Merdeka 

is a term in Indonesian and Malay which means "independent" or "free". It is derived

from the Sanskrit maharddhika (महर्द्धिक) meaning "rich, prosperous, and powerful". In the Malay

archipelago, this term had acquired the meaning of a freed slave.

The term Mardijker is a Dutch corruption of the Portuguese version of the original Sanskrit words
and was used to designate former Portuguese and Dutch slaves from India in the East Indies,
known as Mardijkers, whence the Malay meaning of "free(dom)" is derived. The Mardijkers were
former Catholic slaves brought from India and the East Indies, who were liberated by the Dutch if
they abandoned Catholicism and joined the Dutch Reformed Church.[1]

The term was used by the anti-colonialist and pro-independence movements in the colonial
territories of the Dutch East Indies, British Malaya, and the Straits Settlements. It became a
rallying call for those demanding independence from the colonial administrations of
the Netherlands and United Kingdom. In the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, the Moro
people belonging to major ethnolinguistic groups of Meranaw, Maguindanaw, and Iranun,
use maradeka in the same meaning as freedom or liberation and a political group there is
called Maradeka. The Pampangan term mardíka (also spelled mardíkas) and
the Tagalog maharlika have the same Sanskrit etymology as the Malay merdeka and means
freeman, libertos or freedman in classical Philippine society.[2][3]