The Emergence of Indonesia as a Nation State

Djayadi Hanan

Officially proclaimed on August 17, 1945, Indonesia as a nation state is a new phenomenon emerged in the twentieth century as a product of a long historical process involving factors from outside and inside the region. The name Indonesia itself was not known until the late nineteenth century when a German scholar used the name for the title of his book (van der Kroef, 1951). The early process of its emergence as a state had been started as early as the introduction of Indian civilization into the region in the early centuries CE (Fredrick and Worden, 1993). The creation of modern Indonesian state however, was not started until the Dutch established a centralized colonial government in early nineteenth century especially in Java (Wibawa, 2001; Cribb, 1999).

This paper will treat the European colonialism (especially the Dutch) as the main factor that enabled Indonesia emerged as a nation state as we know today. This factor had brought the establishment of central authority in the region, socio-economic changes and development, and the embracement of nationalism and nation-state ideas. Other factors such as ethical policy in the Dutch, the existence of Indonesian language as a lingua franca and the Indonesian independence movement will be seen as facilitating factors of the emergence of this state. Overall, this paper will briefly elaborate the process of the emergence of Indonesia as a modern nation-state since its early days.

Theoretical Perspective

State, according to Weber is: “compulsory political with continuous organization (whose) administrative staff successfully uphold a claim to the monopoly of legitimate use of force in the enforcement of its order…within a given territorial area” (quoted by Anderson, 1987: 2). In understanding the state formation in Southeast Asia, Tony Day used the definition of state as:

“…a complex agent that acts through culturally constructed repertoire of potent, rational, authoritative, magical, symbolic, and illusory practices, institution and concepts. The state is distinct from yet interactive with societal forces, in ways that vary according to time and place. The state regulates power and morality and organize space, time and identity in the face of resistance to it authority to do so”(Day, 2002: 34)[1]

Weber’s definition of state has given us the idea about elements of the state, with legitimacy, administration (bureaucracy), legitimate use of force and order maintenance, and certain territorial area as its main components. Legitimacy, as one of its state’s central notions, according Alagappa (1995: 3-7) is very significant since it is related to the right to rule without which the state cannot operate properly. This legitimacy was very important notion challenged by the Indonesian leaders at the end of the Dutch colonial state which brought to the emergence of modern nation state of Indonesia. Meanwhile the definition from Tony Day is useful in understanding the mixture between modern and traditional administration when the Dutch introduced and established central authority and bureaucracy of the colonial state in Indonesia. This definition implies that the formation and emergence of the state in the Indonesian archipelago as a process of compromising and conflict between traditional and modern ideas about the state.

The emergence of state, according to Tilly is related to socio economic modernization (developmental theory). In sequence and stage theories, according to Tilly (quoting Cyril Black) there are four successive phases of modernization i.e. the challenge of modernity, the consolidation of modernizing leadership, economic and social transformation, and the integration of the society (Tilly, 1975: 605). Meanwhile in the developmental model, national states become the dominant organization in an area determined by the development of social organization that determines the formation of differentiated, centralized, territorially consolidated governments (Tilly, 1975: 612). This form of state can range along: “ a principal continuum from “undeveloped” (characterized by low level of political participation, by lack of popular representation and little redistributive activity) to “developed” (extensive participation and representation, vigorous redistribution); the various forms succeed each other in an evolutionary progression whose timing depends mainly on nonpolitical transformation: the accumulation of wealth, the formation of complicated communication systems, and so on.” (Tilly, 1975: 612). In Indonesian case, this socio economic modernization has been brought through the Ducth colonialism to the area which eventually enabled the process of the emergence of Indonesia as a modern nation state.

In Tilly’s account (1975: 604), Marx who was regarded as the one of the proponents of conflict theory is also suggesting the socio economic development as important factor in explaining the emergence of the state. Conflict theory suggests that the state emerges as a product of socio economic changes which represent the interest of the class that is ruling it. In the case of the emergence of Indonesia, this conflict theory can be used to understand the process of claiming and establishing the central authority by the Dutch over political units that had existed in the archipelago through the process of conquering and accommodating the local rulers followed by the establishment of colonial state.

Indonesia as a Nation State

The current nation state of Indonesia is a post colonial phenomenon. It emerged as the product of historical process involving socio economic development and introduction of the nationalism and nation state ideas in this archipelago by the Colonial and the responses given by the people in this area. Factors that enabled Indonesia to emerge are the establishment of centralized authority, whose power encompassed the archipelago, the establishment of administration (bureaucracy), the emergence of Indonesian elites (leadership) through ethical policy, and the spread of nationalism and nation state ideas.

The existence of political units and centralized authority had been familiar to the people in this archipelago since its early days, especially when the process of Indianization and the formation of Indianized political units (states) started spreading out in the area since the seventh century AD (Frederick and Worden, 1993). The nature of relationship among kingdoms in the archipelago was the continuous competition and rivalries to be autonomous political unit and at the same time expansionist (Wibawa, 2001: 26; Suwarno, 2003). The drives of these competition and rivalries according to Wibawa were not the motives of economy as those of the European but more of the need to maintain and increase the magical legitimacy and dignity. Once a central authority established, it will face endless challenges from its surrounding areas. Therefore these central authorities came up one after another until the coming of the Dutch in the seventeenth century.

This nature of local rivalries and competition was one important factor that had enabled the Dutch who at the beginning of its coming to the archipelago was to trade, eventually successful in controlling almost all part of currently known as the Republc of Indonesia.[2]

The Dutch came for the first time as a trading company with the intention of gaining benefit from the trading activities in the area. VOC or Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (United East Indies Company) was a commercial body established by the Dutch traders in an attempt to pursue the commercial activities in the archipelago without being trapped by competition among them (Cribb, ibid). Through its trading activities VOC was able to control all areas of trading in the archipelago. These activities were contended by the local leaders and kingdoms. Therefore, the trading activities of VOC also involved the process of conquering the local kingdoms and capturing the leaders and also through trading contract.

When the Dutch came for the first time, it encountered various political units (states) in the forms of local kingdoms. Several to mentions were Mataram in Java, Samudra Passai in Aceh (Sumatra), Gowa in Celebes, and Ternate and Tidore in Mollucas islands. Except for Mataram, all other local kingdoms were coastal political units and based their economic activities on trading. Mataram in Central Java however, was the main political unit at that time that very soon came into conflict with the Dutch trading company/polity (Cribb, 1999: 8). This conflict resulted in reduced role of Mataram as the main political unit in the archipelago and only then holding the client status to the Dutch and at the same time no other political units could emerged, giving the way to the Dutch to establish its centralized colonial state from which the state building of Indonesia started (Cribb, 1999: 9).

The coming of the Dutch to the archipelago was also encouraged by socio economic development in Europe and the development of the idea of nation state (nationaalstaat) (Wibawa, ibid). The socio economic development put them into the need of expanding the territory in an effort to find new area of trading and other economic activities. The development of the nation state ideas related very much with the socio economic development. If the people or the citizens are economically strong, the states can get more revenues from their taxes which will in turn the political and military power of the state. Therefore, the nation state idea envisions a self sufficient state which can be established through expansion and exploitation of overseas areas (Wibawa, ibid). This created the need to establish a colony that could serve for further socio economic development of the European states.

The establishment of centralized colonial state in Indonesian archipelago was started during the establishment of colonial state called Nederland East Indies (Indies). In 1807, Marshall Herman William Daendels was sent as a Governor General by the Nederland with unlimited power to govern. Soon he established a centralized bureaucracy with Batavia (currently: Jakarta) as the center (capital) and all local authorities (local kingdoms and local noblemen) were put under the state. This bureaucracy set all government officials into a line of organization similar to the military. The areas divided into several tiers from the central and went down to district. All title for structure and officials were made uniform. All of these parts of structure were under the command of the Governor General.

However, this relatively straightforward administrative hierarchy only applies to the core of Indies administration, especially in Batavia (Cribb, 1999: 10). For the regions this hierarchy interacted in various ways, not direct government to the locals, giving the local political units certain degrees of autonomy. Daendels was not able to finish his project of building the bureaucracy in the colonial state due to the fall of the Indies to English (1811-1816). The more direct bureaucratic structure of the colonial government over Indonesia was introduced by Raffless (English Governor General). His bureaucracy put the Bupati (local nobleman/ruler) as part of the government middle rank structure. Their power as local rulers was eliminated and instead they got salary from the colonial government. Besides these Bupatis, there were also local kings, who were put into somewhat part of the colonial bureaucracy indirectly. This policy allowed the local kings to be still in their power but they had to pay certain tribute periodically to the governor general and as an exchange these local kings received political and security protection against their rivals. This type of bureaucracy has given two features in Indonesian bureaucracy later on. On one side, the colonial state introduced a modern-rational bureaucracy, and on the other side, allows the “patrimonial type” of bureaucracy practiced by the local rulers/local kings and the Bupatis. This kind of mixed nature of bureaucracy is still the feature of modern Indonesian nation state (McIntyre, 1990:7).The Dutch continued this type of administration when it came back to the archipelago in 1816.

The colonial state and bureaucracy operated in a hegemonic and exploitative way. One of very well known policies of this state was the “forced plantation policy (cultuurstelsel)”. Its aim was to gain as much revenue as possible by forcing Indonesian people to plant all commodities highly priced in Europe at the time. The people had to give half of their plantation field (in practice, they had to give up all of their land) to be planted with commodities assigned by the bureaucracy. The term “forced” here very often means the use of physical instrument (including gun) to force people to work without having payment. This policy had given enormous revenues to the colonial state on one side, and devastating effect to the Indonesian people on the other side. In many places this hard situation had triggered uprisings conducted by local leaders. One example of these uprisings was the Java war (1825-1830), in which a local leader (part of the noble family in Java) fought against the colonial government. The uprising was shutdown and the leader was sent in exile by the colonial government.

With its center in Java (Batavia), by early nineteenth century, the Dutch colonial state in Indonesia had included Java, Sumatra, Kalimantan (Borneo), Sulawesi (Celebes), Mollucas Island, Bali, and part of Lombok, and by 1920s, it had reached the New Guinea island or Papua (Vickers, 2005: 9-14; Riclefs, 1993: 109-147). It is fair to say that by this time, the boundaries of Indonesia had been defined and the authority that governed it had existed. This integrated territory then became a very important reference when Indonesian modern nation state has to define the boundaries surrounding all its archipelagic areas.

As the administration was getting more complex, the Dutch needed to include more Indonesians to be part of its bureaucracy. The Dutch authorities increased the recruitment of Indonesian people into its middle levels of colonial civil service which created the need for providing more education to them (Cribb, 1999:13). Further impact of this situation was that the Indonesian being part of the bureaucracy started to understand how to run a modern state and grabbed the idea of its importance. Their confidence over the capabilities of running such a state business also grew and became important investment for Indonesia when it reached its independence.

The establishment of this colonial state and bureaucracy had also introduced a socio-economic and changes to the society (Ricklefs, 1993: 14). The bureaucracy’s intrusions reached the daily life of ordinary people introducing modern life to them and providing access for understanding the state affairs. This development was increasingly significant especially when the colonial government started introducing the ethical policy.

In the Dutch government and society itself the criticism started spreading out over its harsh policy especially on forced plantation one. This was the beginning of the ethical policy. Liberal and humanist groups in the Dutch country insisted the Dutch government of improving the quality of life of the people in its colony (Nederland East Indies)). The government then adopted the so called “ethical policy” which aimed at improving the people socio economic conditions that had been destroyed by the “forced plantation policy,” through: 1) developing education and health system; 2) people bank for credit; 3) building and developing irrigation system to increase agricultural production; and 4) to migrate the population from highly density places in Java to South Sumatra (Ricklefs, 1993: 151).

The ethical policy, with its limitations, had provided the opportunities for Indonesian people (especially the leaders) to get exposed to the European modern system of education (Vickers, 2005: 16-32; Ricklefs, 1993: 151-162)). The colonial government established schools for Indonesian elites and, although very limited, for the common people. Through this process of education, Indonesian leaders understood and grabbed the modern ideas of nationalism and nation state. Along with this embracement of modern ideas, the national consciousness of the need to have their own nation states governed by the people themselves was rising. Products of this policy were the emergence of Indonesian modern leaders such as Soekarno, Hatta, Natsir, and many others. In 1928, group of youth coming from relatively all over Indonesia conducted a national congress in the capital of Batavia (currently Jakarta) and declared the so called Sumpah Pemuda (Youth Oath). At this time the term Indonesia used officially in their declaration containing the will to be united in a nation of Indoneisa, the land of Indonesia, and the language of Indonesia. This was clearly one of the examples of the growing national consciousness among Indonesian to have their own nation state.

The growing will and national consciousness was facilitated by the existence of Indonesian (Malay) language which can serve as a very effective cultural and communication bridge among Indonesian from many parts. This archipelago consists of thousands of islands, about a third of them are inhabited. Ethnically, the people residing in the islands are enormously diverse, speaking around three hundreds local languages.[3] For centuries, the Malay language (the origin of Indonesian language), had been serving as a lingua franca which enabled the traders sailing from one to another islands to communicate. During the Dutch colonialism, this language became a communication tools for Indonesian leaders to spread the ideas of nationalism and nation state through direct communication among themselves or through media (Ricklef, 1993:164). It was based on this very logical reason when the youth congress of 1928 picked up this language as a language of unification.

According to Ricklefs, the key development of the period of early nineteenth century was the emergence of ideas of organization and the emergence of young Indonesian leaders with more awareness of self and national identity (1993:163). The result of this development were the emergence of organizations with the aims ranging for improving the health of society in Java (such as Budi Utomo) to social religious organization (such as Muhammadiyah) to envisioning the nation for Indonesia itself (such as Sarekat Islam). All of these organizations of independence movement made it possible for the awareness of being Indonesian nationals and the need for having an Indonesian state to spread out not only among the elites but further down to ordinary people.

Conclusion

Indonesia as a nation state is a product of long historical process involving factors that enabled and facilitated its emergence. Factors that enabled Indonesia to emerge as a nation state is Dutch colonialism, the establishment and exercise of central authority and bureaucracy as well as defining boundaries during the Dutch Colonial government. Another enabling factor is the embracement of nationalism and nation state ideas by the Indonesia elites whose emergence was facilitated by the Ethical Policy of the Dutch. Facilitating factors are the existence and familiarity of people in the archipelago over the central authority needed for living together, the language of Indonesian Malay which has served as a lingua franca in the archipelago for centuries, and independence movement. The process of state building in Indonesia however, was not stopped when it emerged as a new modern nation state, but it continues until the present day.

Bibliography:

Alagappa, Muthiah. Political Legitimacy in Southeast Asia. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1995.

Anderson, Lisa. “The State in the Middle East and North Africa.” Comparative Politics, Vol. 20, No. 1. (Oct., 1987), pp. 1-18.

Cribb, Robert. “Nation: Making Indonesia.” In Donald K. Emmerson, ed., Indonesia Beyond Suharto, Polity, Economu, Society, Transition. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1999.

Day, Tony. Fluid Iron: State Formation in Southeast Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawa’I Press, 2002.

Frederick, William H. and Robert L. Worden, editors. Indonesia: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1993.

MacIntyre, Andrew. Business and Politics in Indonesia. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1990.

Ricklefs, M.C. A History of Modern Indonesia since c. 1300. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1993.

Suwarno, P.J. Tata Negara Indonesia Dari Sriwijaya Sampai Indonesia Modern. Yogyakarta: Universitas Sanata Dharma, 2003.

Tilly, Charles. “Western-State Making and Theories of Political Transformation.” In Charles Tilly, ed., The Formation of National State in Western Europe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975.

Van der Kroef, Justus M. “The Term Indonesia: Its Origin and Usage.” Journal of the American Oriental Society, Jul-Sep 1951, pp. 166-171.

Vickers, Adrian. A History of Modern Indonesia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Wibawa, Samodra. Negara-negara di Nusantara: Dari Negara Kota Hingga Negara Bangsa, Dari Modernisasi Hingga Reformasi Administrasi. Yogyakarta: Gadjah Mada University Press, 2001.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/country_profiles/1260544.stm, retrieved Oct. 6, 2007.

---

[1] Compare this to Gunther who, in his lectures, defines state as : “set of sovereign governmental institution which control a well-defined contiguous territory, which is relatively centralized, which is structurally and functionally differentiated from other organizations in society, which imposes a single legal code over each person residing in that territory, which is ultimately and potentially possesses monopoly of the right to use force to implement that legal code”

[2] The Dutch came to Indonesia for the first time as a trading company called VOC

[3] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/country_profiles/1260544.stm, retrieved Oct. 6, 2007.