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Benda (1966)
Benda (1966)
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HARRY J. BENDA
T HE history of Indonesia in the last two or three decades of Dutch colonial rule
still has to be written, and it can only be written when the abundant archival
materials for this period, both in Indonesia and in the Netherlands, come to be
opened up for scholarly investigation.' Scholars who, since the Second World War,
have turned their attention to modern Indonesian history have tended to focus on
the development of Indonesian nationalism, and for understandable reasons. The
Indonesian Revolution, crowned by the attainment of Indonesian independence in
1949, rendered an understanding of the Indonesian nationalist movement in colo-
nial times imperative not only to Indonesian historians attempting to come to grips
with their country's recent past but also to an ever-increasingnumber of foreign stu-
dents. Welcome as this ongoing re-examination of Indonesian nationalism is, it, too,
must remain incomplete until documentary evidence, whether archival or (auto)-
biographical,can substantiallyenrich it.
There is, furthermore, another reason why most of these recent attempts must be
viewed with a modicum of caution: they are almost invariably cast in a teleological
frame of reference which reflects, so to speak, the ultimate victory of Indonesian
nationalism back upon its history in the colonial era. Implicitly or explicitly, this ap-
proach not only endows the nationalist movement (or movements, rather) with a
self-sustainingmomentum of virtually uninterrupted growth and strength, it also im-
plies that late colonial history revolved around the issue of nationalism.2 Both as-
sumptions, it would appear on closer scrutiny, are very likely erroneous and thus
tend to distort the historicalrecord, imperfectly as it is so far known to us.
This article will not directly address itself to either of these two problems. A re-
assessmentof Indonesian nationalism in the late colonial era, in particular,is reserved
for a subsequent essay. But the relative insignificance of nationalism as an issue in
the eyes of the colonial and home governments (not necessarily mirrored in the
often paranoid phobia with which most Europeans and Eurasians in the Indies
viewed "the native movement") deserves brief comment for our present purposes.
Harry J. Benda is Professorof History at Yale University.
1 A new series of officialdocuments is in the process of publication in the Netherlands, providing excel-
lent materials for future research. The first volume is S. L. van der Wal (ed.), Het onderwijsbeleidin
Nederlandsch-lndie 1900-1940: Een bronnenpublikatie-Education Policy in the Netherlands-Indies19oo-
1940 (with a Preface, Introduction and Survey of the Documents in English) (Groningen, I963). Atten-
tion should also be drawn to a three-volume publication of the official recommendations to both the
colonial and home governments by the famous Arabist, one-time Adviser on Native and Arabian Affairs,
and Professorof Arabic and Islamic Institutions at Leiden University, C. Snouck Hurgronje; two volumes
have so far appeared.E. Gobee and C. Adriaanse (eds.), Ambteliike adviezen van C. Snouck Hurgronje
(The Hague,1957, I959).
2 Cf. Harry J. Benda, "Decolonization in Indonesia: The Problem of Continuity and Change," Ameri-
can Historical Review, LXX (I965), 1058-73.
589
The Dutch Indies may, then, well have been a police state,4 and constant repres-
sion, petty and irksome surveillance of all manifestation-real or presumed-of anti-
government sentiment are matters of the record. Yet this was, at most, only the
harsh edge of a colonial system that could easily control what to all intents and pur-
poses was a numerically feeble opposition. Indeed, it was not the repressive rigor so
much as the studied, condescending indifference to Indonesian nationalism, the
stubborn refusal to take it seriously-in part at least because of its weakness-that
may well have inflicted the most damaging psychological wounds to the pride of the
movement's leadership.5 But this attitude, in turn, cannot have resulted primarily
from myopia so much as from the unshakable belief in Dutch superiority, from an
unperturbed certitude in the rightness-and inevitable gradualness-of the Dutch
civilizing mission in Indonesia.6 The humiliating record of even moderate petitions
haughtily refused, of increasingly insistent nationalist demands laughed out of
court by a Dutch government already forced into exile by the German invasion and
at a time when the war visibly threatened the colony, the miniscule gestures made on
the eve of the impending loss of the colony-they all surely testify to the firm Dutch
belief that Indonesian nationalism simply did not matter or warrant serious official
concern.7
If it is hard to imagine a governor-generalblithely asserting, in I936, the need for
3 These figures are taken from J. Th. Petrus Blumberger,Dc communistischebeweging in Nederlandsch-
Indie (Haarlem,2nd rev. ed., 1935), II8-I9.
4 The Batavia daily De lava Bode stated on December 8, I937, that "the Indies have become a state
living under a police regime." Quoted in G.-H. Bousquet, A French View of the Netherlands-Indies (tr.
by Philip E. Lilienthal; New York, I940), 34n.
5 For a thoughtful post-war Dutch discussion, see P. J. A. Idenburg, "Het Nederlandse antwoord op
het Indonesisch nationalisme," in H. Baudet and I. J. Brugmans (eds.), Balans van het Beleid: Terugblik
op de laatste halve eeuw van Nederlandsch-Indie(Assen, I96I), I21-51.
B Cf. the symptomatictitle, Mission Interrupted (Amsterdam, 1945), of an abbreviatedEnglish transla-
tion of a Dutch symposium on the Netherlands Indies, W. H. van Helsdingen and H. Hoogenberk (eds.),
Daar werd wat groots verricht . .. : Nederlandsch-Indiein de XXe eeuw (Amsterdam, I941). The book,
which contains many authoritativecontributionsby leading specialists,is pervaded by the spirit paraphrased
in the text. The same may be said of most of Balans van Beleid (see Note 5, above), and it is truer still
of the remarkable collection of essays included in a volume dedicated to the glory of the Binnenlands
Bestuur (Department of Interior Administration), Gedenkboek van de Vereniging van Ambtenaren bij
het Binnenlands Bestuur in Nederlands-Indie (Utrecht, I956). (Future references will read Gedenkboek).
7 The record is carefully chronicled in George McTurnan Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution in
Indonesia (Ithaca, I952), Ch. III. For an insightful reminiscence by an Indonesian, see S. H. Tajibnapis,
"De laatste tien jaren voor de Japanschebezetting," De Brug/Diambatan, I, I (April, 1946), IO-14 and
I, 2 (May, I946), I4-I6. Cf. also J. de Kadt, Dc Indonesische tragedie: het treurspel der gemiste kansen
(Amsterdam, I949).
The last four decades of Dutch rule in Indonesia are seemingly dominated by the
constant theme of reform. They commenced in and during the first two decades re-
mained virtually limited to Java, extending to the other islands thereafter. But con-
tinuity is more apparent than real, tending to mask a rather profound hiatus that
occurred halfway along the road. To understand this disruption it will be necessary
to see reforms in the broader perspective of twentieth century colonial history.
Though the colony had for decades been a Beamtenstaat, inroads into its pristine
existence had occurred ever since the turn of the twentieth century under the aegis
8 Governor-General B. C. de Jonge (I93I-I936), in an interview granted the North Sumatran daily
Deli Courant, said i.a. ". . . I am always being asked in connection with . . . [our] policy of autonomy:
when? Now I believe that since we have worked in the Indies for some 300 years, another 300 will have
to be added before they may perhaps be ready for some kind of autonomy." Cited in Koloniaal Tijdschrift
(The Hague), XXV (I936), 338.
9 Cf. F. J. M. Duynstee, Nieuw-Guinea als schakel tussen Nederland en Indonesie (Amsterdam, I96I).
10 A prominent Dutch journalist in colonial Indonesia accurately described the apolitical nature of the
colonial polity when he called it a ". . . structure in which the problem of power plays no part, [and] in
which the play of political forces cannot ever lead to a decisive influence on the development of the conduct
of governmental [policy]." J. H. Ritman, "Eenige aanteekeningen over politeke partijen in Indie,"
Koloniale Studien (Batavia), XXI (I937), 339.
11 For the complete text of the speech from the throne, see E. van Raalte (ed. & comp.), Troonredes,
Openingsredes,Inhuldigingsredes I814-1963 (The Hague, I964), I93-94. The relevant passage reads as
follows: "As a Christian Power, the Netherlands are duty-bound better to order the legal position of the
native Christians in the Indian Archipelago, to lend firmer support to the Christian mission, and to
permeate the entire governmental system by the realization that the Netherlands has to fulfill a moral
obligation towards the population of these areas." (p. 94).
12 "Demi-gods of the centralized regime" is how a Dutch commentator referred to the B.B. officials
as late as I936. See J. J. van Bolhuis, "Indie en de NederlandischeVolksvertegenwoordiging,"De Indische
Gids (Amsterdam), 58 (I936), 73I.
13 The problems created by the rise of the technical services are briefly discussed by W. H. van
Helsdingen, "Het centraal en regionaal bewind," in Daar werd wat groots verricht, 475-76, and Ph.
Coolhaas, "Ontstaanen groei," in Gedenkboek, 64. A far more profound change, also under the aegis of
modernization, had been legal reform, which sought to separate judicial from administrative functions.
The establishmentof a judicature constituted an important diminution of the B.B. corps' authority (see
Coolhaas, ibid., 54 and 64). For a brief discussion, see H. A. Idema, "De rechtspraak,"in Daar wbrd
wat groots verricht, 448 ff.
14 These events are carefully traced in Robert Van Niel, The Development of the Indonesian Elite (The
HagueandBandung,I960), 207-42.
15 The events of the mid-ig2o's gave rise to a flood of critical, often vindictive, literature, much of it
seeking a causal connection between the uprisings and liberal reforms. One typical example is M. W. F.
Treub's Het gist in Indie (Haarlem, I927); its author was chairman of the "Ondernemersraad,"the
plantation owners' council in the Netherlands. The most important work in this flood of criticism was
that by Dr. H. Colijn, later premier and minister of colonies, Koloniale vraagstukken van heden en
morgen (Amsterdam, I928).
The reformist tide that was to sweep over the Netherlands Indies after the turn of
the twentieth century in large part originated in fairly widespread dissatisfaction
with the Beamtenstaat, which in many quarters was by then considered an out-
dated encumbrance. Quite apart from the fact that Indonesian society itself had
started to stir and show signs of political vigor, a widening rift between administra-
tors and European colons-generic to most modern colonies-had generated pres-
sures for modernization and change. Once the dams were breached, nothing seemed
to be sacred, purely administrative reforms being implemented side by side with
potentially more far-reaching political, or quasi-political, ones;18 their constant over-
lapping and, more important, the question of the priorities to be accorded either re-
mained characteristicfeatures of the first two decades."9
Administrative reform intersected with, and was often subsumed under, the gen-
16 For a brief discussion of the impact of the depression on the Indonesian economy, see M. A. Idema,
"Impulsen tot Indie's ontwikkeling," in Daar werd wat groots verricht, 433-35. Cf. also G. Gonggrijp,
Sc/hetsener eonomische geschiedenis van IndonesieC(Haarlem, 4th impr., 1957), Ch. VIII, esp. i8o ff.
17 B. B. opposition to reforms is specifically acknowledged by van Helsdingen, loc. cit., 46i, and by
R. K. A. Bertsch, "Het Binnenlandsch Bestuur," in Daar werd wat groots verricht, 473-74. See also
R. A. A. Wiranatakoesoema,"De Regentschapsraad,"in F. W. M. Kerchman (ed.), 25 larenDecentralisatie
in Nederlandsch-Indie,1905-1930 (Semarang, n.d., ca. I930), I9I-92, and W. C. Koenders, "Het B. B.
en de Indische maatschappij,"in Gedenkboek, 284.
18 "From the beginning," wrote an astute British observer, "administrativeand political reforms have
been closely intertwined."John S. Furnivall, Netherlands India: A Study in Plural Economy (Cambridge,
I944), 264.
19A. Jansen, "Voortzetting van de bestuurshervorming,"Koloniale Studien, XX (1936), 88-Io8; re-
printed also in Koloniaal Tijdschrift, XXV (i936), 603-22. This is one of the most concise discussions
of the reforms.
also of the constitutionalrelationship reflectedin the new basic law of I925, see Furnivall, op. cit., 277-80.
21 Insofar as this also meant a measure of greater freedom of action for European civil servantsoutside
the capital, decentralization in this limited sense of the word found ready approval among them. See
Coolhaas,loc. cit., 65.
22 For an excellent discussion of the historical development of the regent's office, see B. Schrieke, "The
Native Rulers," in Indonesian Sociological Studies: Selected Writings of B. Schrieke, Part One (The
Hague/Bandung, I955), I67-221.
23 Cited in Verslag van de Commzssie tot bestudeering van staatsrechtelijkehervormingen (Batavia,
I94I-42, 2nd impr., New York, I944), I, I34. Future referencesto this important publication, the official
report on governmental reorganization published on the eve of the Japanese occupation, will be styled
Visman Report, after the Commission's chairman, Dr. F. H. Visman, a member of the Council of the
Indies.
24The decentralizationlaw can be found in Staatsblad van Nederlandsch-Indii, i922, Nr. 2i6; the
ordinancesestablishing the new provinces and regencies appearedin ibid., I924, Nrs. 78 and 79.
We may now turn to the decentralization reforms aimed at the native administra-
tive structure in Java. Where provinces were artificial creations derived from Dutch
models, the units of indigenous authority, the so-called Regencies (regentschappen),
being by and large based on administrative subdivisions of precolonial Java, at least
enjoyed a measure of traditional, organic sanction in the eyes of the population.28For
sure, the roots of that sanction lay in an autocratic past which, Dutch lipservice
notwithstanding, had long since yielded to the eroding influences of direct colonial
rule.29The twentieth century Regent might still enjoy some of the ascriptive pres-
tige inherent in the delegation of royal charisma; but over the decades he had not
only been turned into an adjunct of an intrinsically Western bureaucraticapparatus
-i.a. exemplified by the paradox that hereditary succession, though formally intro-
duced and recognized by the Dutch, had almost become the exception rather than
the rule-but the actual functions of his offlce had irresistibly passed into the hands
25 For a detailed account of regional representation,
see H. J. Levelt, "Samenstelling van de raden
der autonome ressorten," in 25 laren Decentralisatie, 24-39. A summary of the situation in later years
can be found in Visman Report, I, I38 ff.
26 See Coolhaas,loc. cit., 66-68; Bertsch,loc. cit.,
473-74, and Koenders, loc. cit., 284.
27 For a brief discussion, see Furnivall, op. cit.,
275-77. An important collection of essays on the
Volksraad appeared in Koloniale Studien, XXII (1938); that periodical devoted an entire issue (#3) to
the chamber which was then celebrating its twentieth anniversary.A convenient survey of the Volksraad
can be found in Visman Report,I, Ch. 4, Part i.
28 Cf. van Helsdingen, loc. cit., 466.
29 See Note 22, above.
48 The Province of West Java with its regencies came into existence on January i, I926, East Java on
January I, I929, Central Java following suit on January I, I930. See Cohen-Stuart,loc. cit., 2I.
49 The initiative of the European B. B. is specificallyacknowledged by Koenders, loc. Cit., 285.
50 Cohen-Stuart, loc. cit., 23.
51 See Bertsch, loc. cit., 467 ff.
52 See Koenders,loc. cit., 284. The assistantresident had no formal place in the administrativestructure
of the regency (Bertsch, 10c. cit., 489). In the I920's, the governor-generalconvened regents' conferences
from which assistant residents were excluded. D. H. Burger, "Het Binnenlands Bestuur op Java en
Madoera,"in Gedenkboek,93.
53 The causal connection between the political events of the mid-ig2o's and "recentralization"is
specificallyalluded to by Koenders, loc. cit., 257-58. Apprehension concerning the new trend as a result
of political extremismwas expressedby Cohen-Stuart(loc. cit., 22-23) in 1930.
54 See Coolhaas, loc. cit., 67 and Koenders, loc. cit., 285.
One of the most obvious victims in this reordering of colonial governance were
the Western-trained Indonesian civil servants outside the ranks of the hereditary
hierarchy in Java. Territorial administration in the Outer Islands had drawn on
such native personnel, and even increasingly so in the early years of the depression
when budgetary stringency dictated a reduction in the recruitment of the far more
expensive European candidates. But the slender hopes for even the most gradual
Indonesianization of the European Binnenlands Bestuur that these developments
may have engendered soon proved out of place in the new order of things. As the
government's spokesman in the Volksraad bluntly declared, in this new order the
Dutch-trained native official was doomed to disappear altogether, ceding his place
to the traditional adat-head. Since ethnicity and not territorialityformed the basis of
the "new look," the government, so he added, no longer wished to inject "alien"
Indonesians, notably Javanese, into the structure of Outer Island administration.08
That that structurewas to be, and remain, Dutch became equally clear when an In-
donesian Volksraad-member in I938 requested that the higher B. B. ranks be
opened up to qualified natives, only to be told that it was essential to reserve these
posts to a leadership "which, according to tradition and origin, can guarantee that
these lands will continue to be governed in accordance with Dutch principles."69In
conformity with these views, recruitment of European personnel was brought back
to its pre-depressionlevel. It is hardly an accident that it was a prominent Western-
educated Indonesian B. B. officer who in I936 launched the ill-fated petition in the
Volksraad which called upon the metropolitan government to place the future
evolution of colonial development on the agenda of an Imperial conference.70Only
such an appeal, bypassing as it were an Indies' government firmly attached to and
allied with the European B. B., might have held out promise for a stemming of the
tide.
That modernization had ceased to be the operational motto of the post-I93I
era was well demonstratedby the new respect paid to the age-old Dutch principle of
67 Jansen, op. cit., 96-97. The same author bluntly described the new reforms as "a welcome recon-
stitution of the erstwhile central position of the B. B." (ibid., iOI). See also J. J. Schrieke, "Indie en
dominion-status,"Koloniale Studien, XX (I936), 39.
68 "If we fully understand . . . the essence of ontvoogding, then the native administrativecorps can
only find a place within that policy in the measure that it must gradually see its tasks transferredto the
traditional [adat] heads of the people." Cited in H. van der Wal, "De ontvoogding in den Volksraad,"
Koloniaal Tiidschrift,XXVII (I938), 698. Cf. also de Boer, op. cit., I56.
69 Van der Wal, 699-700.
70 For a recent discussion, see Jan M. Pluvier, "The Soetardjo Petition," journal of the Historical
There can, then, be little doubt that on the eve of the Second World War the
foundations of a reinvigorated Beamtenstaat, a colonial polity proper, had been
firmly reestablishedin the Netherlands Indies.73Obviously, the clock had not been
entirely turned back-witness the vigorous though limited role of the Volksraad
in the closing years of Dutch rule-nor can it be denied that under the new dis-
pensation the door had been left ajar for the slow evolution of colonial life. But it is
equally undeniable that that evolution was henceforth to be charted far more cau-
tiously and under far stricter central guidance. If in I9I8 autonomy had appeared to
many in the colony to be just around the corner, two decades later it had receded
into a barely perceivable future-three hundred years being the guarded guess which
the governor-general permitted himself in I936.74 Doubtless the early reforms had
been hastily if not over-optimistically conceived, and the hopes for the rapid West-
ernization of an as yet slowly and quite unevenly evolving Indonesian society were
perhaps bound to run aground. Nor can we deny the fact that the nascent In-
donesian political leadership ignored the proffered hand. Whether inspired by rev-
olutionary dreams or influenced by the fairly successful "non-cooperation"policies
of their British Indian counterparts, most of them for long eschewed work within
the institutional framework prepared by the colonial government.75When at long
last some groupings decided to abandon this hopeless stance of spiteful opposition
after 1936, the moment for true cooperation had long since passed. By then the new
pattern had become firmly enough established to permit the government-let alone
the colons-to ignore belated nationalist willingness to seek devolution and auton-
omy along constitutional paths.
Granting all this, and granting even that the new direction, with its emphasis on
carefully guided evolution of the diverse ethnic adat communities-especially in the
monial Beamtenstaatin its own right, which was further developed by the meticulously bureaucraticregime
of the Netherlands Indies, reaching an old-new, Dutch-Javanesesynthesis in independent Indonesia. This
kind of continuity refers to style of governance rather than to structuralsimilarities. See W. F. Wertheim,
East-WestParallels:SociologicalApproachesto Modern Asia (The Hague, I964), Io6 ff.
81 The many-faceted administrative and political problems of decentralization and recentralization in
the history of the Indonesian Republic can be studied in J. D. Legge, Central Authority and Regional
Autonomy in Indonesia, 1950-I960 (Ithaca, 1961) and Gerald Maryanov,Decentralizationin Indonesia as
a Political Problem (Ithaca, 1958).