clear from the outset the national leadership's conception of the new body, for the Peta battalion commanders, unlike the company and platoon com- manders, had had very little military training and little enough contact with their battalions. In the Japanese system their function had been in effect political liaison--they had been drawn largely from political circles, Islamic or secular nationalist--and this was to be their function in the new system. The following evening, at a meeting chaired by the head of the residency BPKKP, the structure of the residency BKR was laid down. It consisted of: (23) Some small units out in the field on special assignments had time to recover their wits and thus retained their weapons. (24) Oto, it will be recalled, was the head of the BPKKP (see p. 31) and hence of the BKR under it. Kasman, a former Peta battalion commander in Djakarta and a member of the Preparatory Committee, was head of an office called the Pusat BKR (Central BKR [Headquarters]) in Djakarta for about a week at this time, before he became chairman of the KNIP. Sutter, Indonesianisasi 11/283-4 and Tjahaja 27 Aug. The Pusat BKR continued a more or less fantasy existence for several months while BKR's were being formed on local initiative all over Java, without any coordination. (25) Tjahaja 27 Aug.47 1. A six-man advisory council, including the future resident (Puradiredja), the Priangan chief of police (R. Jusuf) and the mayor of Bandung city (R. Ating Atma di Nata); 2. A governing body (pimpinan umum) divided into: a. An executive committee, consisting of Arudji as chair- man, (26) Sutalaksana as vice-chairman, and Ukar Brata- kusumah, Dr. Djundjunan and R. M. Suparto (the city police chief) as members, b. A general membership including representatives of the Chinese and Arab communities; 3. An administrative organ; and 4. A troops section (bagian pasukan) headed by a former Peta company commander, Sukanda Bratamenggala. The whole, finally, was to be under the supervision and leadership of the residency KNI. (27) This elaborate superstructure, of course, was essentially a fiction; during its short life, the BKR in Priangan, as elsewhere, consisted for practical purposes only of its troops section. But the fact that the BKR was set up the way it was shows clearly that it was intended to be a spe- cial civic security agency for maintaining order within the community rather than a real army whose primary function was to defend the commu- nity from external danger. Its purpose, as the BPKKP head explained on the occasion of its formation,was "not only to maintain security in regard to crime and so forth, but also to prevent situations which might obstruct our goal of an independent Indonesia. It must ensure that the feelings of ’other groups' are not hurt." (28) As in the case of the KNI's the organization of the BKR spread downward from the main residency body. On September 3rd a BKR for Bandung Regency was established, "alongside the BPKKP," with its head- quarters in the regency office and a former Peta battalion commander as (26) In view of what is said above about Peta battalion commanders and below about the civic character of the BKR, it is worth noting that Arudji describes himself as having been a senior official of the Security Section of the Residency office, as well as BKR commander, in this period. Parlaungan (ed), Tokoh-Tokoh Parlemen (Djakarta 1956) 329. (27) Tjahaja 28 and 29 Aug. Tjahaja 28 Aug. "Other groups" (orang lain) in this context referred mainly to Dutch and Eurasian inhabitants of Bandung. The idea being expressed here is the one fundamental to the national leadership's thinking at this time, that if the Republic could show that it could keep its own house in order and, specifically, prevent outrages against Allied nationals, it would have a better chance of gaining Allied acceptance.48 its head, and it soon began to organize at the administrative levels below it. (29) We will return to these lower level BKR's, in the countryside and in the kampungs of the city, in due course. It should be noted here, however, that there is no evidence that any effort was made to establish a provincial BKR; the point on the table of organization at which these two ephemeral entities met remained a blank. The founding and rapid development of the KNI's and BKR's repre- sented almost the only formal political activity in the early weeks of the Revolution in the Bandung area. The nationalist politicians who created them--a few dozen men--were for the moment the only people in Bandung who were capable of systematic political action and they used their initia- tive with considerable boldness and great energy. Tjahaja in late August and early September was full of the doings of these committees and their members, making statements and speeches, organizing parades and pub- lic meetings which shouted approval of prepared declarations, directing an increasingly busy traffic. But their temporary monopoly of the poli- tical scene must not be taken to mean that these two main institutions or their organizers exercised any very real political power. The impor- tance of the KNI's and BKR's lay not in the leadership which they exer- cised in these days, for this was largely by default, but in the fact of their existence, as the first sketch of an institutional structure for the previously entirely abstract Republic. Meanwhile revolutionary forces were gathering, at first largely channeled by the official institutions but later breaking out openly. This process was a natural consequence of the collapse of the existing regime in mid-August but its timing was largely determined by the approaching arrival of the Allied forces and the growing feeling that the Dutch meant to restore their lost sovereignty. Like all such processes it is hard to document, being essentially a matter of atmosphere, but the general trend and its significance is quite clear. We can consider these develop- ments under three headings: public behavior, private activity, and finally the gathering movement which culminated in the transfer of the whole civilian administrative system to Indonesian hands. At first the public was quite passive. Few people could or wanted to see very far into the future and in the meantime there were the simple pleasures of liberation. **He (a clothes-maker) said he was very pleased be- cause he had been longing for national freedom. Particularly freedom from the Japanese, because during the Japanese occupation he and almost all of the people had suffered severely. Nationalists young and old, the Dutch in the internment camps and many others had good reason to be happy. The curfew was lifted and as soon as bulbs could be distributed street lights came on again at night in (29) Tjahaja 4 Sept. In the same issue there is mention of the BKR for the city of Bandung which had just been established.49 Bandung. (30) The rationing system, which though universally and by ne- cessity violated had created fear and high prices on the black market, collapsed of its own weight. The first sign of public involvement in political affairs came with the flying of Indonesian flags and the wearing of red and white badges (the Indonesian colors), both of which were in general public use by the end of August. (31) Flags were used in all parades and meetings from at least as early as the 29th and were flown at homes and shops from about this time as well. In the course of time a distinct progression in the sig- nificance of these symbols, particularly the flags, is noticeable. At first they were little more than the expression of a diffuse sense of liberation, part of the general atmosphere of the early days. But from about the middle of September they began to take on a more specifically political and revolutionary meaning. The public was urged more frequently and more insistently to fly the flag. There began to be incidents: a Eurasian pulling down a flag at a public meeting and being beaten, a "foreigner" pulling down one at a hotel and being persuaded to let it go up again. (32) The Japanese, who permitted wide publicity for the symbols of the Republic in the press and radio and at public meetings, do not seem in Bandung at least to have objected to general public use of flags. The flying of flags at the various government offices, however, implied control of these offices and this the Japanese were trying to prevent. They seem to have had their way on this issue until September 15th when the Indonesian flag was raised at the residency office, followed gradually by others. (33) (30) Tjahaja 24 Aug. Characteristically the reason given for this was "to forestall the danger of disturbance in people's hearts caused by the changes in the government, and to develop an atmosphere of tranquillity." (31) In Tjahaja, badges were advertised for sale as early as August 23rd. (32) Soeara Merdeka 17 and 19 Sept. Tjahaja, which had been operated as a branch of the all-Java Japanese newspaper trust, Djawa Shim bun Kai, ceased publication as such on September 3rd but was con- tinued with the same name until September 10th by its Indonesian em- ployees. The same group resumed publication in the same office under the name of Soeara Merdeka (Voice of Freedom) on September 15th. The early issues of Soeara Merdeka, before Vol. I, No. 1 on September 26th, were undated but most can be dated from internal evidence. (33) This information--including the date, one of the few in this work not taken from contemporary sources--comes primarily from an in- formant whose dates, where verifiable, have always proved accurate. There is little material in published sources on the question of flying flags at gov- ernment offices. In Tjahaja 25 Aug. it is stated that flags had been flying at most government offices for several days, but there is no way of deter- mining whether this was so. It is likely that both Indonesians and Japanese would not have thought of this as an implied claim to control at this early date, though they certainly did later. For an incident at a government office in which a Japanese tried to pull down an Indonesian flag see Soeara Merdeka 19 Sept.50 The same progression is evident in the case of public meetings. The earliest recorded public meeting in Bandung took place on August 26th: the crowd was small, there is no mention of flags or parading, and the speeches were mild. (34) On the 29th, in honor of the inaugura- tion of the KNIP in Djakarta, a much larger gathering took place en- livened by a half-hour parade and many flags, but the holiday atmosphere can still be felt. (35) In contrast to these, the meeting on September 14th, described as "an event such as had never before occurred in the history of the city," shows the onset of a distinctly revolutionary temper. Groups with placards as well as flags, coming from all parts of the re- gency, marched past crowds shouting "Merdeka!" ("Independence!") to the main square where they were greeted with militant speeches. (36) Finally a funeral parade on September 21st shows the development of an almost completely revolutionary atmosphere. A Eurasian had shot at a building guard and when neighbors had rushed up to help he had killed one of them. The funeral procession the next morning, according to the newspaper story, stretched for two kilometers with flags at half-mast all along the route and great crowds shouting "Merdeka," while the funeral itself was conducted as a national ceremony. It is worth noting that the occasion was organized by the head of the BKR troops section, Sukanda. Though it was apparently entirely peaceful its effect was--and was intended--to arouse a spirit of militant nationalism. The balance be- tween the official policy of the BKR, maintaining public order, and its basic goal, independence, was increasingly delicate. (37) Alongside this public and more or less legal and peaceful activity there was a good deal of what may be called private activity that was not always peaceful or officially approved. There was a good deal of looting, which increased as the capacity of the Japanese and the Republic to con- trol the situation declined. There were incidents involving Chinese as well as Eurasians. Pemudas began to seize guns from the Japanese, in this phase mostly from individuals as they were walking along the streets or standing guard in isolated places. A number of Japanese, mostly civil ians, were killed in this way, though most were simply disarmed. In some cases weapons were solicited without threats from Japanese who were acquaintances and friends in the same office or military unit. (34) Tjahaja 27 Aug. (35) Tjahaja 30 Aug. The report claims that 20, 000 people were present. (36) Soeara Merdeka 15 and 17 Sept. Here a claimed 100, 000 were present. The incident mentioned above in which the Eurasian pulled down a flag and was set on by a crowd occurred on this occasion. But otherwise, according to the report, many Dutch walked past these demon- strations without any interference. (37) Soeara Merdeka 21 Sept. The same ambiguity is found in the news report itself. The first four paragraphs constitute an editorial on the necessity of preserving public order but the body of the story is im passioned. In describing the mood of the onlookers: "The pemudas seemed to want in their hearts to follow him in fighting for their country, to demonstrate it by shedding blood, to die in defending their people, fol- lowing the footsteps of the late hero."51 In the same category may be included the private activities of the Dutch and Eurasians themselves as they began to come out of the intern- ment camps, some on their way to other parts of Java to seek out their families there, others coming in to Bandung for the same reason, many as pre-war inhabitants of Bandung simply returning to their homes. (38) All sources, Dutch as well as Indonesian, are agreed that in the first weeks after the Japanese surrender relations between Dutch and Indonesians were amicable. This evidence in fact is one of the best indications of how completely open the situation was during these weeks, for of course the political assumptions of the Dutch and at least most urban Indonesians were quite irreconcilable. More specifically, too, the efforts of Dutch owners to recover their houses and businesses, and some of the activities of the many Dutch relief committees which had sprung up spontaneously, were bound to cause friction. (39) Eventually they did; roughly in step with the general development of a revolutionary atmosphere from the middle of September, Dutch-Indonesian relations in Bandung began to grow more tense. Incidents, two of which have already been mentioned, began to multiply and it was not to be long before something of a small-scale private war was going on in north Bandung. Up to the end of the period we are concerned with here these var- ious private activities, though increasingly common, still took place with- in an essentially intact society. But they were both evidence of an ap- proaching breakdown and a factor contributing to it. Political uncertainty had begun to corrode the social order and social disorder was soon to have its effects upon the political system. The last of the developments which illustrate the gathering of rev- olutionary forces during this period was the movement to bring the civil- ian administrative system under the direct control of the Republic. Right up to its climax in late September it was a notably "diplomatic" movement, in keeping with the important role played in it by the national government and the inherent caution and legalism of the civil servant type. But the control of so much machinery necessarily had revolutionary implications and we shall see in a moment that its climax, though partly "legal," was at the same time revolutionary. If the movement has not been clearly handled in the existing litera- ture it is partly because it was somewhat paradoxical and partly, too, because the issue involved turned upon some rather delicate points of phrasing which have not yet been fully elucidated. It was paradoxical to begin with because in fact a considerable amount of administrative machinery was allowed to fall into the hands of the Republicans without any apparent resistance being offered by the Japanese authorities. The Djawa Hokokai, the BPP and the Fonds Perang dan Kemerdekaan (Kikin Suisinkai), taken over and renamed the Fonds Kemerdekaan Indonesia (38) Brugmans (ed), Japanse Bezetting 614-6, describes the move out of the camps in the Bandung area, and elsewhere. (39) Ibid. 618-9 (a report by a group of high Dutch civil servants in the Baros camp at Tjimahi).52 (Indonesian Independence Fund) on August 22nd, are just three important examples. (40) The issue involved was a delicate and legalistic one because am- biguity lay at the heart of the "gentleman’s agreement" between the Repub- lican and Japanese authorities. The essence of the matter seems to have been that while the Republic, through its cabinet ministers and otherwise, was free to call for the loyalty of the civil servants and even to give them instructions, the latter were to remain in a legal sense under Japanese authority and Japanese officials were to remain in the key posts which they still occupied. Thus there were two matters at stake: first, the legal relationship between the civil servants and the Republic which, though only a matter of words, could make a considerable difference when the Allies came to take over authority from the Japanese, and second, the practical matter of the presence of high Japanese officials in all offices and services. (41) The progress of the movement itself can be easily outlined. It consisted of a series of statements by the civil servants in the various services and offices and their branches to the effect that they recognized the authority of the Republic and had formed "leadership councils" from among themselves. These statements do not claim that these councils have actually taken control in their offices, and this does not seem to have been the case except perhaps in some exceptional cases. The for- mation of the council indicated only that the Indonesian staff was ready to take over when instructed to. (42) The earliest statement in Tjahaja ap- peared on September 3rd and others followed at intervals thereafter. Around the middle of the month they began to appear in much larger numbers and at about the same time a new element was usually added: a request, or demand, that control be transferred as soon as possible to the Indonesian staff. There is no direct evidence to show how far these statements were solicited by the national and local leadership and how far they repre- sented agrowing militancy on the part of the civil servants themselves. Declarations of loyalty to the Republic were standard fare at all meetings in those days, while early in the month the Bandung city KNI had in- structed all offices in the city to establish such leadership councils. (43) (40) See for the latter, Sutter, ^ndonesianisasi 1/250 and Tjahaja 25 Aug. Doubtless there was a legal distinction between these quasi- popular organs and formal government agencies but the practical point remains. (41) A third matter was the legal status of the government agencies themselves, including their buildings and property. This issue cropped up from time to time and the Republican government later took steps in many individual cases to express its formal claim to these, but no gen- eral legislation was proclaimed and the matter played far less of a role in this period than one would suppose. (42) Perdjoangan Kota Bandung 6. (43) Ibid, and Tjahaja 3 Sept.53 Even the requests for transfer of authority over the offices were presumably in accord with what Hatta later described as the Republican leadership's program for "seizing power from within." (44) On the other hand, the in- creasing flow of these statements and the often forceful language in which they were couched, when taken with the governments continuing silence on the matter, indicates that the pressure from below was steadily mounting. Whatever the reason, the government did eventually act. On Sep- tember 25th, only four days after the arrival of the first British troops, it formally declared all Indonesian civil servants to be civil servants of the Republic. (45) This act, characteristically, concerned only the legal issue involved: the formal status of the civil servants themselves. (46) Nothing was said, publicly at least, about the practical matter of control over the offices in which they worked, and it may be that the government had no in- tention of involving itself in this dangerous matter. But revolutionary forces had been gathering rapidly in the preceding week or two and they needed only an occasion, a hint of leadership to burst out. (47) The declaration on the 25th was greeted with a tremendous burst of revolutionary activity. Everywhere on Java pemudas and ordinary crowds, organized and unorganized, began to take over control from the (44) In his article "Isi Proklamasi" in Marpaung (ed), Bingkisan Nasional 9-10. No dates are mentioned here and it is not made clear when the national leadership had intended to take the final step of actually seizing power. (45) Koesnodiprodjo Himpunan 1945 44. The operative phrase was "menetapkan (pegawai-pegawai dari segala djabatan dan tingkatan) sebagai pegawai Negara Republik Indonesia. . ." To which Soeara Merdeka 26 Sept, re- porting this decree, added "The State Secretary (Secretaris Negara) requests it be announced that they should obey only the orders of the Republican Government." (46) It was not purely legalistic in purpose of course. It had a very practical significance in reinforcing the loyalty of the civil servants at a critical time. Thus it was no coincidence that the government announced in the same breath that it considered the paying of pensions to be required by the constitution. Soeara Merdeka 26 Sept. This hedged commitment was obviously designed to influence the older civil servants whose higher positions made their loyalty particularly desirable. (47) The incident at Ikada Park in Djakarta on September 19th, an event roughly comparable to the funeral procession in Bandung on Septem- ber 21st and the flag incident at the Hotal Yamato in Surabaja on September 16th but more important nationally, symbolized the decisive change in the mood of the capital. On this occasion the Djakarta pemudas, by mobilizing an enormous and potentially uncontrollable crowd, forced Sukarno to come and speak to it despite a Japanese order to the contrary, and thereby forced the Japanese to back down as well. Adam Malik, Riwajat Proklamasi 76-9; Anderson, Indonesian Politics under the Japanese 123-5 (where a different analysis is offered); Soeara Merdeka 20 Sept (for the text of Sukarno's speech).54 Japanese. In most cases they began with the government offices on which attention had been concentrated, but soon the movement spread wider to include everything controlled by the Japanese: private businesses, planta tions, warehouses, cars, houses, and, most important, military posts and weapons. Sometimes the Japanese resisted and there was fighting; sometimes they simply gave in; sometimes local leaders negotiated sur- renders. Not all areas were equally active and not all negotiations and attacks were successful but there could be no doubt that a full-fledged revolution had begun. (48) These events, together with the arrival of the first British troops on the 29th, which had in part occasioned them, mark the end of the first phase of the Indonesian Revolution, the waiting phase. During all but the last week of this period the initiative had lain with the Republican leadership in Djakarta, and corresponding elements elsewhere on Java, and they had exploited it effectively to spread the idea of the Republic and to give it a visible institutional form. In the last days of September the initiative passed abruptly from their hands. From the outside came the British, the agents of the victorious Allies and the possessors of a military power which, though it proved to be inadequate, was far greater than anything the Indonesian government had at its disposal. From below there appeared a sudden flowering of revolutionary energy, pervasive and intangible but most clearly embodied in the pemudas, a force quite incalculable but every bit as powerful in its own way as that of the British. Between these two the government was pinched and we will see that for long stretches of time it will almost disappear from the history of the Bandung area. Indeed at the height of the revolution, in the half-year beginning in October 1945, the British and Dutch them- selves wll hardly appear, except as fixed points of military power around which the revolution swirled. (48) See the numerous reports in Soeara Merdeka on 26 Sept and following days.CHAPTER IV OCTOBER AND NOVEMBER 1945 Revolutionary Beginnings In Bandung, as generally elsewhere, the revolutionary phase began with the seizure of the government offices. In this action the lead was taken by organized groups of pemudas within the offices themselves. As this is the first appearance here of organizations and individuals who were to play an important part in the history of the Revolution in this area some- thing should be said about their background. It must be remembered that Bandung had been for several decades an administrative and educational center of national importance and as a result had a particularly high con- centration of educated men. (1) Many of these men, of course, were gov- ernment employees, including a fairly sizeable group of students who had been stranded by the disruption of higher education during the Japanese occupation and had had to take jobs. Most of the remainder were still stu- dents at the time the Revolution began. In the offices, youth groups began to take shape during the occupa- tion. Seinendan units were established in all offices large enough to make them feasible, while in the two largest ones--the Railways Department and the PTT Pusat (the national headquarters of the Post, Telegraph and Tele- phone service)--both advanced technical training schools and special Barisan Pelopor (Pioneer Corps) units played an important role. The training, little more than some drill and propaganda in the case of the Seinendan and Pelopor units and professional in thejcase of the training schools, was not itself very important. What was, as in most such cases, was the esprit de corps created within the pemuda group by these separate activities and the opportunity for a pemuda leadership to develop indepen- dent of the age-graded hierarchy of the offices. After the Japanese sur- render these organizations lost their meaning as such but the ties already formed, reinforced by the much stronger pemuda reaction to the new situa- tion, soon found outward expression in the form of "pemuda sections" attached to most of the office "leadership councils" formed during September. It was these pemuda sections, particularly their leadership, which came into action after the government declaration of September 25th. The PTT was the first government office to be seized from the Japanese, (1) Here, as elsewhere in this work, "educated men" means those with a high school education or better. Occasionally, when the distinction seems important, I use the terms "intellectuals" or "intellectual pemudas" to indicate those with a college level education. 5556 on the morning of the 27th. On the urging of Sutoko, the leader of the PTT's pemuda section, the senior Indonesian officials of the PTT's leadership council went in to negotiate with the Japanese officials. When the latter refused to agree to a transfer of authority, the pemudas who had collected outside the building threatened to remove them by force; the Japanese then agreed to leave and the senior officials of the leader- ship council were duly installed in their place. The Minister of Commu- nications, coming to Bandung three days later, certified the transfer. (2) The following day, the 28th, a wave of takeovers swept over Ban- dung. Sutoko was active behind the scenes and the example of the PTT and of reports of such events all over Java exercised a powerful influ- ence. It is harder to assess the effect of a declaration by the city KNI on the 27th that all offices should be taken over at 11a. m. on the 28th. (3) It had not been necessary in the case of the PTT certainly, but it may have speeded up the process in some of the smaller offices. From the reports it is apparent that pemuda groups played a decisive role, parti- cularly in the case of the Railways Department. (4) No blood was shed in Bandung on September 27th and 28th and con- trol over the offices was transferred everywhere in an atmosphere of civic decorum which contrasted oddly with the threat of force which had made the transfer possible. But the movement spread rapidly and it was not many days before Bandung was caught up in a mood of revolutionary excitement. As this excitement spread the possessions of weapons and control over military force began to be more and more important, and this side of affairs will be emphasized in the following pages. But it must be kept in mind that throughout this period not only weapons but also cars and trucks, warehouses and factories and cattle were being seized from the Japanese, in a spirit sometimes of pure looting, sometimes of patriotism but most typically a mixture of both. The basic fact was that at the beginning of the Revolution, parti- cularly after the disarming of Peta, there were very few guns in Indo- nesian hands. Procuring and holding on to them, therefore, were of crit- ical importance both for the individual or group seeking power or security in troubled times, and for those determined to preserve Indonesian inde- pendence--usually the same people, of course. The number, quality and particularly the distribution of guns in Indonesian hands were a decisive factor in the history of different areas and periods during the Revolution. (2) Soeara Merdeka 27 Sept, 1 Oct. In this case no transfer of authority over the service was signed by the outgoing Japanese authori- ties, as happened in some cases. (3) Soeara Merdeka 28 Sept; Perdjoangan Kota Bandung 6-7. It will be recalled that the city KNI had instructed all offices in the city to form leadership councils in anticipation of their being taken over. (4) See Soeara Merdeka 28 Sept for a number of specific references.57 The seizure of guns, both in this early period and later, took place on two levels. At the lower level there was a constant small-scale move- ment of guns first from Japanese to Indonesians and then circulating from hand to hand among the Indonesians. To the individuals and groups and vil- lages involved these transfers were often of great importance for they con- cerned the distribution of power at these levels. But for our purposes it is better--and easier--to treat them not as political events but as parts of a general process going on throughout Indonesian society, forming a back- ground to the more important events of this kind which took place at the higher level. We have seen that attacks on individual Japanese for their weapons had already begun in the waiting phase and it is possible that in some cases rather larger affairs had taken place. But in late September and early October the number and scale of attacks increased. Some of the features of this activity appear clearly in the following account by a pemuda from "Babakan" who was seventeen at the time: **He said that before such attacks pemudas from several kampungs would gather and make plans. The first time he went on one the target was a Japanese post in Tegallega £at the southern edge of the cityQ. On this occasion they were armed only with bamboo spears (bambu runtjing) and machetes (goloks), and the attack failed. About seven of them were killed. The second time was when they attacked the same post. This time, however, many of them had guns, which they had borrowed from members of the police and from former Peta members, and they succeeded in capturing the post. They got some grenades and twelve guns, which were distributed so that each kampung group got one. At that time the practice was for one gun to be used by seven to ten pemudas, each taking his turn. A second account, referring to a somewhat later period, shows another aspect: **He (a student who was eighteen at the time) said that on one occasion his group came up to attack a few Japa- nese who were guarding some railway freight cars. The Japanese surrendered and told the pemudas, who hadn't known, that there were several boxes packed with pistols in one of the freight cars. They said that the pemudas could have the pistols if only they wouldn't kill them. In this way weapons began to spread out among the people. Meanwhile, at the higher level, efforts were being made to seize Japanese arms on a large scale. In the first week of October in many places on Java large crowds, stiffened with small armed groups of various sorts, gathered around local Kempeitai headquarters and other large mili- tary posts and either extracted surrender of the Japanese troops and their military supplies by negotiation or forced surrender by actually assaulting.58 In a few cases, as in Banjumas residency, (5) the Japanese were com- pletely disarmed in a single stroke, but in most a series of actions fol- lowed each other in the course of a week or two, ending with the Japanese completely or largely disarmed. In Bandung the progress was by steps but the conclusion was different; at the end of the series the Japanese pulled themselves together and regained military control of the city. Though the full details of the events which led up to the Japanese coup on October 10th--like the full details of much of this history--will doubtless never be known, the general pattern of these events is clear enough. In this pattern two factors were particularly important: on the one hand the policy followed by the local Republican leadership in the week or two before October 10th, a policy which helped set the scene for the coup, and on the other the special role played by Allied influence in the coup itself. These two rather different sequences converged only on the day of the coup itself and it is better to tell the stories separately, taking first the one with the deeper roots and greater importance. (6) Around the beginning of October, at a time when attention all over Java was turning toward efforts to obtain Japanese weapons, a number of local leaders in Bandung entered into negotiations with the local Japanese military commander, Major General Mabuchi, to arrange for the peace- ful disarmament of the troops under his command. These negotiations are naturally not mentioned in any contemporary source and there is no way of knowing for certain all those who took part on the Indonesian side. (7) Informants are agreed, however, that Oto Iskandardinata, Puradiredja and Ukar Bratakusumah were among the leading figures in this group. Oto, as we have seen, was prominent in military affairs at the national level and he was active at this time in Bandung, his home territory; (8) Puradiredja, since late September officially the Resident of Priangan, is familiar; Ukar was a pre-war leader in Pagoejoeban Pasoendan who had become vice-mayor of Bandung and had been active in nationalist groups, particularly Barisan Pelopor, during the occupation, and had recently, as we have seen, become vice-chairman of the residency KNI. Taking into account the position and background of these men and others who are mentioned in this connection several things are quite certain (5) Anderson, Indonesian Politics under the Japanese 118. This was by negotiation. (6) The account which follows is based on extensive interview material from some of the leading participants as well as others outside official circles at this time; about two dozen of my interviews contain large sections on this subject. (7) The question is complicated by the fact that there were at least three separate meetings, with some changes among the Indonesians attending. (8) It was at this time that the West Java KNI, which Oto headed and very much dominated, was set up and lived its brief life. See above p. 44.59 about the character of the Indonesian negotiating group. It included most of the important Republican leaders in Bandung at the time--mostly nationalist politicians therefore--and had a distinctly official character. It was also composed mainly of Sundanese, many of them indeed, like Oto and Ukar, members of Pagoejoeban Pasoendan. This ethnic factor was to play an im- portant part later in the recriminations which followed the failure of the negotiation policy. (9) All informants are agreed that these negotiations resulted, some time before October 10th, in an understanding with General Mabuchi. There are several versions of the contents of this understanding: it may have consisted only of an indefinite promise by the general that he would hand over Japanese arms at some unspecified date, or of an agreement to proceed by slow and orderly stages. It may have involved an agreement to carry out the disarmament of the Japanese by means of a series of mock assaults in which the Japanese would appear to be surrendering to over- whelming force. (10) Whatever the actual details of this agreement, how- ever, the essence of the matter is quite clear: Oto and the others involved in the negotiations visualized an orderly transfer of weapons and military control to the local Republican authorities--that is, to themselves. It is not necessary to attribute this plan to pure power-seeking motives on their part, though such considerations could not help but be involved to some extent. A transaction of this sort was a logical application of the fundamental government policy at this time, which sought above all the peaceful transfer of authority and the preservation of public order. The men who negotiated with General Mabuchi no doubt thought that they had gained his support for this policy. But negotiations, or even specific agreements--except where they took place on the spot under the pressure of militant crowds threatening assault (ll)--could only favor the Japanese in their predicament. In the last analysis it was only actual force in the form of dangerous crowds, or the immediate threat of such force, which could persuade them to give up their weapons, knowing as they did how sternly the Allies were going to view such surrenders and how precarious their own position would be if they disarmed themselves. There is no clear evidence that General Mabuchi did in fact disarm any of his troops or turn over any arms to the Indonesians as a result of this agree- ment. When arms were seized from the Japanese it was by mass actions of a type common throughout Java in this period. (9) In view of the importance of ethnic sentiments in the later criticism of the negotiators it is worth mentioning that most of my informa- tion on this group and their views at the time has been drawn from Sundanese. (10) This was a common pattern at the time in affairs of this sort. It served, in theory, to protect the Japanese from blame by the Allies. (11) This was the case, as we have seen, when the government offices in Bandung were taken over in late September. For this pattern of assault combined with negotiation in cases of disarmings see, for example, Nasution, TNI 1/82 (where it is said to be typical) and Soeara Merdeka 8 Oct (a detailed description of such a situation in Pekalongan on October 4th).60 On October 2nd the large arms factory at Kiaratjondong on the southeast side of the city came under Indonesian control; according to one well-informed participant this was under the pressure of a large crowd headed by the Special Police Unit (Tokubetsu Keisatsutai) though this is not mentioned in the news story. (12) On the 6th and 7th a number of arms warehouses were taken over, in one case after what are reported to have been protracted negotiations by parties not specified, in the others "by the efforts of the BKR, the people and the police," but with no indica- tion of large crowds. (13) Finally on October 8th occurred the first--the first reported in contemporary sources at least--of the large-scale crowd actions which had begun elsewhere on Java a week or more earlier. Led by the Special Police, members of the BKR and pemudas from the Rail- ways Department and elsewhere, large crowds burst in from all direc- tions on the airbase at Andir on the west side of town, disarmed the Japanese there and took complete control. (14) At this point we come to the second and in many ways more im- portant manifestation of the cautious official policy reflected earlier in the decision to negotiate with Mabuchi. Most informants agree in saying that the stores of weapons captured at Andir, at the Kiaratjondong arms factory and at the various warehouses were kept more or less intact, instead of being passed out on the spot to the crowds. (15) As might be expected, this policy, like that of the negotiations with Mabuchi, came in (12) In the story (Soeara Merdeka 3 Oct), which may not of course, be complete, the event is made to sound like a typical office takeover, with control passing to a "leadership council" of its own civil servants. For the Tokubetsu Keisatsutai see M. Oudang, Perkembangan Kepolisian di Indonesia (n. p. 1952) 46-7. Organized at the residency level with an average of1 about 100 men, these units were more heavily armed than the ordinary police. They were established by the Japanese for use in emer- gencies in which they preferred for political reasons not to use Japanese troops; Special Police units were used in the suppression of both the Blitar and Indramaju risings. In Priangan, and probably elsewhere as well, the Special Police unit was not disarmed when Peta was. It had about 200 men, more than the average, and was equipped among other things with armored cars. As the only well-organized and well-armed Indonesian military force at the time it played a large part in the events of early October in Bandung. (13) Soeara Merdeka 8 Oct. The description here of the dis- arming of three trucks of Japanese troops, who had come to prevent the taking of one of these warehouses, shows the helplessness of the Japa- nese at this time. It is conceivable that the negotiations mentioned in this story had some connection with the Mabuchi agreement, in spite of what my informants say, but more likely that they were between a leader- ship council and the Japanese in charge of the warehouse. (14) Soeara Merdeka 9 Oct. (15) This point is also made in an unpublished manuscript by a man active in Bandung affairs at this time, which I have been able to consult.61 for bitter criticism after the Japanese coup; it is significant, too, that the recriminations on this question, like those on the negotiations, were strongly colored by ethnic sentiment. (16) This is not to say that the ethnic background of the negotiators or those who held on to the captured weapons played any appreciable part in their decision to do so. As far as ethnic characteristics are concerned, there has been a certain tendency--even among Sundanese themselves--to describe them as less militant than the Javanese, but it would be hard to substantiate this belief. As far as ethnic rivalry is concerned, especially as a possible motive for hoarding arms, it should be noted that ethnic feelings in Bandung were probably weaker in the first two months of the Revolution than at any time in the last four or five decades. The frustra- tion of the Japanese coup brought them out again in full force but it is doubtful if they had had anything to do with the events which led up to it. Plain power-seeking, as in the case of the negotiations earlier, un- doubtedly did play some part in the decision to hold on to the captured wea- pons, but again it is preferable to look at the matter in broader terms. The men who adopted these policies were the leading civilian and military authorities in Bandung at the time: by background they were almost all nationalist politicians, closely associated with the nationalist politicians who controlled the government in Djakarta. (17) For these reasons they stood for diplomasi rather than perdjuangan, for negotiation with General Mabuchi rather than spontaneous assault, for an orderly distribution of weapons to formally recognized units yet to be formed rather than an in- discriminate distribution to the people at large. Like legitimate govern- ment anywhere they stood for law and order, but equally for the status quo. (18) They were not the only local leaders to obstruct the seizure of (16) The existence of this sentiment today--and for that matter the desire on the part of many not to exacerbate it--makes it difficult to be certain who had control of Andir, Kiaratjondong and the warehouses. Con- trol was probably shared by Sukanda, Suhari and Harsono, the first two (the heads of the residency and city BKR troop sections respectively) being Sundanese and the latter (a leader of the Special Police) being Java- nese. Different informants, however, say that control of these places was wholly in the hands of either Sukanda and Suhari or Harsono. (17) Both Sukanda and Suhari were active members of Pagoejoeban Pasoendan before the war, Sukanda as head of the JOP Brigade (Jeugd Or- ganizatie Pasoendan Brigade--Brigade of the |Pagoejoeban| Pasoendan Youth Organization) a qua si-military drill club. I have no information on Harsono’s background. (18) I am emphasizing the similarities between the civilian and military authorities here but there were differences as well. The BKR leaders have been labeled above as nationalist politicians because of their pre-war roles in Pagoejoeban Pasoendan but on the whole it would be bet- ter to call them pemudas. Like many of the men who came to head pemuda organizations they were, at about thirty, appreciably younger than the civ- ilian politicians with whom they were associated. They were both Peta company commanders, a group which produced many pemuda leaders. They62 arms from the Japanese in these weeks. (19) The conflict between diplo- mas! and perdjuangan, already a factor before the Japanese surrender, was becoming acute and it was to remain the dominant issue throughout the Revolution. The difficulty with this "diplomatic” policy--at the national level as well as locally in Bandung and throughout the Revolution as well as in this early period--was that the Republic could not be maintained success- fully against the Allies or the Japanese without the dynamism of the perd- juangan, itself necessarily subversive of the domestic status quo. Fixed between two powerful forces the nationalist politicians of the central gov- ernment succeeded in 1950, after five years of the most precarious diplo- mas!, in preserving both the Republic and their dominant position in it. In Bandung in early October essentially the same policies led, temporar- ily at least, to disaster. Early in the month the negotiations with Gen- eral Mabuchi had helped to delay the building up of pressure on the Japa- nese; in the days just before October 10th, with most Japanese units still fully armed and comparatively few weapons yet in Indonesian hands, the fact that captured arms were not made widely available had the effect of slowing the momentum of the movement at a crucial point. The popular movement could not be stopped; it grew steadily after September 27th and reached a crest on October 8th at Andir airport and again on the 10th. But, deprived of the leadership and arms it might have had, its ampli- tude was reduced. Under the circumstances, in which Japanese military power and low morale were delicately balanced against a largely weapon- less but potentially enormous revolutionary enthusiasm, even a small weight could tip the scales. The balance shifted with startling suddenness between sunrise and sunset on October 10th. In the morning a large and aggressive crowd gathered around the Kempeitai headquarters in north Bandung and began to assault it. All informants are agreed that this was a spontaneous action and there is no evidence that BKR and Special Police units were present to lead the attack as they had at Andir two days earlier. When the situation became dangerous the Japanese called in Suhari, the head of the city BKR, and several other Republican leaders, for parleys. Once inside the building they were forced at bayonet point to surrender and the Japanese either made them call off the attack themselves or per- suaded the crowd to disperse by telling it that arms would be distributed later in the day after the "negotiations" then in progress were com- were more militant than their civilian counterparts, participating as we have seen in some of the mass attacks on Japanese posts, in several cases, indeed, actually leading them. It will become increasingly obvious as we proceed that the terms "pemuda” and "nationalist politician," like the terms "diplomasi" and "perdjuangan," are not exclusive categories but polar types, and that there were many inter- mediate types of men as well as views on national policy between these pairs of extremes. (19) Nasution, TNI 1/82,63 pleted. (20) Then, in the afternoon Suhari and some of the others were mounted in tanks and were obliged to tour the city urging the people to cease their attacks on the Japanese. (21) At the same time the Japanese themselves attacked the residency KNI office and completely cleaned out the BKR headquarters. In the evening they spread out over the town firing on those who resisted and at that time, and the next morning, erected bar- ricades on all roads entering the town and at various points within it. In the next few days they continued their sweep and extended their operations to other parts of the regency. (22) Though the Japanese could not turn the clock back to August 15th and destroy the revolutionary movement, they were once more in effective military control of Bandung. They had been able to do this without encountering much if any resistance and with comparatively small numbers of troops. (23) Many people in Bandung at the time, particularly pemudas, felt humiliated by this disaster and blamed the local leadership for it; this feeling was to play an important role in the events of the coming months. As we have seen, there are good grounds for believing that the policy fol- lowed by this leadership had in fact slowed down and partly muffled the rising revolutionary forces and left the pemudas with too few arms to re- sist the Japanese counter-attack on the 10th. But there were other factors in the situation and a consideration of them allows us to place the events in a broader context. For one thing there is reliable evidence that at about this time the Allied authorities had ordered the Japanese 16th Army com- mander in Djakarta to take a firm stand against the Indonesians and that this order had reached the Japanese in Bandung on the 10th or just before. (24) (20) Suhari had appeared at the scene of the attack after it had al- ready begun. There are conflicting reports about how many other official figures were taken along with Suhari and who they were. (21) Nasution, TNI 1/77. (22) Soeara Merdeka 13 Oct; Merdeka (Djakarta daily) 12 and 16 Oct. See Alfred van Sprang, En Soekarno Lacht (The Hague 1946) 28-9 for something of the atmosphere of this event as it appeared to a Dutch correspondent. (23) These included units from the main Japanese Army forces which throughout Java in the period after the surrender had withdrawn into encampments in the countryside, but were here brought back into play. Merdeka 18 Oct; G. W. Overdijkink, Het Indonesische Probleem; de Feiten (The Hague 1946) 65. A. J. F. Doulton, The Fighting Cock, being the His^ tory of the 23rd Indian Division, 1942-1~9^7 (Aldershot 1951) 202, speaking of a period about a month later, says that there were about 1500 Japanese troops available to the British commander in Bandung at the time. It is likely that these were essentially the same forces which were used on Oct- ober 10th and in the days immediately after. (24) Helfrich, Memoires 11/256; Overdijkink, Indonesische Prob- leem: de Feiten 65-6; Nasution, TNI 1/77; Doulton, Fighting Cock 246. But the dates and content of these instructions--both important--are nowhere specified.64 Coming at a time when the local Japanese were groggy and confused, this touch of leadership was an important factor in bringing them to use their still great military superiority. For another, there is the role that the RAPWI commander in Ban- dung, Major Gray, played in the counterattack. RAPWI ([organization for) Recovery of Allied Prisoners of War and Internees) was intended, of course to provide emergency relief for prisoners and internees and that is what it mainly did, on Java at least. (25) But RAPWI officers, who on Java were mostly British at first, were the first official Allied agents to ar- rive in most areas. Major Gray himself arrived in Bandung about Sep- tember 17th, a full month before the first British troops. (26) Their work, like any form of activity in those days, inevitably brought them up against political problems, and in facing these they could hardly have helped in most cases but see them from a European point of view. More- over, they needed experienced help in strange surroundings, while as Allied representatives they were magnets to the more militant and patri- otic Dutch prisoners coming out of the camps. In Bandung at least, the result was that RAPWI, while carrying on its main work, gradually developed a secondary function as a center of Dutch political activity. In its simplest form this consisted of such things as the use of RAPWI cars to carry weapons. (27) It must be kept in mind that it was not only Indonesians who were seeking out and seizing weapons in those days; there was a pemuda element on the other side as well, sociologically the same though politically the opposite. In early October the tension between Dutch and Indonesians in Bandung was rising rapidly and though there was still little armed conflict both sides were getting ready for it. One sign of the times was a total boycott of Dutch in the markets which began on October 6th. (28) This boycott, the first of a long line of efforts by Indonesians to use their potential control over food production and sale to coerce the Dutch in the city, was one of the immediate causes of the incident at the Kempeitai building on the 10th. The Kempeitai are reported to have been stopping and molesting people on the way to market with vegetables and other foods that morning with the intention of forcing (25) The nature of much of RAPWI's work on Sumatra is conveyed by the fact that Captain Westerling began his Indonesian career in its ranks there. See Helfrich, Memoires II/236-8 for the wartime commando background of the early RAPWI teams in Sumatra. For the most com- plete single treatment of RAPWI, though still very scanty, see F.S. V. Donnison, British Military Administration in the Far East, 1943-46 (London 1956) 283-4, 285, and 423-30 passim. (26) See Soeara Merdeka 20 Sept for an announcement by the city KNI notifying the public of his coming, the role of RAPWI etc. (27) Soeara Merdeka 9 Oct. (28) Soeara Merdeka 8 Oct. It followed the development of a similar boycott in Djakarta by a few days.65 them to agree to sell to Dutch buyers. (29) One of the immediate results of the reassertion of Japanese control in the following days, moreover, was that Japanese soldiers went into the markets to enforce sales to the Dutch. (30) In this situation it is not hard to see how Major Gray came to play a role in the events of October 10th. Both Indonesian and Dutch informants report that he "ordered" the Japanese to resume control, (31) but it is more likely that he told them that as agents of the Allies responsible for maintaining order they must break the boycott. The point is not very im- portant because under the circumstances the two amounted to the same thing in practice. But it shows clearly how a simple matter well within a RAPWI officer’s competence, ensuring food supplies for his charges, could involve political matters of fundamental importance. It is evident from all reports that Major Gray, though he had strictly limited legal powers and no military force behind him, exercised a considerable moral authority over both the Japanese and the Republican leaders at that critical moment. Having done something to prod the Jap- anese into action in the morning, he used his influence with the Republican officials in the afternoon to get them to contribute their bit to legitimizing the new balance of power. Proclamation to INDONESIANS IN THE CITY OF BANDUNG AND ITS SURROUNDINGS On Wednesday October 10th, 1945, in the afternoon I and the whole residency KNI issued a proclamation an- nouncing that the Japanese army units had been ordered to withdraw to their respective posts and requesting the people to return calmly and tranquilly to their houses. This proclamation was the result of my discussions with Major Gray. Although the people have observed this commitment the Japanese side continues to disregard it and continues with its shootings, raids, searches, arrests and other acts which seriously offend the honor of our nation. Hence the people are requested to maintain their calm and to stand ready to defend our independence. (29) Perdjoangan Kota Bandung 8-9. (30) Ibid. 9. Soeara Merdeka 13 Oct describes these Japanese soldiers as being organized by "RAPWI" men. (31) Technically, of course, RAPWI agents had no authority to give such orders.66 In connection with the above-mentioned events I can no longer be responsible, as the head of local government, for the maintenance of public order. Bandung, 12 October 1945 The Resident of Priangan (32) To complete the picture it should be added that in the discussions on the 10th, Major Gray gave a solemn guarantee that "no NICA Organiza- tion in any form will work here whilst I am in command in the Preanger district," (33) and that a news story mentioned the presence of three "foreign officers," presumably Dutch associated with RAPWI, playing a prominent part in the Japanese attacks on the KNI and BKR offices. (34) From October 10th, when the Japanese resumed practical control of the city of Bandung, to around the middle of November, when the situa- tion began to become tense again, there was something of a pause in the local history of the revolution, particularly in the city itself. The char- acteristic battle cry of the revolution in the cities, "Siap!" had begun to be heard in Bandung in the early days of October and the atmosphere that went with it was rapidly establishing itself. (35) But after October 10th the cry was not heard for a time and the revolutionary atmosphere was dampened. This was a transitory state and the forces unleased earlier continued to work in society; but they did so in an atmosphere that was outwardly rather calm. This paradoxical situation was due to the reassertion of Japanese power, of course, but in particular to the moral shock of that event. For about a month, some 1500 Japanese troops, joined shortly by about (32) Soeara Merdeka 13 Oct. The existence of proclamation men- tioned in the first paragraph indicates that the Republican leaders who toured the city in Japanese tanks on the afternoon of the 10th (above p. 63) were not literally at gun point when doing so, but rather announcing the contents of the agreed-upon proclamation to the people. (33) See Soeara Merdeka 23 Oct. for the text of his letter, which was addressed to the city ΚΝΪ The Dutch on Major Gray's staff and active in and around RAPWI in Bandung were not NICA (Netherlands Indies Civil Administration) personnel but private individuals. (34) Loc. cit. (35) The first mention of its use locally appears in Soeara Merdeka 5 Oct, which is just what one would expect from the general pattern. It was a long drawn out cry ("Siaaaaap!"). "Siap," as a verb, literally means "make ready" or "Attention!," but in this Revolutionary usage it has the connotation of warning and particularly a call to action. It was usually accompanied by banging on metal telephone poles, street lamps and so forth. The high revolutionary period in the cities is usually referred to as the siap period (Djaman Siap, Djaman Siap- siapan, Djaman Bersiap).67 the same number of British troops, maintained a passable state of public order in this city of 400, 000, itself only an island in a sea of millions. They were able to do so not so much because of their military strength, considerable though it was, but because the Indonesians were temporarily off balance. It took time for the revolutionary mood to reassert itself and in the meantime, for all the appearance of Anglo-Japanese control, some- thing of a stalemate existed in Bandung. Brigadier-General N. MacDonald, the commanding officer of the 37th Indian Infantry Brigade which had been assigned to occupy Bandung, arrived in Bandung with his staff by car on October 17th. He was fol- lowed later in the day by the first of his troops, one complete Gurkha battalion and elements of another. The remaining companies of this second battalion arrived on November 1st and it was not until early Decem- ber that new forces were brought in. (36) On the 20th he met with the local authorities--the resident, regent, mayor, KNI members and others- and it was agreed to set up an Indonesian Contact Committee (Badan Perhu- bungan) to handle relations with MacDonald’s staff. (37) The committee was formed on the 22nd, with Ardiwinangun (the vice-resident) as chair- man and Dr. R. M. Suratman Erwin (vice-chairman of the provincial KNI), Mr. Suwahjo (a high official in the Railways Department) and Ukar Bratakusumah (vice-mayor of the city and vice-chairman of the residency KNI) as members. (38) On the same day it met with the British liaison officer and began a formal contact which was to persist in various forms and with some ups and downs for five months. There is no need to go into the details of the negotiations which fol- lowed in the next three or four weeks. (39) The British agreed to rearm the Indonesian police, who had been disarmed by the Japanese, provided they were kept under close control; it was agreed that there should be no food boycotts, and the Indonesian authorities set up a committee to assure the free flow of food; every effort was to be made to establish normal conditions in all fields. Two aspects of these negotiations, however, deserve special attention. The first is that the Contact Committee placed great emphasis from the beginning on its request that the British deal only with the local Republican authorities and act only through them; this the British under- (36) Doulton, Fighting Cock, 246, 282; anon, History of the 5th Royal Gurkha Rifles (Frontier Force), Vol II (1929-1947) (Aldershot 1956) 351. (37) Soeara Merdeka 20 Oct. The Minister of the Interior (R.A. A. Wiranatakusuma, until recently the Regent of Bandung) was present as well, showing the central government’s interest in the smoothness of local diplomasi. See also Perdjoangan Kota Bandung 9, which, however, dates this meeting to the 15th. (38) Soeara Merdeka 22 Oct. Sjamsuridjal, the head of the city KNI, and Suparto, the city police chief, served as liaison officers. (39) They are summarized in Perdjoangan Kota Bandung 9-12.68 took to do. (40) In doing this the committee was following, under instruc tions of course, the fundamental policy of the Indonesian government: in exchange for recognition it was willing not only to grant recognition in re- turn--to accept the British presence as legitimate--but also to give the British considerable help in maintaining security, assuring a food supply and so forth. This help was of course resented by the pemudas, just as the informal British recognition of the Republic and its local authorities was resented by the Dutch. In the diplomatic chain as it was constituted at the moment on the national level, and reproduced faithfully here on the local level, the British and the Republican authorities, locked together in their awkward embrace, had much in common. Above all it was to their interest, as well as a basic part of their function, to preserve or- der in the face of revolutionary conditions. The second concerns the question of weapons. The British had distributed leaflets soon after their arrival demanding among other things that all weapons be collected and turned in to them. At its first meeting with the British, on October 22nd, the Contact Committee expressed its objection to this demand on the grounds that it would be "too burden- some (berat) for the public. "(41) The next day the British replied, ex- plaining that the Dutch, Eurasians, and employees of RAPWI would be disarmed too, and going on to say that the order to hand in weapons would have to be obeyed "within 48 hours after it was issued." (42) The Indo- nesians presented counter-proposals but the discussion appears to have lapsed after that, without the new order and ultimatum being issued, until November 17th. At that time the issue was raised again; the Indonesians made known their protest "if (the British] intended to disarm the people, with all that that would bring about," and the British announced that they would not put the order into effect. (43) As Nasution puts it: "Thus the breaking out of fighting in Bandung was delayed for the time being." (44) On the face of it, the Contact Committee’s resistance to the idea of disarming sounds like diplomasi in the service of perdjuangan, and (40) Soeara Merdeka 24 Oct; Perdjoangan Kota Bandung 9. (41) Perdjoangan Kota Bandung 9. (42) The quoted phrase, which implies that the order had not yet been issued, indicates that the British had beaten a tactical retreat. Perdjoangan Kota Bandung 9, reporting the same meeting, does not men- tion this qualification but it gives the same picture of the British negoti- ating a new agreement to have arms handed in, rather than simply re- iterating the old ultimatum. (43) Merdeka 17 Nov. (44) TNI 1/127. He says here that the order to surrender arms was "withdrawn," which implies that it was, theoretically at least, in ef- fect at the time. There is also some evidence from informants that a few weapons were collected to be turned over to the British, or that at- tempts were made to do so. It is quite certain, however, that the British did not make a serious effort to collect arms in Bandung.69 there was doubtless pressure from below to incline it in that direction. But the phrasing of the objection quoted above and the general context suggests that fear of an explosive reaction played a more important part in its thinking. This feeling was certainly decisive for the British; they were dangerously overcommitted elsewhere on Java in these weeks and their small force had only a very precarious control of Bandung. (45) They were not strong enough to impose such an order on Bandung. On the surface, then, an air of comparative tranquillity reigned in Bandung until mid-October to mid-November, assiduously fostered by the British with the help of the Republican authorities and the Japanese. In Semarang during this period there was heavy fighting between the pemudas and the Japanese, and in Surabaja and central Java even heavier fighting between the pemudas and the British. In Djakarta a state of petty warfare existed with a daily roll of raids, streetfights, shooting incidents and murders. The rural areas in the coastal lowlands from Bantam to Tegal were passing into a state of almost complete anarchy. In Jogjakarts the political congresses--Masjumi, pemudas, workers and peasants--followed each other in and out of town. But in Bandung there was no fighting, no large public meetings or parades, very little public activity of any kind. Nevertheless important changes were taking place. The most obvious of these changes, though not the most decisive in the longer run, was the wholesale shuffling of the local civilian leader- ship which took place in these weeks. There had'been few such changes in the early weeks of the Revolution, in Bandung or elsewhere. By and large the leading figures at the time of the Japanese surrender had simply carried on under the Republic, literally so in the case of the pamong pradja and the police, and with some changes of title and position in the case of members of the KNI and BKR, coming from Japanese-sponsored organizations. But with the outbreak of real revolution around the begin- ning of October this easy inheritance was put to the test of new conditions. The most dramatic of these changes in the composition of the local leadership came in the course of a series of kidnappings and one kid- napping-murder which occurred at this time. These events, following soon after the October 10th affair and closely related to it, are among the most controversial in the history of the Revolution in the Bandung area and some of their details remain obscure or only half-clear. But the evidence is quite sufficient for our purposes here and the story provides important insights into the structure of politics at this time. (46) (45) See Nasution, TNI 1/127 for a more detailed treatment of this point in a Java-vide context. (46) There is no direct contemporary evidence on the kidnappings. Of all the major political kidnappings during the Revolution, beginning with that of Soekarno and Hatta on August 16th, only that of Sutan Sjahrir in June 1946 was publicly known at the time. The narrative which follows is based on some fifteen interviews devoted largely to the subject, including several with some of those kidnapped and some of those involved in carrying out the kidnappings. Because of the extreme delicacy of the issue in70 These events may be approached from two different angles. From one point of view they were the direct result of the debacle on October 10th. This affair had discredited many of the official leaders and had greatly re- duced their power to control the situation. The pemudas, on the other hand, were frustrated and humiliated that the perdjuangan had collapsed so quickly in the face of comparatively small Japanese forces and they felt keenly the taunts thrown at them by pemudas from other parts of Java where the Japanese had been successfully disarmed. (47) In this angry mood they were prone to take action against those whom they blamed, with some justice, for their predicament. From the other point of view these events were part of the long history of ethnic tension within the Bandung elite. The man who was kidnapped and later killed (Oto Iskandardinata), those who were simply kidnapped (Puradiredja, Nita Sumantri, (48) Ukar Bratakusumah, and several important police officials) and those whose kidnapping was frus- trated by the fact that they had armed supporters (Suhari, Sukanda and several others)--all these were Sundanese. (49) This is not necessarily significant, of course. Most, though not all, of the men in the politically more important positions in Bandung--in the city and residency KNI's and BKR's and in the pamong pradja and police--were Sundanese. (50) Inevitably, therefore, it was mostly Sundanese leaders who played im- portant parts in what led up to the October 10th affair. A pemuda entirely free of ethnic prejudice, thinking only of this incident and wanting to do something about it, would certainly have found himself dealing with men who were almost all Sundanese. But there were no men entirely free of ethnic prejudice in Ban- dung, at least not in elite circles. Though the tensions raised by the October 10th affair, and by the whole problem of perdjuangan and diplo- masi of which it was a manifestation, were clearly the driving force be- hind these kidnappings, they could not help but be colored by ethnic feelings. Thus, quite aside from the question of the role of non-Sundanese Bandung and Djakarta even today, I have refrained from identifying the groups and individuals I know to have been involved in organizing these kidnappings. (47) This taunting culminated a week or two after the events we are concerned with here in the Bandung pemudas' being publicly spoken of at the Pemuda Congress in Jogjakarta in mid-November as the "pemuda peujeumbolle," after a sweet dish made of fermented cassava which is popular in West Java. (48) The chairman of the residency KNI. (49) I am considering here only cases about which there is rea- sonable certainty and which (with one exception) occurred in Bandung it- self, forming a more or less compact group. (50) The leadership of other ethnic groups, particularly the Javanese, tended to be concentrated in the government offices, though of course it was represented on large bodies like the KNI's.71 in the kidnappings themselves, there is no doubt that many Sundanese at the time saw in these acts a systematic effort to purge the leading mem- bers of their ethnic group in Bandung. The reality was more complex than that. To begin with it is rea- sonably certain that not all these kidnappings and planned kidnappings were organized by the same group. The police officers appear to have been the first to be taken, probably in mid-October. They may well have been kid- napped by the group involved in the next case to be discussed below but there is little evidence on this, mainly because their case was of less poli- tical significance and attracted less attention. Indeed, there was probably an element of simple dislike for the police as such involved here as well; the police had become very unpopular during the Japanese occupation and in most areas remained so throughout the Revolution. These police of- ficers were released soon after but did not resume their former positions. Probably the next to go were Puradiredja, Niti and Ukar, very likely between October 24th and 26th. One of the things which makes it possible to date their kidnapping more precisely than that of the others is the fact that Puradiredja had just resigned as resident when this happened; he did so on the 24th and is reported to have taken leave of his staff on that day. (51) These three were kidnapped by the same group, a Bandung badan perdjuangan headed, as most badan perdjuangan were, almost entirely by non-Sundanese. (52) It is quite possible, too, that a number of Java- nese politicians of the older generation may have played a role in encour- aging the pemuda leaders of the badan perdjuangan to do this. If so, one gets an interesting picture of pre-war ethnic clique politics riding on the shoulders of revolutionary dynamism. Certainly the pemuda leaders in question were more interested in the revolutionary issue involved in this case. The prisoners were conveyed to Surabaja, taken care of through all the fighting there in the following weeks and released shortly after. The kidnapping of Oto Iskandardinata falls in a special category for a number of reasons. For one thing there is reason to believe that he was kidnapped in Djakarta by a Djakarta badan perdjuangan and that the deed had little or nothing to do with Bandung affairs. Oto, though active in Ban- dung in the early months of the Revolution, was also of course a figure of national importance, which makes this quite possible. It is likely that he was kidnapped some time around November 1st, kept in or near Djakarta and eventually conveyed to Tanggerang, a few miles west of Djakarta. It was certainly on the seashore near Tanggerang that he was killed, prob- ably lynched, on December 20th. (53) (51) Soeara Merdeka 24 Oct. See also Merdeka 25 Oct. (52) On badan perdjuangan (irregular pemuda organizations) and their ethnic composition see the second part of this chapter. It was this group which made plans for kidnapping the BKR leaders as well. (53) Pedoman (Djakarta daily) 27 Jul 1959, reporting the trial of one Mudjitaba bin Murkan for Oto's kidnapping and murder, gives some of the details of this. Mudjitaba was charged with kidnapping Oto on Dec- ember 15th, which is highly unlikely in view of the fact that the last press72 The direct effect of these kidnappings was not very great. Inso- far as they were done for retribution--the case of Puradiredja who was kidnapped after he left office is suggestive here--the act was reward in itself. Insofar as they were motivated by anti-diplomasi feeling in general they were hardly very successful for this was just the period of the closest cooperation with the British. There was a certain shift in the ethnic com- position of the local leadership away from Sundanese in the direction of Javanese at this time, but most of the individual cases on which evidence is available can be accounted for satisfactorily on other grounds. Per- haps the most important consequences of these events was to resuscitate ethnic sentiment, particularly among Sundanese, after its partial sub- mergence in the early months of the Revolution. The role of ethnic feelings in bringing about Sundanese support for the Dutch-managed fed- eral state of Pasundan in 1947 and after--the Dutch made heavy use of anti-Javanese slogans in their propaganda at the time--has generally been exaggerated but it certainly played some part. Dramatic as they were, these kidnappings were only part of a gen- eral sifting process going on within the local leadership at this time. Puradiredja, who was 65 at the time, resigned before he was kidnapped and he did so because he was unable to maintain his authority as resident. His public announcement on October 12th in which he said that he could no longer be responsible for the maintenance of public order testified to his powerlessness; these words referred in the first instance to his rela- tions with the Japanese and RAPWI, but they applied equally well to his position inside Indonesian society itself. The same was true of the mayor of Bandung, R. Ating Atmadinata, who fell "ill" around the middle of October and withdrew from his position. (54) Formally speaking he was not replaced until January 30th, (55) but in practice the work of mayor was performed from around November 1st by Sjamsuridjal, the chair- man of the city KNI. On November 23rd Sjamsuridjal was officially ap- pointed vice-mayor--to replace the kidnapped Ukar, though this was not mentioned in the announcement (56)--but in effect this only confirmed his position as the highest ranking active pamong pradja official in the city administration. The men who replaced Puradiredja and Atmadinata were younger and more adaptable. Ardiwinangun, the new resident, had been regent references to Oto date from October. This charge, if well-founded, must refer to a second kidnapping occurring while Oto was in detention after the earlier kidnapping. The fact that Tanggerang was in a state of open anarchy at the time lends credence to this view. (54) Atmadinata, 52 at the time, was the older brother of Oto Iskandardinata and like him a leading figure in the Pagoejoeban Pasoen- dan. In 1942, as the senior Indonesian member of the Bandung City Council, he was chosen to replace the Dutch mayor when he was re- moved to internment camp. (55) Merdeka 31 Jan. His replacement was Sjamsuridjal. (56) Soeara Merdeka 23 Nov.73 of Tjiamis at the end of the Japanese occupation and soon after was doubling as vice-resident. Aged 45 and coming from the lower Sundanese prijaji rather than the upper prijaji (menak) he was a typical resident of the Revolu tion period, not so much a feudal lord as an expert administrator and poli- tician. It is significant in this latter respect that after the Revolution he retired from the pamong pradja and entered politics, becoming one of the leading figures in the Masjumi in West Java. Sjamsuridjal, a Javanese, was a similar type, though his career moved in exactly the opposite direc- tion, from pre-war politics as a lawyer through judgeship under the Japa- nese and the chairmanship of the city KNI into the pamong pradja as vice- mayor and then mayor and thence on to a post-Revolution career as a high official in the Ministry of the Interior. Not having military forces at their disposal such men were not always able to control the pemudas with whom they had to deal but they had the skills and the disposition to operate effectively in this new milieu. So far we have considered only local factors and individuals. But the situation in Bandung in mid-October can be brought into a much broader context. The old leadership had close ties with the national leadership; the policy it had been following up to October 10th was only a local application of the general policy of diplomasi; and the fiasco on that date was only a rather more dramatic illustration of the dangers inherent in that policy. With revolutionary forces rising rapidly from late Septem- ber the old Republican leadership at all levels was under severe pressure from below. It is no coincidence that the events we have been dealing with occurred at the same time as the first steps in the rise of Sjahrir and the Socialists (57) to power in Djakarta, as well as the beginning of the more general "social revolution" in the rural areas of the north coast and else- where. The rise of the Socialists as. an event of decisive importance in pol- itical history at the national level falls outside the scope of this work and only the bare bones of the story can be given here. (58) On the one hand it involved a number of fundamental constitutional changes. On October 16th, as a result of pressure from within its membership, the previously largely symbolic KNIP (central national committee) was proclaimed as the legislature of the Republic and its practical significance enhanced by the appointment of a small Working Committee (Badan Pekerdja) to remain in permanent session. On November 14th the first Sjahrir cabinet took office, responsible now to the KNIP rather than to the President. (59) (57) I am using the term "Socialists" here to refer not only to men who, like Sjahrir, were members of the soon to be established Socialist Party (Partai Sosialis) but also more broadly to the whole block of parties, communist as well as socialist, covered by the contemporary term Sajap Kiri (Left Wing). (58) See Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution 147-70 passim, and A.G. Pringgodigdo, Perubahan 26-42i (59) Koesnodiprodjo, Himpunan 1945 58-9 (October 16th changes) and 139 (on the cabinet). On the cabinet see also A.G. Pringgodigdo, Perubahan 38ff.74 On the other hand these events marked the coming to power, first in the Working Committee and then in the cabinet, of a new group of younger politicians who because of age or political conviction had not held important positions during the Japanese period. The leaders of this move ment, Sjahrir and Amir Sjarifuddin, and many of its important figures, were pre-war nationalist politicians but as a group they were as close in some ways to the intellectual pemuda type as to the somewhat older poli- ticians whom they were pushing aside. (60) It was just these qualities, in fact, which enabled them to rise to the top in this time of revolutionary turmoil. It may seem paradoxical that, having these pemuda affinities and rising at the expense of men whose political position had been weak- ened as much as anything by their practice of diplomasi, the Socialist leaders should proceed to practice diplomasi themselves when in power. The fact that they were after all politicians and not gun-carrying militants is one reason, but what is most important here is simply that they now had a vested interest in the institutions of the central government to pro- tect. In Indonesia throughout the Revolution diplomasi tended to go with the job rather than the man. These developments had their effect on Bandung. In the last days of October all three of the KNI's located in Bandung held meetings and chose new executive bodies, now called Working Committees. The re- gency KNI was always the least significant of the three and it is unlikely that important political forces were involved in the formation of its Working Committee. (61) The Working Committee of the city KNI con- tinued with the same chairman, Sjamsuridjal, and the same secretariat head, Djerman Prawirawinata, a pemuda active in the youth section of Pagoejoeban Pasoendan before the war and in the Masjumi at this time and later. What is particularly interesting, however, is the appearance of two pemudas who were active in badan perdjuangan which were forming at this time, Sutoko and Wasito, who had almost certainly not been mem- bers of the city KNI before, let alone its executive committee. (62) The most substantial changes occurred in the case of the executive committee of the residency KNI two of whose four original members, the chairman Niti and the vice-chairman Ukar, had just been kidnapped. On the 29th the KNI met and established a committee of three men to choose a new Working Committee, just as Sjahrir and Amir Sjarifuddin had picked the fifteen members of the KNIP Working Committee. The parallel is even more exact because these men—Hamdani, a member of the (60) A good example is the desire, already mentioned, of Sjahrir and his group for a ’’strong" proclamation of independence. A number of the men involved in this rising movement, indeed, are normally classi- fied as pemudas (e. g. Adam Malik, Supeno, Sukarni). (61) See Soeara Merdeka 2 Nov for the earliest mention of the new regency Working Committee and some details. (62) Soeara Merdeka 30 and 31 Oct. No complete lists of the earlier executive committee or of the city KNI as a whole are available. For later reports on this new Working Committee see Soeara Merdeka 14 and 22 Nov.75 existing executive and the only one of the three currently a member of the KNI, Mr. Usman Sastroamidjojo and Dr. Supardan Mangunkusumo--were all members of the Bandung branch of Parsi (Partai Sosialis Indonesia) ■which was in the process of forming at the time. (63) The fifteen member Working Committee they chose that day or the next had Hamdani as chair- man, Usman as vice-chairman and a heavy concentration of Parsi members or sympathizers. (64) This event is chiefly interesting for the glimpse it gives of the very early and effective drive by Parsi to expand its power outside Djakarta where its leaders virtually monopolized the KNIP Working Committee. It must be kept in mind that it was only on October 30th that the KNIP Working Committee proposed to the government that the forming of poli- tical parties be permitted. (65) The first step in forming Parsi had already been taken in Jogjakarta on October 26th (66) and it was about the time of the residency KNI meeting that the Bandung branch was formed, though the first reference to it in Soeara Merdeka occurs on November 16th. Parsi thus got a head start on other parties locally, as it did nationally as well, and it exploited its advantage effectively. The control over the Priangan KNI gained by Parsi looks more im- pressive than it actually was. It was undoubtedly useful to the party in supporting its national position in such matters as building up support for the cabinet change in mid-November, and later on in combatting the Persatuan Perdjuangan movement. (67) A good example of this kind of politics, for which there happens to be documentation, concerns the selection of additional members of the KNIP Working Committee to repre- sent the eight provinces of Indonesia. These members were chosen in early December by the KNIP Working Committee from among candidates proposed by local organs, in most cases KNI's. The candidate for West Java proposed by the Priangan KNI, though he was not elected in the end, was Usman Sastroamidjojo. (68) (63) See Soeara Merdeka 29 Oct for the KNI meeting. Parsi was the largest of the socialist parties which on December 17th merged into the Partai Sosialis, the party of Sjahrir and Amir and the dominant ele- ment in the Left Wing block. Sutter, Indonesianisasi 11/322, 324-5. (64) Soeara Merdeka 30 Oct. The report says fifteen were cho- sen but lists only twelve names; of these only three were old members of the KNI. Later the residency Working Committee was reduced to five members, still with Hamdani and Usman as chairman and vice-chairman. Soeara Merdeka 7 Nov. (65) Koesnodiprodjo, Himpunan 1945 136-7. A formal government proclamation to this effect was issued on November 3rd. Ibid. 76. (66) Soeara Merdeka 30 Oct. (67) For the Persatuan Perdjuangan, see below pp. 141-5. (68) Koesnodiprodjo, Himpunan 1945 145-6, 154, 156.76 The importance of the residency Working Committee in local af- fairs, however, like that of the Working Committees of the city and re- gency KNI’s, is rather doubtful. We will go into the matter more fully later in connection with political developments in Bandung in early 1946, It is sufficient to note here that whatever importance these new Working Committees and the civilian politicians who sat on them may have had in the early part of November, they were reduced to almost complete impo- tence when fighting broke out at the end of the month. (69) At that time it was the pemudas of the army and the badan perdjuangan who came to the fore. The First Pemuda Organizations By all odds the most important development in the Bandung area during October and November was the appearance of the first signs of or- ganization among the pemudas. The pemuda movement was a spontaneous outpouring of revolutionary energy and could not easily be brought within the bounds of institutional structure. The army units and badan perdjuan- gan which are the subject of this section were often little more than names imposed on an effervescent reality, but they were the first step in a pro- cess of great importance in the history of the Revolution. At the same time the study of their form and character is the best avenue of approach to an understanding of the pemuda movement itself, a phenomenon as re- calcitrant to study now as it was to organization then and yet so close to the heart of the social history of the time. We can begin with the army. In this period the first steps were being taken towards forming a real army, both nationally and in this area. In early October, with the British beginning to land on Java in force and with pemudas taking over Japanese arms everywhere, the Republican government began to see that the BKR (Badan Keamanan Rakjat--People's Security Agency) would no longer be enough. On October 5th the formal establishment of the TKR (Tentara Keamanan Rakjat--People's Security Army) was announced. (70) Its title alone--in which the word "Army," conveying the idea of national defense, clashed openly with the words "People's Security," borrowed from the title of the BKR and conveying the idea of a police function--made clear that it was only a half-measure, a compromise on an issue on which the government was not yet willing or able to make a clear decision. Between the Allied troops, which the Re- publican government had in a sense accepted as the regular army for Indo- nesia, and the pemuda irregulars and crowds, whose perdjuangan threatened its whole policy, there was room for only this kind of army. (69) Asa rough indication, these KNI's are mentioned in at least a dozen news stories in Soeara Merdeka between October 29th and Novem- ber 22nd, and not once in the remainder of the year. The only published report concerning one of them in the latter period is the reference to Usman’s candidacy in early December mentioned above. (70) Koesnodiprodjo, Himpunan 1945 54; Nasution TNI I/84ff. The latter is the main source for the history of the army in the first year of the Revolution.77 The TKR was a half-measure in another way too. For over a month after its formal establishment--in fact not really until Amir Sjarifuddin be- came Minister of People's Security on November 14th--the government paid practically no attention to it. Perhaps the best indication of Djakarta's atti- tude toward its new army is the fact that the Minister of People's Security appointed on October 6th, the day after the establishment of the TKR, was a dead man--a fact almost certainly known to those who appointed him. (71) The ticket, to be sure, was balanced by the appointment of a live man, Urip Sumohardjo, as Chief of the General Staff, but his appointment was not an- nounced until October 20th and he was given little support at first. (72) The result was decisive for the history of the army and of the Rev- olution as a whole. There was no effective leadership from above but the men were there, some weapons were available, the enemy was threatening. During October and November TKR units grew spontaneously all over Java and Sumatra, created mainly by local initiative, seeking funds and weapons wherever they could find them, electing their own officers and recruiting their own soldiers. On November 12th, when Urip called the top TKR com- manders to Jogjakarta for the first time, the meeting passed quickly out of his control and proceeded to elect its own Commander in Chief (Panglima Besar), Sudirman, and even its own Minister of Defense, the Sultan of Jogjakarta. The new cabinet, after something of a struggle, managed to gain acceptance for its own minister, but it was obliged to accept Sudirman and he was officially appointed on December 18th to the post he had won by election a month earlier. (73) The army had created itself and through (71) Suprijadi, the Peta platoon commander who had led the Blitar Peta revolt in February 1945, had disappeared after it was suppressed, most likely secretly executed on the spot by the Japanese. At any rate it is quite certain that no one had seen him for six months. What gained him the posthumous appointment was the fact that after his disappearance a widely believed story sprang up that he had withdrawn into the mountains near Blitar to meditate and practice austerities (bertapa) and, in some versions, to prepare himself for the coming revolution. His name was thus a powerful and attractive symbol of perdjuangan. Suprijadi's own well- known mystical propensities encouraged this belief, but it had its back- ground in one of the familiar themes of Javanese history: the vanquished king who at the moment of defeat rises to heaven. B. Schrieke, Indonesian Sociological Studies (The Hague 1957) II/11. See also Nasution, TNI 1/86, for a discussion of the Suprijadi appointment. (72) Koesnodiprodjo, Himpunan 1945 61. Urip was a retired KNIL (Koninklijk Nederlandsch-Indisch Leger--Royal Netherlands Indies Army) major, probably the best-qualified Indonesian loyal to the Republic. He immediately established his headquarters in Jogjakarta (his home) which did nothing to help communications with the central government in Djakarta. On October 20th, at the same time that his appointment was first revealed, the government demoted Suprijadi to "Supreme Leader" of the TKR and appointed an interim minister, Suljodikusumo, in his place. (73) Nasution, TNI I/156ff, Merdeka 20 Dec.78 the Revolution it was to remain largely outside the control of the civilian leadership, a political force in its own right. The earliest picture which we have of the formal organization of the TKR in the Bandung area, dating from late in October, is as follows. In Tasikmalaja (later in Purwakarta) was the headquarters of the 1st Komandemen (Army), covering the whole of West Java, under the com- mand of Didi Kartasasmita. (74) Under the 1st Komandemen were three divisions, of which the 3rd, covering the area of Priangan Residency (and later parts of Bogor Residency) is what concerns us here. The first com- mander of the 3rd Division was Arudji Kartawinata, previously the head of the Priangan BKR. The headquarters of this division moved around a good deal in the first six months but its main administrative center at least was established first in Tasikmalaja and was fixed there most of the time until July 1947. About the end of October, a forward command post was set up in Bandung and between November 1945 and March 1946 served as the main center of operations. (75) Under the 3rd Division, in the Priangan area, were five regiments. The 8th and 9th both had their headquarters in Bandung at first and they overlapped a good deal in these early months. (76) But their territorial responsibilities were distinct in principle from the beginning and became increasingly so in practice as time went by. The 9th Regiment was a continuation of the BKR of Bandung Regency under the same commander, Gandawidjaja. In November and December its headquarters moved first to Padalarang, the main road and rail junction to the west of Bandung, and later, after British pressure became too strong, to Batudjadjar and then Tjililin in the same area. The 8th Regiment was a continuation of the BKR of Bandung city, and its headquarters remained there throughout this period. Understandably, in view of the events of October 10th, it had a new commander, Omon Abdurachman, a former Peta company com- mander and BKR officer. The other three regiments, the 10th in Garut Regency, the 11th in Tasikmalaja Regency and the 13th in Sumedang Regency, were phantom organizations. Parts of the first two of these reappeared later in differ- ent forms but the third soon melted away completely. Nasution reports (74) Nasution, TNI 1/109-10, 139-40. Didi, who was appointed by Urip, was like him a former KNIL officer. The three Komandemens on Java corresponded to the three provinces of West, Central and Bast Java. The Central and East Java Komandemens never really existed and the West Java one, though it lasted into 1946, was of little practical significance after November. (75) Nasution TNI 1/109; Sudewo, "Riwajat Singkat Divisi Siliwangi,” in Harapan, vol. V, bios. 39-41, 20 May 1956, 12, 13. Harapan is the magazine of the Siliwangi Division and this was a special issue commem- orating the tenth anniversary of the founding of the division. (76) The numbering of the regiments was continuous for the whole of West Java and was established in the early days of the Komande- men.79 an early infection by chief of staff Urip Sumohardjo at which it appeared in formation without a single gun and only partly armed with bamboo spears. (77) The insignificance of these units shows that if local conditions were not suitable--if leadership and weapons were lacking, as in the case of Sume- dang, or moving into unofficial organizations, as in the case of Garut and Tasikmalaja--no amount of planning by higher echelons could create viable army units. (78) The successful units were created by local initiative where condi- tions were favorable. The nature of their relations with the higher eche- lons of the formal system is suggested by the following account by a man who was active in the headquarters of the 1st Komandemen in its early days: *He told me that the Komandemen had been given a large sum of money by Urip to begin with. At first the main activity was contact work. The word was spread that the Komandemen was seeking contact with former BKR units. Soon BKR leaders began to appear in Tasikmalaja and the money began to flow. It was all very informal and there was a good deal of bargaining. There was no question of proper organization at this stage, just making contact. Even comparatively successful regiments like the 8th and 9th were essentially administrative devices. It is not until one goes down to the next level, to the battalions, that one comes upon units which developed a true organic unity, and often had a pronounced character of their own. It is indicative that while regiments were normally referred to by their numbers, battalions (and companies) were more often than not referred to by their commanders' names, and that, though the composition of regi- ments (and later brigades) was revised frequently during the Revolution, the battalions showed a strong tendency to remain intact. Regiments usually had about four battalions but the number varied considerably from time to time and from case to case, as did the size and strength of these battalions, which ranged up to a maximum of perhaps 1000 men but probably averaged not far from the Peta norm of about 500, Two of the largest and most important battalions in the area, those com- manded by Achmad Wiranatakusuma and Sumarsono (later by Djuhro), were "student" battalions, with a comparatively high proportion of high school and junior high school students among their officers and noncoms. (77) TNI 1/140. (78) The material in this and the previous paragraph is drawn partly from interviews and partly from Nasution, TNI 1/109-10, 139-40 and 205- 6 and Sudewo, Riwajat Siliwangi 12-13. There is very little published mat- erial on army units below the regimental level, however, and where it exists (as in Sudewo *s work) it is not always accurate. The remaining pages on the army in this period, therefore, are based primarily on mat- erial obtained from some forty interviews concerned wholly or largely with army history.80 Many of these men came to these units by way of one of the badan perdju- angan, as we shall see, but it is clear that they had something of this character from the beginning. The Achmad battalion, originally part of the 9th Regiment, was formed and did its training up in the hills of the Tjiwidej area to the southwest of Bandung, divided out among the various plantations there. Later, when the fighting began in Bandung, it came down and established its headquarters first in Soreang and later in the southeast part of the city itself, and at this time it was transferred to the 8th Regiment. Part of the Sumarsono battalion was also formed originally in the country but it was certainly concentrated in the city at a much ear- lier date and was always part of the 8th Regiment. It is important to note that these units, though usually thought of as "student" battalions, had only a minority of students in them. The en- listed men, in these as in practically all army units, consisted of former Peta and Heiho enlisted men, members of various Japanese organizations such as Seinendan and Keibodan as well as ordinary peasants and town- dwellers. (79) Among their officers and noncoms, along with the students, were also many former Peta officers. Enough has been said to indicate that the main line of development, particularly as regards the officer group, was from Peta to BKR to TKR. These units, though unusual, did not fall entirely outside this pattern. In their mixture of students and Petas they illustrate in their way one of the most clearcut characteristics of the officer group in West Java, particularly in units originating in the Bandung and Djakarta regions. In Central and East Java, where dis- arming of the Japanese was earlier and far more extensive, the transition from Peta to TKR was more direct and the army was officered mainly, and in many units completely, by former Petas. In those areas comparatively few students went into the TKR; instead they organized their own indepen- dent Student Armies, which became two of the largest and most important badan perdjuangan there. (80) In West Java, however, the Japanese were more successful in breaking up Peta units when they disarmed them in mid-August and the pemudas were less successful in recapturing arms in early October when Peta units might still have been reconstituted. The transition from Peta to TKR, therefore, was much less direct and in this more open situation a sizable number of students and former KNIL (Dutch Indies Army) officers joined the TKR along with former Peta offi- cers. A Student Army was organized in West Java but it was never very large. Moreover, it was not an independent badan perdjuangan like the Student Armies in Central and East Java but an affiliate of the regular army. Up to July 1947 its main function--one performed also by the Cen- tral and East Java Student Armies but playing a much less important part in their activities--was to organize the flow of students back and forth be- tween the regular army and part-time schools where they continued their (79) For Heiho, Seinendan and Keibodan see above pp. 13-14. (80) The Central Java one was called the Tentara Peladjar (Stu- dent Army) while the East Java one was called Tentara Republik Indonesia Peladjar (Student Army of the Indonesian Republic). The less important West Java student army mentioned below was also called Tentara Fbladjar.81 education during the long lulls which characterized the military situation in most of 1946 and the first half of 1947. The consequences of this were felt throughout the army in West Java but particularly at the highest and lowest levels. At the highest level, as we shall see, there appeared a number of KNIL officers and cadets, something which was virtually impossible in the "Peta" army elsewhere on Java. At the lowest level it was common in West Java to find educated men serving as army platoon and squad leaders, while very few appeared among the enlisted men. In Central and East Java, on the other hand, army platoon and squad leaders were typically Peta squad leaders (bundantjos) and therefore only rarely educated men, while in the Student Armies almost all men were educated. Battalions also varied, and much more so, in the strength of their armament and in how "rich" they were. It must be remembered that army units and other organizations, particularly in the early days of the Rev- olution, had to take care of themselves in almost all respects. Some money, as we have seen, came down through the TKR hierarchy and more was obtained through local KNI’s and other official organizations. Food was partly bought and partly contributed directly by peasants. But other supplies--clothing and boots, vehicles and communications equipment, and above all weapons--had to be searched out, seized or bartered for by individual units. (81) The shortage of weapons was particularly seri- ous in Priangan, and West Java generally. The early arrival of the Allied forces in Djakarta and the debacle in Bandung on October 10th had their effect on the areas dependent on these two major political centers for leadership: nowhere in West Java were the Japanese disarmed on such a large scale as they were in many parts of Central and East Java. Weapons were obtained from smaller-scale actions against the Japanese, from small Japanese supply dumps spread out widely in the hilly interior in preparation for guerrilla war, from barter and other dealings with Japanese and later Allied troops, from barter with and gifts from rela- tively arms-rich areas in Central and East Java, (82) and from other mis- cellaneous sources, but throughout the Revolution West Java as a whole (81) The battalion, as the largest unit with any real organic unity in the West Java TKR at this time, was the largest unit within which wea- pons and other supplies were shared freely to any marked extent. While companies and smaller units within battalions often differed considerably at first in the completeness of their equipment these differences tended to be reduced in time. On the other hand the marked differences between battalions in this respect, even those in the same regiment, persisted in many cases until the extensive reorganization of the West Java army forces in early 1948. (82) One important factor in the rapid rise of Sudirman from pro- vincial obscurity to election as commander in chief in mid-November was the fact that as commander in Banjumas Residency, where a clean sweep of Japanese weapons had been made, he presided over the distribution of surplus weapons to army leaders from arms-poor areas. Nasution, TNI 1/140 mentions his role in this respect.82 remained an arms-poor area. While there were a considerable number of battalions and even a few higher units in Central and East Java which had a gun for each man, it is doubtful if any unit in West Java as large as a battalion even approached this ratio until well on in 1946. (83) Accur- ate statistics, of course, are out of the question but Nasution, an unusu- ally well-placed observer who has made a careful and detailed study of the question, estimates that as of about October 1945 there were enough weapons available in Central Java to arm four regiments, enough in East Java for more than a division, but in West Java only enough for one regi- ment--though fifteen had been formed, on paper at least. (84) The re- sult was that the search for weapons played an inordinately large part in the activities of military units in West Java and the Indonesians were ser- iously hampered in their operations against the Allies in this area. We shall see later that the shortage of weapons also had a powerful effect on the internal organization of the army in West Java, as well as on the rela- tions between the army and the badan perdjuangan. The considerable differences which prevailed among battalions in regard to their stocks of weapons and other supplies are well illustrated by the case of the 9th Regiment, in Bandung Regency. Several of its battalions, particularly one in the Radjamandala area in the hills on the western edge of the regency--an area moreover with few plantations-- were notably "poor." On the other hand the Sukanda battalion, which somewhat later came to have a more or less independent status as the "North Bandung Front," was among the richest and best-armed in the whole of Priangan. It owed its good fortune chiefly to its location in the Lembang area in the foothills directly to the north of Bandung, a center of truck-gardening and dairy farming. With these resources (the dairy farms, as Japanese-operated enterprises, were of course taken over completely) it could not only supply itself and trade with Bandung but in particular could barter with a large Japanese naval unit which for some obscure reason was stationed a few miles further north, just on the other side of the mountains. This unit, cut off from its normal sources of supply, was disposed to offer guns for butter, and a lively trade persisted until it was finally evacuated by the Allied forces in early 1946. Finally, three rather more general characteristics of the early TKR in the Bandung area should be noted, the first two of which it shared with the army throughout Java and Sumatra, the third a feature largely confined to West Java. In the first place, it was a pemuda organization, not only as regards the age of its members--only a handful of army men, even the highest officers, were over 30 in 1945--but also as regards their (83) A few company-size and smaller units, of course, reached this level considerably earlier. (84) TNI 1/77-8, 140. Nasution nowhere specifies whether he is talking about all arms available or just those available to the regular army itself, and in this respect as well as others largely ignores the badan perdjuangan, the irregular fighting organizations outside the army. Inter- view material, however, makes it clear that the West Java badan perdju- angan were as arms-poor compared to their fellows in Central and East Java as the West Java army units were.83 views on the diplomasi-perdjuangan dispute. We will see in the next chap- ter that the position taken by the army leadership on this issue tended to shift as the organization of the army improved and its political importance increased, but it retained its essentially pemuda character throughout the Revolution. This fact is crucial for a clear understanding of its role in the domestic history of the period. In the second place, it was a territorial organization, not in the sense that the BKR had been, with a hierarchy of branches attached to the civilian administrative system, but because its constituent units had formed spontaneously and locally, in every part of Java and much of Sumatra. The army thus was broadly based but lacked an effective cen- tral organization. Individual army units soon came to play a dominant role in the affairs of the localities from which they had sprung or in which they were based but for just this reason were only loosely controlled by the national army leadership. In this respect the army structure was just the opposite of the civilian structure, which was relatively well-organized at the center but had great difficulty in exercising effective control at the local level. This, too, is of great importance for an understanding of the domestic history of the Revolution. Finally, it should be said that the early TKR in the Bandung area had a noticeably Sundanese character, not only as regards its enlisted men--this was natural enough and in any case politically insignificant-- but also as regards its officers. For Priangan as a whole this would not be particularly noteworthy, but we have seen that the two most important early regiments were formed in and around Bandung, where the officer material, the educated class, included a large proportion of non- Sundanese, concentrated in the schools and government offices there. The origin of this ethnic imbalance can be traced back to the composition of the officer class in the Peta battalions (daidans) which had if anything an even higher percentage of Sundanese. The reasons for this bias in Peta recruitment are not clear, (85) but from then on the sequence is easy to follow. The BKR, in the Bandung area as elsewhere, was led mainly by ex-Petas and the TKR in turn was drawn largely from the BKR, so that it is not hard to understand why the strongly Sundanese character of the Peta officer group should be largely reproduced in the early TKR. It is true that the last change, from BKR to TKR, was more open than the two earlier ones and that a larger number of non-Sundanese en- tered at this point. But by this time the broad pattern had been estab- lished. Non-Sundanese pemudas, as they took up the revolutionary cause, did so mainly through the badan perdjuangan and there developed in Ban- dung in the first half-year of the Revolution a marked contrast in the ethnic character of the two types of pemuda organizations. It was at no time an outright confrontation--for all pemudas in this period perdjuangan vs. diplomasi was the overriding issue--and it faded away in the following (85) I have found little information on how Peta officers were cho- sen and by whom. Several informants, however, maintain that the main channel was through the pamong pradja and if this was so the imbalance is easily accounted for, for virtually all pamong pradja in the Bandung area were Sundanese of course.84 years as the army gradually absorbed the other organizations. But it was there and must be kept in mind in following the history of the period. In the case of the TKR, as of the Indonesian state itself,, we are watching an effort to create an Indonesian institution on an international model, and the problem is to remember that the familiar pattern we see-- "divisi" and "kompi," "djenderal" and "kopral"--was laid down on what was at first a very heterogeneous reality. In the case of the other main class of revolutionary pemuda organizations, the badan perdjuangan, we are dealing with something without any familiar precedent, a spontaneous product of revolutionary conditions, and the problem, to begin with, is to define it. (86) In contemporary Indonesian usage the term badan perdjuangan (literally "struggle body" or "struggle organization") was used in both narrow and broad senses. In the narrow sense it referred to a class of large pemuda organizations with a fairly detailed formal structure, of which API (Angkatan Pemuda Indonesia--Younger Generation of Indonesia) with its headquarters at Menteng 3l in Djakarta was one of the earliest, largest and best-publicized. It was characteristic of these organizations that they were not purely fighting bodies, (87) but engaged in a wide var- iety of activities, not only feeding and supplying themselves, but also doing social work, spreading information (puppet shows (wajang), speeches, newspapers, magazines, radio), participating in politics, and even per- forming quasi-governmental functions at various times and places. In the broad sense, which will be used in this work, the term was often applied to all revolutionary pemuda groups concrete enough to have names, beginning with the larger organizations but including a multitude of smaller groups of the same general type and others of more restricted purpose and membership. At the outer fringes, of course, definition be- comes difficult; there are numerous marginal examples of political par- ties, bandit gangs, student organizations and some village and kampung groups without names or formal structure which might also be considered badan perdjuangan in the broader sense. Nevertheless, though the term thus broadly used covers a wide variety of organizations, they had in common that they were private rather than official, that they were run wholly or mainly by pemudas and that they were more or less directly occupied with the business of perdjuangan. Such organizations could exist only in revolutionary conditions and it is significant that very few of them in Bandung and elsewhere were (86) There is very little published material on the badan perdjuan- gan in Java and Sumatra as a whole, let alone locally in the Bandung area, and much of what there is is both biased and inaccurate on points of detail. What follows, therefore, is drawn almost entirely from interviews: some fifty of my own and some twenty-five of my assistant's. (87) Two related terms, laskjar (irregular troops) and pasukan (armed body) refer more specifically to military bodies, though there are examples of both being used for organizations which were certainly badan perdjuangan, in the broader sense at least.85 formed in August and September 1945. (88) But beginning in October they flowered in astonishing profusion and the period of their most intense acti- vity, from that time until about half way through 1946, was also the peak of the revolutionary crisis in Indonesian society. The growth of the badan perdjuangan in Bandung followed a distinct pattern strongly influenced by the shifts in the general atmosphere. A few developed in the brief period of revolutionary enthusiasm before the debacle of October 10th and many more must have been on the point of crystallizing. In the relative calm prevailing in the weeks immediately after that event, the threshold was raised and activity was concentrated on a few larger organizations appealing chiefly to intellectual pemudas, foreshadowing the general movement as API had done in Djakarta in the earlier phase. It was only later, as the revolutionary mood reasserted itself and mounted toward the explosion of late November, that the politi- cal climate became favorable again for the others. The earliest named badan perdjuangan in Bandung were the Angka- tan Muda's (Younger Generation) of the various government offices, which got their head start from the earlier existence in most of these offices of the "pemuda sections" already mentioned. Exact dates cannot be assigned for these transformations, though the earliest took place shortly before October 10th. Indeed in most cases it was probably not so much a dateable event as a process by which a descriptive term in lower case --angkatan muda PTT (younger generation of the Post, Tele- graph and Telephone service), for example--took on capital letters and became a proper name, AMPTT. It was not a time for tight organization in any case. The members of these groups, along with many of the students, fell into the habit of col- lecting at the Toko Tjijoda (Chioda Store), one of the large department stores on the main street just to the west of the main square (alun-alun). There they made plans and set forth to take over properties still in Japa- nese hands, to steal cars and to carry information into the kampungs and the villages around the city. It was out of the sense of comradeship developed among the crowds of educated pemudas whose activities in those early days centered on Toko Tjijoda that there grew the most important of the Bandung badan perdjuangan, the PRI (Pemuda Republic Indonesia). (89) The decision to establish the PRI was reached at a small gathering in a south Bandung kampung in the afternoon and evening of October 10th, as the Japanese troops were clearing out the BKR and beginning to range (88) API in Djakarta, formed in late August, gained its head start from the fact that its leaders, mostly intellectual pemudas, were already almost fully mobilized by the time of the proclamation of independence. The fact that they had at least a month's lead on pemudas elsewhere helps to account for the fact that they consistently lost in their disputes with the older nationalist politicians in this early period. They lacked broad backing. (89) The original and largest PRI was formed in Surabaja and in a sense the Bandung PRI was one of its branches. But the institutional con- nections were even more than usually casual in this case.86 through the city. Many of the half-dozen men present, like the leading figure among them, Sutoko, were associated with one or another of the Angkatan Muda's and the founding of PRI represented in one sense a deci- sion to bring these Angkatan Muda’s together into a tighter and more com- prehensive organization to suit the more difficult days ahead. These men remained at the head of PRI and its successor organization, and for office pemudas the sequence Seinendan-pemuda section--Angkatan Muda--PRI was as typical as the sequence Peta--BKR--TKR was for the army offi- cer groups. (90) But at the same time PRI was par excellence the badan perdjuangan for students, the other large element of educated pemudas in the city, who had also gathered at the Toko Tjijoda earlier. In the early days after the Japanese sweep the PRI abandoned the department store as too public and operated for a time more or less under ground in south Bandung. On October 26th, however, a brief notice ap- peared in Soeara Merdeka, "In Bandung city there has been established "Pemuda Republic Indonesia," the headquarters of which is at the Toko Tjijoda. ..." The date, a little over a week after the arrival of the British 37th Brigade, is significant. The coming of the British had con- siderably improved the atmosphere from the pemuda point of view. For one thing the British were not feared, as the Japanese were after the ex- perience of the occupation. For another the British policy of recognizing and working with the local Republican authorities had the effect, certainly not intended, of heartening all classes of Indonesians and encouraging a revival of militant activity in the name of the Republic. Admiral Helfrich, reflecting conservative Dutch opinion, expresses the difference between the Japanese and British roles in Bandung in a succinct passage. Within 24 hours [from October 10th] peace and order were restored; all red and white flags and emblems disappeared. They did this in the Japanese way. When the . . . British took over control after about two weeks, the red and white quickly reappeared and it became un- settled again. (91) From this time, with its better organization and better educated membership, as well as its early start, the PRI grew rapidly into the strongest of the badan perdjuangan in Bandung. The name PRI, however, was soon changed. At the national Pemuda Congress in Jogjakarta on November 10th seven large associations with a mainly educated pemuda membership, including PRI, API, AMPTTandAMKA (Angkatan Muda Kereta A pi--Younger Generation of the Railways Department) merged to form Pesindo (Pemuda Sosialis Indonesia) and shortly after that PRI (90) In the case of the civil servant pemudas, however, it must be kept in mind that many continued their professional work, sometimes after a brief period of activity in PRI. The various Angkatan Muda's, for the same reason, were unusual among badan perdjuangan in having relatively large numbers of members involved only part-time or not at all in specifically perdjuangan work. (91) Memoires 11/256.87 Bandung changed its name to Pesindo. (92) Whatever it may have meant in other areas and at the national level the merger made little practical differ- ence in Bandung. The local API branch, as we shall see, refused to sink itself in Pesindo while AMPTT and AMKA were already very largely ab- sorbed in PRI. Politically, too, Pesindo in Bandung and Priangan, as in several other parts of West Java, was hardly touched by the steady drift of the main body toward the Communists, culminating in its important role in the Madiun revolt in 1948. (93) Three other large badan perdjuangan of national scope had branches- that is, organizations of the same name and some ties with outside areas-- in Bandung. These were API, Barisan Banteng (Wild Buffalo Corps), and BPRI (Barisan Pemberontakan Republik Indonesia--Revolutionary Corps of the Indonesian Republic). (94) All three were large by Bandung standards and differed from PRI in that their membership included comparatively few educated men. API, though representing an extreme case in a num- ber of respects, may be taken as roughly comparable with the other two and a brief examination of its story will broaden the picture a bit. The prevailing picture of API is so completely dominated by the glamor of the group of prominent intellectual pemudas who established its Djakarta headquarters in August that it is easy to overlook the fact that the larger network of API associations which developed in the following months, particularly in West Java, was in fact rather variegated. This was true of all the larger organizations of the period, KNI’s and TKR as well as other badan perdjuangan; many of these can be broadly typed but the conditions of the time made a stricter uniformity and organizational discipline impos- sible. Thus one finds that though API in Djakarta, after a brief initial period, was largely dominated by followers of the national Communist Tan Malaka, API in Tjirebon was for a much longer time a coalition between such types and their Socialist-Pesindo opposite numbers, while API in Garut appears to have been controlled throughout by the latter, who thus made the transition to Pesindo in November without any difficulty. API in Bandung represents yet another variation. We have seen that in Bandung the educated pemudas, who in Djakarta (at first) and in Tjirebon and Garut almost all joined API, went en masse into PRI. There (92) Hardjito, Risalah Gerakan Pemuda (Djakarta 1952) 34. In March 1946, however, AMKA and AMPTT withdrew from Pesindo. Ibid. 46. (93) See Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution 162-3 (the beginnings of Pesindo) and 287-91 (Pesindo in the Madiun Affair). (94) The banteng (wild buffalo) was the symbol of the pre-war PNI (Nationalist PartyK Barisan Banteng was a continuation of the Barisan Pelopor (Pioneer Brigade) which had been established in the Japanese per- iod as a quasi-military auxiliary of the Djawa Hokokai (Benda, Crescent and Rising Sun 178-9, Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution 163). BPRI had as its main organizing principle the charismatic appeal of Sutomo ("Bung Tomo") the best known of the pemuda leaders in the heavy fighting against the British in Surabaja in late October and early November.88 is little evidence available on the establishment of API in Bandung but it is clear enough that from the beginning its leadership, not to speak of its ordinary membership, included only a few genuine intellectual pemudas. One of these was the Wasito whom we have seen appearing as a member of the Working Committee of the city KNI, who was a student at the Techni- cal College at the time the Revolution began. Another was Astrawinata, a young law student then working in the Bandung Public Prosecutor’s Office, whose politics at the time were quite close to those of the Djakarta API group. Not much is known about the other leaders but it is significant that a number of them were djagos. Djago literally means ’’fighting cock" and this expressive term conveys the essence of the type: he is boastful and pugnacious and carries a knife. The urban djago, particularly common in Djakarta, is a strong- arm man of a type familiar in the West and is not especially interesting. But cities are a comparatively recent phenomenon in Indonesia and the urban djago is historically a variation of a much more ancient rural type. (95) In many parts of Java such brigands were a permanent part of the rural scene; they were particularly well-rooted along the northern coast of West Java from Bantam to Indramaju. (96) These areas, it is important to note, were (and are) marked by a comparatively low level of social integration: north Bantam a place where Sundanese- and Javanese- speaking people overlapped, the area around Djakarta for centuries one of extreme ethnic mixture, the whole area from east Bantam to Indramaju occupied by many large quasi-feudal "Private Lands." The fact that the Revolution as a whole, and particularly the months we are concerned with here, was a period of low social integration helps to explain both the in- creased importance of djagos in these areas and the influence of a djago pattern of behavior on pemudas everywhere on Java at the time. The djago, it must be understood, is no more a simple rural crim- inal than the classical European bandit. The djago band is an accepted, though deviant, social institution; it has its justificatory myths and a col- lective mystique and is headed by a leader marked by strong charisma, though it is only parochial in scope. (97) The individual djago character- istically carried an amulet (djimat) which usually confers invulnerability on him. He is often an adept at pentjak, a form of body control which, like related forms in the same East Asian family, such as jiu-jitsu in Japan and "boxing" in China, involves a great deal more than simple exer- cise or physical prowess. Asa leader at least, he is not uncommonly a hadji (one who has made the pilgrimage to Mecca), for Islam on Java has on one side gone a long way in accommodating itself to previously existing (95) P. M. van Wulfften Palthe, Over het Bendewezen op Java (Amsterdam 1949) 3. (96) In this area they are generally known as djawaras, a variant of djuara, a term which in newspaper Indonesian today means simply "champion." (97) Palthe, Over het Bendewezen and D. H. Meijer in a long re- view article of it in Indonesie 3/2 (1949) 178-89 are the most useful guides.89 religious and mystical beliefs and practices. In this amalgam there was much which appealed to the pemudas in the early days of the Revolution and a great deal of it passed over into general practice. API in Bandung, of course, was not a djago band of the classical rural type. A number of its leaders, particularly those controlling its main center of operations on Djalan Lengkong Besar, in the southeast part of the city, were authentic djagos, one or two in fact originating from the Krawang area, a traditional djago center. A smaller group, operating up in the Lembang area to the north of the city, was headed by a djago hadji named Tojib. (98) But Bandung itself was and is not much of a djago town and while API in Bandung had some djago members in its ranks and many djago elements in its makeup it was, as an organization, formed on a new revolutionary model rather than the traditional one. Though API played its part in the struggle against the British and Dutch its main group in particular took very good care of its own interests. This group, with its base on Djalan Lengkong Besar, was from quite early on one of the most heavily armed in the city and it used this strength to gain control of a wealth of goods. Stories of jewels and such are common, but hard to evaluate, but there is reliable testimony that it captured and held on to very considerable stocks of rice in warehouses and mills to the south of the city. (99) It also committed rather more than its share of atrocities in the anarchic days in late November and December. It must be pointed out as regards its accumulation of goods that all organizations without exception foraged in those days. It was necessary, as has been pointed out, even for regular army units; it was legitimate, in a revolutionary sense, at least as far as Japanese and Dutch properties-- the main targets--were concerned; it was an inevitable consequence of revolutionary conditions. The interesting question is the extent to which this foraging was a means to the revolutionary end and the extent to which it became an end in itself. Like the question of cooperation with the Dutch, which had been so bitterly disputed in the 1930’s and was to flare up again in the latter part of the Revolution, it can seldom be answered unequivocally. But API in Bandung was one of the organizations about which one can say that the means came closest to becoming an end in themselves and this, for the purposes of this work, may be characterized as a reflection of the relative strength of the djago element in its makeup. Alongside these three larger badan perdjuangan appealing mainly to the less-educated there sprang up innumerable smaller ones of the same general character, all with more or less of the djago element in their (98) This group was associated with BPRI before joining API. The larger badan perdjuangan appealing mainly to the less-educated, such as the three we are concerned with here, tended to be loose associations of smaller groups following particular leaders. (99) Informants on this point include a man active in the rice trade at the time and a man stationed as a guard at one of the warehouses seized by API.90 makeup. Barisan Merah Putih (Red and White [Flag] Corps), Barisan Marhaen (Proletarian Corps), Barisan Tangan Merah (Red Hand Corps), Barisan Be rani Mati (Death-Defying Corps)--to give a few names from the dozens of such purely local groups which rose in these turbulent months, in many ways more typical of the times than the larger organiza- tions. Such groups differed from the latter chiefly in that, not having a name of national significance to conjure with, they relied more heavily on the charisma of individual leaders to hold them together as organiza- tions, a factor which naturally tended to limit their size. A rather different type of badan perdjuangan was those formed by members of minority ethnic groups from outside Java who were found in all the large cities of Java. In Bandung there were two of these: a rather small branch of KRIS (Kebaktian Rakjat Indonesia Sulawesi-- Loyalty of the Indonesian People of the Celebes) composed of Menado- nese (100) and a considerably larger Ambonese organization, PIM (Pemuda Indonesia Maluku--Indonesian Youth of the Moluccas). (101) Pasukan Istimewa (1) (Special Force (1)), (102) composed of Bataks, might be added to this group, since it had the same ethnic minority char- acter and to some extent the same purposes as the other two. But it played another role as well and will be discussed later. These organizations had two main functions. On the political plane they served to demonstrate the loyalty--the point is expressly made in the name of KRIS--of at least some of the members of the ethnic groups involved, to the Republic. This loyalty was in question at the time be- cause of the long and close association between these two ethnic groups and the Dutch, most notably in the KNIL. (103) Related to this was a second and in a practical sense far more important purpose, to form armed groups strong enough to protect members of these ethnic groups, and to some extent all Christian minority groups, from the danger of vengeful attack and murder. In the following account PIM appears under the name of Army of Pattimura, the most famous of the Ambonese rebels against the Dutch: (100) See Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution 164, for the con- siderably more important KRIS units outside Priangan. (101) Until February 10th PIM was known as API-Ambon (Angkatan Pemuda Indonesia--Ambon). The Bandung branch was organized as early as October 3rd. See Soeara Merdeka 5 and 7 Oct for its founding and 20 Feb for the name change. (102) The (1) is my notation. There were two Pasukan Istimewa in Bandung in this period, both important, and they are often confused, even by people well informed on the affairs of the period. (103) Ambonese shootings and raids in Djakarta from October heightened the antipathy toward them and account for the otherwise sur- prisingly early date of the founding of API-Ambon in Bandung and else- where.91 **She (a Eurasian girl living with her family in Babakan) said that after the revolution began they were guarded by several local pemudas, perhaps because it was felt ’’Dutch" people like themselves were dangerous. When this part of Bandung was bombed by the British and people began to evacuate it, they stayed behind. They couldn’t leave because they were still guarded. Fortunately at this point there arrived a unit of the Army of Pattimura consisting of Ambonese. The lieutenant in charge was a younger brother of her mother. The unit took them with it to a place just south of the city. But later, because it was feared that the people in that area would be suspicious: "How could that be? The Indonesian army taking care of Dutch people ? ", the unit had to take them back to where they came from. Eventually the Gurkhas took them to a camp in north Bandung. Hizbullah (Army of Allah) and Sabilillah, (104) finally, represent still another type of badan perdjuangan. Hizbullah was founded in Decem- ber 1944 as a semi-military auxiliary of Masjumi, the Japanese- sponsored federation of Islamic associations, and in the last nine months of the occupation an estimated 50, 000 Hizbullah members were given some rudimentary military training on Java. When the Masjumi was transformed into a political party on November 7th, 1945 Hizbullah con- tinued as its armed auxiliary, along with the newly-formed Sabilillah. (105) The distinction between the two was clear enough on paper: Hizbullah was to be a select organization consisting of younger men formed into distinct military units, while Sabilillah was to be a mass organization consisting of Masjumi members of all ages, not so much a military organization, as, in effect, the whole of Indonesian Islam in its militant aspect. This dis- tinction corresponds well enough in some respects to actual practice but for a more detailed understanding of these organizations it is necessary, as always when dealing with Indonesian Islam, to distinguish between urban and rural conditions. In the city of Bandung there were several Hizbullah units, the two most important being the one commanded by Aminuddin Hamzah whicfii was located in the Tjitjadas area on the eastern edge of town and the one commanded by Husinsjah which was located on file southwest edge. The most significant thing about these two was that they both became part of the army. Aminuddin’s unit, until it fell apart after the British bombarded Tjitjadas on December 21st, was one of the battalions of the TKR 8th Regi- ment; Husinsjah’s joined the army later, after the evacuation of the city in March. In one sense, there was nothing unusual about this for as we will see in the next chapter most of the Bandung badan perdjuangan joined the army sooner or later. But it does mean that these differed in one im- portant respect from the kind of units which had been envisaged when Hizbullah was founded. They were Bandung badan perdjuangan (or army units) of a strongly Islamic character, composed for the most part of (104) An abbreviated form of djihad fi sabilillahi (lit. war on the path of Allah, that is, Holy War). The form "fi-Sabilillah" is often used for the organization in conversation but rarely if ever in print. (105) Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution 163 and Sutter, Indone- nesianisasi 11/317-8 and literature cited there.92 santris (106) and having close personal ties with the Masjumi leadership in Bandung, but they were not part of an Army of Allah, a separate nation- wide organization under direct Masjumi control. There is no evidence that there was ever a Sabilillah in Bandung. The idea of Sabilillah presupposed an Islamic--or better, a santri-- community but Bandung, though a majority of its inhabitants were Moslems and many were santris, was not an Islamic community in an organic sense. A number of armed groups which may be labeled either Sabilillah or Hizbullah units did figure among the badan perdjuangan active in Bandung in the period between October and March but since they had come into the city from the countryside, in some cases from as far away as Tjiamis, they belong in the rural category. The distinction between Hizbullah and Sabilillah virtually disap- pears when one comes to describe the armed Islamic groups in the countryside, at any rate in the Bandung area. Some of these groups were diffuse village-wide associations of part-time militants, in this respect resembling other rural badan perdjuangan. Others, including many of the best-known, were led by locally famous kiais (scholars and teachers of Islam) and consisted partly or wholly of students in their schools (pesan- trens). It was incidentally, mostly these kiai-led groups which marched in from the countryside in late November and after to take part in the fighting in the city. These differences, however, have nothing to do with the distinction between Hizbullah and Sabilillah; for practical purposes there was only one general type of Islamic badan perdjuangan in the rural areas, one which corresponded most closely to what the Masjumi had in mind when it established Sabilillah. (107) The terms Hizbullah and Sabilillah, therefore, are significant not so much in representing two different types of organizations within a single centrally-organized Masjumi as in representing, roughly but con- veniently, differences between urban and rural Islam. In Bandung the Hizbullah units we have seen differed ideologically from other badan per Siangan but they resembled them in organization and in their later career; they took their place, not a particularly important one, in the urban pat- tern. In the rural areas around Bandung the "'Sabilillah" groups, though they resembled other rural badan perdjuangan in their organization or lack of it, were a major political force, local manifestations of militant rural Islam. In this respect it is significant that in early 1948, when Re- publican forces evacuated Priangan, Hizbullah (i. e. urban Islamic) units generally accompanied the army on the trek to Central Java, while Sabilillah (i. e. rural Islamic) groups did not. The former, like the (106) Santris are those who take their Islam seriously--religiously, socially and politically. Aminuddin Hamzah’s battalion had at least one company of non-santris in it, which was one of the reasons why it broke up after the bombardment in December. (107) My informants use the terms more or less interchangeably when mentioning particular groups but tend to use "Hizbullah," the more familiar of the two, most frequently.93 national leadership of the Masjumi party, were committed to support of the secular Indonesian state. The latter became the core of the anti-Republican Darul Islam (Islamic state) movement which had its center in eatft I^riangan. (l 08) So far we have been looking at the badan perdjuangan, like the BKR and TKR before them, from the top down, concentrating on their leader- ship and outward form. We must now take a look at them from the bottom up to see what sort of ties linked their leaders and ordinary members. The BKR, it will be recalled, had a rather peculiar structure. On the one hand, with its core of trained soldiers recruited mainly among former Peta officers and men, it had something of the character of an army. On the other hand it was intended to be a mass organization for maintaining public order and as such was to be organized hierarchically on a territorial basis, from the residency level right down to the kampung. By early October, at the end of the BKR’s short life, a good deal of this network had been established, built of blocks from the ruins of the Japa- nese system--BPP, Keibodan, Seinendan, Peta. But it is evident that this was largely on paper. It was inertia, not the BKR, which preserved the public order during the waiting phase and in the face of the forces due to be unleashed few men can have had much faith in the BKR system. After the Japanese coup on October 10th, which was in any case directed particularly at the BKR, the network disappeared without a trace. The TKR, in its turn, was not intended to be a mass organization with a territorial network of civilians; it consisted, in theory at least, of dis- tinct units of full-time soldiers and in form, though only partly in function, it was meant to be a real army. The field of popular organization re- mained open and it was into this gap that the badan perdjuangan stepped. As this work passed from official to unofficial hands, moreover, its pur- pose changed. The BKR was meant to keep the people "tranquil"; the badan perdjuangan meant to organize them for the revolutionary struggle. In the early days of October, of course, the pemudas in the kam- pungs of Bandung had begun to gather and take part in the raids on Japanese offices and military posts. But this was quite spontaneous and unorganized, a flux of revolutionary enthusiasm. *He (a man who later became active in the military section of the PRI) told me that in this period he operated in a ward on the wegtern side of the city as the leader of the ward pasukan [forcej. It was a spontaneous thing, a product of banging on the gong at the ward office and shouting "Siaaap!" Those who came were the pasukan. This pasukan began in the siap period but he couldn’t say when. It was (108) On Darul Islam see Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution 326-31 and passim; C.A. O. van Nieuwenhuijze, "The Dar ul-Islam Movement in Western Java till 1949," in Aspects of Islam in Post-Colonial Indonesia (The Hague 1958) 161-79; and Kementerian Penerangan, Republik Indo- nesia, Propinsi Djawa Barat (n. p. 1953) 211-42.94 in existence at the time the PRI was formed. I asked what it was called. Oh, in those days it didn't yet have a name, it was just called after him. How many mem- bers did it have? He ventured 200, it all depended. After the PRI was established on October 10th he began to have less to do with this ward pasukan. "A group of us began to see that things couldn't go on like this and we began to organize systematically." The PRI leaders were not alone in reaching this conclusion. All over the city in October and November dozens of newly formed badan perdjuangan were busy establishing new branches, recruiting new mem- bers, and in general mobilizing the people. We can get an idea of how this process worked out in practice by following its development in the kampung area of "Babakan" in the south part of the city. There is no indication that the BKR network ever reached down as far as Babakan or, if it did on paper, was ever noticed by the inhabi- tants. The earliest named organization to be established there was a branch of PRI. A good many people recall this as having been a branch of Barisan Banteng but this was in fact established later with many mem- bers of the earlier PRI branch in it. The confusion on this point is re- vealing. No one had any difficulty recalling the name of the API head- quarters or of a "Hizbullah" unit both of which were located nearby, be- cause these organizations had a clearly marked character, API as a famous djago camp, Hizbullah as a representative of a distinctly differ- ent political force. **He (a locally prominent man about 40 at the time) said that the people of the area did not lag behind in estab- lishing an organization to join in defending national inde- pendence. He and another somewhat older man contributed their help to these efforts. He said he didn't remember what the name of this organization was. Perhaps it was (as suggested to hi mJ PRI, which he said meant Partai Rakjat Indonesia. Organizations of that sort were found everywhere. Every kampung had to have an organization for its defense. There were about forty or fifty men, mostly younger ones, active in this branch of PRI but the boundary between members and non-mem- bers was not absolute. Its structure was informal in other respects too; it was divided in practice into three groups collecting at three houses in different parts of Babakan under the informal leadership of influential pemudas in each area. The connections between this branch of PRI and the main head- quarters were never very strong. The main connecting link was simply a material one: **He (a thirty year old member) said he received one set of white clothes, though the pants were only shorts. Also ten cigarettes and one liter of rice a week. This95 was by way of encouraging the members to attend training in the form of drill and military practice, which was held in an area on the southern fringe of the city. Finally, during the confusion of late November and early December, which certainly made such drilling pointless, connections with the PRI headquar- ters lapsed altogether. In fact they had never existed in any real sense. Many of the badan perdjuangan, including PRI, did manage to establish reasonably effective branches but here "PRI Branch" was simply a name superimposed on the doings of the active part of Babakan society for a few weeks. We have seen an even more imposing name, the TKR's "13th Regiment," hung over an equally unorganized and even less active body. The fact that the Babakan PRI had only a nominal connection with the PRI headquarters and only an informal structure does not mean that its members did nothing. On the contrary they were extraordinarily active. From the beginning--indeed from well before the PRI branch was formed--they took the idea that "every kampung had to have an organiza- tion for its defense" very seriously and reinforced the regular night watch (ronda malam). Later, when fighting with the British began in late Nov- ember, they cut down trees for roadblocks on the main street and for bar- riers at the ends of the lanes running through Babakan, and dug trenches at key locations and lined them with sandbags. They looked out for spies and kept a close watch on suspicious characters like the Eurasian family mentioned above, and Chinese; a few went further than that. Outside the kampung the more martial of them went on raids, first against Japanese posts, later against Allied ones. In doing this some of them developed an informal association with a nearby post of the Pasukan Istimewa (1), one in which there was no talk of branches or systematic or- ganization but nevertheless a considerably stronger relationship than existed with PRI headquarters. The general character of this connection is indicated by the fact that one of the Pasukan Istimewa members, a resi- dent of Babakan, was at the same time recognized as one of the leaders of the Babakan PRI. On raids the same senior and junior relationship applied; **He (the PRI member previously quoted) said that he had joined in an attack on a Japanese post at Buah Batu. They succeeded in capturing sixteen weapons and sev- eral sacks of rice which they brought back and gave to PI. The reason they gave them to PI, he said, was be- cause they, as members of the PRI branch, were only helpers of the PI in this attack. From among the PRI members certain men were picked for their bravery and were allowed to use weapons which PI loaned them. PI at that time was fully armed while PRI had only sticks and bamboo spears.96 The other organization represented in Babakan in this period, the Indonesian Red Cross (Palang Merah Indonesia) was not a badan perdjuan- gan but a description of its post belongs in this context. Red Cross work had a natural appeal to girls, particularly educated ones, who were eager to do something for the perdjuangan. This post, like the Red Cross gen- erally, was organized by an older man, a retired civil servant who pro- cured the medicines for it from two pharmacies. It was staffed by half a dozen girls, including several of his daughters, all of them among the best educated women in Babakan. In the same house, and in one or two others in the area, was also established a public kitchen (dapur umum) where food was prepared and given out free to pemudas and others. In the activities of these and other kitchens spotted all over Bandung one can see most clearly perhaps the frontier spirit of the early Revolution. The food came in at random, in the form of gifts, particularly from pemudas on their raids, was cooked and went out again still at random. The whole operation was spontaneous and irregular and none of those involved in it thought beyond the immediate present or of personal advantage. Two further examples, from outside the Babakan area, will con- tribute to the picture of the badan perdjuangan from the underside. *He (a taxi-driver who had been involved in the nationalist movement from the 1920's) told me that one day he and a large group of men from his kampung went on a raid to Andir airport. They succeeded in capturing thirty-seven guns and some samurai swords and on their return to the kampung decided to form themselves into a pasukan. He, as a veteran nationalist, was chosen leader; most of the others were young men, down to fifteen or sixteen years old. In all, he claimed, there were about 150 in the pasu- kan. Somewhat later they were approached by a Barisan Banteng man and invited to affiliate. They discussed the matter; some were in favor of joining Banteng, some for joining Pesindo. Eventually they took a vote and Banteng won. The men who had favored Pesindo went along with the majority and they formed a Banteng "company," with him as "company commander." **He (a pemuda of 25 who had been a Peta enlisted man and had been in the BKR for a short while) said he then joined Barisan Merah Putih. Not long after, he was appointed head of Section III of the Barisan Merah Putih with its headquarters across the street from the main API headquar- ters. He said Section III had about thirty members. He had a pistol and the unit owned two carbines but most of the men were armed only with machetes and bamboo spears. Despite this, morale was very high. When plans were being made for a raid the Section III pemudas struggled for the right to carry one of the three weapons, which would allow them to go on the raid. At that time [early DecemberJ these raids were made by all the pemuda organizations to- gether, but since each organization had only a few guns, they sent only armed men as representatives.97 It should be added that both these badan perdjuangan units (branches) broke up in the troubles of December. The historian habitually approaches his subject through the affairs of concrete institutions and relies upon their records to provide him with his material. A revolution, therefore, is necessarily a somewhat awk- ward subject for him to handle since it is a period in which institutions are in flux. In this state they not only tend to leave incomplete or garbled records; they are themselves often transitory, if not purely hypothetical. This applies generally to the institutions of the Republic, as has been im- plied in the descriptions already given. It applies with particular force to the badan perdjuangan in these early months. To a greater or lesser ex- tent it can be said of all of them, as of the PRI "branch" in Babakan, that they were names superimposed on the doings of the active element in society. These names were created and the organizations they stood for established because the will or organize this spontaneous revolutionary activity was strong in those who constituted themselves their leaders. Among these leaders themselves there existed ties of organization, some specialization of function and often a strong community of purpose. But between them and the rank and file of the organizations they had created there was generally only a very loose connection--one, moreover, which was typically not organizational but personal. It took time and force and a slackening of the revolutionary excitement to bring about even a moderate degree of organizational control. Badan perdjuangan differed in this respect but it is generally true to say that in these early months their meaningful existence was largely confined to their leadership.CHAPTER V DECEMBER 1945 TO MARCH 1946 The Revolutionary Climax During November the tension in Bandung rose steadily. On the 8th the correspondent for Merdeka spoke of the arrogant behavior of the Dutch, using tommyguns to force people in the markets to sell them food. Three days later a Dutch correspondent spoke of the increasing brutality of the Indonesians: kidnapping people (particularly RAPWI workers, he main- tained), expelling Europeans from houses and boycotting them at stores, reducing the flow of fresh food into the city. (1) On the 21st occurred the first attack on a Gurkha sentry. (2) On the 24th Merdeka reported that for the past week shots had been heard day and night through the city. On the evening of that day open fighting broke out and the revolution in Ban- dung was launched on its most violent phase. The situation in the city on November 24th was as follows. The 380, 000 Indonesians and 40, 000 Chinese were much as they had been in August (see p. 4) but there had been a large and politically significant change in the "European" population, both Eurasian and Dutch. At the end of the Japanese occupation there were some 16, 000 Europeans, practically all Eurasians, living freely in Bandung. As the less important part of the pre-war European population and living under Japanese rule in somewhat anomalous conditions, these Eurasians played only a modest role in the life of the town. With the Japanese surrender this situation changed radi- cally. Large numbers of Europeans, hitherto socially invisible in the internment camps in north Bandung and in and around Tjimahi, suddenly reappeared in Bandung society, carrying with them, of course, the assump- tion that it was or ought to be the same society they had left in 1942 and after. To these, moreover, were added large numbers of Europeans from the camps who before the war had been living outside the city proper or elsewhere in the residency or even outside West Java. In late November the European population of the city had reached a figure of some 60, 000, four times what it had been in August and twice what it had been before the war. (3) (1) Van Sprang, Soekarno Lacht 34. (2) 5th Gurkha Rifles 333. (3) Three sources give the figure of 60, 000 Europeans for this per- iod: Doulton, Fighting Cock 282, Van Sprang, Soekarno Lacht 47, and Pro- pellor (a news sheet published briefly in the Allied part of Bandung) 2 Dec. In the latter the figure is attributed to the local RAPWI officials, who had charge of this European population. Merdeka 4 Dec (Antara 3 Dec), quoting official British sources in Djakarta, gives a figure of 50, 000, however. 99100 Finally there were the troops. Two battalions of Gurkhas, about 2, 000 men in all, were concentrated in and around the suburban area in north Bandung and down to the large hotels in the European downtown area just south of the railroad tracks. The 1, 500 Japanese troops, on the other hand, were located in posts scattered throughout the town, particularly around its borders on the main roads and guarding a number of installa- tions and Eurasian neighborhoods in the south. (4) Units of the TKR and the badan perdjuangan were distributed in various states of array in all areas mainly inhabited by Indonesians, particularly in the south part of the city where most of their headquarters were located. In social and military terms, therefore, there were two fairly dis- tinct zones in the city, the Dutch-Allied and the Indonesian. But the city was still a single unit in theory, in effect jointly ruled by the British and the Republican authorities, and in practice there was still much traffic between the zones. This traffic had been growing steadily more hostile in the week or two before November 24th, and by that date only a tap was needed to upset the delicate balance and plunge the city into civil war. (5) What occurred in the night of the 24th was in fact little more than a tap, but it had been intended as much more than that. After November 10th the heavy fighting in Surabaja, where the pemudas were stubbornly resisting the whole weight of British military power, was increasingly galling to those who had been called "pemuda peujeumbolle." (6) The pressure for an open assault on the British and Dutch became over- whelming, and plans were made for a general attack on the night of the 24th. The actual attack was organized under the leadership of Arudji Kartawinata, the commander of the 3rd (Priangan) Division of the TKR, but it is clear that in this he and the other TKR and badan perdjuangan leaders involved were not so much leading as swept forward by an irre- sistible force. The general attack, as such, did not amount to much. There was some scattered shooting in various parts of town and an unsuccessful at- tack on a Japanese post on the road leading to the south; only the attack (4) Merdeka 8 Nov. (5) The course of events beginning in late November is relatively well covered in the published sources and I have relied more heavily on them in this section than elsewhere. Some fifteen of my interviews and about a hundred of my assistant’s contain substantial amounts of material on this period. (6) The strong desire to erase the stigma expressed in this in- sulting epithet (for which see above, p. 70) is shown in the words of a Bandung pemuda speaking over the radio on November 29th after the fighting had begun: "We have been fighting the enemy in Bandung for three days. The pemudas of Bandung, who have been called ’pemuda peujeumbolle,’ have shown that they are not afraid to fight, not afraid to sacrifice themselves, not afraid to take action to defend the Republic of Indonesia." Merdeka 1 Dec.101 on Andir airport amounted to anything. (7) It is indicative of the accelera- tion of the pace of revolutionary activity that almost literally overnight bar- ricades, roadblocks and fortified posts blossomed throughout the city. The next night there occurred another dramatic event which set its seal on the mood of violence. The Tjikapundung River, a mountain stream small enough to pass under one block in the heart of the city in a tunnel, suddenly burst into the only great flood of its history, destroying at least five hundred houses and killing more than two hundred people. Rescue work was added to perdjuangan and the Gurkhas contributed their bit by firing on those working--a situation quite typical of the confusion of the time. (8) There was heavy fighting in Bandung in the course of the next few weeks, of a kind which may be described as urban guerrilla war. The British were in a difficult position, as is indicated by the fact that a bat- talion of Mahratta troops was flown in on December 4th to reinforce the Gurkhas and Japanese. But they were never, as they had been in Surabaja in October and in Magelang and Ambarawa in November, in any danger of military defeat. In Bandung the pemudas lacked the element of surprise which had been so important in the former case and the overwhelming nu- merical advantage so important in the latter. Above all they lacked the weapons. On the other hand the British, with a few thousand infantrymen and a few Japanese tanks, and tied down by the necessity of guarding some sixty thousand Europeans, could not possibly control the whole of a city of almost half a million. From the beginning they set out to clear the northern suburban area for themselves and their civilians, using both diplomatic and military means, and to pull all the Europeans in from outlying areas to this keep. The main fighting therefore took the form of individual clearing actions in which the British brought their superior force to bear on a point and the Indonesians resisted as long as they could and then with- drew. Many of these engagements were heavily fought and it was not until December 3rd or 4th that all the large office buildings in the north were in British hands. (7) According to Merdeka 26 Nov and Van Sprang, Soekarno Lacht 42, Andir was captured at least for a moment, but according to Perdjuan- gan Kita (see note 8 below) 11 Dec, it was not. Doulton, Fighting Cock 282, seems to support the latter, as does some interview material. These four are the principal published sources for the narrative on the following pages. (8) The flood destroyed the Soeara Merdeka office and all its equip- ment. The staff divided into two groups, the older of which began pub- lishing again under the same name in Tasikmalaja in mid-December, while the younger and more militant established an emergency paper, Perdjuangan Kita, in Tjiparaj, a small town to the south of the city. The issue of December 11th, its first, contains a recapitulation of the events of the previous two weeks which is the longest and most coherent narrative of this period.102 The most hard fought of the actions took place on December 6th„ Early in the morning one battalion and an extra company of Gurkhas-- perhaps a quarter of all the troops available to the British in Bandung at the time--set off down Djalan Lengkong Besar, one of the major north- south streets on the southeast side of Bandung, to bring in two pockets of Eurasians totalling about 500 people. The resistance was led by the main API unit (■whose headquarters was on this street) and part or all of the pasukans of Barisan Me rah Putih, TRIKA (Tentara Republik Indonesia Kereta Api--Railroad Army of the Indonesian Republic), Pasukan Istimewa(l) and a Hizbullah unit. By noon the Gurkhas had advanced only a few hundred yards and they had to call in an air strike from Djakarta. This broke the main resistance but it was still not until evening that the mission was en- tirely completed. (9) The Hizbullah unit suffered the heaviest casualties among the combatant groups by advancing quite openly, with superb con- fidence in the power of its amulets to confer invulnerability, to face the modern weapons of the Gurkhas. (10) At the same time there was a brief skirmish between the TRIKA and the Hizbullah group in the midst of the battle. There are a number of versions of this but the likeliest is that the issue was one of revolutionary spirit (semangat), with the Hizbullah in- sisting on a degree of bravery which the educated pemudas of the TRIKA were not willing to go along with. The most serious military difficulty which the British faced, how- ever, was not in Bandung itself but along the exposed supply line from Djakarta. With the food boycott increasingly effective, not only military supplies but most of the food for the European civilians as well as the troops had to come along that line, which passed through about a hundred miles of Indonesian territory. In the first month of the British occupation of Bandung practically all the supplies had come in by rail but on Novem- ber 21st the supply train arrived looted and without its Gurkha guard. For three weeks after that no trains were sent to Bandung and supplies were sent by road, in smaller amounts of course and subject to ambush. One convoy left Djakarta on December 8th and did not reach Bandung until the 12th after coming close to destruction outside Sukabumi on the second day and again in the passes to the west of Bandung on the fourth day. (11) (9) Doulton, Fighting Cock 283; 5th Gurkha Rifles 335; C. N. Barclay, The Regimental History of the 3rd Queen Alexandra’s Own Gurkha Rifles, Vol II (1927-1947) (London 1953) 202; Perdjuangan Kita 11 Dec; Merdeka 6 and 7 Dec. (10) I use the name Hizbullah for this armed group because that is what my informants, as well as Perdjuangan Kita 11 Dec, call it. Mass reliance on amulets, however, was typical of "Sabilillah" rather than Hizbullah and in fact it is reasonably certain that most of the mem- bers of this group had come in from the countryside, so that it should be classed with the Sabilillah type. For further discussion of reliance on amulets see pp. 103-5. (11) Doulton, Fighting Cock 283-4; Sudewo, Riwajat Siliwangi 14. The attack near Bandung was carried out by units of the TKR 9th Regiment.103 Diplomacy soon eased the difficulty (see p. 112 ), which would probably have made Bandung untenable in the long run, but the situation remained delicately balanced and emphasized the precariousness of the British position. It must be emphasized that clearing operations in the city, of the kind so far described, involving fairly heavy frontal fighting and moderately large numbers on both sides, were the exception rather than the rule. Tactically, in these operations, the British had the initiative and they were able to have their way whenever they chose to act, but strategically they were on the defensive against a barrage of small incidents which kept the city in an uproar. Many of these involved British and Japanese troops. There was constant scattered sniping at cars and individuals, particularly along the road to Andir airport and Tjimahi; there were frequent skir- mishes at small posts and with patrols; every night until December 3rd, when the British withdrew north of the railway line, pemudas collected to shoot at the Gurkhas in the Savoy Homann Hotel, an outpost jutting south into the Indonesian zone. Incidents involving the occupying troops, however, were only one side of what was going on. It was not policy but a general explosion of rev- olutionary energy which sent the pemudas to attack the Allied forces, and this energy did not confine itself to a single target. From the point of view of the British 37th Brigade this was a siege punctuated by a series of nasty brushes with the "extremists," From the point of view of the British, Dutch and Republican leaders in Djakarta it was an episode in the diplo- matic contest they were engaged in. But from the point of view adopted here it was an unprecedented convulsion in the whole of Bandung society. The presence of the British and Dutch as irritants was the immediate cause of this spasm of anarchy just as the War of the First Coalition beginning in 1792 was the immediate cause of the anarchy which led up to the reign of terror in France, and their expulsion was uppermost in the minds of the pemudas just as the expulsion of the Austrians and Prussians was upper- most in the minds of the men who went to join the citizen armies in the summer of 1792. But in terms of the social history of the Revolution in Bandung the details of Allied-Indonesian relations in this period, impor- tant as they were not only diplomatically but in the lives of the whole popu- lation, serve mainly as reference points. What was significant was the turbulence in society itself. Something of the extraordinary atmosphere which prevailed in Ban- dung during these weeks of anarchy can be conveyed by a description of three of its most characteristic aspects, the heightened reliance on magic, the widespread and almost paranoiac suspicion and the practice of atrocities. As far as magical beliefs were concerned it is interesting to note that there seems to have been no particular vogue, at any time during the Revolution, for prophecies (ramalan) such as the Djojobojo cycle so influential before and immediately after the Japanese conquest and again in recent years. Almost all attention during this period was concentrated on the kind of magic useful for combatants; amulets (djimats), magically powerful weapons, and so forth. In the city itself this interest flourished chiefly in the period we are concerned with here, the last five or six weeks of 1945, and was almost entirely confined to pemudas. (12) Though (12) The pattern in the countryside, like that of the revolution there,104 it reflected the general feeling of uncertainty and fear in the face of danger, therefore, this vogue found outward expression in the behavior of the acti- vists, something which applied to other public emotions as well. These beliefs, at one extreme, were quite literally impossible: *He (an intellectual with strong rural ties) told me about a kiai he had heard of who decided at the time of the fighting against the British in Bandung to lead his students to the city to join in the fighting. Before their departure, the kiai called them together and instructed them to make little packets, about six inch cubes, out of leaves. When they asked him what these were for he said they were to put the corpses of the Gurkhas in. At the other extreme they took the international form of a belief in the lucky properties of a particular object of an everyday sort such as a shirt or a stone. The most important and largest category, however, fell be- tween these extremes: what was involved here was the conferring of special powers upon an individual or a weapon by a qualified person, al- most invariably a kiai. In many cases among rural "Sabilillah" groups, this had a corpor- ate character. Whole units would be equipped with magically fortified bamboo spears--sometimes the spear itself was laved or consecrated, sometimes a small pennon of white cloth with Koranic verses on it was attached to its end--and the men themselves usually wore white headbands with similar verses written on them to assure their personal invulnerability. The incident on Djalan Lengkong Besar on December 6th mentioned above is only one of several quite well-authenticated cases of such groups marching openly up to tanks and machine guns shouting "Allahu Akbar" ("Allah is great") and being mown down in great numbers. Not all went to this extreme, of course; a well known kiai in Tjimahi had an armed force of invulnerable followers but he used his manpower more conserva- tively and played an important role in the extended fighting with the Dutch there. Magically powerful weapons and personal invulnerability were also sought by individuals. Eric Lundquist, in his memoirs, tells of a kiai in Tjibatu, at the eastern edge of Bandung Regency, who consecrated bamboo spears and machetes and supplied amulets for thousands of people in the surrounding areas. (13) The most interesting and best known case of this kind, however, is that of a local kiai in a village near the south coast in Tjiamis Regency whose reputation became widely known in Bandung. He was somewhat different, not coming to such a sharp peak in these months and carrying on much longer. (13) In Eastern Forests (London 1955) 41-2. As Lundquist points out, with rather too much emphasis, the kiai received gifts from those he served in this way so that he became very wealthy in the brief time his vogue lasted.105 was unique locally in his practice of annointing those who visited him in the water from his well to confer invulnerability. Thousands of pemudas from the city, including many educated ones and some older men, made the 250 mile round trip by train to his remote desa in the brief period while interest in magical support was at its peak. All this, of course, may be dismissed as incidental or merely de- corative. Secularized Indonesians tend to look down a bit patronizingly on the "Sabilillah" groups marching so confidently to their fate, and Wester- ners may be inclined to do the same as regards the general Indonesian be- lief in such magical devices so characteristic of this period. But though these beliefs illustrate the universal need for support in the face of danger and death they also reflect the great intensity of purpose which was brought to bear for the revolutionary cause. It was precisely because the rural santris could marshal such fanatical masses that they were feared by many secularized Indonesians at this time; the amulet of a Bandung pemuda was only an aspect of the revolutionary spirit which drove him on against the British and the Dutch. Belief in magic was a part of the dynamism of the revolution and its ups and downs reflect very accurately the ups and downs of the revolutionary spirit itself. Belief in magic, being directed toward the protection of the indivi- dual, was altogether benign in its effects on others, though not always on the protected person himself. The corrosive and universal suspicion which was typical of this period was generally not; it was an important component in the amalgam of fear and hatred which led to atrocities and it usually provided the specific reasons for committing them. A degree of suspicion is normal in human affairs and is often per- fectly rational. What we are concerned with here is the pervasive and ir- rational suspicion fostered by anarchical conditions. One form which this suspicion took, particularly in the earliest stages, was highly diffuse. A good example is the rumor which went around Djakarta in early October, when roaming bands of Indonesians and of Ambonese and Eurasians were just beginning their skirmishing and tension was rising, that the municipal water supply and ”Kooa" cigarettes had been poisoned. (14) This suspi- cion and others like it was from the beginning directed at NICA (Nether- lands Indies Civil Administration) which had a double role in these months: in the real world as a concrete political opponent, in the fantasy world as the prime symbol of the menace of the times. When conditions became more turbulent, however, this abstract NICA (and sometimes the Allied forces) came to be seen as operating through particular individuals. At the time of the first British artillery attacks and air raids on south Bandung in early December, for example, there arose a widespread belief that the British had agents operating in the areas to be bombed who indicated the places to be attacked by putting special signs on their roofs, firing signals and so forth. A dime-novel, (14) Merdeka 7 and 9 Oct. A similar story about the municipal water supply made the rounds in Bandung somewhat earlier. Soeara Merdeka 1 Oct.106 describing the questioning of some Bandung Chinese by their kidnappers, indicates how common this belief was. Four of the six prisoners were accused of this particular crime. (15) "Why did you open your window suddenly just when enemy planes were passing over?" "I swear I didn’t know that there were any planes." "Lies! You're an NICA spy." In Babakan one man was thought to have fired a signalling pistol at the time of a British mortar and artillery barrage on the area and was promptly taken off and killed. The British obviously did have informants to tell them where to strike but such real informants and their methods were for most practical purposes as invisible as the unreal NICA agents who poisoned the "Kooa" cigarettes. Suspicion tended to fall instead on visible acts byneighbors, particularly on those who were members of outgroups such as the Chinese and Eurasians, and specific accusations of this sort were involved in a large number of the murders committed in this period in Bandung. The most widespread suspicion of this kind, one which is reported from all over Java in this period, was the belief that NICA agents were marked with what was called the tjap NICA (the NICA mark), usually con- ceived of as an imprint of some sort with the colors of the Dutch flag, red- white-blue. In and around Bandung from December to March at the numer- ous check points--on streets, on the roads which evacuees followed out to the country, in railway stations--people were inspected for the tjap NICA at the same time that their identification papers were checked. Often this involved only their clothes and emblems but frequently the tjap NICA was conceived of as a mark of some kind on the body and where this be- lief prevailed people were stripped and examined minutely from head to toe, usually in special booths and by members of their own sex. NICA does not in fact seem to have gone to any special trouble to mark its agents. (16) But something looking like the tjap NICA was often found on people and sometimes led to their murder or brought them into grave danger. **He said that when he was leaving the city in 1945 a friend he was with got into trouble because when he took his clothes off for an inspection his undershirt was dis- covered to be marked INCA--a manufacturer’s label. The man--he was about 50--blanched with fear and his (15) Ong Ping Lok, Tjikadoet (Bandung, n. d. ) 23-5. In the story five of the six prisoners (all but the hero) were then killed. See also Merdeka 4 and 26 Dec, for reports illustrating this belief in signals. (16) Nasution, TNI 1/195, however, maintains that NICA agents did circulate in crowded places, marking people at random with the tjap NICA to create suspicion. See Me rdeka 1 Dec, for the same story.107 wife burst into tears„ but eventually he was allowed to continue. Another case gives a somewhat broader picture of the practices of the time: **He (a pemuda activist from Babakan) said that one time in the siap period an acquaintance of his, a BKR man called Da’i, was arrested by API. The reason was that the red and white emblem he wore had his name on it and "Dai" was interpreted as an abbrevia- tion of "Dood A lie Indonesiers" [Death to All Indonesians^. He said he heard about this three days later and quickly told Da'i's father. His father, also a member of the BKR, got a formal letter from the BKR commander saying that Da'i was not a spy but a member of the BKR. He took this letter to the API headquarters and with it got his son released. The other side of the belief in tjap NICA, and one which shows that there was an element of heightened symbol-consciousness in it as well as suspicion, was the universal insistence by pemudas on the wearing of the red and white Indonesian emblem. Once again there are many reports of people who had forgotten to wear their pins or lost them on the way being abused and threatened at checkpoints. The whole bizarre but deadly ser- ious business is summed up in the case of a man who got into trouble at one post for wearing his red and white pin on a blue shirt. All this culminated in the atrocities which were the most important symptom of the anarchy which gripped the city between November and March. A few of the victims were Indonesians murdered by bands of Eur- asians and others--it cannot be forgotten that the other side had its own pemudas and that the mood of violence pervaded the whole city--but these bands were not as well-armed and active as those in Djakarta and their share of the carnage was very much smaller. (17) The great majority of victims were Eurasians and Chinese, along with some Dutch and a con- siderable number of fellow-Indonesians, murdered by Indonesians. These killings occurred mostly in the Indonesian areas in south Bandung and around the fringe in the north but even the northern suburban area was not safe. At the height of the disturbances in late November and early Decem- ber there were frequent kidnappings, along with arson and looting, in and around the protected zone itself. (18) Understandably there are no (17) For descriptions of European pemudas in action (though not murdering) see Van Sprang, Soekarno Lacht 43-5 and 5th Gurkha Rifles 334. They often appeared unofficially on the fringes of British operations and did a certain amount of looting and raiding on their own. (18) See Van Sprang, Soekarno Lacht 45-8 and the pamphlet Zeven Lichten over Indie published by the Stichting "Indie in Nood, Geen Uur te Verliezen" (η, p. Ϊ946) 12‘for some examples. Fropellor 2 Dec gives the text of an almost hysterical telegram sent by the local Dutch RAPWI offi- cials to RAPWI headquarters in Djakarta which conveys graphically the atmosphere in north Bandung at the time.108 complete figures on the number of victims but one official Allied estimate in April was that more than 800 Dutch, Eurasians and Chinese had been murdered in Bandung up to March and that almost as many had been kid- napped and not yet located. (19) Assuming that these figures are reason- ably reliable and that most of those missing were dead, one arrives at a total of around 1500 victims of murder out of a total non-Indonesian popula- tion of around 100, 000. And this does not include the sizable numbers of Indonesians who certainly perished in the same way. Making the largest possible allowance for killings with a soundly- based, though not necessarily legitimate reason (e. g. Chinese and others trading with the enemy, actual spies caught in the act, revenge masked as patriotism) one is still left with a very large number of murders com- mitted because of irrational suspicions or simply because the anarchic conditions facilitated the expression of sadistic impulses. This was a world in which torture was common; in which a woman from a small Amazon badan perdjuangan could ride through the streets on a horse brandishing the head of a Gurkha just cut off; in which certain algodjos, (20) an extreme variant of the djago type, were fearfully half-admired by many for their habitual brutality; in which killing became routinized to the extent that certain spots in and around the city became known as killing places to which victims were brought from all over town. *He (a student who was about twelve at the time) de- scribed two cases he personally saw of people who were accused of being spies. One was a small boy who was tied to a post near the roadside where passersby abused and maltreated him. The next day he was killed. The other was an old man, taken to the police station, ac- cused of spying and killed. Those who committed such deeds were a small minority, mostly pemudas, often very young indeed and usually though not always the less-educated. Many men, often at great risk to themselves, stood up for would-be vic- tims. But the tendency to admire algodjos, and the case of the boy quoted above, show that there was a penumbra around the dark core. Though of course both Dutch and Indonesians made political capi- tal out of each other’s atrocities and far-reaching conclusions were drawn about the Indonesians* "ability to govern themselves," this terror was in fact quite beyond politics, a temporary pathological aberration precipitated out of a general state of anarchy. But, though not political in its nature, it had important political consequences, two of the more general of which (19) This announcement, by General Simon Spoor, the Dutch com- mander in the Netherlands Indies, is reported in Merdeka 16 Apr and (less fully) in Overdijkink, Indonesische Probleem: de Feiten^S?. These figures do not include Indonesians, on whom no statistics seem to have been collected. (20) The dictionary meaning is "executioner" but since the Rev- olution, at least, it has had the connotation of "butcher."109 may be mentioned here. For one thing it promoted the tendency toward the rule of force in society., for only those who were armed or who were mem- bers of an armed force were truly safe in such conditions. More specifi- cally it encouraged the reliance on the bapak-anak buah (21) bond which was so fundamental in the military history of the Revolution and so strong a barrier to rational organization. In such conditions personal ties were stronger than institutional ones. More importants this terror created a deep longing for peace in the majority of people. When Eric Lundquist, who had lived in a village in Bandung Regency during the Japanese occupation and up to October 1945, returned to this village in August 1947 he met some of his old friends; I asked them, "Which side are you on?" "How are we to know that?" Oessin laughed. "We'll work for whoever gives us peace," said Anna. (22) Among more politically-conscious people this terror accentuated the gulf between the pemudas and the older generation, for pemudas, even when opposed to an combatting such practices as many did, could operate in this world while the older generation often could not. It was in ways like this that the two categories pemuda and older generation, cutting across all classes and ethnic groups and interests, gained real political signifi- cance in this period and hardened into the "generations" whose outlines are still visible today. These anarchical conditions made it impossible for the British to con trol the whole of the city and at the same time urgently necessary for them to create a haven for the European civilians. We have seen what military measures they took to clear out a protected zone in the northern suburban area and must now turn to the diplomatic measures they took to the same end. (23) Negotiations between the Indonesian authorities and the British 37th Brigade began on November 25th after some fighting at roadblocks on the road to Tjimahi. According to a British source the Indonesians "appealed to the Brigade Commander for less offensive action. The com- mander replied that roads must be cleared of road blocks by 1200 hours 26 November or stern action would continue." (24) The Indonesians made (21) Bapak--father; anak--child; anak buah--follower who is to his leader as a son is to his father. (22) In Eastern Forests 27-8. (23) For these negotiations see Perdjuangan Kita 11 Dec; Merdeka 29 and 30 Nov, 3, 4, 5, 7, and 10 Dec; Perdjoangan Kota Bandung 12-14; A.J. F. Doulton, 23rd Indian Division in Java, Oct. *45 to Nov. "4o (manuscript 1946) 11-12; and Doulton, Fighting Cock 2S2-5. (24) Doulton, 23rd Indian Division 11. Perdjoangan Kota Bandung 12 says that this transaction occurred on the 26th and that it was General MacDonald who took the initiative. The term "Indonesian authorities" usedno an effort: After being approached, a number of pemudas agreed to remove (the barricades^ along with the police, but as soon as a few were taken down, pemudas from other groups appeared and prevented this. (25) and so did the British: A company of our troops sent to Tjimahi on 26 November met and cleared 18 road blocks which were re-erected or replaced as the troops moved on and had to be cleared again as the column returned. Another patrol sent as escort of a RAPWI convoy to the airfield was forced to return on account of heavy opposition. A company was sent to clear the road and killed 10 Indonesians, wounded 5. (26) Clearly the pemudas were not in a mood to listen to anyone. On the following day, November 27th, Governor Sutardjo and Gen- eral MacDonald met and the latter presented an ultimatum: 1. Indonesians to evacuate Bandung, north of the . . . railway line, by 1200 hours 29 November. 2. No civilians to be allowed within 200 meters of a British or Japanese position. 3. Indonesians to evacuate the areas around the RAPWI buildings [the Hotel Savoy Homann and Hotel PreangerJ south of the railway. 4. Any male manning or near a barricade would be shot. (27) here and above probably refers to the Governor of West Java, Sutardjo. The decision to move the provincial capital from Djakarta, where it had been before the war and where Sutardjo had been located at first, up to Bandung was announced on October 25th (Soeara Merdeka and Merdeka, 27 Oct). Sutardjo moved formally on November 21st (Merdeka 22 Nov) just in time to become involved in the troubles in Bandung. (25) Perdjoangan Kota Bandung 12. In the text this passage is placed before the description of MacDonald’s ultimatum but it is quite likely that the effort described was a response to it. (26) Doulton, 23rd Indian Division 11. (27) Loc cit. The gist of the ultimatum, particularly the impli- cation (by the absence of qualifying terms) that all Indonesians would have to leave, is also given in Perdjoangan Kota Bandung 12, and Merdeka 29 Nov.Ill This staggering demand, involving in theory at least well over 100, 000 people, was understandably rejected by the Governor, The case was promptly referred by both sides to Djakarta and on the 29th, after negoti- ations in which Amir Sjarifuddin played the leading part, the Republican government announced what amounted to a compromise: the "inhabitants of the kampungs" in the north would not have to move but "elements which disturbed the peace" would have to be cleared out and the British would ar- rest all those bearing arms, Indonesians and others. The details were to be worked out by Governor Sutardjo and General MacDonald. (28) On the basis of this preliminary agreement a long series of negoti- ations took place in Bandung between November 30th and December 10th. Leaving aside for a moment the role played by representatives of the Re- publican government, it is worth noting that the leading local Indonesian official in these talks was the vice-governor, Mr. Datuk Djamin, rather than Governor Sutardjo as originally intended. (29) The change in the position of the two men was formally ratified soon after by the appoint- ment of Djamin as the new governor of West Java to replace Sutardjo. (30) This change serves to emphasize the way in which the tensions of late November and early December, like those in the aftermath of the Japanese coup on October 10th, contributed to the sifting of the local Republican leadership. Like the former mayor Atma di Nata and the former resident Puradiredja, Sutardjo was an older man--a veteran pamong pradja official and well-known pre-war Volksraad member. Like the new mayor Sjamsuridjal and the new resident A rdiwinangun, Djamin was a younger man, more adept politically and better able to operate in the difficult condi- tions of the time. (31) We will see later in this chapter that the same re- lentless testing process was at work in the TKR as well at this time. Djamin was not alone in these negotiations, of course; the situa- tion in Bandung represented an important test of the efficacy of diplomasi and the central government was naturally deeply involved. At various meetings in the first week of December he was accompanied by Mohamad (28) The text of the government proclamation announcing this under- standing appears in Koesnodiprodjo, Himpunan 1945 69. (The vague date given there, "October," is mistaken.] By specifying kampung inhabitants as those who would not have to move it implied without saying so that better off Indonesians would have to do so, regardless of whether they were "disturbing elements" or not. This is confirmed by Merdeka 5 Dec: "Those who are intendedfto have to evacuate to the south] are particularly those living along the main streets," that is, those in the more substan- tial homes. The British faced a housing problem in the crowded suburban area as well as a security problem. (29) See the sources cited in note 23 above. For an evaluation of Djamin’s role in the negotiations see Merdeka 18 Dec. (30) Djamin's appointment was announced on December 17th (Merdeka 17 Dec). (31) See Van Sprang, Soekarno Lacht 49-54 for a highly-colored account of several interviews with Djamin at just this time.112 Natsir and Sjafruddin Prawiranegara, both prominent figures in Bandung before they became members of the Working Committee of the KNIP. On December 7th, moreover,. Amir Sjarifuddin flew in to Bandung and it is clear that it was he who played the most important role in the under- standing which was reached shortly after. No official announcement was made when these talks ended around December 10th, and very little was ever said about their subject matters but it is evident that from the prac- tical point of view the key to the matter lay in the question of control over the Indonesian forces,, both the TKR and the badan perdjuangan. As Min- ister of Defense, that is, among other things, the man charged with applying the government policy of diplomasi to the military field, Amir was the logical man to attempt a solution to this problem. It was he who arranged to call off the attacks on the road convoys after December 12th and who laid the groundwork for the agreement under which the TKR, with great fanfare, escorted a supply train from Djakarta to Bandung on the 11th and 12th. (32) It is likely that he was behind the public statement by Arudji Kartawinata, the commander of the TKR 3rd Division, at about this time calling for strong action against "extremists" and for the re- moval of all barricades from the streets. (33) This was the sort of stuff, rather than the expulsion of thousands of kampung folk from their homes, which really interested the British and there is little doubt that this was a large part of the content of the unannounced understanding. Substantial population movements, however, did take place in Ban- dung and played an important part in the developing situation. On Novem- ber 28th and 29th, while the original ultimatum was still in effect as far as Bandung was concerned, considerable numbers of Indonesians moved south of the railroad line, speeded on their way by unruly bands of Euro- peans and by some Gurkhas, who may have been beginning to carry out plans for a systematic expulsion. After the preliminary agreement of November 29th, of course, the ultimatum was withdrawn, at least as re- gards the great bulk of ordinary kampung dwellers. But while negotiation could remove the official order to evacuate, it could not change the social reason for doing so, the continuing state of anarchy around and even in- side the protected zone. In the following weeks Indonesians continued to move south--or out into the countryside to the west, north and east-- either forced out or leaving a hostile European camp. As the Indonesians moved out of the northern suburban area the Europeans were moving in. A considerable number of them, particularly those living in the European downtown area immediately south of the rail- way line, had moved north on the 28th and 29th, not in response to any published announcement but simply because of the logic of the new impor- tance being attached to that line and because of the same kind of push, by (32) Doulton, Fighting Cock 283-4; Merdeka 12 and 13 Dec. (33) Merdeka 18 Dec (Bandung 15 Dec); Doulton, Fighting Cock 285. There was considerable cordiality between the TKR and the British in Bandung during the next week or two (see below, p. 137 ). All this was part of larger-scale negotiations for the British to "recognize" the TKR, which Amir was carrying on at this time.113 Indonesians in this case, as was being applied to the Indonesians who were moving south at the same time. Other Europeans, as we have seen, were being collected by the Gurkhas in forays into the remoter parts of town. The suburban area was in the process of becoming an enclave within the larger city. By mid-December, aside from some kampung people, parti- cularly servants, still living in the enclave and from rapidly decreasing numbers of Europeans living outside it, the only important anomaly was the Chinese population in the Indonesian zone. Though suffering heavily from kidnappings and murders, (34) the Chinese were tied down to a much greater extent than the Eurasians by their economic interests and few had moved by that time. Nevertheless quite a large number fled north in late December and one large Gurkha operation on December 25th is reported to have secured the departure of 5, 000 of them. (35) It was during December that the outlines of the Bandung of the next two years first began to take shape. Earlier, in October and November, the British and Indonesian authorities, each recognizing the other, had exercised what was in effect a joint administration over the whole city, while the people of the different racial groups, though already more or less hostile to each other, had been able to live side by side in a single community. The anarchy of late November and early December had made this impossible and since neither side was able to achieve complete mili- tary dominance the city was, by natural processes and by negotiated agree- ment, divided into two more or less distinct parts. The character of these parts and the relations between them are worth examining in some detail. Militarily they were set apart by a fairly clear boundary, marked in many places by barbed wire and sandbagged emplacements mostly put up by the British. The boundary was from the beginning clearest along the line of the original ultimatum, the railway tracks running through the center of the city. Here there was something of a front line with sectors allotted to Gurkha, Mahratta and later Punjabi troops on the British side and to different badan perdjuangan and army units on the Indonesian side. As on all front lines there was a good deal of military activity: miscel- laneous shooting, some skirmishes and occasional patrols in force, like the Gurkha operation on Christmas Day 1945 mentioned above. There was also rather more than the usual fraternization. Gurkhas and others were often willing to trade guns, particularly for chickens which were nonexis- tent in the messes of the north, and able in the confused conditions to get away with it. The Mahrattas and Punjabis, as Indians on the wrong side of a colonial war, were subject to propaganda and "considerable numbers" deserted. (36) Around the rest of the half moon of north Bandung the (34) The Chinese, unlike the Eurasians and Indonesians, were often kidnapped for ransom. (35) Doulton, Fighting Cock 284; Merdeka 10 Jan; Kwee Kek Beng, Doea Poeloe Lima Tahon sebagi Wartawan (Batavia 1948) 98. (36) 5th Gurkha Rifles 336. Not all did so for political reasons of course, but this factor contributed to the generally lower morale of the Indian units. The Gurkhas, on the other hand, rarely deserted and were more effective in combat, especially offensive operations, against114 boundary was considerably less distinct and never developed a real front line. Moreover it was flexible. Between late December and late March, as the British built up their troop strength in Bandung, a series of opera- tions extended these boundaries east and west along the lines of communi- cation and particularly north, beyond the limits of the city and eventually as far as the truck-gardening area of Lembang, Administratively and politically, Bandung’s status was ill-defined and confusing; as we have seen there was no announcement of the results of the negotiations which ended about December 10th. The main reason for this was simply that, though the Republican government had acquiesced in the de facto division of the city, it could not say so publicly because the existence of an Allied enclave in the north represented a derogation of Indonesian sovereignty. For the same reason it could not accept this div- ision as a permanent arrangement. One of the few bits of evidence avail- able on the content of the understanding reached in early December con- cerns a ’’gentleman’s agreement" by which the Indonesian police would be responsible for security in the area south of the railroad tracks and the British army responsible for security to the north of them, with the pro- viso that when and if the Indonesians succeeded in maintaining order in their part they would come to share responsibility for the northern half as well. (37) The Republican authorities were aiming at a restoration of the species of joint administration which had existed in October and Nov- ember, and which existed at this time in Djakarta; we will see in the final chapter how this wish was served at the denouement in March. Meanwhile, in practice, there was no question of either party’s exercising any control over the other’s zone. There were two governments in Ban- dung and their cooperation--in managing the utilities, exchanging prison- ers, easing tension generally--took place through liaison officers. Socially, as we have seen, the city was increasingly divided be- tween the Indonesians on the one hand and the Europeans, Eurasians and Chinese on the other. As British control ballooned out gradually north of the tracks, ever larger numbers of Indonesians faced the choice of whether to evacuate their homes or stay in the European enclave. There are, understandably, no reliable and complete figures on the number of Indonesians who left north Bandung between late November and March but it can be put roughly at about 100, 000. (38) This figure refers to Indonesians. Trading in guns, desertions and so forth occurred else- where besides the railroad line front, of course. (37) Perdjuangan Kita 15 Feb (an indignant editorial denouncing the British for not living up to the agreement). See also Soeara Merdeka 21 Feb and Merdeka 23 Feb for further mention of a "gentleman’s agree- ment," though in more general terms. (38) Merdeka 21 Mar reports a statement printed in De Courant (a newspaper published in the Allied zone of Bandung) to the effect that of 100, 000 Indonesians living previously in north Bandung only 16, 000 re- mained at the time. The estimate of 100, 000 original inhabitants may be on the low side; my own calculations (see p. 4) yield a figure of roughly 125, 000. But there is no reason in this case, with a Dutch115 Indonesians living within the limits of the municipality, the only area for which there is any specific information. In the course of the early part of 1946, however, the British extended the boundaries of their enclave well beyond the municipality limits, particularly to the north. The total num- ber of Indonesian refugees (and for that matter the number of Indonesians living within the enclave) was therefore considerably larger. Finally, in economic terms, the enclave was a monstrosity--a small pod with a hundred thousand people packed into it at the far end of a hundred mile stalk. European Bandung lived at this time, and on to 1947, very largely out of tin cans brought up along the precarious supply line or by air. With the boundaries now fairly distinct the intermittent food boy- cott of the previous months became a blockade, which in this period was particularly effective. Its very success, of course, meant that fresh veg- etables, eggs, milk and the like were very much sought after in the north and there developed'a lively smuggling trade, in which Indonesians, Chi- nese and even Japanese--who still moved freely between the zones--took part. (39) Accusations of smuggling were among the better-grounded reasons for murders in these days. From what has been said on the previous pages it might seem that the only important population movement in Bandung during the disturbances between November and March was into and out of the European suburban area, and that Indonesians living in the southern part of the city stayed where they were. But in fact there were also very large movements of Indonesians during this period from south Bandung out into the satellite villages on the southern edge of the city and beyond, to places all over the southern half of Bandung Regency. While considerable numbers of pe- mudas were coming into Bandung from all over Priangan to take part in the perdjuangan, large numbers of ordinary householders, particularly women and children, were leaving the city for just the opposite reason. This movement had begun in a small way even before November 24th as people began to feel the rising tension in the city. (40) When the fighting began, its impact heightened by the unprecedented and disastrous Tjikapundung flood, evacuation began on a large scale and it continued intermittently throughout December and on to March. Each time fighting flared, particularly when the British made air strikes, as on December 2nd, 6th and 21st, a new wave of refugees would set out for the safer areas source, to suspect an overestimate of the numbers leaving as refugees (or an underestimate of those staying behind) for emotional or propaganda reasons, though certainly the figure of 16, 000 remaining was not derived from a complete and accurate survey. Perdjoangan Kota Bandung gives a figure of 100, 000 evacuees for around late December. This figure, on the one hand, includes those leaving south Bandung as well as north Ban- dung and, on the other, does rot include those who left north Bandung in the first ten weeks of 1946. (39) Van Sprang, Soekarno Eacht 60 and 71-2 describes this trade. (40) Merdeka 19 Nov.116 to the south. (41) Though a number of these returned when things became quieter again--sometimes a father would take his family out of the city and return to his job a few days later--the net movement was always out and the total number of refugees steadily increased. There are no contempor· ary estimates covering the whole of this particular population movement, so that only the roughest approximation is possible, but what evidence there is indicates that it was roughly of the order of the movement out of north Bandung at the same time, that is somewhere around 100, 000. (42) The Rural Revolution In the rural areas outside Bandung the revolution began in the same way that it began in the city, with the collapse of the existing regime in mid-August, but in the months after that it followed a rather different and much simpler pattern. In the city the missing element of pre-war society soon reappeared: the Dutch came out of the internment camps and the Netherlands Indies authorities returned, as emigres usually do, with for- eign troops in support. The struggle of Indonesians collectively against Dutch and British thus assumed a place of special importance within the larger disturbance in the social order there, and it strongly influenced both the terms in which political conflict was conceived and the timing of events. Thus competing political interests among the Indonesians found expression in the debate over perdjuangan and diplomas!, while the an- archy which marks the climax of the period of Bandung history treated in this work occurred just at the time of the most violent conflict with the British. In this period, however, the Dutch and British played no direct role outside the city and its immediate surroundings. The issue of perdju- angan and diplomasi had no practical significance in rural affairs, except (41) In the same way, the Chinese movement to the north--the equivalent peaceful zone for them--began in earnest after the bombing of the area near the Tjitjadas market by the British on December 21st. The casualties in this raid were mostly Chinese. Merdeka 26 Dec gives the most complete version. (42) From an original Indonesian population which I estimate to have been roughly 250, 000 (see p. 4). Merdeka 8 and 13 Dec describe the movement out of south Bandung but give no figures. Merdeka 10 Jan de- scribes people returning to the city during the calmer period in January. Perdjoangan Kota Bandung 13, as mentioned in note 38 above, gives a figure of 100, 000 for those who had left both north and south Bandung by about the end of December. The most reliable evidence I have is from Babakan, about 95% of whose inhabitants left their homes in December, most of them moving beyond the city limits. Less than 1%, almost all men, returned at some time before March. Babakan, to be sure, is not quite typical since it was more heavily hit than most parts of south Ban- dung by the fighting in early December; for this reason I have used a more conservative estimate for the whole of south Bandung.117 briefly in the beginning when the handling of the small groups of Japanese scattered about in the towns and plantation headquarters and elsewhere was at stake. The revolution in the country areas grew directly and simply out of the collapse of the Japanese regime and the absence,, for the time being, of an effective replacement for it. The early weeks of the Revolution in Bandung Regency were marked by the same atmosphere of waiting that prevailed in the city. (43) The news of the Japanese surrender and the proclamation of independence, whose implications were difficult even for urban newspaper readers to ad- just to, took time to sink in. Just as Bandung waited for word from Djakarta, the rural hinterland of the regency, and indeed the whole of Priangan, waited for word from Bandung. It is apparent from reading Tjahaja that the chief business of the KNI’s, in this case those of the re- gency and residency, at this time was information work. Their members went out to speak at meetings in the district and sub-district towns, people were brought in to Bandung for public meetings and parades there, instruc- tions were given to form KNI’s and BKR's at the lower levels. At the same time one of the earliest forms of activity by city pemudas, especially stu- dents, was in going out into the villages around the city to explain what was going on. (44) She (a high-school student at the time) said that, as a girl, her job was to go into the city kampungs and in- to the rural villages to inform the people. It was dangerous work because, though pure Sundanese, she was light colored like a Eurasian, and people were often hostile at first. They had trouble understanding the situation. They knew the Japanese were foreigners and knew the differences between Japanese and other foreigners, but they could hardly comprehend the idea of the proclamation, of the meaning of independence, of who Sukarno and Hatta were. All they wanted to know was whether they would have enough food and security. (45) (43) There is very little published material, particularly contem- porary material, on the rural areas of Indonesia during the Revolution. There is even less, of course, for the Bandung area in particular. This section is based primarily on some forty interviews of mine, about half of them devoted entirely to rural affairs, some twenty of my assistant’s, and some half-dozen taken by my wife. (44) Owing to the paucity of contemporary material, dating is gen- erally difficult for rural areas. The two examples below, for example, refer in parts to conditions somewhat after the waiting period. Tjahaja 3 Sept, however, mentions students going out into the villages. (45) This and the following passage are taken from my wife’s interview notes.118 He (another student in the same high school) said that his group had captured five cars which they used to travel to villages outside the city, carrying big red and white flags, to explain to the village people what independence was about. They kept the cars about ten days.but in the end all were stolen from them by other pemuda groups. KNI's were formed in the twenty-seven subdistricts of the regency in late August and early September. (46) Like KNI’s at higher levels they were neither appointed from above nor publicly elected, but instead set up by small groups of locally important figures: men who had been active in the nationalist movement before the war, important kiais, leaders of cooperatives and local leaders of Japanese-sponsored organi- zations like Barisan Pelopor. Like the KNI’s at higher levels they were not headed by or subordinate to the local pamong pradja official (in this case the subdistrict officer) but stood alongside him as independently legitimate bodies and thus shared with him some of the local authority which had previously been vested entirely in him. Whether there was rivalry or cooperation between subdistrict officer and KNI and which was the more important in local affairs depended on local conditions and the personalities concerned but it is safe to say that in many subdistricts KNI's assumed a real importance during the first month or two of their existence. Later, however, as the rural areas became more turbulent both KNI’s and pamong pradja began to lose ground, and power came more and more to rest in the hands of armed groups of various sorts. In November, in the course of a general reorganization of the KNI system the government decided to abolish all KNI's below the regency level and by the end of the year most subdistrict KNI's in Bandung Regency had been dissolved. (47) We have seen that in theory the BKR network was supposed to reach down to the subdistrict and the village alongside the KNI's but in practice it amounted to even less outside the city than in it. For a time at least, the KNI's, as recognized organs of government, provided a chan nel for political forces at work in the subdistrict towns but the BKR's had no such useful function to perform. In the cities, moreover, the BKR's played an important role in collecting former Peta officers, who had eithe been stationed there at the time they were disarmed or went there soon after, and who were seeking an organization within which their skills could be put to use. In the country this important group was hardly (46) Not in the nine districts, however. The two regional KNI's for east and west Bandung Regency mentioned above (p.43 ) took the place of district KNI's. KNI's were also established in some but not all of the approximately 250 villages of the regency. (47) For this general reorganization see p. 140. At this time there was often a lag of several months between government decisions at higher levels and their implementation, if at all, at lower levels and it is likely that some subdistrict and village KNI’s lasted for some time into 1946.119 represented; subdistrict BKR’s, in Bandung Regency at least, were gen- erally led by former Heiho's and members of other, lesser, semi-military organizations such as the Keibodan, as well as civilians. Few if any of these subdistrict BKR's had a real existence and few of their members, even as individuals, went on to join the TKR 9th Regiment, theoretically the continuation of the regency BKR organization. The steady rise of tension in the city during September is easily documented from the pages of Tjahaja and Soeara Merdeka but these con- tain very little information on conditions in the rural areas of the regency. It is likely that tension rose more slowly outside the city for lack of the prime stimulant, the awaited coming and later presence of the Allies, not to speak of the Dutch out of the camps. On the other hand, though the Jap- anese did some raiding and disarming outside the city after the October 10th coup, there was not such a pronounced lull there as there was in the city for about a month after that event. As in the city, revolutionary activity began in earnest with a strong drive to take over Japanese weapons, along with warehouses and other installations. Larger Japanese concentrations near Tjileunji, at the auxiliary airfield at Margahaju and at Batudjadjar (see map) were not dis- turbed and like the Japanese naval unit in the mountains to the north of Lembang remained for months enclaved in the Indonesian countryside. (48) In other places, where Japanese detachments were small, crowds of pe- mudas gathered with bamboo spears and machetes and the Java-wide pattern of mixed threats, fighting and negotiation followed. A few Japa- nese were killed in the course of these weeks, mostly individuals in isolated posts or out in public alone but in some cases larger groups. But most gained the city, or other bases, unharmed, after negotiations or on their own initiative. By about mid-October, except for the enclaves which were entirely indrawn and played no part in local affairs, and for indivi- duals who had joined the Republican forces, the hinterland of the regency was clear of Japanese. Another symptom of the increasingly revolutionary atmosphere in this period was the murdering of many of the few Eurasians and Ambonese living in the country areas. Eric Lundquist, who had lived not far from Tjitjalengka during the Japanese occupation, says that he had to leave in September. "If I had not cleared out I should have been murdered by the population, which had gone mad and already murdered all the other whites in the whole district before I left." (49) In fact it was neither that early (48) In the fringes of the city even smaller Japanese units formed similar enclaves. The Gurkhas raiding into south Bandung on December 25th to rescue Chinese who wanted to come to the north came upon, and very nearly had a brush with, some Japanese troops "guarding a dump, the existence of which had not been notified." (5th Gurkha Rifles 337). Again in late January Gurkhas went out to Bodjongkoneng on the north- eastern edge of the city to take over an important pre-war ammunition dump which up to that time had been guarded by an isolated Japanese detachment. (Ibid. 338) (49) In Eastern Forests 21.120 nor that bad, for it is most likely that he was evacuated from Tjitjalengka by a British patrol on October 30th, along with 36 Eurasians and 8 Ambonese. (50) But it is clear that a small-scale prelude to the terror of December and after in the city had already taken place in the country- side more than a month earlier and that by mid-November there were very few Europeans left outside the city. Up to about this time the pemuda movement in the rural areas of the regency, as in the city, had been largely unorganized and spontaneous, marked by brief bursts of mass activity directed against the Japanese but otherwise only by a heightened sense of vigilance which expressed it- self in a great enthusiasm for all kinds of guard work. (51) The earliest pemuda organizations outside the city were of two types. In the first place were those which had carried forward from the Japanese period such as Barisan Banteng (formerly Barisan Pelopor) and particularly Hizbullah, in its rural form. Alongside these, in some places, arose comprehensive organizations like the Angkatan Pemuda Bandjaran (Younger Generation of \the district capital ofj Bandjaran) which was ori- ginally intended to enroll all pemudas in the town. It was not long, however, before rural pemudas began to form branches of the badan perdjuangan established in the city, particularly of the larger and better-known of them such as Pesindo, BPRI and API. The Angkatan Pemuda Bandjaran itself was converted into a Pesindo branch. As in the case of the Bandung badan perdjuangan which had rela- tions with national headquarters at this time the term "branch" must not be taken too seriously. It was only in early 1946 that serious efforts be- gan to be made by some of the Bandung badan perdjuangan to establish a tighter hierarchical relationship with their branches in the country, and not until after the evacuation of the city in March that these efforts began to have much success. For the time being the relationship, though it suggested the natural predominance of the urban pemudas over their rural counterparts, remained essentially a fraternal one. The development of these badan perdjuangan was given a strong impetus by the outbreak of fighting in Bandung at the end of November, which turned the attention of rural pemudas to the city. From Bandung Regency, as well as other places in Priangan, individuals and groups poured into the city, eager to play a part in the perdjuangan. The Hiz- bullah unit whose invulnerability was so sorely tested in the fight on Djalan Lengkong Besar on December 6th, for example, consisted largely of rural pemudas. (50) In ibid 11-12 he says he was evacuated by the British. A Gurkha company was sent to Garut and Tjitjalengka on October 29th and 30th to investigate stories of atrocities and rescue those wanting to leave. Doulton, 23rd Indian Division 10; 5th Gurkha Rifles 332. (51) For a good description of this atmosphere of vigilance among rural pemudas see Soeara Merdeka 5 Oct. See also a brief mention of it, showing its place in the sequence of changes taking place in the country- side, in Memed A rdiwilaga, Masjarakat Desa dalam Arus Repolusi (Djakarta n. d. ) 18.121 ♦They (a group of former badan perdjuangan men in Tjiparaj) told me that at the time of the Tjikapundung flood a Barisan Banteng force went in to the city to join in the attacks on the Hotel Savoy Homann, ♦He (a Pesindo leader in Bandjaran) told me that the British bombing of Tjitjadas on December 21st had made a strong impression in Bandjaran. Very soon after the news reached the town a group of some forty pemudas set off, armed with bamboo spears, to help defend the area. ♦He (a BPRI leader in Bandung) told me that BPRI had branches throughout the regency and some elsewhere in the residency as well. He himself made a number of organizing trips through the rural areas. Some- times it worked the other way around: local groups already using the name would take the initiative in getting in touch with the Bandung headquarters. When actual forces turned up in Bandung, the Bandung leaders had to screen them. Often they took only the men with guns and told the others to go home because there were already quite enough pemudas in the city eager to join in the fighting but lacking weapons. There is no contemporary evidence on the number of rural pemudas who came into Bandung at one time or another between late November and March to join in the fighting but there can be no doubt that there were thou- sands of them. Many of them returned home after a short time but those who remained joined a pemuda population which was already dispropor- tionately large because of the evacuation of large numbers of women and children and older men, and thus contributed to the noticeable change in the character of south Bandung which was taking place at this time. The revolutionary mood which carried thousands of rural pemudas into the city had its most important effects,, of course, in the countryside itself. To begin with, it brought about a rapid and large-scale turnover in the ranks of the pamong pradja and the village headmen. The holders of these offices were generally disliked by the end of the Japanese occupa- tion. Whatever their own feelings they had been the agents of Japanese oppression; it was they who had collected the forced deliveries of rice, recruited the romushas, enforced the oppressive regulations in all fields. The pamong pradja, in particular, had always been disliked for their arro- gance, and the serious loss of prestige they had suffered under the Japa- nese had accentuated rather than reduced this dislike. In more general terms, the collapse of the Japanese regime had now left the rural authori- ties without any outside support. Half a century earlier prijaji aristocrats had retainers and prestige enough to take care of themselves, but in the intervening years they had been bureaucratized and now depended on the protection of a strong government. (52) The legitimacy of the Republic (52) Many headmen, having procured and maintained their positions by hard struggles in village faction politics, could still mobilize supporters122 was accepted throughout the countryside at this time but the government did not have the means to keep order there. The police, who were directly under the authority of the pamong pradja, (53) were themselves if anything more unpopular than the pamong pradja themselves. The army was just coming into being and was fully absorbed in the fighting in the city; in any case it was politically independent of the civilian authorities and, as a revolutionary pemuda organization, not generally very sympa- thetic with the old-line pamong pradja. It was only inertia which had pre- vented extensive changes among the pamong pradja and village headmen in the Bandung area and by November that had been overcome. The period which followed, in this area roughly from November to March, was what was known as the daulat period (djaman daulat - daulatan), the rural equivalent of the siap period in the cities. (54) In Priangan the daulat period in the rural areas began somewhat later than along the north coast of West Java and was not as extensive or as violent as it was there. Nevertheless a number of pamong pradja and village headmen were chased violently out of their areas by mobs, several were killed and considerably larger numbers retired to the safety of the city or resigned, "for reasons of health." The personnel records, if they still exist, are not available and only a few of these changes were re- ported in the press--mainly because this evidence of disunity was embar- rassing at a time when national unity was so much emphasized--so that detailed statistics are out of the question. But there is enough material, from interviews in selected districts and from newspaper and other material, to say that at a conservative estimate about a dozen of the twenty-seven subdistrict officers, one or two of the nine district officers and about ten percent of the 250 village headmen in Bandung Regency were replaced as a result of popular action of one sort or another during the period from November to March alone. (55) when threatened. But they too had been partly bureaucratized and many were quite vulnerable to popular discontent. (53) Oudang, Perkembangan Kepolisian 65ff. Under the Japanese the police had been withdrawn from the control of the pamong pradja and placed in a separate department (ibid. 41ff) but the Preparatory Committee restored them to the Ministry of the Interior. (54) ’’Daulat,’* an old word meaning "homage," is the root of the modern word "kedaulatan" (sovereignty). As a verb it refers to a sud- den and violent ousting of someone in authority, usually a government official. It is possible that this usage originated at just this time, when the principle of kedaulatan rakjat (popular sovereignty) was sometimes invoked to justify daulat-daulatan (ousters). (55) In the four districts whose pamong pradja changes I have had an opportunity to investigate in some detail through interviews I know of six certain cases of subdistrict officers being ousted by daulat movements, and one or two possible ones, out of thirteen subdistricts. The six cases, two of them in succession in the same subdistrict, are discussed in the following pages. Informants have told me of another subdistrict officer case in a fifth district. For information from other sources, see note123 In some cases such men were ousted by a general movement among the people in their area, without any particular political coloring. Often enough, however, it was the santri (strongly Islamic) elements which took the lead. In Tandjungkerta Subdistrict (Sumedang Regency), an area in which there was a strong local Hizbullah (56) movement, this resulted in what was the only case I know of in this area and immediate period in which a subdistrict officer was actually killed. A more typical case occurred in Sindangkerta Subdistrict in the hills on the western side of the Bandung bowl in early December. There, increasingly strong local sentiment, centering on an active Hizbullah movement, forced the subdistrict officer to flee and his place was taken by one of the Hizbullah leaders, a young kiai. From Sindangkerta the movement spread up the road to the more remote subdistrict of Gununghalu, whose head also withdrew. He was re- placed by the local grade-school teacher, the head of the subdistrict KNI, not apparently a santri but certainly acceptable to the santris of Gunung- halu and Sindangkerta. In late January the Resident, "in the interests of [effective] government and after having heard the wishes of the people in the respective areas," gave them formal appointments. (57) In a number of cases the widespread hostility toward the pamong pradja and village headmen, and the lack of effective government support for them, was exploited by djagos (brigands) for what amounted to little more than banditry. The best-known of these cases was the djago move- ment associated with the name of its most prominent leader, a man called Soma, which held sway over a considerable area to the north and north- west of Tjimahi between December and early February. (58) This 57 below. There is nothing about the general conditions in the districts which I have not investigated in detail to make one suppose that they dif- fered significantly as regards daulat-daulatan. I know of about half a dozen cases of village headmen being ousted but I have made the estimate of ten percent on the basis of general statements by knowledgeable infor- mants rather than by extrapolation. (56) Here and throughout this section I ain using the term Hizbullah; which is the one used by my informants for these groups. In most cases, however, it is evident that the movements in question were of the rural "Sabilillah" type discussed above, pp. 91-93. (57) Quoted from a letter of appointment dated 24 January 1946 covering these and some half-dozen other pamong pradja transfers in Bandung Regency which took effect December 13th„ Two of the other trans- fers also involved subdistrict officers, which in the context almost cer- tainly indicates daulat cases. In February the district officer of Tjililin was replaced and while the public announcement (Soeara Merdeka 20 Feb) says nothing about the reasons for this change the nature of the situation in Tjililin at the time makes it very likely that he was forced out. (58) Actually Soma and those connected with him are always re- ferred to by my informants as garongs. A garong is more specifically a robber--usually rural--than a djago· but the terms are close enough in meaning to warrant using only the one here.124 movement made its first appearance in Tjisarua Subdistrict, in the hills north of Tjimahi, around mid-November: *He (a KNI leader in Tjimahi) said that its main slogan was that the time had come to divide out the wealth of the rich among the people. The men who were drawn in- to this movement, which he said was promoted by some djagos from the Krawang area, went about in armed groups practicing extortion on the wealthier inhabitants. They were particularly hostile to village headmen and heads of kampungs. I enquired about the pamong pradja and he said that they had all fled to Tjimahi for safety. He himself played a part in suppressing this movement in early December and remarked that many people in Tjimahi criticized him for this afterward, saying that it was not right to be attacking fellow Indonesians at a time when all efforts should be devoted to resisting the "NICAs" in Tjimahi. (59) Another view of the same movement appears in the statement of a high school student who was staying at this time with his uncle, the headman of one of the villages in Tjisarua Subdistrict. He said that his uncle was under heavy pressure from the garongs who wanted revenge for what they con- sidered his improper and excessively severe acts during the Japanese occupation. He asserted that his uncle had only been carrying out his duty and that the men attacking him were only robbers. His uncle was able to maintain his position with the help of a Hizbullah group which was forming in the area at the time. He was not a member but served as elder statesman and ad- visor to it. As Hizbullah’s strength rose, that of the garongs declined and the village became secure again. (60) After this, the movement moved a bit to the west and came to center in Padalarang Subdistrict. Here, under the leadership of Soma, it took a more definite shape. Soma took over a Catholic mission center near the town of Padalarang for his headquarters and built up something of a djago republic in the area. The subdistrict officer and a number of headmen had to flee for their lives, as in Tjisarua, but here they were replaced by djagos, with a man named Iping filling the role of subdistrict officer and at least one djago headman beneath him. (59) British troops played a smaller part and Dutch, Eurasian and Ambonese pemudas a larger part in the conflict in Tjimahi than in Bandung during this period. These groups had long made up a high proportion of the population of this town with its large KNIL base, and tension between them and Indonesians there dated from before the war. This helps to ac- count for the fact that Tjimahi had long had rather more djagos than other areas in the regency or generally in Priangan. The same was true, on a smaller scale, in Padalarang (Soma’s main base) which had been a KNIL cavalry center. (60) This passage is taken from my wife’s interview notes.125 This djago movement, culminating in Soma’s more or less system- atic assumption of power, was the nearest thing to the north coast pattern of social revolution which there was in Bandung Regency during the daulat period. The levelling slogans, the extortion and pillage, the hatred fo- cussed on the rural authorities, and the effort to create a djago facsimile of the existing system of rural government were all typical of the area from Bantam to Tegal in these months. It is suggestive that this area with its army bases--like Lembang to the east, with its Dutch, Eurasian and Chinese truck and dairy farming, where the djago hadji Tojib was active--had a distinctly lower level of social integration than other parts of the regency. This was characteristic of the djago areas on the north coast as well. (61) It is certainly significant that Soma, like Hadji Tojib, had connections with API in Bandung which we have seen had a pronounced djago character. (62) The effect of the daulat period on the rural political system was not confined to actual cases of violent expulsion or flight of pamong pradja and village headmen. Those pamong pradja who remained in office, ex- cept for a few who were able to adapt themselves to the new conditions, generally retained only nominal authority in their areas. Practical power and even control over many aspects of ordinary administration passed to those capable of exercising it under the conditions: djagos in some areas but particularly the pemudas in the badan perdjuangan and later the army. Headmen, who were not rotated about the posts of a bureaucracy but re- mained rooted in their own villages, fared somewhat better but most lost a great deal of their authority. (63) *He (a leading figure in a headmen’s organization and at that time an active pemuda) had been talking about the decline in the position of the pamong pradja over the last two decades and I asked further about the early Revolu- tion. "Oh then they were entirely without influence," he said. They were associated in people’s minds with colon- ial rule. Some were kidnapped, others ousted or killed and some fled. The same with the police. Their posi- tion was taken over by badan perdjuangan and by army units, that is by pemudas. In those days identification papers and passes, for example, were not considered valid unless stamped by one of these pemuda organiza- tions. Indeed it was not necessary for them to be made out by the official authorities at all; they were often issued directly by badan perdjuangan. The position of (61) See p. 88. A more systematic analysis would have to bring in the factor of Islam, so important in Bantam and Tegal but not in evidence here, and take into account the rather different social background in Tegal. (62) For Soma and API see Perdjuangan Kita 15 Feb. For the later suppression of Soma's movement see p. ΓΤ5. (63) Memed A rdiwilaga, Masjarakat Desa 15 and 19.126 the village headmen was somewhat different. They generally continued to play an active role, but were made use of as a kind of supply department by the badan perdjuangan. They were mobilized to procure food and other supplies for the pemuda organizations and to pass on instructions and information to the people of their villages. *He (then and now a member of the pamong pradja) said that in the early phase of the Revolution there was a popular reaction against the pamong pradja be- cause of the sufferings endured in the Japanese period. Some were attacked and a few even killed. Both pamong pradja and police lost their weapons and their physical power to the army; their position became pre- carious. They were used by the army to collect food from the people. These statements refer in part to conditions somewhat later than the period November-March which we are considering now, in which the badan perdjuangan were not yet at all well organized and the army had only just begun to play a role in the rural areas. But from their different points of view, pemuda and pamong pradja, they agree in describing a radical change in the position of the local civil authorities in the face of armed and militant pemudas. Almost without resistance the old prijaji ruling class was being expelled from its dominant position in the rural world, completing the cycle begun more than a half century earlier when it had begun its transformation from an aristocracy into a class of civil servants. This decline was briefly reversed in 1948 and 1949 when the Dutch relied heavily on the restoration of this class to something like its old position in the pamong pradja to bolster the fed- eral state of Pasundan which they established. But with the triumph of the Republic in 1950 the prijaji in the pamong pradja suffered a new and more crushing loss of prestige and authority. In 1900 the rural world of Priangan was ruled by an aristocracy; in 1941 it was ruled by a bureau- cracy composed chiefly of aristocrats, their prestige due as much to birth as to rank; but today it is ruled--or rather administered--by a pamong pradja which is simply a bureaucracy. The fall of the prijaji old guard was only one aspect of the devel- opments during the daulat period. As the case of Tjisarua suggests it was not simply a matter of driving out the incumbent subdistrict officer and his subordinates; the djagos who had brought this about were them- selves soon mastered by other forces. In February Soma’s djago repub- lic was suppressed by the army. The replacement or pushing aside of the incumbent pamong pradja was a symptom of a general breakdown of the existing rural political system, whose framework was the pamong pradja network, into a tangle of local power struggles. A description of some of the affairs which took place in one of the subdistricts in Bandung Regency in the period between December and March will give an idea of conditions generally during the daulat period.127 In early December a new head took office in the subdistrict, a man of about thirty who had just entered the pamong pradja during the Japanese occupation. His appointment, incidentally, appears to have been one of the few in this period which originated with the higher authorities rather than in the area concerned, since he had had nothing to do with the area before he arrived as subdistrict officer. He (the officer in question) described himself as having been a "tjamat perdjuangan. ” (64) He dressed with deliberate casualness and never wore the pamong pradja uniform, let his hair grow long in the pemuda fashion of the Revolution and always carried a pistol. If he had not done so, and not made a practice of speaking bluntly [rather than with prijaji politeness! no one would have paid attention to him. It was only by adopting this style, he said, that he was able to maintain some order among the people and the local badan perdjuangan, which were often involved in disputes with each other. I asked if the pamong pradja hierarchy was working ef- fectively, whether he got regular instructions and orders from the district officer above him. He said not; subdistrict officers were very much on their own at the time. In this case, anyway, the district officer was rather old-fashioned and couldn’t contribute much. The figure of the ’’tjamat perdjuangan" was a product of the daulat period, though not all followed the pemuda model down to such details as the long hair. To operate at all effectively under the conditions a subdistrict offi- cer had to have something of the pemuda in him; he had to be able to pre- sent a bold front because he could not rely on the support of an effective bureaucratic machine. Asa type, the tjamat perdjuangan in many ways resembled the badan perdjuangan leader more than the traditional subdis- trict officer. Some, indeed, like the subdistrict officer of Sindangkerta mentioned above, were just that. During the three or four months of the daulat period there were two headman elections and one effort to oust a headman, out of the nine villages in this subdistrict, an indication of the disturbed conditions pre- vailing there. (65) The elections were carried out successfully though not without threats of violence. In one case the winner was the village clerk, who according to general practice was a relative of the headman, circumstances which in normal times would have made him a strong fav- orite in any case. He was also, however, the head of the local BPRI branch and thus had the benefit of a body of armed and militant supporters. The daulat attempt was more complicated. The headman in question was (64) "Perdjuangan" here is an adjective modifying "tjamat"--a subdistrict officer active in the perdjuangan. (65) The significance of this, as an index of social disturbance, is increased if it is kept in mind that village headmen in Java have cus- tomarily served for life.128 a hadji, while the organizers of the mob which came to displace him had connections with API in Bandung. The subdistrict officer came to the scene and succeeded in stopping the attempt but in the process aroused the enmity of the API faction. The fact that, though not a santri himself, his closest ties in the area were with the local Hizbullah, certainly con- tributed to this. Shortly after, he was kidnapped and taken to the API headquarters on Djalan Lengkong Besar in Bandung. His Hizbullah sup- porters heard of this and threatened to march on Bandung if he were not released. This message was communicated to some of the Masjumi leaders in the city and they informed API, which then let him go. Early in 1946, however, he intervened in a dispute between the local Hizbullah and Pesindo groups in a way that aroused the hostility of the latter, and when they became too threatening he was forced to leave the area. His successor likewise lasted only a few months before being ousted. It was not until later in 1946 that the subdistrict got a head who remained in office until routinely transferred. This particular subdistrict was perhaps rather more unruly than the average but it was not at all exceptional. The daulat period came to an end in March or shortly after, as a rough equilibrium of forces began to establish itself in most areas of the regency and as the army, forced to evacuate Bandung in late March, began to play a larger role as a stabilizing power in the countryside. But the political forces which had come into the open with the breakdown of the old system of rural govern- ment did not disappear as a degree of order was restored. The most striking feature of the political struggle in the rural areas in the later years of the Revolution was the conflict between the santris and the sec- ular elements which opposed them, a conflict whose beginnings are appar ent in some of the incidents described above and which was to erupt in 1948 in the form of the Darul Islam (Islamic state) movement. But the phenomenon was more general than that and it was not until 1950, with the establishment of a strong unitary Republic, that a general settlement was achieved among the political forces released in 1945. (66) Pemudas and Politicians While the Europeans, and later many Chinese, were drawing to- gether behind the increasingly well-defined boundaries of the protected zone in north Bandung, the Indonesians were spreading out from the city to the countryside. With these two forces pulling away in opposite direc- tions the character of south Bandung began to change. Though many or- dinary inhabitants remained in the quieter parts of the city, going more or less normally about their ways, pemudas were represented in dispro- portionately large numbers and their activities dominated the scene. Civic life and civil government continued in their fashion but increasingly south Bandung was taking on a special character as a forward base for perdjuangan, an enormous pemuda camp. (66) Except as far as Darul Islam was concerned, of course; it was not finally suppressed until 1962. For Darul Islam, see p. 93.129 The perdjuangan itself, that is specifically the struggle against the British and the Dutch, is already familiar and need not be discussed fur- ther; in the circumstances it could not amount to much more than an ir- ritant to the British in their now secure camp to the north. What is more significant is that amid the alarums and excursions of this perdjuangan considerable improvement was being made in the organization of the pe- mudas. It was only the beginning of a process that was to continue through- out the Revolution but even these first steps brought about important changes in the form of the pemuda movement and in the political relationship be- tween the pemudas and the older generation. (67) Though pemuda organizations of various sorts and degrees of effi- ciency had been formed as early as October the real impetus for the development we are concerned with here came with the turmoil of late November and early December. On the one hand daily fighting provided the occasion for cooperation and called attention to the urgent necessity for unity and better organization. On the other hand, with anarchy raging, the power of the civil authorities to control the situation, which had been none too great previously, was reduced still further. What was needed in these circumstances was strong military leadership and this, of course, could be supplied only by the pemudas. It was no coincidence that just at this time a new coordinating body for the badan perdjuangan and a new leadership for the TKR came to the fore. The coordinating body, called the MDPP, (68) grew out of informal contacts between the leaders of some of the badan perdjuangan which had been taking place since October; its formal establishment dates from around the middle of November when the situation in Bandung began to be more tense. It consisted of the heads or pasukan (armed force) leaders of most of the badan perdjuangan in the city at the time, along with a representative of the police, and was headed by Sutoko who as we have seen had played a leading role in the seizure of the government offices in September and in the founding of the PRI/Pesindo in October. (69) (67) This stage in the growth of the pemuda movement attracted greater public notice than the earlier one (see note 86, p. 84) and there is consequently a good deal more published material to go on. The inter- views mentioned in that note, however, remain the primary source for this section as well. (68) The initials stood originally for Markas Dewan Pimpinan Perdjuangan (Perdjuangan Leadership Board Headquarters). Later in the MDPP's career, when it was beginning to be more active in other parts of Priangan outside the city, its initials were sometimes interpreted as meaning Markas Dewan Perdjuangan Priangan (Priangan Perdjuangan Board Headquarters). (69) Sudewo, Riwajat Siliwangi 15 and Kementerian Penerangan, Propins i Djawa Ba rat 183, along with a number of informants, are agreed on this point. It is evident from contemporary material, however, that the API leader Astrawinata headed the MDPP for at least part of its life. Merdeka 30 Jan mentions him as head at that time and Soeara Merdeka 26 Feb reports Sutoko's election as head (replacing Astrawinata, though130 The MDPP did not concern itself, in the beginning at least, with the whole range of activities undertaken by its member badan perdjuangan, supply, information work and so forth; it was intended specifically as a coordin- ating committee for military matters. It first came to the fore in the planning for the general attack on the British on November 24th and there- after it grew rapidly in importance, exercising an increasingly effective influence on the badan perdjuangan in Bandung. (70) We shall see in a moment that it, and its successor organization, worked very closely with the local army leadership, something which was to have an important ef- fect on the military history of Priangan and indeed the whole of West Java. In the TKR the important event of this same period was the re- placement of Arudji Kartawinata as commander of the 3rd Division by A. H. Nasution. The change took place shortly after the general attack on November 24th and was a direct result of the new sequence of events inaugurated by that event. The central government was annoyed with Arudj for taking part in such an aggressive move, while in Bandung some of the pemudas were inclined to hold him responsible for its failure. More im- portant, Arudji was simply unable to maintain control of the military situa- tion in the chaos which ensued in Bandung. He was a typical Peta battalion commander, a veteran politician (Masjumi) with little military training, and he had inherited rather than won his position in the BKR and later the TKR. Men of this type were being pushed out of the TKR all over Java at this time and a week or two of crisis in Bandung were enough to bring about his ouster. (71) that is not mentioned in the story). There may have been an earlier switch from Sutoko to Astrawinata, of course. Even if Sutoko was not the head of MDPP between its founding and February 1946, however, it is certain that he played a dominant part in its affairs, particularly in the military side of its activities emphasized in this section. For more on this question see p. 143. (70) Kementerian Penerangan, Propinsi Djawa Barat 183-4 gives the most extensive, though not always accurate, account of MDPP’s activities in these months. (71) The change was announced on December 17th (Merdeka 17 Dec) at the same time as the replacement of Sutardjo by Datuk Djamin as governor of West Java. The announcement gives no indication of the date on which the transfer took effect and the other evidence on this point is mixed. The last published reference to Arudji as TKR commander in Bandung appeared as late as December 15th (Merdeka 18 Dec--a report from Bandung dated 15 Dec). On the other hand Nasution himself, in his book, dates the change to "late November" (TNI 1/109). Several infor- mants state that the decision to appoint Nasution was made by Amir Sjari- fuddin when he appeared in Bandung, which as we have seen was on December 7th. The likeliest explanation, which is supported by further interview material, is that Nasution gained de facto control over the 3rd Division very soon after the beginning of the fighting in late November and that this fait accompli was accepted by Amir on or about December 7th though not formally announced until ten days later.131 The man who replaced him, Nasution, was both younger--a pemuda to lead a pemuda organization--and better trained. He was a member of the very small but important group of men with pre-war Dutch military training, a group which became particularly prominent in the army in West Java. He had been a cadet at the Koninklijk Militaire Academie (Royal Military Academy) which had been hastily reestablished in Bandung after the fall of Holland in 1940. (72) During the occupation he was the head of the Seinendan branch in the city, in and around which a small underground movement grew up, making preparations for action after the defeat of Japan. In October he became Chief of Staff of the West Java Komandemen and it was from this post that he moved to command of the 3rd Division. In a study of social history such as this there will seldom be many men who play an important personal role in the course of events. Nasution is one of the few and so is Sutoko, his opposite number in the MDPP. It would be difficult to describe the further development of the army in the Bandung area, which six months later became an important part of the Siliwangi Division of West Java under Nasution’s command, without taking Nasution's special qualities into account: his superior military education and foresight, his unusual powers of organization and, particularly as con- cerns this stage, his strong drive to make the national army the dominant if not the sole military force in the area of his command. It is here that his close collaboration with Sutoko and the MDPP assumes such impor- tance, for the latter was one of the very few badan perdjuangan leaders on Java, and the MDPP one of the very few such organizations, to play an active role in this process, which necessarily involved the absorption of badan perdjuangan forces into the army. Alongside these personal factors there were others inherent in the situation in Bandung and generally in West Java which facilitated this pro- cess. The greater number of educated pemudas in Bandung (and Djakarta) and the fact that they spread out throughout the army structure, instead of gathering in a student army by themselves, has already been mentioned (see pp 80-81). A second factor was the much smaller number of weapons in Indonesian hands in Bandung and Priangan, and generally in West Java. This has already been mentioned several times, particularly in connec- tion with the difficulty it caused the Indonesians in their struggle with the Japanese and British. In this context, however, its significance is that it hindered the development of fully armed and hence more independent- minded badan perdjuangan in this area. Thus, to take only two examples, the pasukans of the local branches of both BPRI and Barisan Banteng were far less well armed than their counterparts elsewhere on Java; the for- mer were absorbed into the Siliwangi Division in May 1946 while the latter remained independent for years. These two factors, moreover, worked strongly together, for the shortage of weapons had the effect of putting a premium on education, which here was better represented in the army. Finally there is a factor which is more difficult to assess but which was (72) Among the other cadets were T. B. Simatupang, Askari, Alex Kawilarang, Suprapto and Kartakusuma. T. B. Simatupang, Lapp ran dari Banaran (Djakarta I960) 87, 102. War intervened before these cadets finished the full course.132 probably of considerable importance: the fact that here, for at least four months longer than elsewhere, the main body of militant pemudas was concentrated in the city of Bandung under conditions rather more favorable to the work of organizing than those prevailing on the long perimeters of the other Allied held cities of Java, or in the interior. Certainly the groundwork for the movement of many of the Bandung badan perdjuangan pasukans into the army had already been laid by the time the evacuation of the city became necessary. The formation of the Resimen Pelopor (Pioneer Regiment) of the 3rd Division provides one example of the process by which badan perdju- angan pasukans moved into the army in this period. The formation of the Resimen Pelopor, like that of most military groups at this time, was not an event but a process. It grew up gradually and informally in the course of late 1945 and early 1946 and did not begin to develop a distinct corporate character until shortly before the evacuation of the city in March. The name "Resimen Pelopor" itself was not used until after the evacuation. (73) One source mentions a "Detachement Pelopor," with some of the same pasukans in;it, as being formed in February 1945, (74) and this gives an indication of the process by which the future regiment grew. "Detachement," or more commonly "detasemen," was frequently used at the time to refer to a catch-all unit or special force attached to the headquarters of an army unit or badan perdjuangan, usually having direct ties with the commander or leader of the unit and filling the role played by the military police in most armies. Several of the pasukans in- volved here had been serving just this kind of function for Nasution for some time before they were drawn together more tightly into the Detache- ment Pelopor and then set up as army battalions in the Resimen Pelopor. The pasukan which had the longest standing direct relationship with Nasution, going as far back as October, was the Pasukan Istimewa (1). (75) Its members were mostly Bataks, many of them former KNlL enlisted men, and it was headed at that time by an acquaintance of Nasution’s from before the war, Pakpahan. (76) Though, as has been (73) Nasution, TNI 1/139 says that it was formed "in Bandung" (i. e. before March) but does not use the name "Resimen Pelopor" for it in this passage. Ibid. 1/206, referring to May and June 1946, does use the name. (74) Sudewo, Riwajat Siliwangi 15. (75) See p. 90. Pasukan Istimewa (1) is mentioned as the "Detase- men HI!' of the 3rd Division in Soeara Merdeka (Bandung edition) 15 Mar. (Perdjuangan Kita moved back to Bandung from Tjiparaj on January 14th and on February 18th resumed its old name of Soeara Merdeka. It was called the "Bandung edition" (omitted hereafter) because the other half of the old Soeara Merdeka continued to publish in Tasikmalaja during this period. The.two halves were reunited after the evacuation in March. ) (76) He was forced out of the leadership of the Pasukan Istimewa (1) in March (Soeara Merdeka 15 Mar) and was followed in the position by a whole series of other men. Pasukan Istimewa (1) was well known to be133 pointed out, it resembled in some respects the organizations like PIM (Ambonese) and KRIS (Menadonese) which served as protective bodies for minority ethnic groups, its meet important function was to strengthen Nasution’s hand as he moved through the confusion and violence of the an- archical phase. Though small--it had only a few dozen members at the beginning--it was experienced and fully-armed, something very rare at the time, and it played a role quite out of proportion to its size. A second pasukan which had special ties to Nasution earlier and which later joined the Resimen Pelopor as the cadre for a battalion was one known variously as Beruang Merah (Red Bear) and the mortor Bat- talion (from the fact that it had all or most of the mortars in Indonesian hands in the area at the time). Its commander, a Peta platoon comman- der, Abdullah Saleh, had taken advantage of his contacts among the Japa- nese to collect a relatively large number of guns and this unit was likewise one of the best-armed in the Bandung area. A third battalion in the Resimen Pelopor had as its core the Pasu- kan Istimewa (2), in this case not a badan perdjuangan standing by itself but the elite force of the Bandung Pesindo. This pasukan, formed around a nucleus of students from the Technical College in Bandung and led by one of these students, Simon Tobing, was built up from the pick of the educated pemudas who joined PRI/Pesindo. At its peak membership of about 150, most or all of whom were supplied with a gun, it was perhaps the strongest and best-disciplined single force in the city. It too was working more or less directly for Nasution--formally speaking for the City Defense Com- mand (77)--for some time before it was formally brought into the army. The fact that it was turned over to the army by Sutoko and the other leaders of the local Pesindo branch at this early date is the most striking single example of the policy of cooperation we are concerned with here. It must be remembered that Pesindo was one of the most powerful badan perdjuan- gan on Java and was certainly the most important one in Bandung, and that elsewhere there was no question of Pesindo units joining the army at this time. (78) Though most of the pasukans which eventually ended up in the Resimen Pelopor were represented in the MDPP, the latter did not so much directly create the regiment as perform a broking function in sev- eral cases as individual units moved in the direction of the army. A difficult to keep in hand. Jusuf Adjitorop (born Simandjuntak), in recent years one of the leading Sumatran Communists, was one of these for a time in 1946. Parlaungan (ed), Tokoh-Tokoh Parlemen 275-6. (77) Komando Pertahanan Kota. This was a coordinating body for defense and security matters, headed by the then chief of staff of the 3rd Division, Sudjono. Sudewo, Riwajat Siliwangi 15. (78) The fourth battalion of the Resimen Pelopor contained the local KRIS unit and a number of smaller pasukans. The commander of the regiment, when it reached that stage of organization, was Abdullah Saleh of the Beruang Merah.134 second regiment, however, the RTP (Resimen Tentara Perdjuangan), (79) was specifically an MDPP product. Indeed as we shall see later, it was in a sense the MDPP itself converted into an army unit. The RTP was made up shortly after the evacuation in March and formalized on May 18th, and consisted of five battalions: Pesindo (the main body of the Pesindo forces in Bandung), Barisan Banteng, BPRI, Hizbullah and finally a mixed battalion of smaller pasukans formed around the relatively small PIM unit. Though Sanskrit or historical names were supplied for these bat- talions, as for most army units in Indonesia during the Revolution, and came gradually into usage, they continued for some time to be known by their old badan perdjuangan names and the regiment itself stood in a spe- cial relationship with the army. Though part of the Siliwangi Division in a practical sense, and indeed along with the Resimen Pelopor one of the units on which Nasution relied the most, it was not put on exactly the same formal basis as other regiments until a year later. The orderliness of the process by which these new regiments were formed stands out more clearly if it is contrasted with the disarming of API in the city and regency on February 8th, one of the first and largest in a series of such operations by which Nasution sought to expand the auth- ority of the army and enforce order among badan perdjuangan. This rather simplifies a complex case.· Nasution and the 3rd Division were joined in planning and carrying out this disarming by Sutoko and the MDPP, and politics was involved as well. (80) More generally, it must not be thought that disarming was a practice peculiar to the 3rd Division or Siliwangi, or that it was confined to relations between the army and the badan perdjuan- gan. It was common practice in Java during the Revolution and there are many cases of army units disarming other army units, of badan perdjuan- gan disarming army units and other badan perdjuangan, and so on down the scale to single individuals. In a time when weapons were scarce and played a decisive role in the field of political action it is not surprising that dis- armings were frequent; what is interesting is that like political kidnappings they so seldom caused bloodshed. The official reasons given for the action were that API in the Ban- dung area had set itself up as a "Republic within the Republic" and disre- garded the legitimate civil and military authorities, that it practiced terror and robbery, and that it had had contacts with the enemy. (81) (79) Like the names of many Indonesian organizations of this period that of the RTP, literally "Struggle Army Regiment," sounds garbled in translation. Here the word "Resimen" indicated that it was a part of the regular army, while "Tentara Perdjuangan" indicated its special status as a badan perdjuangan unit. "Tentara," meaning "army," was often used in this period for irregular forces as well. For the for- mation of the RTP see Kementerian Penerangan, Propinsi Djawa Barat 186-7. (80) For the political aspect see p. 143. (81) This is a summary of the long list of charges published in Perdjuangan Kita 15 Feb. See also Perdjuangan Kita 12 Feb, Soeara Merdeka 18 Feb and Sudewo, Riwajat Siliwangi 15.135 There is no way of checking the last of these charges, but the first two were well-enough founded, though of course they applied to a greater or lesser extent to most badan perdjuangan and for that matter to many army units. The disarming itself was carefully planned and involved a large number of army and badan perdjuangan units, one of which was brought all the way from Tjiamis at the eastern end of Priangan for the purpose. It took place in the middle of the night and achieved virtually complete success without any fighting. The main unit in south Bandung and vari- ous branches scattered around the regency (82) were disarmed and their leaders were arrested; the spoils, including many guns, went to the at- tackers, while a number of warehouses came under the control of the 3rd Division. API disappeared from the Bandung area, though it should be noted that many of its members soon found their way into other pasukans or army units, including some of those participating in the attack. The formation of the Resimen Pelopor and the Resimen Tentara Perdjuangan, and to a lesser extent the disarming of API in Bandung, played an important part in establishing the army as the dominant mil- itary power and most important pemuda organization in Priangan. It was not only that the addition of these two strong regiments approximately doubled the effective strength of the 3rd Division in Priangan, but also that the absorption of important Pesindo, Barisan Benteng and BPRI units into the army indicated clearly that these large badan perdjuangan did not in- tend (or were not able) to maintain themselves as major independent mili- tary powers in this area as their fellows elsewhere were doing. The dis- solution of the main API pasukans in the Bandung area and the fact that no student army developed in this area as in East and Central Java had the same effect. It must be kept in mind, however, that for the time being at least the formation of these two regiments affected only the military aspect of relations between the army and the badan perdjuangan. The two regiments took in the pasukans of most of the badan perdjuangan in the city but, ex- cept in the case of some of the smaller and more exclusively military groups like the Pasukan Istimewa (1), they did not take in the parent or- ganizations themselves. Indeed these badan perdjuangan, along with others which were not represented in the two regiments, continued to have pasu- kans of their own in the other parts of Priangan and they continued for some time to maintain ties with their units in the Resimen Tentara Perdjuan gan. Even in Priangan, where conditions were exceptionally favorable from the beginning, the absorption of these other armed forces by the army was a long drawn out and delicate business, marked by a number of setbacks. So far in this discussion of the improvement of military organiza- tion among the pemudas in the period beginning in December the emphasis has been on the growth of the army by absorbing and disarming badan perdjuangan pasukans. The importance of this subject in the history of the Bandung area and its special interest as a particularly early example (82) Including the djago groups of Hadji Tojib in the Lembang area and Soma in the Padalarang area, which were more or less closely con- nected with the main headquarters on Djalan Lengkong Besar in Bandung.136 of a process which later developed throughout Java and Sumatra should not be allowed to obscure the developments which were taking place inside the army itself during the same period. The most significant of these was the steady rise in the level at which effective organization in the army was possible. In late October and November, as we have seen, the largest units with any real coherence were the battalions, though regiments like the 8th and 9th in the Bandung area were certainly more than paper units. But at that time the 3rd Division, like the West Java Komandemen, was largely a name written in from above to fill a blank on the table of organ- ization. By early 1946, the division had become a functioning organiza- tion, a fact demonstrated among other things by its ability to take in and hold the two badan perdjuangan regiments. In May it became possible to establish the Siliwangi Division to replace the moribund Komandemen as the army unit covering the whole of West Java. (83) This steady improve- ment in the internal organization of the army--though it remained far from perfect--is not so easily followed as the dealings with the badan perdjuangan in the same period, because it seldom involved formal changes of status. But it is certainly no less significant an aspect of the history of the period. The development of more effective pemuda military organizations such as the MDPP and particularly the 3rd Division was bound to affect the relations between the pemudas and the older generation, politicians and pamong pradja alike. Pemuda opinion had exerted a strong pressure from as early as the middle of September and the kidnappings of October represented a more acute form of the same kind of pressure, that is of largely unorganized opinion upon those who still had the only existing machinery for carrying out policy. But as pemudas developed their own machinery they became capable of carrying out policy themselves and hence of replacing the older generation to a greater or lesser extent. At the same time, of course, the existing institutions run by the older gen- eration--long-established ones like the pamong pradja, new ones like the KNI’s--were declining in effectiveness. The same factor, the prevailing anarchy of this period, was working upon both generations, stimulating the one and temporarily overwhelming the other. One of the most interesting results of this situation was that as the pemuda organizations became stronger and better organized their leaders became less "revolutionary." A small but revealing illustration of this is a statement by a spokesman for MDPP about December 2nd urging that prisoners not be mistreated and going on to call attention to a public announcement by MDPP that "Whosoever takes it upon himself to act as a judge will be prosecuted before the military court." (84) There (83) Nasution, TNI 1/172-4. This was at the time of the first thoroughgoing reorganization of the army. Nasution was elected comman- der at a meeting of the regiment and division commanders of the West Java area. The TKR had been changed into the TRI (Tentara Republik Indonesia--A rmy of the Indonesian Republic) in January. Nasution, TNI 1/170; Koe snodiprodjo, Himpunan Undang-Undang, Peraturan-Peraturan, Penetapan-Penetapan Pemerintah Republik Indonesia 1946, rev ed, (Djakarta 1951) 165. ~~ (84) Merdeka 4 Dec.137 is no reason why the MDPP leaders should have been in favor of atrocities, of course, but this announcement, coming in the midst of the first and most passionate wave of fighting with the British at a time when pemudas might be expected to be thinking only of perdjuangan, shows a new sense of responsibility for public order. The reference to a military court--for which, incidentally, the formal grounds did not exist at this time--indicates a rapid development of institutional machinery for carrying out this new responsibility. This tendency of pemuda leaders to become more moderate as they developed more effective organizations and took over responsibilities is most graphically illustrated by the case of the army, both at this time and throughout the Revolution. One sees these elements juxtaposed in a news story on December 17th reporting that the TKR leaders were cooperating with the British in restoring calm in the city and that in recent days "it seems that the TKR has gained control over the city." (85) This referred to control in the police sense, not the political sense; the TKR had not ousted the civil government but simply supplanted it in maintaining order. This control, moreover, was only relative and was more easily appreci- ated on the Indonesian side of the railway tracks, where men were aware of its political implications, than on the other side. The British view of the same situation in mid-December was rather different. There was no one in authority with whom to negotiate. The Allied Command did, some time in December, gain contact with an organization known as TKR which gave advice to its followers to cease their hostilities, but this had no apparent effect on events. (86) The fact remains that the TKR, like the MDPP, was beginning to exer- cise a moderating influence on the pemudas and was cooperating with the civilian leaders and British in doing so. It was in short practicing a form of diplomasi. At the same time the army was and remained a pemuda organiza- tion, a circumstance which was bound to create ambivalence. We have seen that it was a civilian, Amir Sjarifuddin, ,who negotiated the agreement in early December whereby the TKR would escort supply trains to Bandung, but it was the TKR which actually carried out the agreement. There could be no more striking example of the contrast between perdjuangan and diplo- masi than the arrival of the most heavily attacked road convoy in Bandung on December 12th one day before the first train arrived--the convoy at- tacked mostly by TKR units, the train protected by other TKR units. (87) Problems of this sort, inherent in its position between the older generation civilians in the government and the more militant and less organized (85) Merdeka 18 Dec (Antara 17 Dec). (86) 5th Gurkha Rifles 337. (87) See p. 102 for the road convoy, Merdeka 12 and 13 Dec for the train, and Doulton, Fighting Cock 284 for them together.138 pemudas below, were to bedevil the army throughout the Revolution. On the one hand, the very fact that it was becoming better organized meant that it shared an interest in order with the older generation. Moreover, as the national army, it based its claim to legitimacy on its official status as well as on its pemuda fighting spirit (semangat); by accepting, and ex- ploiting, this status it necessarily lost some of the freedom of action which a badan perdjuangan had. Finally it profited directly from its offi- cial status: from about this time it began to receive an increasingly large proportion of the national budget and it continued to do so throughout the Revolution. (88) On the other hand, by working to suppress anarchy the army ran the grave risk of suppressing the revolutionary spirit as well, both in itself and among others, and thus of being untrue to its pemuda origins. More important, though it had committed itself to a measure of support for diplomasi it retained its interest in perdjuangan, for in diplo- mas! it was the civilians who took the lead. What developed out of this was a delicately balanced relationship between the army and the civilian leadership--in the capital chiefly the nationalist politicians of the political parties and the government, outside the capital chiefly the leading figures in the pamong pradja. The outline of this relationship is already visible in Bandung in December 1945. The army remained for practical purposes independent of civilian control and it had the power to impose its will when it chose to, as it did at the time of the evacuation in March. But normally it worked with the civilian auth- orities. Asa rival institution it naturally competed with the civilian in- stitutions, just as they competed among themselves, but there was no clear trend in this relationship. Instead, the balance of power swung back and forth throughout the Revolution according to the conditions. When they were disturbed--in December 1945 and March 1946 in the Bandung area, and nationally in late 1945, early 1946, during the first and second military actions and in early 1950--the relative strength of the army (pemudas) rose. During the calmer interludes between these episodes and at the end, in mid-1950, the relative strength of the civilians (older generation) rose. So far very little has been said about the formal politics of parties and votes and public disputes over programs. Until January, indeed, there was little enough of this in Bandung. We have seen that at the end of October a small group of men formed a branch of Parsi and adroitly seized control of the Working Committee of the Priangan KNI. (89) In the first three weeks of November this early move was followed by the for- mation of a number of other political party branches, labor unions and (88) Practically nothing has been written, or is known, about the financies of the army, or for that matter the Republic itself, during the Revolution. There is little doubt, however, that the army’s share was very large. Government interest, in finances as well as other matters, really began with the beginning of Amir Sjarifuddin's long term as Defence Minister in mid-November 1945. (89) See pp. 74-76. Parsi (Partai Sosialis Indonesia) had joined with the other main socialist party in December to form the larger Socialist Party.139 other political or partly political associations. In view of the wave of or- ganizational activity in Java at that time, stimulated by the beginning of government politics on a party basis in Djakarta and by the series of party and other congresses being held in Jogjakarta, it is noteworthy that there were not very many of these in Bandung. Fewer than a dozen organiza- tions of this sort are mentioned in Soeara Merdeka in this period. (90) This relative inactivity can be attributed to the fact that in early Novem- ber the city was just coming out from under the pall of re-established Japanese control; it is noticeable in this respect that the pace was picking up towards the end of the month. The outbreak of fighting on November 24th stopped almost all such activity for more than a month. Organization life resumed again, with much greater vigor, in January as the demarcation line became clearer and the two halves of the city settled down to rather more normal lives. The already existing political parties were busy trying to spread their branches over the residency and improve their level of organization. (91) The same thing was happening with some of the larger badan perdjuangan, which had previously been almost exclusively concerned with the perdjuan- gan but were beginning now to play a role in "political" affairs as well. (92) The MDPP itself was establishing regency and subdistrict branches and beginning the complex business of trying to coordinate the thousands of local badan perdjuangan and badan perdjuangan branches in the resi- dency. (93) At the same time there was a great flowering of new organi- zations, many of them quite small and inconsequential. By the end of February, as we shall see, there were more than sixty political and partly political organizations in Bandung. (90) Aside from Parsi, the political party branches mentioned were those of Masjumi (Soeara Merdeka 22 Nov) and Indonesian Labor Party (Partai Buruh Indonesia) (ibid! IT Nov). A Farmers Union Party (Partai Sarikat Tani) was also formed in Bandung at this time (ibid. 13 and 14 Nov). A number of labor unions (sarikat buruh) and employee associations (sarikat sekerdja) were formed between November 14th and 22nd, of which the most important locally was the Federation of Employee Associations (Ikatan Sarikat Sekerdja). Ibid. 14, 21 and 22 Nov. (91) Perdjuangan Kita 21 Jan, 4 and 6 Feb (Masjumi), 26 Jan (Labor Party)! There is no mention of the Socialist Party in the January and February issues of this newspaper available to me, but it was cer- tainly active at this time. Local branches of other parties, however, such as PNI, are not mentioned at any time in the period up to the evacu- ation of the city and there is no interview evidence either that they had been formed yet. (92) Perdjuangan Kita, 23 Jan (Hizbullah); ibid. 23, 25 and 26 Jan and Soeara Merdeka 25 Feb (Pesindo). (93) See Perdjuangan Kita 3 Jan for the "recent" establishment of an MDPP branch in Tjiparaj Subdistrict, and Merdeka 30 Jan for men- tion of branches generally in subdistricts and in four of the five Priangan regencies (omitting Sumedang, in all respects the quietest at this time).140 One of the strongest stimuli for this activity was the reorganiza- tion of the KNI system which was taking place at this time to bring it into line with the government decree of November 23rd. (94) This decree-- Law 1, 1945--specified that the KNI’s at the residency, regency and city levels should be reorganized into DPRD’s (Dewan Perwakilan Rakjat Daerah--Local People’s Representative Council). (95) More important, it called for the election of an Executive Committee (Badan Executif), analogous to the Working Committee in the KNIP, of no more than five members, which "along with, and chaired by, the Kepala Daerahfpamong pradja head at that levelf shall conduct the daily administration of the area," (96) Little could be done about this during the troubles of late Novem- ber and December. The choosing of the new Executive Committees, therefore, became an important item of political business in early 1946. At the same time changes were being made in the composition of the ordi- nary membership of the KNI’s. Nothing was said about this in the law, but the occasion, like the similar one in Djakarta in October at the time of the establishment of the KNIP Working Committee, was generally taken to shuffle their membership to make room for important political forces not represented on the old KNI’s. Ambitious men and groups and those seeking to gain a voice for particular interests thus had a strong incentive to broaden and strengthen existing organizations and create new ones in time to gain seats on these bodies, and also to lobby for positions on their new Executive Committees. In Bandung there were three DPRD’s to be organized, for the city, regency and residency, and this provided the oc- casion for a great deal of political activity. (97) (94) Koesnodiprodjo, Himpunan 1945 21-2. This was a slightly modified version of a proposal made by the KNIP Working Committee on October 30th (ibid. 134-5). (95) This simplifies a terminological muddle which is found both in the text of the law itself and in the contemporary literature. DPRD’s is what these bodies came gradually to be called. According to Law 1 they could be established at other levels if considered necessary by the Minister of the Interior but in practice the KNI’s at the provincial, dis- trict, subdistrict and village levels were allowed to die out, at least in this area. (96) Koesnodiprodjo, Himpunan 1945 21, Title III of the law. (97) Perdjuangan Kita 17 Jan reports the forming of the regency DPRD. Ibid. 15 Feb and Soeara Merdeka 26 Feb and 13 Mar, as well as Merdeka 22 Feb and 8 Mar, give details on the city DPRD, which met for the first time on March 7th. Soeara Merdeka 13 Mar gives the names of the 33 members, and the 18 city wards (desas) and 15 organizations they represented. It also gives the names of three Executive Committee mem- bers, all previously on the Working Committee of the KNI, a fact which suggests how little real change all this activity had brought about. There is no mention of the forming of the Priangan DPRD or its Executive Com- mittee in the issues of Perdjuangan Kita or Soeara Merdeka available to me but it almost certainly took place some time before March.141 The vigor of this activity does not guarantee its importance. Ordi- nary membership in the DPRD's, it is clear, seldom meant much. The DPRD's, like the KNI’s before them, met only rarely in plenary session and were essentially ceremonial bodies. Executive Committees, parti- cularly that of the residency DPRD, did come to play a considerable part in affairs, though not as great a one as the executive committees and Working Committees of the KNI’s had played in the period between August and November when the power of the pamong pradja was declining and that of the pemudas just beginning to be felt. (98) Law 1 placed the leader- ship of the Executive Committees in the hands of the local pamong pradja head and what this meant in practice, at least in Priangan, was that the Executive Committee became a useful and even important committee helping the Resident in his work, rather than a political power in its own right, representing the nationalist politicians. What applied to Executive Committees applied also and more gen- erally to political parties. At the local level, under conditions in which military force played such an important role in political life, and in which the main problems were those of practical administration, the political party was not a particularly effective instrument. At the residency level they were squeezed between the resident and the army. Below that, ex- cept for some branches in regency towns, they hardly penetrated, and political life was dominated by the army, the badan perdjuangan and in some cases the pamong pradja. It was only in 1950 that the parties began to play a more important role in local affairs. The number of nationalist politicians who moved from Working Committee or Executive Committee positions to high posts in the pamong pradja at this time is a good indica- tion of this. Among local examples, Sjamsuridjal (city KNI head to mayor) has already been mentioned. In January Hamdani, the chairman of the Working Committee of the residency KNI, was appointed Resident of Tjirebon. Later in 1946 Sanusi Hardjadinata, before the war an impor- tant figure in the Pagoejoeban Pasoendan, left the residency Executive Committee to become vice-resident of Priangan. As has been suggested (see p. 75), perhaps the most important role played by the lower level branches of the parties during the Revolution was in providing support from below for their national leaders in the poli- tical struggles at the center. This kind of politics is well illustrated by the case of the Persatuan Perdjuangan in Priangan, though it is the local implications of this affair which chiefly concern us here. The Persatuan Perdjuangan (Perdjuangan Front) movement was the most important political development at the national level during the first three months of 1946, This movement, organized by Tan Malaka and his followers, had as its political goal the overthrow of the Sjahrir cabinet and probably Sukarno and Hatta as well, and like all opposition movements (98) The city DPRD and its Executive Committee, of course, lost their significance after the city was evacuated. The residency Executive Committee gained its importance from the fact that the residency con- tinued to be by far the most important administrative and political unit below the national level.142 during the Revolution it took advantage of the unpopularity of the govern- ment's negotiations with the Dutch by insisting on "100% independence." At the same time it called for unity in the cause by absorption of all par- ties and badan perdjuangan into a monolithic Persatuan Perdjuangan. (99) These were powerful slogans and the movement, based on the interior of. Central and East Java, gained widespread support despite covert resis- tance by the Socialist (i. e. Sajap Kiri--see p. 73) leaders inside and out- side the cabinet. Even in Priangan, where it was not as influential as elsewhere, its program had a strong appeal and the pages of Soeara Merdeka and Perdjuangan Kita from this period are crowded with state - ments and telegrams from organizations in the area embodying parts or all of its minimum program, particularly the rejection of the important negotiations then underway with the Dutch. As far as more practical matters were concerned the most im- portant aspect of the Persatuan Perdjuangan movement in Priangan was the impetus it gave to efforts at consolidation among the many organiza- tions already existing or being created. Such efforts were already going on--the MDPP, for example, was several months old by this time--but the idea of a single Persatuan Perdjuangan with which to face the enemy was a powerful tool to work with. Between late January and early March a series of bodies with the name Persatuan Perdjuangan were formed in the regencies of Priangan and at the residency level. These were federa- tions like the national level Persatuan Perdjuangan itself--a monster with a claimed membership of 141 organizations at its peak--and their formation called for intricate political maneuvering. The personalities, organizations and political coloration of the various regency Persatuan Perdjuangan's varied widely, (100) but the formation of the residency one will give an idea of the general process involved. The first meeting held to discuss the formation of a Priangan Persatuan Perdjuangan took place in Tasikmalaja on January 25th after Priangan delegates had returned from the first two national Persatuan Perdjuangan congresses. (101) The MDPP, as an already existing (99) For the rest of its "minimum program" and its history at the national level, see Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution 172-8. (100) The Persatuan Perdjuangan of Tasikmalaja Regency, or- ganized on February 15th, had its five leading positions assigned to the DPPP (see note 103 below), Masjumi, Pesindo (two positions) and Businessmen's Association (Persatuan Tenaga Ekonomi). That is, these organizations had custody of particular offices and had the right to choose their own representatives to fill them; this was a common device in the organization of federations at this time. The Tasikmalaja branch of MDPP, it is worth noting, was dissolved into the new Persatuan Perdjuan gan. (Perdjuangan Kita 16 Feb). The Persatuan Perdjuangan of Tjiamis Regency, organized four days later, assigned its five leading positions to Masjumi, Parsi (sic), Businessmen's Association and two unaffiliated individuals. (Soeara Merdeka 20 Feb). (101) The reports of this meeting in Perdjuangan Kita 28 Jan and Merdeka 30 Jan, particularly the speeches of A strawinata and Sutoko, make interesting reading in the light of later events.143 federation of badan perdjuangan, was a logical base on which to build a Persatuan Perdjuangan in Priangan and it is not surprising that its leaders should have taken the lead in these efforts. But they were split on this issue, in terms of both local and national politics. On the one side was Astrawinata, in terms of national politics a supporter of Tan Malaka, locally the head of the API branch in Bandung and also., at this time, of MDPP itself. (102) On the other side was Sutoko, the leader of a Pesindo faction inside the MDPP, and in terms of national politics a sup- porter of the Socialists,, on this issue at least. (103) The problem, from Sutoko "s point of view, was to gain control of the future Persatuan Perdjuangan in Priangan--for the benefit of his faction locally and the Socialists nationally--without appearing at first to go against the popular sentiments expressed in the Persatuan Perdjuangan "minimum pro- gram." (104) The solution to this delicate problem was quite simple: on February 8th API was disarmed, and Astrawinata and its other leaders arrested, on the basis of charges which had nothing to do with Persatuan Perdjuangan. As we have seen above, there were other reasons for dis- arming API; Sutoko and particularly Nasution, who took the lead in or- ganizing this affair, were striving to incorporate the Bandung badan perdjuangan into the army, and API in Bandung had refused to go along with this policy. But in this case, an unusual one in this respect, a national political issue of exceptional importance had penetrated to the local level and become involved in otherwise purely local affairs. Shortly after, about February 25th, Sutoko was elected head of the MDPP. (105) On the 26th, in this capacity and as "organizer" (penjeleng- gara) of the prospective Persatuan Perdjuangan in Priangan, he chaired a meeting attended by representatives of several of the leading organiza- tions in the area, at which the main lines of this Persatuan Perdjuangan (102) See above, p. 129, n. 69. (103) He was also head of DPPP (Dewan Pimpinan Pusat Pemuda-- Central Pemuda Leadership Council) in Priangan. DPPP was the name of the executive committee, nationally and locally, of the Badan Kongres Pemuda Republik Indonesia (Organization (arising frornj the R. I. Pemuda Congress [held November 1945]), a federation of Indonesian pemuda or- ganizations. On the DPPP and the Badan Kongres Pemuda, whose struc- ture shows the Indonesian political style at its most intricate, see Hardjito, Risalah Gerakan Pemuda 33-44. The first mention of the Prian- gan DPPP appears in Perdjuangan Kita 31 Jan. It had been organized earlier but was brought into vigorous action at just this time by Sutoko, as part of his Persatuan Perdjuangan campaign. (104) In the same way, on the national level, Socialist organiza- tions and government spokesmen went along with Persatuan Perdjuangan and its program for a month or two. There is no evidence, however, of any effort at the national level to take over Persatuan Perdjuangan; the political lines were more clearly drawn there. (105) Soeara Merdeka 26 Feb. On this occasion he retired as head of the Priangan DPPP and was replaced by another Pesindo representative.144 were laid down: 1„ It would be a coordinating body of all existing organizations. 2. It would be politically neutral. 3. It would not ^emphasis in original^have organiza- tional ties with Persatuan Perdjuangan in other areas. 4. It would stand behind and give full support to the gov- ernment in its efforts to establish Indonesian independence. (106) Two days later representatives of sixty-one organizations joining the Priangan Persatuan Perdjuangan came together to establish it formally. They elected a working committee composed of seven organizations: Masjumi (as head), Pesindo, MDPP, TRI (i. e. the army), Socialist Party, Labor Party, and Federation of Employee Associations. (107) In the course of the next two weeks the organization quickly took shape. At the first meeting of the working committee it was decided to call it the MP3 (Madjelis Persatuan Perdjuangan Priangan--Priangan Persatuan Perdjuangan Council), the extra "Madjelis" in effect expressing the intention of remaining distinct from the Persatuan Perdjuangan else- where. (108) The organizations represented on the working committee of the MP3 chose their members to represent them, the two most impor- tant being Kamran (the Hizbullah leader on the MDPP) as its head and Sutoko as the head of its military section. (109) From the point of view of military organization, therefore, the formation of the MP3 with its military section represents a further step in the process by which the originally independent pasukans slowly passed into the army. After the exodus from the city a few weeks later, these pasukans were screened and pulled together under Sutoko and his second in command, Suwazis (formerly head of the military section of Pesindo). In May they were taken into the army as the Resimen Tentara Perdjuangan. (106) Soeara Merdeka 27 Feb. In effect therefore it would use the name "Persatuan Perdjuangan" for purposes of its own which were, in terms of national politics, actually hostile to those of the Persatuan Perdjuangan leadership. (107) Soeara Merdeka 1 Mar, Merdeka 6 Mar. In terms of the national political issues involved Pesindo, Socialist Party and Labor Party, as well as MDPP insofar as the Pesindo faction now controlled it, were on the Socialist side. (108) Soeara Merdeka 8 Mar. Later, after the national Persatuan Fferdjuangan had been discredited and in part also by analogy with the MDPP, the initials tended to be read as .standing for Markas Pimpinan Perdjuangan Priangan (Priangan Perdjuangan Leadership Council). IF is thus mentioned in Sudewo, Riwajat Siliwangi 15. (109) Soeara Merdeka 12 Mar.145 From the point of view of political organization, however, MP3 may be looked on as an expansion of MDPP, a new federation which drew in a large number of disparate parties and other associations around a solid core represented by the military section and its perdjuangan activities. From this point of view the RTP was more Tentara Perdjuangan than Resimen and this was why it remained for a year in a special status, for military purposes under the army, for housekeeping purposes under the MP3. Comparable arrangements were made in the case of the local branches of the MP3, which like the parent organization continued to function long after the original national Persatuan Perdjuangan, a purely political federation, had ceased to exist.CHAPTER VI BANDUNG LAUTAN API The events which we have just been considering took place in the relatively calm period between January and early March during which the stalemate between the British and the Indonesians persisted and Bandung remained uncomfortably divided. But these abnormal conditions could not last forever, with north Bandung a crowded refugee camp living out of tin cans and harrassed by attacks on its flanks, and south Bandung a half-empty city occupied mainly by pemudas. The pemudas, whatever their improvement in organization, were far from being able to mount a successful large-scale attack and it remained for the British to break the deadlock. Following a program adopted in December they began to build up their strength in West Java, bringing in new troops and gradually moving them up the supply line toward Bandung, establishing firmer con- trol along the route as they went, (1) In Bandung itself they began to use their newly arrived troops to extend the boundaries of the protected zone, particularly to the north. These were not very important operations and did not affect south Bandung for the time being but the fact that the head- quarters of the 23rd Indian Division was moved to Bandung on February 16th, along with the increasingly heavy buildup of troops, made it clear that the British intended to clean up that area as well. Though it was part of their long-term plan and came about as an al- most inevitable consequence of the radical change in the balance of mili- tary power in the last weeks of this period, the British clearing operation to the south was actually set in motion by a number of aggressive moves by the Indonesians themselves. The first was another fierce convoy fight which raged up and down the whole route between Bogor and Bandung for five days beginning on March 10th, and tied up three different British units, two of them sent to rescue the first. Coming after almost three months during which, largely because of TKR/TRI cooperation, convoys had passed with little or no hindrance it demonstrated once again how pre- carious the Allied position had been. (2) The other important incident in the mounting tension of the last week occurred on March 19th when a number of Indonesian mortar shells fell on one of the European civilian areas, causing several deaths. (3) (1) Doulton, Fighting Cock 285ff; Singh, Post-War Occupation Forces 231-2. (2) For a vivid description of this fight see Doulton, Fighting Cock 294-6. ----- (3) Merdeka 22 and 25 Mar; 3rd Gurkha Rifles 209. The British artillery reprisal the following day, which hit the Tegallega area, killed 147148 With these incidents serving as both spur and pretext the British decided that the time had come to put an end to the division of Bandung. They were prepared to do this by force--a full-scale military operation code-named 'Operation Sam" had been on the books for some time--but as always they preferred to try diplomacy first. About March 22nd they notified Prime Minister Sjahrir that the move was impending and urged him to make sure that it did not cause fighting by arranging for the re- moval of all Indonesian armed men and units from the area within eleven kilometers in all directions from the center of the city. Only armed men· "extremists" and TRI alike--were involved in this demand; the civilian population and civil government were expected and encouraged to stay be- hind in the British-policed city. (4) Several days of intense diplomatic activity followed this revelation of British plans. On March 22nd Didi Kartasasmita, the commander of the West Java Komandemen and Sjafruddin Prawiranegara, the vice- minister of finance, flew up to Bandung to inform the local military and civil authorities of this ultimatum and to convey Sjahrir’s instructions that it be followed. (5) What one source refers to as the "civil authori- ties, TRI and MP3," that is primarily the mayor (Sjamsuridjal), the div- ision commander (Nasution) and the head of the MP3 military section (SutokcJ, (6) discussed the problem and decided that the matter would have to be gone into more deeply with Sjahrir himself. The next day Nasution flew down to Djakarta for this purpose. (7) The increasing importance of the pemudas and specifically the army, is clearly illustrated here. Pemudas had played virtually no part in the negotiations of late September and early October with the Japanese and RAPWI and in those of late Oct- ober and early November with General MacDonald, and had only been brought in at the end of the negotiations of late November and early Dec- ember, mainly in order to make arrangements for their carrying out the agreements reached by the older generation civilians. Now it was Nasution who went to consult Sjahrir and the problem was to persuade him to go along with the government’s diplomasi in this case. 17 and wounded 18. Perdjoangan Kota Bandung 14; Merdeka 25 Mar; Soeara Merdeka 21 Mar. (4) Doulton, Fighting Cock 297; Perdjoangan Kota Bandung 14ff. (5) By this time, in effect, the Komandemen was a coordinating committee and Didi was a high level liaison officer. Sjafruddin, formerly the head of the secretariat of the Priangan KNI, had represented the gov- ernment at times in the December negotiations as well. (6) Perdjoangan Kota Bandung 14. There is no evidence either way on whether the resident (A rdiwinangun), the governor (Datuk Djamin) and the head of the MP3 (Kamran) took part in these or later meetings during the crisis but even if they did it is clear that the three mentioned here played the leading roles. (7) See Merdeka 25 Mar for a slightly different version of these events and their timing.149 The critical issue was not the evacuation of the 3rd Division troops and badan perdjuangan in itself. The British now had overwhelming power and neither Nasution nor Sutoko wanted to see their growing organizations destroyed in chaotic and hopeless fighting. In fact, having seen the impli- cations of the British buildup, they had already begun to remove supplies and valuable equipment from the city. The real problem was to get the armed pemudas out of Bandung as quietly as possible, leaving behind the remaining civilian population and the civil government, the latter maintain- ing the presence of the Republic in the midst of the Allied enclave. The model which Sjahrir and Sjamsuridjal, and for that matter the British, had in mind was that of Djakarta. There, on November 19th, the Indonesian government had announced the "centering" of TKR troops outside the city and called for a cessation of irregular activity inside it, but the city was still governed by its Indonesian civil administration in cooperation with the British. (8) While Nasution was in Djakarta, General Hawthorn, the comman- der of the 23rd Indian Division in Bandung, pressed forward. On the afternoon of March 23rd he announced by radio and through leaflets that south Bandung was to be cleared of armed men, that to avoid bloodshed all Indonesian armed forces should be out of the eleven kilometer zone by midnight on the 24th, and that civilians were asked to remain calm and not to leave their houses during the intervening period. (9) When Nasution returned from Djakarta on the morning of the 24th he informed a gathering in which were represented the civil government, the police and the Executive Committees of the residency and city DPRDs that the central government had decided that this ultimatum should be complied with and that there should be no scorched earth or other disturbances. He added that the army (that is he himself in the first instance) had under- taken to carry out this decision. (10) Because time was short Hawthorn was asked that morning to extend flie deadline for ten days but shortly after noon he rejected this request. (11) The Indonesians advanced a num- ber of reasons when asking for the delay, citing the difficulty of organizing the move on short notice, their fear of incidents if it were carried out hastily (8) Koesnodiprodjo, Himpunan 1945 84 gives the text of the Novem- ber 19th proclamation. Singh, Post-War Occupation Forces 234 quotes an entry in the War Diary of the 23rd. Indian Division for February 27th which expresses the hope that Bandung "could become a Batavia [i„ e. Djakarta] rather than a Surabaja." This referred primarily to the heavy fighting in Surabaja and the absence of it in Djakarta, but also by impli- cation to the diplomatic arrangements which had made the latter so much more peaceful. Djakarta continued to be administered in most respects by the Republican mayor and his staff until July 1947. (9) Merdeka 23 Mar (UP), 25 Mar (Kementerian Penerangan ^Ministry of Information] announcement), 25 Mar (text of ultimatunq) and 26 Mar (Antara report from Jogjakarta). (10) Perdjoangan Kota Bandung 14-15. (11) Loc. cit.150 and so forth, (12) but what was uppermost in Nasution’s mind--and Haw- thorn's too, in rejecting the appeal--was the supplies and equipment still stored in south Bandung. Nasution wanted time to evacuate all of them and Hawthorn wanted to seize them. At this point, a few hours before the expiry of the deadline, the divergence between the attitudes, and the interests, of the military pe- mudas and the civilian older generation came into the open. The former had to leave but did not like the idea. The latter wanted to stay, not neces- sarily because they liked city life better and certainly not because they were pro-Dutch, but mainly because they were best-fitted for city work and for the kind of bargaining and negotiating necessary to maintain a Republican government in an alien enclave. It was inevitable under the circumstances that the idea of forcing a general evacuation, including that of the local government, and destroy- ing the city they left behind should appeal to pemudas wanting to make a grand revolutionary gesture in the face of force majeure. It is particularly interesting, however, that this idea should have been adopted as policy by the highest and most responsible pemuda leaders, for it shows that no matter how close they might be at times in pursuing diplomasi rather than perdjuangan there was always a gulf between the most moderate pemudas and the most radical members of the older generation. The actual deci- sion to do this was made by Sutoko and Omon Abdurachman, the comman- der of the 8th (city) Regiment, early on the afternoon of the 24th. Nasution, a trifle cramped by his formal position at the top of a military hierarchy which was theoretically committed to carrying out Sjahrir's instructions, did not participate in making this decision but heard about it shortly after and gave it his approval. Orders went out through the military and MP3 networks down to the pemudas who were eager to take action. Dynamite was distributed and responsibilities were assigned and by evening the ef- fort to destroy the city was under way. In the face of this the civilian authorities were helpless: At 2:30 p. m„ the Mayor informed the people [in a radio broadcast^ about the decision of the Central Government and announced that the city government would remain in the city. But about 4:00 p. m. a message was received from the commander of the 3rd Division saying that the city government would have to leave the city by 8 p. m. because the whole city was going to be burned and de- stroyed. Efforts were made to discuss the matter but they failed because the division commander was not to be found and the head of the MP3 was unable to change the plan for the destruction which had been laid down. (13) (12) Merdeka 25 Mar (Kementerian Penerangan announcement) and 26 Mar (Antara report from Jogjakarta). (13) Perdjoangan Kota Bandung 15. It must be kept in mind that this pamphlet, issued a few months later under Sjamsuridjal's authority, gives the point of view of the city authorities on these matters.151 The news was known throughout the city by dusk and after the heavy rain eased off to a drizzle about 7 o’clock the civilians still living in the city began to move out along the three main roads to the southwest, south and southeast, as well as to the west and east. Many had left in November and December and a new exodus had begun after the British reprisal shelling of Tegallega on March 20th but there was still a sizeable popula- tion of civilians and pemudas living within the city limits at this late date. By the next morning practically all of these had left; in Babakan, which in August had a population of about a thousand, one Indonesian remained behind along with a few Chinese and Eurasian families. South Bandung, except for the parts of it with a large Chinese population, became and re- mained for a year and a half a dead city with grass growing in its streets and its back yard fruit trees growing untended, visited occasionally by men who came to pick a load for sale in the markets of the north. The eleven kilometer zone, moreover, extended well beyond the city limits and there were many Bandung residents living temporarily in the fringe between the city proper and the Tjitarum River to the south. (14) Practically all of these too--all but one Babakan family for example--crossed the river that night or in the next two or three days. With them went a good many of the original inhabitants of the fringe vil- lages, carried along with the tide. By the end of March, after four months of turmoil, about half a million people had been spilled out of the city and its immediate vicinity into the Priangan countryside. (15) Behind the refugees dynamite explosions sounded from time to time and the fires started by the pemudas spread through the part of the city south of the tracks. It was nighttime and revolution and hence the fires seemed more terrible than they really were--Bandung lautan api, Bandung a sea of flames, is what it seemed to be and the picture is fixed (14) The eleven kilometer radius actually extended well beyond the Tjitarum in the region to the south of the city, but the river was a logi- cal boundary line. Indeed it served this purpose in practice during most of 1946. (15) The only published estimate on the number of these refugees is in Merdeka 23 Apr which gives a rough figure of 200, 000 without saying how or by whom it was calculated. This is certainly far too low. The Indonesian population of the city in August was officially reported as 380, 000: of these 16, 000 were said by Dutch sources to be still living in the northern half of the city in mid-March (see p. 114, note 38) and practically none remained in the south part after March 24th. To the resulting figure of roughly 350, 000 refugees from the city itself must be added an indefinite but certainly very large number repre- senting refugees from the villages surrounding the city on all sides, dislodged by the expansion of the Allied zone around the northern fringe between January and March, the sudden application of the eleven kil- meter limit and the spectacular destruction of south Bandung on March 24th.152 in the memories of those who were in the city on March 24th. (16) But the destruction was certainly considerable. (17) Last night ~the 24thQ large fires were visible in six places. This morning RAF reconnaissance planes re- ported that the whole southern part of Bandung was enveloped in such thick smoke that it was very diffi- cult to make observations. Heavy explosions were heard, indicating that in that part of the city scorched earth tactics were still being carried out. This mor- ning a large fire was visible near the railroad station and many kampungs [appeared to bej burned out. (18) In the evening of 24 March the Indonesians started widespread fire raising incidents. Eleven major fires were visible shortly after dark. Buildingswere de- molished and our own\ 23rd Indian Division^ forward positions were mortared. Our troops on Andir airfield were shelled with a 75mm gun. (19) Asa matter of fact the instructions from the army and the MP3 concerned only scorched-earth operations on important public buildings and warehouses. But the large buildings were not easily destroyed by people inexperienced in demolition: **He (a boy of fifteen at the time) said that the "cow- boy troop" of young boys who had attached themselves to the Pasukan Istimewa (1) was sent off as a "burning squad" to destroy the Regency complex. But these were all solid buildings and eventually they gave up and left for the south. The warehouses, on the other hand, had precious contents: (16) The popular impression of the lautan api is embodied in the song "Hallo, Hallo Bandung," composed soon after, the best known of the Revolutionary songs in this part of Java. (17) See Netherlands Indies Government Information Service, The Indonesian Problem: Facts and Factors, 3rd printing (Batavia 1947) plate 44 for an impressive photograph of the scene, taken from the higher ground of north Bandung. (18) Merdeka 25 Mar (UP). (19) Doulton, 23rd Indian Division 15. Rough estimates of the amount of damage done during the lautan api can be found in Merdeka 26 Mar (UP) (between one third and one half of south Bandung destroyed) and Merdeka 3 May (UP) (half of the bigger buildings and one fifth of the whole area destroyed^153 *He (a battalion commander) told me that just before the lautan api Nasution ordered him to destroy a big ware- house near his headquarters in order to prevent it falling into the hands of the enemy. He disobeyed and instead organized all his men to move the stocks outside the ele- ven kilometer area, to a town on the other side of the Tjitar- um River. The contents of the warehouse consisted mostly of clothes. This was for the benefit of the battalion as a whole, and was used later to barter for necessities. In addition he allowed each of his men to take as much as he could carry for himself. This still did not exhaust the contents of the warehouse so he threw it open to other armed groups and the public. **He (a former member of the Babakan PRI branch) said that on the afternoon after the big Gurkha raid on Decem- ber 6th he evacuated to Dayeuh Kolot where he had taken his wife and family earlier. From there, after a time, he went to Kiaratjondong and there joined the TRIKA pasukan. At the time of the lautan api he returned to pick up his family in Dayeuh Kolot. On the way there in one place he saw a crowd being given supplies of rice, sugar, textiles and so forth from a warehouse but he paid no attention and continued on his way to Dayeuh Kolot. They watched Bandung on fire from there and soon after walked their way to a place in the southern part of Garut Regency. Most of the fires which made the evacuation so impressive were in private homes and other lightly constructed buildings which could be set fire to easily: **He (a man then 35 who had been active in several badan perdjuangan) said that on his way out of town he started fires in buildings which he thought might be used by the Dutch army. But there were also pe- mudas who burned ordinary people’s homes at random. Most accounts agree that the hardest hit area was the Chinese dis- trict to the west of the main square, where the patriotism of the lautan api could be combined with the destruction of an unpopular minority's property. In some cases Chinese were able to save their stores by bribing groups of pemudas who had come to burn them, but anarchy was rampant again and hundreds of Chinese houses and stores were de- stroyed. (20) That night, as the Indonesian refugees moved south, emptying out their part of the city, large numbers of Chinese fled to the protected zone in the north. (21) (20) Overdijkink, Indonesische Probleem: de Feiten 67 reports an estimate that 600 Chinese homes and stores were burned. (21) Doulton, Fighting Cock 297; 5th Gurkha Rifles 341; Kwee Kek Beng, Doea Poeloe Lima Tahon 98.154 * * * In this way the tearing apart of the city was completed. What had been in March 1942, and still in August 1945, a functioning community had broken down into two groups of refugees: a hundred thousand Euro- peans and Chinese whose camp in the north had now been expanded to in- clude the whole of the former city, and half a million Indonesians who had left their homes in the city and its immediate surroundings and spread out over the Priangan countryside. The physical movement of these large numbers of people, the visible dissolution of the existing community, symbolizes in the simplest possible way the revolutionary process which had been working in Bandung society during the past half-year. Outside the city, and in most parts of Java and Sumatra, the dis- turbance of the time did not manifest itself in the graphic form of large population movements, but the same dissolving process had been at work. Following on the Japanese occupation and then surrender, anarchy had broken down the old Indies social order, destroying or radically changing the relations among existing classes and institutions, and at the same time stimulating the development of new ones. The nationalist revolution still had four years to run but the most important changes of the social revolution had already occurred and the beginnings of the new Indonesian social order could now be seen. The foregoing pages have described the course of this social revo- lution in the Bandung area during the first half-year of the Revolution. After the surrender of the Japanese and the proclamation of independence in mid-August there followed a period of five or six weeks during which the implications of these events slowly sank in and men waited for evi- dence of Allied intentions and for leadership. In the city a comparatively small group of nationalist politicians, who had come to the fore in the Jap- anese period, took the initiative in establishing KNI’s and BKR's at differ- ent levels. In assuming the leading positions in these new Republican organizations, they quickly came to predominate over members of the other two established elite groups, the Islamic leaders and pamong pradja as well as over the still unorganized pemudas. Through the residency and regency KNI’s they also exercised a measure of leadership over the surrounding rural areas as well, joined in this by nationalist politicians in the smaller towns who took the lead in organizing local KNI’s. But in this phase the established rural political system, anchored on the pa- mong pradja network, remained essentially undisturbed. During the last two weeks of September, however, pressures were steadily building up beneath the orderly array of Republican organizations established by the politicians. In the last days of the month the waiting period came to an abrupt end as these pressures broke out in the form of a militant pemuda movement which quickly seized control of Japanese- held offices and other establishments, and then turned to efforts to dis- arm the Japanese. For a time, particularly after large crowds of pe- mudas and others had seized the Andir airbase on October 8th, it seemed as if this movement would sweep forward successfully as it was doing elsewhere on Java at the time, but on October 10th the Japanese struck back and swiftly regained military control of the city.155 At this point the course of developments in the city and its rural hinterland diverged for a time. In the city the reassertion of Japanese controls followed shortly after by the arrival of two battalions of British troops, brought about a period of comparative calm which lasted into the middle of November. Beneath the surface, however, the revolutionary forces unleashed in September continued to work. Recriminations over the debacle on October 10th, which was attributed by pemudas to the "diplomatic” policy followed by the local Republican authorities, led to a series of kidnappings in the latter part of October by which many of these men were removed from office. Despite these and other changes in the local leadership, however, it continued to practice diplomasi, since it shared a common interest in order with the British command. At the same time the pemuda movement began to take on more shape with the spontaneous development of both army (TKR) units and a great variety of badan perdjuangan, all very loosely organized at first. In the rural areas, meanwhile, there was no interruption ofthe revolutionary trend. Attacks on Eurasians and Ambonese in October were followed in November by the beginning of the daulat period, lasting until about March, in the course of which the prijaji of the pamong pradja, already shaken by the Japanese occupation, were swept out of their tradi- tionally dominant position in the rural world. Few were killed in the Bandung area but many were driven out or replaced and the remainder lost a great deal of their authority. Power passed to the hands of pe- mudas, associating in numerous local badan perdjuangan even more loosely organized than those in the city. The breakdown of order in the countryside during the daulat period released powerful political forces, most notably that of rural Islam whose kiai-led and other "Sabilillah" groups had played a large part in ousting pamong pradja officials. There were signs in the friction between Islamic and secular elements in this period of the coming struggle between the Darul Islam movement and the secular Republic, represented in the rural areas chiefly by the army, which broke out in 1948 and after. The comparatively quiet period which began on October 10th in Bandung could, under the circumstances, only be temporary. On Nov- ember 24th the pemudas of the army and badan perdjuangan, determined to begin again the struggle so humiliatingly stopped six weeks earlier, launched an attack on the British forces occupying the city. Like all later efforts to dislodge the British it was unsuccessful but in the course of the fairly heavy fighting which followed the revolutionary process reached its climax in the city, as it had done slightly earlier in the countryside. During December and again at intervals until March a state of almost complete anarchy prevailed in Bandung, the most terrible sympton of which was the kidnapping and murder of over 1500 people, mostly Eur- asians and Chinese. In these conditions the British decided to create a protected zone in the northern part of the city and to assemble in it all the European civilians under their care; this policy in turn led to an exodus of Indonesians from the north, while others were driven out of the south as a result of the fighting and bombardments there. The prevailing anarchy reduced the civilian authorities in the city to practical impotence, though along with central government representatives156 they played an important role in negotiations designed to stabilize the situation. The pemuda leaders in the badan perdjuangan and particularly the army, on the other hand, rose rapidly in power and some were able to use the circumstances to improve the organization of their units. Close cooperation developed between the leaders of the MDPP, the fed- eration of Bandung badan perdjuangan, and the TKR 3rd Division which was to lead by May to the absorption of most of the larger and better or- ganized badan perdjuangan forces of Bandung into the army. As they and their organizations became more powerful the pemuda leaders developed an interest in stability and became more willing to practice diplomasi. This did not prevent them, however, from deciding to destroy south Ban- dung when they had to evacuate it on March 24th, thereby forcing both the civil government and the remaining populace to go with them. In the course of six months of violence great changes had taken place in the social and political order of the Bandung area, some of which were to be permanent. The pamong pradja as a group had been obliged to accept the political leadership of the nationalist politicians who had established and controlled the Republic. At the same time a large pro- portion of the old-line prijaji had left or been forced out of their positions in the pamong pradja, replaced often by nationalist politicians at the higher levels and by badan perdjuangan leaders, school teachers, Islamic leaders and even bandits at the lower levels in the countryside. The nationalist politicians, despite their unquestioned predomi- nance in the early weeks, were unable to exercise practical control as the situation became more disturbed. Even in the city itself, in the en- vironment from which they had sprung, the KNI’s which they had estab- lished and which they nearly monopolized played only a small part in af- fairs after November. Nor did political parties, the most characteristic vehicle of the nationalists, play a significant role in the Bandung area in this period; a number of the nationally more important ones, indeed, had not even established branches in the area by March, The Islamic elite, in its turn, fared very differently in the city and the country. In Bandung, as at the national level, the Islamic leaders lost much of the ground they had gained under the sponsorship of the Japa- nese. In the hinterland, on the other hand, kiais and santri pemudas came forward at the head of the awakened power of militant rural Islam, a power which had never before, even in the days of the Sarekat Islam, been brought into action on such a scale in this area. Finally, this was the period in which the pemudas, the "Genera- tion of '45," emerged. The pemuda movement as a whole was the most characteristic expression of the times; it drew in young men of every kind of background--rural and urban, santri and secular, educated and illiterate--who were fired by the spirit of the perdjuangan, and it pro- duced the majority both of those who committed atrocities and those who showed the highest and most self-sacrificing idealism. More specifically the pemudas formed the most important of the new organizations to appear at the local level during the early Revolution, the army and the badan perdjuangan. Through these organizations pemuda leaders, a new elite group, came to exercise great power in both the country and the city and157 many swiftly climbed into the ranks of the responsible leadership. In the army itself, already in this period and area beginning the long business of absorbing the badan perdjuangan, was created an interest which has taken a permanent place in Indonesian political life. It will have been noticed that in this summary of the social revolu- tion in the Bandung area in the first half-year of the Revolution there has been almost no mention of the Dutch. They have figured in this story only as the victims of attacks and as the helpless civilians whose protection was the main preoccupation of the British forces in Bandung. This is partly a question of the time period covered by this study, for the Dutch did play an important role in the history of the Bandung area in the later years of the Revolution. The fact remains, however, that for the social history of this decisive period one hardly needs them. Indeed one does not always need to take account of nationalism itself. We have seen that in this period the revolutionary process worked with the same vigor in the rural areas, where the Dutch and British did not appear at all and where nationalism as such as of little significance, as it was in the city. In this respect the perspective at the local level differs greatly from that at the national level. At the national level one must have the Dutch and one must have nationalism. In the perspective of Djakarta the most natural way to see the Revolution is as a struggle between a foreign and a domestic elite, and it is an important part of this equation that the domestic elite in question should have been that of the nationalist politicians. It was this elite which had created the Republic and retained control of its central organs throughout the Revolution. It was not seriously challenged there by the pamong pradja, Islamic leaders or pemudas, all three of which groups, in their different ways, had their main centers of strength at lower levels, if not indeed in the rural areas. One may without too much exaggeration describe the Republic, as it was in the Revolution, as the executive committee of the nationalist elite. Nor would it be too much of an exaggeration to describe the Republican government, particularly in the period treated here, as an organ special- ized for the conduct of foreign relations, for the prosecution of the nationalist revolution by means of diplomas!. The social revolution and the nationalist revolution, of course, cannot be separated in practice as they can be in analysis. The rise of the nationalist politicians to power at the national level and their chal- lenge to Dutch rule, in the name of the independent Republic and of those who followed their lead, were themselves part of a larger social revolu- tion which affected the whole of the old Indies social and political system. Granting the convenience of the analytical distinction, however, it is clear that the importance of the nationalist revolution in the history of the Revolution at the national level means that it will always be more or less difficult for that history to do full justice to the social revolution at work within Indonesian society at the same time. Here, it seems to me, is where local history has something important to say.159 GLOSSARY A table showing the administrative hierarchy appears at the end of this glossary. AMPTT (Angkatan Muda Pos, Telegraf dan Telpon)--Younger Generation of the Department of Posts» Telegraph and Telephone. A badan perdjuangan Angkatan Muda (Younger Generation)--in the generic sense, a badan perdjuangan composed of pemudas employed in a particular government office or service Antara--Indonesian press agency API (Angkatan Pemuda Indonesia)--Younger Generation of Indonesia. A badan perdjuangan Babakan--pseudonym for a kampung in south Bandung where field work was done badan perdjuangan--irregular pemuda organization Barisan Banteng--Wild Buffalo Corps. A badan perdjuangan Barisan Merah Putih--Red and White Flag Corps. A badan perdjuangan Barisan Pelopor--Pioneer Corps. Quasi-military affiliate of Djawa Hokokai BKR (Badan Keamanan Rakjat)--People's Security Agency. Earliest form of regular army, though with essentially police functions (August- October 1945) BPKKP (Badan Penolong Keluarga Korban Perang)--Organization for Aid to the Families of War Victims. Continuation of BPP and ’’parent" organization to BKR BPP (Badan Pembantu Pradjurit, later Pembelaan)--Agency for Soldiers’ (later. Defence) Aid. Japanese-sponsored organization associated with Peta BPRI (Barisan Pemberontakan Republik Indonesia)--Revolutionary Corps of the Indonesian Republic. A badan perdjuangan Darul Islam--Islamic State. A radical Islamic movement in West Java from 1948 daulat--as verb» to oust. Daulat period--period of greatest revolutionary ferment in the countryside, beginning October 1945160 diploma si--diplomacy. As used in Revolutionary period--the policy of negotiation and peaceful dealing with Allied forces dja go--bandit Djawa Hokokai--People's Loyalty Organization of Java. Japanese- sponsored mass organization mainly controlled by nationalist politicians DPRD (Dewan Perwakilan Rakjat Daerah)--Regional Representative Council Executive Committee--main organ of a DPRD fuku-sjutjokan--vice-resident (in Japanese terminology) hadji--one who has made the pilgrimage to Mecca Heiho--Indonesian auxiliary troops serving directly under the Japanese; a member of same Hizbullah--Army of Allah. In Japanese period--a quasi-military affiliate of Masjumi. In Revolutionary period--a badan perdjuangan associated with Masjumi kampung--a neighborhood (in a city) Keibodan--Japanese-organized auxiliary police corps Kempeitai--Japanese Military Police kiai--scholar and teacher of Islam KNI (Komite Nasional Indonesia)--Indonesian National Committee (at provincial and lower levels) KNIL (Koninklijk Nederlandsch-Indisch Leger)--Royal Netherlands Indies Army KNIP (Komite Nasional Indonesia Pusat)--Central Indonesian National Committee (at national level) komandemen--highest unit in TKR, three of which were established on Java (West, Central, and East Java) KRIS (Kebaktian Rakjat Indonesia Sulawesi)--Loyalty of the Indonesian People of the Celebes. A badan perdjuangan Masjumi (Madjelis Sjuro Muslimin Indonesia)--Consultative Council of Indonesian Moslems. Japanese-sponsored Islamic association. From November 1945 a political party161 MDPP (Markas Dewan Pimpinan Perdjuangan)--Perdjuangan Leadership Board Headquarters. A coordinating body for Bandung badan perdjuangan MP3 (Madjelis Persatuan Perdjuangan Priangan)--Priangan Persatuan Perdjuangan Council. A mass front of Priangan badan perdjuangan^ parties and unions organized February 1946 NICA --Netherlands Indies Civil Administration (Corps) Pagoejoeban Pasoendan--Sundanese Association. A "cooperative" Sundanese nationalist party active before 1942 pamong pradja--the general administrative service; a member of same Parsi (Partai Sosialis Indonesia)--Indonesian Socialist Party., merged December 1945 into the larger Partai Sosialis (Socialist Party) pasukan--armed body;, force. Here generally used to refer to the military sections of badan perdjuangan Pa sukan Istimewa (1)--Special Force (1). A badan perdjuangan com- posed mainly of Bataks Pasukan Istimewa (2)--Special Force (2). An elite force within the Bandung Pesindo pemuda--youth. In the context of the Revolution--a young revolutionary activist pentjak (or pentjak-silat)--Indonesian jiu-jitsu perdjuangan--struggle. In the context of the Revolution--militant revolutionary action; sometimes, the revolutionary cause Persatuan Perdjuangan--Perdjuangan Front, A mass front organized by Tan Malaka in 1946 Pesindo (Pemuda Sosialis Indonesia)--Indonesian Socialist Youth. A badan perdjuangan Peta (Pembela Tanah Air)--Defenders of the Fatherland. Japanese- trained Indonesian army; a member of same PIM (Pemuda Indonesia Maluku)--Indonesian Youth of the Moluccas. A badan perdjuangan PNI (Partai Nasional Indonesia)--Indonesian Nationalist Party Preparatory Committee--Preparatory Committee for Indonesian Inde- pendence (Panitia Persiapan Kemerdekaan Indonesia)162 PRI (Pemuda Republik Indonesia)--Youth of the Indonesian Republic. A badan perdjuangan, merged into Pesindo in November 1945 prijaji--the Javanese and Sundanese aristocratic class; a member of same PTT--(Department of) Posts, Telegraph and Telephone RAPWI--Recovery of Allied Prisoners of War and Internees Research Committee--Committee for Research on Indonesian Independence (Panitia Penjelidik Kemerdekaan Indonesia) Resimen Pelopor--Pioneer Regiment. An army regiment consisting of former badan perdjuangan pasukans romusha--Indonesian serving in the Japanese-organized labor corps RTP (Resimen Tentara Perdjuangan)--Perdjuangan Army Regiment. An army regiment consisting of former badan perdjuangan pasukans santri--devout Moslem SEAC--South-East Asia Command. Admiral Mountbatten's command Seinendan--Youth Corps. Mass youth organization established by the Japanese semangat--spirit. . In the context of the Revolution--revolutionary spirit Siap!--Make Ready! Attention! In the context of the Revolution--a call to action. Siap period--period of greatest revolutionary ferment in the cities, beginning October 1945 Siliwangi--the West Java division of the TRI, formed May 1946 sjutjokan--resident (in Japanese terminology) tjap NICA - -the NICA mark. Believed to be used by NICA to mark its agents TKR (Tentara Keamanan Rakjat)--People’s Security Army. Name of regular army October 1945 to January 1946 TRI (Tentara Republik Indonesia)--Army of the Indonesian Republic. Name of regular army January 1945 to June 1947 TRIKA (Tentara Republik Indonesia Kereta A pi)--Railroad Army of the Indonesian Republic. An auxiliary force ulama--Islamic scholar Working Committee--main organ of a KNI or of the KNIP163 administrative unit province residency regency district subdistrict village title of official governor resident regent district officer subdistrict officer headman (elected)1WORKS CITED Newspapers Merdeka (Djakarta)--October 1945-April 1946. Perdjuangan Kita (Tjiparaj and Bandung)--see Soeara Merdeka below. 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