The Blood of The People - Revolution and The End of Traditional Rule in Northern Sumatra

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excluding Chinese and Europeans

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ETHNO- LINGUISTIC GROUPS

(boundaries approximately)
1 ACEH
2 SIMALUR/SIKHULE
3 GAYO
4 ALAS
5 PAKPAK BATAK (with Toba immigration)
6 KARO BATAK (with Javanese immigration in lowlands )
7 MALAY (with Javanese and other immigration in plantation district)
8 MALAY/MINANGKABAU
9 SIMALUNGUN (with Javanese and Toba immigration)
10 TOBA BATAK
11 ANGKOLA BATAK
12 MANDATING BATAK
13 MINANGKABAU
NUNC COCNOSCO EX PARTE
THOMAS J BATA LIBRARY

TRENT UNIVERSITY
THE BLOOD OF THE PEOPLE
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2019 with funding from
Kahle/Austin Foundation
https://archive.org/details/bloodofpeoplerevOOOOreid
THE BLOOD
OF THE PEOPLE
Revolution and
the End of Traditional Rule
in Northern Sumatra
ANTHONY REID
KUALA LUMPUR
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
OXFORD NEW YORK MELBOURNE
1979
Oxford University Press
OXFORD LONDON GLASGOW
NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON
KUALA LUMPUR SINGAPORE JAKARTA HONG KONG TOKYO
DELHI BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS KARACHI
NAIROBI DAR ES SALAAM CAPE TOWN
© Oxford University Press 1979
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press
ISBN 019580399 X
Printed in Malaysia by Sun U Book Co. Sdn. Bhd.

Bound by Dainippon Tien Wah Printing (Pte) Ltd. Singapore
Published by Oxford University Press, 3, jfalan 13/3,
Petaling Jay a, Selangor, Malaysia
For
John and Aileen Reid
346028
darah r a kyat masih berjalan. . .
the blood of the people continues to flow. .
(a song of the revolution, 1946)

CONTENTS
Tables and Maps ix

Plates x
Preface xi
Glossary and Abbreviations xiv
I PATTERNS OF KINGSHIP 1
II DUTCH-OCCUPIED ACEH 7
Armed Resistance 7
Backing the Uleebalang \\
Patterns of Uleebalang Resistance 15
Education 21
The Religious Revival 22
pusa 25
Uleebalang under Fire 27
III THE ETHNIC WEB OF EAST SUMATRA 38

Europeans 38
Labour 40
Deli-Langkat-Serdang: The Opulent Sultanates 43
The Southern Malay States 49
The Sultans and the Dutch in the 1930s 50
Simalungun 53
Karoland 55
The Urban Superculture 58
The Political Movement 59
Persatuan Sumatera Timur 68
The Land Issue, 1938-1941 70
IV 1942: THE HANDS DECLARED 84

Contacting the Japanese 84
Revolt in Aceh 87
The F-kikan in Control 89
East Sumatra in Disarray 90
Return of the Rajas 93
The Aron Movement 96
V THE JAPANESE EXPERIENCE 104

Administrative Change 104
viii CONTENTS
New Roles for the Pergerakan 108

Islamic Policy, 1942-1943 112
Military Mobilization 115
Giyugun 117
‘Participation’ 120
Economic Pressure 124
pusa Advances, 1943-1944 127
TALAPETA 130
Preparing ‘Independence’ 134
The Regime in Crisis 136
Leaders of Sumatra 139
VI THE AGENTS OF REVOLUTION

IN EAST SUMATRA 148
A City Leaderless 148
The Pemada Mobilize 153
The Republic Proclaimed 155
The Allied Landings, and Violence 158
Pemuda in Arms 161
Confronting the British and Japanese 165
The Republic and the Kerajaan 169
The Formation of Political Parties 172
VII ECLIPSE OF THE ULfiEBALANG 185

Expectations 185
A Republican Government 187
Struggle for Arms 192
Polarization in Pidie 195
The Cumbok War 200
The Destruction of Uleebalang Authority 204
VIII ‘SOCIAL REVOLUTION’ 218

The Collapse of Traditional Government 218
Persatuan Perjuangan and Polarization 225
‘A Night of Blood’ 230
Revolution or Putsch 233
Reaction 238
IX PRINCES, POLITICIANS, AND PEASANTS 252
Appendix: Government Office-holders, 1945-1946 266

Bibliography 269
Index 279
TABLES
1 Contract Labour in East Sumatra, 1884-1929 40

2 Estate Labour Force in East Sumatra 41
3 Attacks on Overseers by East Sumatran Estate Labour 42
4 Ethnic Categories in East Sumatra, 1930 43
5 City Population of East Sumatra, 1930 58
6 Cultivator Claims on Estate Land, 1937 82
7 Composition of Shu Sangi Kai, 1943-1944 121
MAPS
Indonesian Population of Northern Sumatra endpapers

1 Aceh: Administrative Divisions under the Dutch 8
2 East Coast of Sumatra Residency under the Dutch 44
3 Kerajaan of East Sumatra, and Administrative
Divisions of 1942-1946
4 Medan in 1945
5 The Pidie Region of Aceh ^4
PLATES
Between pages 124 and 125
1 The Dutch Conquest

2A Jimat of invulnerability
2B Military vigilance
3A House of Teuku Oemar
3B Polarization in Aceh
4A The tobacco worker
4B The tobacco establishment
5A & B The splendour of the Sultans
6A Dutch pride
6B Indonesian pride
7A Sultan Machmoed of Langkat
7B Sultan Amaloedin of Deli
8A, B & C Leaders of the Indonesian Pergerakan
9A & C Japanese leaders
9B Monument to the 1942 revolt
10 Japanese and Acehnese leaders
11A, B & C Uleebalang of Aceh
12A & B East Sumatran revolutionaries
12C Dr Tengku Mansur
13A Sumatran leaders
13B Independence rally of 9 October 1945
14A & B British military operations
15A Governor Hasan
15B Army leadership
16A Amir Sjarifuddin in Sumatra
16B Hatta in Aceh
PREFACE
Throughout history the loyalty of the Malay to his ruler has been
proverbial. In few countries of the modern world is monarchy still so
honoured as in the Malay states of Malaysia. Yet the states of northern
Sumatra which had appeared so similar in their experience before 1945,
thereafter underwent six months of revolutionary violence which swept
their Malay and Acehnese rulers away for ever.
Does this contrast refute the alleged centrality of the sultans in Malay
identity, or does it rather confirm it ? Is the vaunted loyalty of the Malay
subject more brittle than its apologists would have us believe? Did the
abolition of monarchy represent a liberation for the people of northern
Sumatra, or merely deliver them to another phase of rule by others?
What social consequences followed from the revolutionary path followed
on one side of the Malacca Straits and the evolutionary one on the other ?
These were the kind of questions which led me, while a resident of
Malaysia, to undertake a study of the ‘social revolutions’ of Sumatra.
As the study matured my attention was increasingly absorbed by
the importance of the northern Sumatran story itself—both as the
most thorough-going example of social change within the Indonesian
revolution and as the dramatic turning point around which the modern
history of the region revolves. It became necessary to consult records
in many countries—the Netherlands, Britain, and Japan, as well as
Indonesia and Malaysia. Above all it was necessary to interview a large
number of Indonesians who lived through these events.
To these Indonesian informants my debt is particularly great. Prob¬
ably none of them will share fully my perception, yet without their
extraordinary helpfulness, tolerance, and hospitality this study would
not have been possible. No-one could fail to be moved by the elements
of heroism and tragedy in their personal experience of this period, nor
feel satisfied with a historical account which necessarily subordinates
these elements to the broader social consequences of their actions. If
I have failed to capture the moral urgency of those whose lives were
shaped by these events, I would like them to know that this was not
for lack of sympathy and admiration for the ideals of those on both
sides of the conflict.
I wish to thank all those informants whose names are listed below.
Except where the informant has since died or his identity was essential
xii PREFACE
to the veracity of the point, I have not revealed the names of informants
in the footnotes.
I would also like to thank my academic colleagues Michael van Lang-
enberg, James Siegel, Saya Shiraishi, Akira Oki, Tengku Luckman Sinar,
P. P. Bangun, Masri Singarimbun, Teuku Iskandar, David Marr, and
Barbara Andaya for advice, material, and assistance; the archivists of
the Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken, the Algemene Rijksarchief,
the Public Record Office and the Museum Pusat, for their services;
Hans Gunther and his colleagues in the Human Geography Department
of A.N.U. for drawing the maps; Rose Mustapha, Maureen Krascum,
Robyn Walker, and Freda Christie for typing the text; and the Aus¬
tralian National University, the University of Malaya, and the Lee
Foundation for financial support during the many years this study has
matured.
I have adopted the new Indonesia/Malaysia spelling system for all
purposes other than personal names. In this system the English ch sound
is represented by c (thus Aceh not Acheh). The spelling of personal
names is respected, so that in most names English y is represented
by j; sh by sj\ ch by tj. Foreign terms have been italicized except those
which have become familiar in the English literature.
PEOPLE INTERVIEWED
The following participants in the events described below were inter¬
viewed by me in various places and at various times between 1967 and
1975. Those known to have died subsequently are indicated4-.
In Aceh\ Teuku Panglima Polim Muhammad Ali; Hasan Aly; T. M.

Amin; Ny. Aminah Abdullah Arif; Teungku Mohd. Daud Beureu’eh;
Brig. Gen. Siammaun Gaharu; Ali Hasjmy; Prof. Madjid Ibrahim;
Teuku Ismail (Langsa); Ismuha; Ny. Col. Hoessin Joesoef; Marzuki
Njakman; Dr Mahmud Serikawa (Langsa); T. Alibasjah Taisya;
Teungku Oemar Tiro; Muzakkar Walad; Teuku Zainalabidin.
In Medan (and environs): Prof. Ny. A. Abbas; Ustaz Abdulkadir;

Teungku A. Hoesain Almujahid; Sultan Saiboen Asahan; Tengku
Mochtar Aziz; Said Abu Bakar4-; Lt. Col. Burhanuddin; Sultan Osman
Deli+; Prof. Mr Tengku Dzulkarnain; Edisaputra; Abdullah Eteng;
Selamat Ginting; Hassan Effendi Harahap; Tuanku Hashim; Tengku
Dr Abdullah Hod; Cyrus Hutabarat; Tengku Jafizham; Bachtiar
Joenoes; Abdullah Jusuf; Sugondo Kartoprodjo; Arif Lubis4-; H. Arsjad
Thalif Lubis4-; Marzuki Lubis4- (taped interview by Nip Xarim); Prof.
Mr Tengku Mahadi; Mahruzar; Haji A. Majid; Ngeradjai Meliala;
PREFACE xiii
Mohd. Joenoes Nasution+; Col. T. M. Noerdin; Mohd. Saleh Oemar

(Surapati); Madja Poerba; H. Mohd. Said; Shamsuddin; Nas Sibajang;
Tengku Luckman Sinar; A. Wahab Siregar4"; Souffron; Sujono; Teuku
Suleiman; Nip Xarim; H. M. ZainuddinL
In Pematang Simitar: M. Eduard Damanik; A. S. Sibajang; Lt. Musa

Sinaga; T. B. A. Purba Tambak.
In Jakarta and Yogyakarta: Amelz; Mr S. M. Amin; Teungku Mohd.

Hasbi As-Siddiqy+; Tengku Damrah; Mr T. M. Hasan; Marnicus
Hoetasoit; Mutalib Moro; Mohd. Yunan Nasution; Sjafruddin Praw-
iranegara; Osman Raliby; Soebadio Sastrosatomo; Lt. Gen. Ahmad
Tahir; Mochammad Tauchid.
In Malaya: Mohd. Hasjim; T. A. B. Husny; Abdullah Hussain; Dr T.

Iskandar; Ghazali Yunus.
In Japan: Adachi Takashi; Aoki Eigoro; Azuma Toru; Fujivvara Iwai-

chi; Horii Seibei; Prof. Itagaki Yoichi; Kabashima Kannosuke; Kondo
Tsugio; Kuba Noburu; Miyayama Shigeo; Nakata Eishu (Muramoto);
Sato Satio; Ushiyama Mitsuo; Yamaguchi Susumu.
In the Netherlands: Mevr. Amir-Fournier; Dr A. J. Piekaar.

GLOSSARY AND ABBREVIATIONS
Ac — Acehnese Ar = Arabic D = Dutch

I = Indonesian/Malay J = Japanese K — Karo Batak
adat (/) customary law

afdeling (D) district administered by an Assistant-Resident
A.M.S. Algemene Middelbare School (D), General High
School
API Angkatan Pemuda Indonesia (I), Indonesian
Youth Force
ARA Algemeen Rijksarchief, The Hague
aron (K) cultivation co-operative
Atjeh-moord (D) Acehnese murder
Atjeh-politiek (D) Aceh policy
bahu (I) approximately 0.7 hectare
bapak (/) father
barisan (/) front, fighting force
Barisan Harimau
Liar (I) Wild Tiger Force
Barisan Mujahidin
(1/Ar) Force of fighters in the holy war
Barisan Naga
Terbang (/) Flying Dragon Force
B.B. Binnenlands Bestuur (D), Internal Administra¬
tion (Dutch colonial)
Bi.Z. Binnenlandse Zaken (D), Internal Affairs (Min¬
istry)
BHL Barisan Harimau Liar (q.v.)
BKI Bijdragen van het Koninklijk Instituut, Leiden
BKPI Badan Kebaktian Pemuda Indonesia (I), Indo¬
nesian Youth Loyalty Body
BOMPA Badan Oentoek Membantu Pertahanan Asia (I),
Body to Support the Defence of Asia
BPI Badan Pemuda Indonesia (I), Indonesian Youth
Body
BPK Badan Penjaga Keamanan (I), Body to Maintain
Order
GLOSSARY AND ABBREVIATIONS XV
bunshu (J) District equivalent to afdeling (D) or kabupaten

(I)
bunshucho (J) Head of bunshu, assistant resident
chiho-hoin (J) highest court of a region, equivalent to Dutch
landraad
chokan (J) Governor, resident
Chuo Sangi In (J) Central Advisory Council
Comite van
Ontvangst (D) Reception Committee
controleur (D) controller, lowest rank in European B.B.
cultuurgebied (D) cultivation [plantation] district
cut (Ac) small, lesser
daerah istimewa (I) special region
Dai Toa Kensetsu
Undo (J) Movement for the Building of Greater East Asia
dayah (Ac) religious school of highest level
Divisi Rencong (I) Dagger Division
dusun (I) lit. rural village, Karo-inhabited uplands of Malay
Sultanates
erfpacht (D) long lease (for land)
ERRI Ekonomi Rakyat Republik Indonesia (I), People’s
economy of the Republic of Indonesia
F-kikan (J) F(ujiwara) organization
fuku (J) deputy
Gagak Hitam (I) Black Crow
GERINDO Gerakan Rakyat Indonesia (I), Indonesian
People’s Movement
gun (J) sub-district, equivalent to onderafdeling
guncho (J) official responsible for gun
Gunseibu (J) Military Administration Department
Gunseikan (J) Military Administrator
Harimau Liar (I) Wild Tiger (see BHL)
heiho (J) auxiliary soldier
herendienst (D) obligatory labour
Hikayat Perang
Sabil (I) Chronicle of the Holy War
Hikojo Kimutai
(J) Airfield guard, troops
Hinomaru (jf) sun circle, Japanese national flag
H.I.S. Hollandsch-Indisch School (D), Dutch-medium
(Primary) school for Indonesians
hoin (J) court
hokokai (J) service organization
XVI GLOSSARY AND ABBREVIATIONS
IPI Ikatan Pemuda Indonesia (I), Union of Indon¬

esian Youth
IPO Overzicht van de Inlandsche en Maleisch-Chineesche
Pers (Batavia, Kantoor voor Volkslectuur,
monthly)
I.S.I. Ichwanus Safa Indonesia (Ar)
jalan (I) road
jaluran (I) harvested tobacco field (lit. furrowed)
jihad (Ar) holy war
kadhi (Ar) Islamic judge
kafir (Ar) infidel
Kaijo Jikeidan (J) coastal self-defence force
kaphe (Ac) infidel
kaum muda (I) younger group ) . .
,, in religious controversy
kaum tua (I) older group J
KBI Kepanduan Bangsa Indonesia (I), Indonesian
National Scouts
keirei (J) bow of homage
kemuliaan (I) majesty, magnificence
kenduri (I) feast
Kenkokutai shintai
(J) Unit dedicated to Upbuilding the Country
Kenpeitai (jf) military police
kerajaan (I) royal government
kerapatan (I) meeting, kerajaan court in East Sumatra
kesain (K) hamlet
kikan (J) organization
klewang (Ac) sword
KNI Komite Nasional Indonesia (I), Indonesian
National Committee
KN1L Koninklijk Nederlandsch Indisch Leger (D),
Royal Netherlands Indies Army
Kompeuni (Ac) The [Dutch East India] Company, i.e. Dutch
colonial government
Korte Verklaring Short Declaration (of obedience to N.I. govern¬
ment)
(D)
koseikyoku (J) office of public welfare
koseikyoku-cho (J) head of koseikyoku
K-S-S Kita-Sumatora-Sinbun (J), North Sumatran News
kuta (K) village
landschapskas (D) treasury of the statelet(s)
Lembaga Bahasa
Indonesia (I) Indonesian Language Institute
GLOSSARY AND ABBREVIATIONS XVII
madrasah (Ar) Islamic school

MAIBKATRA Majlis Agama Islam untuk Bantuan Kemakmuran
Asia Timur Raya (I), Islamic Council for
Supporting the Prosperity of Greater East Asia
mailr. mailrapport (D), despatch (from Batavia to Ne¬
therlands Government)
mandur (I) foreman
marga (I) exogamous (Batak) clan
Markas Agung (I) Supreme Headquarters
Markas Besar
Rakyat Umum (I) Headquarters for the Whole People
MASJUMI Majlis Syuro Muslimin Indonesia (I), Con¬
sultative Council of Indonesian Muslims
merah-putih (I) red-white, the Indonesian national flag
merdeka (I) freedom
MIT Majlis Islam Tinggi (I), High Islamic Council
Mokotai (J) Wild Tiger Unit
Mr Meester (in de rechten) (D), Title of law graduate
mujahidin (Ar) fighters in the holy war
MULO Meer Uitgebreid Lager Onderwijs (D), Dutch-
medium intermediate school
musapat (Ac) customary court in Aceh
muslimin (Ar) Muslims, the armed resistance in Aceh
MvO Memorie van Overgave (D), Final report of
(N.I.) official
naib kadhi (Ar) deputy kadhi
Nakano-gakko (J) Nakano (intelligence) school
NAPINDO Nasional Pelopor Indonesia (I), Indonesian
National Vanguard
N.I.B. Officiele Bescheiden hetreffende de Nederlands-
Indonesische Betrekkingen ig^-igô, ed. S. L.
van der Wal, 4 Vols. (The Hague, Martinus
Nijhoff, 1971-4)
NICA Netherlands Indies Civil Administration
NRI Negara Republik Indonesia (I), State of the
Republic of Indonesia
NST Negara Sumatera Timur (/), State of East
Sumatra
NZG Nederlands Zendings Genootschap (D), Dutch
Missionary Society
onderafdeling (D) sub-district (administered by controleur)
orang (I) person, man
OvS Oostkust van Sumatra (D), East Coast of Sumatra
XV111 GLOSSARY AND ABBREVIATIONS
PAD I Persatuan Anak Deli Islam (/), Association of

Muslim Sons of Deli
parang (/) long knife, machete
PARINDRA Partai Indonesia Raya (/), Greater Indonesia
Party
PARMUSI Partai Muslimin Indonesia (/), Indonesian Islamic
Party
PARTINDO Partai Indonesia (/), Indonesia Party
pasukan (/) armed unit
pelopor (/) vanguard, pioneer
pemimpin (/) leader
pemuda (/) youth
Pemuda pusa pusa youth
penghulu (I) village head (in East Sumatra)

perang sabil (/) holy war
perbapaan (K) parent village
pergerakan (/) [national] movement
Persatuan
Perjuangan (/) Struggle Union
per sen tanah (I) percentage from (lease of) land
PESINDO Pemuda Sosialis Indonesia (/), Indonesian Socia¬
list Youth
PETA Pertahanan Tanah Air (/), Defence of the Father-
land
P.I.L. Penjaga Istana Langkat (/), Langkat Palace
Guard
PKI Partai Komunis Indonesia (I), Indonesian Com¬
munist Party
PNI Partai Nasional Indonesia (/), Indonesian Na¬
tionalist Party
PNI-6«r« New PNI; Pendidikan Nasional Indonesia (/),
Indonesian National Education
pokrol bambn (/) unlicensed lawyer
Polisi Istimewa (I) Special Police
PP Persatuan Perjuangan (q.v.)
PRI Pemuda Republik Indonesia (/), Indonesian
Republican Youth
PRIMA Pejuang Republik Indonesia Medan Area (/),
Indonesian Republican (ex-)Fighters in the
Medan Area
PST Persatuan Sumatera Timur (/), East Sumatran
Association
GLOSSARY AND ABBREVIATIONS xix
PUSA Persatuan Ulama Seluruh Aceh (I), All-Aceh

Ulama Association
Pusat Markas
Barisan
Rakyat (I) Central HQ of the People’s Forces
PUST Persatuan Ulama Sumatera Timur (I), East
Sumatra Ulama Association
raja (I) ruler
rakan (Ac) guards and immediate followers of an uleebalang
rencong (Ac) Acehnese dagger
RvO I.C. Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie (Ams¬
terdam), Indisch Collectie
sabilillah (Ar) holy (fighters) of God
sandiwara (I) drama
saro (Simal.) corvee for Simalungun rajas
sawah (I) irrigated rice fields
Sendenhan (J) propaganda service
sepakat (I) unity, accord
shu (J) province, equivalent to Dutch residency
Shukyo Hoin (J) Religious Court
Shumuhan (J) Religious Office
shu sangi kai (J) provincial advisory council
S.I. Sarekat Islam (I), Islamic Association
sibayak (K) vestigial Karo tetrarchs, reinstated by Dutch
sicho (J) mayor
SOK Sumatra’s Oostkust (D), East Coast of Sumatra
son (J) lowest administrative unit, village cluster
soncho (J) village head, title given to uleebalang
syahid (Ar) martyr in the holy war
T. Teuku (q.v.)
tabligh (Ar) public religious lecture, evangelization
TALAPETA Taman Latihan Pemuda Tani (I), Young Far¬
mers’ Training School
TALAPETA
Dosokai (J) TALAPETA alumni
TBG Tijdschrift van het Bataviaasch Genootschap

(Batavia)
Tengku (I) title of Malay aristocrat
Teuku (Ac) title of male members of uleebalang families
Teungku (Ac) respectful title, especially for ulama
Tgk. Teungku (q.v.)
TKR Tentera Keamanan Rakyat (I), People’s Peace¬
keeping Army
XX GLOSSARY AND ABBREVIATIONS
Tokubetsu
Keisatsutai (J) special (armed) police corps
tokko-ka (J) political police
TRI Tentera Republik Indonesia (I), Army of the
Indonesian Republic
Tropen Museum voor de Tropen, Amsterdam
Tuanku (/) title of raja and heir apparent (Malay), or of all
members of sultan dynasty (Aceh)
ulama (Ar) religious scholar or teacher
uleebalang (Ac) ruler of a statelet
urung traditional grouping of villages (Karo and Sima-
lungun)
Volksraad (D) People’s Council (in Batavia)
volkschool (D) people’s (vernacular) school
WIS Weekly Intelligence Summary
WO War Office documents, held in Public Record
Office, London
zakat (Ar) tithe on agricultural produce
selfbestuurder (D) autonomous ruler
I
PATTERNS OF KINGSHIP
I HE modern history of northern Sumatra has been dominated by three

cultures—Acehnese, Batak, and Malay. It would be misleading to say
three peoples. Individuals moved frequently from one culture to the
other, and there were common Indonesian elements in the way villagers
related to each other and to the land. As political cultures however
the three diverged strikingly, in ways which governed their encounter
with European colonialism and with each other.
With the partial exception of Simalungun the Bataks did not develop
state systems, so that the marga (clan) remained the most important
social cement beyond the village. Acehnese and Malay political cultures,
on the other hand, derived their classic formulation from the great
Islamic monarchies of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The
rulers of both Aceh and Melaka drew their power from the place of
their capitals in the flourishing international trading system of that
period. This power enabled each sultanate to impose its respective
culture on a wide territory. The style of the two monarchies, however,
was instructively different.
The sultans of Melaka in its heyday, and of the successor capitals
of Johor-Riau after 1511, were endowed with a sacred aura of sover¬
eignty. Court chronicles were obsessed with the absolute loyalty incum¬
bent on the subject and the divine retribution which would inevitably
strike anyone who committed derhaka (treason) against the king. The
legitimacy of the succession was therefore vitally important, and relatively
stable. Few Malay sultans, however, took a direct interest in daily ad¬
ministration. A feature of Malay states became a mutually advantageous
partnership between the ruling dynasty with its magical aura of daulat
(sovereignty), and an effective administrator who had the necessary
military and economic support at any given time. The chronicle of the
Melaka sultanate expressed the relationship symbolically in a compact
between the ancestor of the sultans and the prototype of the powerful
Bendahara line: ‘the descendants of your humble servant shall be the
subjects of Your Majesty’s throne, but they must be well treated by
your descendants’.1 This type of relationship provided a basis for the
interdependence of the legitimate Malay sovereign and powerful non-
2 THE BLOOD OF THE PEOPLE
Malay forces, such as the orang laut of the Riau Archipelago or the
Indian Muslim traders. After 1722 it was the warlike Bugis who wielded
effective power in the Johor-Riau sultanate, and their leader who as
Yangdipertuan (or Raja) Muda entered a contractual relationship with
the Malay sultans: ‘I, the Yangdipertuan Muda, shall govern your
realm. If what lies lengthwise before you is not to your liking I shall
lay it crossways. And if what lies crossways before you is not to your
liking, I will lay it lengthways.’2
The particular genius of Malay sovereignty was its ability to enter
these mutually beneficial relationships with more warlike and even more
numerous peoples without going under. On the contrary it was the
Malay culture of port and capital which gradually absorbed the dis¬
sident ethnic elements over which it presided. The ‘Malay’ dynasties
of East Sumatra were in fact moulded from varied ethnic origins, with
Batak, Minangkabau, Acehnese, and Indian elements predominating
over the strictly Malay blood of Melaka and Johor. No doubt it was
this genius which allowed Malay culture eventually to predominate in
the coastal ports of East Sumatra (between Langkat and Siak), replacing
the influence of Aceh, which had introduced notions of monarchy to
the Karo and Simalungun Bataks in the sixteenth century.3
In its relations with the more numerous Batak population of north¬
east Sumatra, the Malay culture of the river ports had two great ad¬
vantages. The first was its mediating role with the outside wrorld, through
trade and diplomacy; the second the exalted but flexible notion of king-
ship which enabled it to preside loosely over the conflicts of the Bataks,
intervening only where necessary to draw some advantage. Many Bataks
came to the Malay ports to trade; some returned to fight the rajas’
wars, for little more return than the spoils of war; fewer still settled
in the royal capitals as followers and eventually accepted Islam. In the
eyes of some European observers there was a parasitic quality about
this Malay relationship with the Batak. Anderson for example con¬
trasted the Malays with the Karo Batak pepper growers of the early
nineteenth century, the latter being
. . . withal industrious, their avaricious habits and fondness for money, in¬
ducing them to exert themselves. The day is spent principally in labour. . . .
A Malay, however, is reckoned rich here when he has amassed two thousand
dollars; for their excessive indolence prevents them from collecting much
money. The seafaring people work perhaps a few months in the year, making
a voyage or two to Pinang, and spend the rest of their time in indolence. . . .
The Battas, on the other hand, are extremely penurious and saving; and
being industrious at the same time, they accumulate large sums, and make
no show. The moment a Malay becomes possessed of a little money, he enter-
PATTERNS OF KINGSHIP 3
tains as many attendants as he can, and is accounted rich or respectable ac¬
cording to the number of his followers.4
In the fullness of time the Malays would indeed have to pay for this
vulnerable position as mediators, traders, and rulers rather than primary
producers. It was nevertheless a necessary role for both Batak producers
and foreign buyers. With the advent of Dutch colonial control, it became
still more crucial.
Malay monarchies were ideal allies for European indirect rule, par¬
ticularly in the shape they had come to assume in nineteenth-century
East Sumatra. Economically and militarily they were weak, and depen¬
dent on the degree of support they enjoyed from Batak allies. Despite
the exalted notions of sovereignty and heavenly descent to which they
laid claim, they were also small and divided, with a dozen greater or
lesser rajas competing for control of the trade which flowed from Batak
territory down the rivers of the east coast. History had preconditioned
them to co-operation with foreign traders and warriors where it suited
their interests. Dutch colonial power manifestly advanced the interests
of almost all the Malay rulers of the East Coast. Blind to the complexities
of power relationships in East Sumatra, the Dutch from the moment
of their arrival in 1862 treated the Malay rajas as simple monarchs,
enhancing enormously their status in relation both to lesser Malay chiefs
and to Karo or (in Asahan) Toba Batak allies. For planters anxious to
exploit the superb fertility of the volcanic alluvium around Deli, the
Malay rulers offered the further great advantage of what appeared to
be a domain principle—a claim to have the right to dispose of all land
within their jurisdiction. In the early pioneering stage of the cultuurge-
bied (plantation area) this provided an uncomplicated means whereby
vast tracts of virgin forest could be alienated to tobacco estates on the
basis of modest royalties to the raja. Under Dutch indirect rule the
Malay rulers continued their historic role as mediators between the
Batak producers and the outside world, on terms much more advanta¬
geous to themselves. The four dynasties of the cultuurgebied which
emerged most successfully from the scramble of the 1860s—Langkat,
Deli, Serdang, and Asahan—were rewarded by the Dutch with the
title of Sultan, enormous wealth, complete security, and enhanced
control over the both their Malay vassals and the neighbouring Bataks.
What resistance there was to the imposition of Dutch control in East
Sumatra came primarily from the Batak population, for obvious reasons.
In Asahan the Toba Bataks of the interior were in more or less continual
revolt from the moment Dutch rule was imposed in 1865 until 1870,
when some of their leaders were killed and others conciliated. The Karo
Bataks inhabiting the dusun, the upland parts of the alluvial plain over
which the rulers of Deli and Langkat claimed sovereignty, had still more
reason for grievance. They harassed the estates occupying land they
considered their own, and finally revolted in 1872 under the leadership
of the ruling family of Sunggal, the most prominent of the ‘Malayized
Karo dynasties with direct influence over the Karo cultivators. In this
so-called ‘Batak war’ of 1872 the Dutch reduced the Datuk of Sunggal
to subordination to the Sultan of Deli, though the war also forced
them to take more seriously Karo claims on the land. Karo attacks
on estates continued sporadically as late as the 1890s, despite the
increasing sophistication with which the Dutch co-opted Karo chiefs
into a privileged aristocracy of the Deli sultanate.5
The genius of Malay kingship for mediating with ethnically diverse
producers was not shared by Acehnese kings. The boundaries of Aceh
were cultural as well as political; few non-Acehnese were in a dependent
relationship to sultans of Aceh except as a temporary result of conquest.
Whatever sacral aura hung about the throne of Aceh did not prevent
usurpers and rivals from constantly interrupting the hereditary line.
During the heyday of the sultanate (1520-1641) there were a number
of sultans whose rule was both personal and highly centralized. They
played a particularly dominant role in commerce, preferring a system
of aggressive royal monopoly to the milder Malay policy of attracting
trade to the capital.6
The decline of the centralized power of Aceh in the late seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries did not make it any more receptive to foreign
penetration. Whenever a sultan yielded to such European demands as
fortified strongholds for trading operations, popular pressure brought
about a retraction. The Chinese, who came to dominate the foreign
trade of many Malay states in the nineteenth century, were apparently
banned from Aceh.7 Acehnese were highly proficient as exporters as
well as producers of their pepper and betelnut.
In Aceh, as in the myriad Malay states of the Melaka Straits, the
domination of European entrepots by the nineteenth century had created
a fragmentation of economic, and therefore of political, power. The
sultan continued to be respected throughout Aceh as suzerain, but the
channels of commerce no longer flowed exclusively through his capital.
In the interior of Aceh Besar (the watershed of the Aceh river) and
Pidie, and at the mouth of each river in East and West Aceh and the
north coast, uleebalang levied tolls on their own markets, frequently
warring against each other for control of territory or trade.
Aceh would have presented problems to European colonial ambition
even had the sultanate been astutely co-opted as an instrument of in¬
direct rule. Instead the Dutch made a frontal assault in 1873, declared
the sultanate abolished, and succeeded in uniting this whole formidable
PATTERNS OF KINGSHIP 5
country against themselves. They were never able to withdraw com¬

pletely from the disastrous imbroglio they drew upon themselves until
the Japanese relieved them of it seventy years later. For three decades
the war ebbed and flowed, with the Acehnese showing ever-increasing
skill in guerrilla warfare under the guidance of ulama (Islamic teachers)
committed to holy war. Only in the years after 1898 did the Dutch
gain the upper hand by adopting a policy of ceaseless pursuit.8 Its
political corollary was an alliance with the uleebalang, the remaining
element in the population with the greatest interest in peace. As the
basis for a policy of indirect rule the Acehnese uleebalang were less con¬
genial than the Malay rajas of East Sumatra, but experience constantly
appeared to demonstrate to the Dutch that they had no alternative.
The three major ethnic groups of northern Sumatra had entered
the Netherlands imperium in strikingly different ways. In the 1940s
they would similarly leave it in very different moods. The Malay sultans
gained much from their association with Dutch colonialism, and most
of their Malay subjects appeared content to bask in their reflected glory.
With the Acehnese uleebalang the Dutch struck a more even bargain
of mutual dependence, in the face of powerful anti-Dutch sentiments
among the population. The positive effect of Dutch rule on the Karo
and Simalungun Batak of East Sumatra was less profound than in either
of these cases, partly because the absence of any true monarchic in¬
stitutions gave the colonial power no point of entry. The Batak rajas
created or nurtured by the Dutch remained somewhat artificial figures
whose role was never clearly defined.
1. ‘Sejarah Melayu or “Malay Annals”: a translation of Raffles MS 18’, by

C. C. Brown, JMBRAS, 25, Pt 2/3 (1952), pp. 26-7. The text typically insists
that the raja in turn exacted a promise that ‘Malay subjects shall never be dis¬
loyal or treacherous to their rulers, even if they behave evilly or inflict injustice
upon them’.
2. Tuhfat al-Nafis (Singapore, 1965, romanized edition), p. 62, as translated

by Virginia Matheson, ‘Concepts of State in the Tuhfat al-Nafis’, in Pre¬
colonial State Systems in Southeast Asia, ed. A. Reid and L. Castles, Mono¬
graph No. 6 of MBRAS (Kuala Lumpur, 1975), p. 13.
3. The main evidence for the Acehnese origins of the Asahan monarchy and
a residual system of four rajas among Simalungun and Karo Batak are the
interna] traditions of these peoples, for which see M. Hamerster, Bijdrage tot
de kennis van de afdeeling Asahan (Amsterdam, OvS Instituut, 1926), pp. 42—4,
J. Tideman, Simeloengoen (Leiden, 1922), pp. 34-9 and 68-71; P. Tamboen,
Adat-istiadat Karo (Jakarta, Balai Pustaka, 1952), pp. 15-62. The peak of
Aceh influence is usually attributed to Sultan Iskandar Muda (1609-36).
4. John Anderson, Mission to the East Coast of Sumatra in 1823 (Reprint

Kuala Lumpur, OUP, 1971), pp. 266-8.
5. C. A. Kroesen, ‘Geschiedenis van Asahan’, TBG, 31 (1886), pp. 111-36;

W. H. M. Schadee, Geschiedenis van Sumatra’s Oostkust (Amsterdam, OvS
Instituut, 1918), pp. 187-203; Tengku Luckman Sinar, Sari Sedjarah
Serdang (n.p., n.d. [Medan, 1971 ?]), I, pp. 156-60; Anthony Reid, The
Contest for North Sumatra: Atjeh, the Netherlands, and Britain, 1858-1898
(Kuala Lumpur, OUP/UMP, 1969), pp. 25-51.
6. Anthony Reid, ‘Trade and the Problem of Royal Power in Aceh: Three
stages: c. 1550-1700’, in Pre-colonial State Systems, pp. 45-55.
7. Chinese traders were a major factor in seventeenth-century Aceh, and it is

not clear when this ceased to be the case. A French visitor in 1843, however,
gave as a cause for Aceh’s commercial decline ‘the expulsion of the Chinese,
as unbelievers ... an expulsion which causes regret among the native mer¬
chants’. Affaires Etrangeres Memoires et Documents, Asie, No. 23, f. 139.
8. The Aceh-Dutch war is described in Reid, The Contest, pp. 91-283.

II
DUTCH-OCCUPIED ACEH
‘It is essential that we keep firmly in mind that our authority

in Aceh rests primarily on the uleebalang, apart from the force
of arms. . . . Without them we will achieve nothing in Aceh in
the long run
Governor Goedhart, 19271
ARMED RESISTANCE
By 1913, after forty years of war, the Dutch could at last be said to
have conquered Aceh. A policy of ceaseless pursuit, control of arms
and trade, and fines on hostile villages had brought the traditional ruling
class (the royal family and the uleebalang) to its knees by 1903. The
killing continued, but was now directed exclusively against guerrilla
bands inspired and often led by famous ulama. In Dutch eyes the guer¬
rillas were the jahat (baddies), but to the Acehnese they were simply
muslimin (Muslims). They had chosen to put their faith in God rather
than man, preferring a martyr’s death and its heavenly reward to the
shame of living under the heel of the infidel conqueror. Despite the
11,000 Acehnese they had killed since the surrender of the best-known
leaders in 1903, the Dutch still counted about 6,000 of these muslimin
against them in 1908.2 They embodied the remaining desperate national
pride of the Acehnese, but their days were numbered. By 1913, when
3,000 more had fallen in battle, the two centres of resistance had been
broken—the ‘Tiro-teungkus’3 of Pidie and the followers of Teungku
di Mata Ie in Keureutoe.
The Acehnese had finally been forced to respect Dutch power, but
at enormous material and psychological cost. Aceh Besar, the heart of the
old sultanate in the valley of the Aceh river, had lost at least three-quarters
of its pre-war population by war and flight. The Alas area in the
interior, conquered in bloody fighting only in 1903, was estimated to
have lost a quarter to a third of its menfolk.4 Every district had its crop
of martyrs and heroes, and its bitter memories of houses burned, cattle
slaughtered, and fines imposed as the Dutch troops moved through.
1 Aceh: Administrative Divisions under the Dutch

DUTCH-OCCUPIED ACEH 9
The more clear-eyed Dutch officials, like Snouck Hurgronje, recog¬
nized that the only hope for the sort of tolerance which Dutch rule
enjoyed elsewhere in the archipelago was the birth of a new generation
of Acehnese unaffected by the war. As late as 1936 the Dutch Governor
of Aceh still believed there was within each Acehnese
• • • a fanatical love of freedom, reinforced by a powerful sense of race,

with a consequent contempt for foreigners and hatred for the infidel ruler.
He fought against the intruder, asking no quarter, but finally failed before
superior force, and his religion and his Eastern fatalism have told him that
this was right, but only so long as this superior force was really superior.5
The decades of peace which the Dutch felt they needed proved always
elusive, not least because of some Dutch policies. For the ordinary Aceh¬
nese the burden of tax became the tangible mark of his conquered state.
Under his own rulers he had paid virtually no tax except a substantial
levy on exports and imports and occasional assistance to his uleebalang,
especially in time of war. Nineteenth-century Dutch colonial practice,
however, made corvee labour, herendienst (lit.: service of the feudal lord),
the basic imposition on the subject. Even though Java, where there was
at least a better case for regarding corvee as traditional, was moving
away from the system by 1900, the Dutch never felt able to do without
it for building roads at their colonial frontier in Sumatra.
Tax in money was also applied, to the extent of about one guilder
per year per person in 1917,6 but it was the obligation to labour for
twenty-four days a year on the roads and bridges of the hated Kom-
peuni which was most resented by Acehnese. The fact that there was
no such burden in Malaya was frequently advanced as the reason why
numerous Acehnese migrated there after the conquest. There was for
the first time a tendency for them to return in 1919-22, when it began
to be possible to buy out of the obligation for corvee, at three guilders
per year.7
The psychological effect of the conquest on Acehnese society was
incalculable. An Acehnese scholar has rightly pointed to the ‘disinteg¬
ration, psychic depression’, and ‘mental sickness’ it produced.8 The
Dutch were particularly concerned with this problem in the 1920s,
building the largest mental asylum in the country at Sabang to cope
with what seemed an exceptional crisis. One way out of the crushing
sense of defeat was a return to the struggle, initially because of some
revived hope that it might yet succeed, but increasingly through the
desperate determination of individuals or small groups to trade their
lives for those of Dutchmen in the certainty of being immediately received
into heaven as martyrs (mati syahid).
Periodically the atmosphere of holy war (perang sabil) was recreated
by a group of Acehnese, usually centred around a locally influential

ulama. They would take an oath of resistance together after reading
the forbidden Hikayat Perang Sabil, an evocation in Acehnese verse
of the duty and privilege of martyrdom.
This remarkable epic used stories from the Kuran and Arabic litera¬
ture as a vehicle for a powerful exhortation to join the holy war. Some
versions of the Hikayat gave more attention than others to the crimes
of the Dutch, but all put their primary stress on the mediocrity of
earthly pleasures in comparison with the rewards for the fighter in a
holy cause.
Beloved of God is the warrior,
The Lord prepares a lofty heaven, with heavenly maidens and courtesans,
Seventy heavenly maidens the Lord will give us,
Seventy beautiful courtesans He will bestow on us. . . .
Compared with all other piety, warfare is the most esteemed,
Do not worry, my friend, we are born but quickly die. . . .
Come, friend, to the holy war, let us give our all,
Every sacrifice we make, O friend, will return to us many fold.9
A considerable number of men took part in such an oath in Daya
(west coast of Aceh) in 1924. In the three following years much more
serious outbreaks in the southernmost part of Aceh brought back a
condition of full-scale guerrilla warfare, with new recruits streaming
to join the few muslimin who had never come down from the hills.
In 1926, the most intense year of this ‘Bakongan revolt’, 119 Acehnese
and twenty-one Dutch soldiers were killed in one small southern district
alone.10 Two of its principal leaders, T. Radja Tampo and Pang Karim,
were still being hunted at the end of the Dutch regime.
The ‘Bakongan revolt’ was of course encouraged by preparations
for rebellion by the PKI (Communist Party), notably in West Sumatra.
Marxism itself was of little interest except to a handful of non-Acehnese
or part-Acehnese in the towns, the railway, and the estate area of East
Aceh. When, however, ‘communist’ became equated with muslimin,
and a propagandist in the mountainous Gayo-Alas area talked of ‘a
complete destruction of the Kompeuni throughout Aceh and Sumatra
by the communist party, making men free and also exempt from any
herendienst and tax’, many Acehnese were ready to respond as of old.
About eighteen such muslimin from West Aceh were arrested at the
end of 1925 before they could attack a Dutch transport in the mountains
near Blang Kejeren. Sixty-two more were arrested in June 1926 for
planning an attack on Blang Kejeren barracks. One of the first successful
blows by the PKI anywhere in Indonesia was the theft of 11,000 guilders
from the treasury in Kutaraja on 31 May 1926, though all the plotters
were picked up soon afterwards.11
These upheavals of 1925—7 rekindled whatever embers remained

of old-style resistance, but its days were nevertheless numbered. Three
battle-hardened ulama of the Pidie region led an abortive attack on a
Dutch transport in 1928; the Alasland was again disturbed by prepara¬
tion for holy war in 1932.
The two last incidents of ulama leading a group of followers to die
as muslimin both occurred on the west coast of Aceh Besar. In November
1933 fourteen men from Lhong were hunted down by the Dutch after
having set off for the fight as muslimin, while forty more were said to
be waiting in Lhong to join at the first sign of success.12 In July 1937
an ulama of Leupueng and three followers were killed after occupying
a nearby meunasah (prayer-hall), having talked for some time of be¬
coming muslimin.13
The increasing hopelessness of these attacks on the Dutch regime
steadily reduced the distinction between such bands of muslimin taking
an oath to resist to the death and individual suicidal attacks on Dutch¬
men. Until 1938 no year passed without some instance of the latter,
which the colonial regime persistently attempted to dismiss as a peculiar
form of psychological disorder, the Atjeh-moord (Acehnese murder).
Typically the attacker would put his affairs in order in preparation
for a hero’s death, go to a town where he could expect to find Dutchmen,
and suddenly spring upon one with his rencong (dagger) or klewang
(long knife). The character of the assailants and the factors which
brought them to trade their life for that of a kaphe (kafir, unbeliever)
were in fact extremely varied. The common denominator, however,
was the continuing conviction that the surest way to a heavenly reward
was to die in the way of God, fighting His enemies.
This type of attack declined more slowly than the guerrilla resistance:
from 75 in the decade 1910-19, to 52 in 1920-9, and 35 in 1930—8.14
In the last five years of their regime, however, violent resistance to
the Dutch virtually disappeared. As the most acute Dutch official of
the time saw it, ‘It appeared that the population had at last definitively
acquiesced in Dutch rule, and recognized that there was no longer any
path open except co-operation.’15 This was only part of the truth. For
the dominant sector of Acehnese society, particularly the younger gen¬
eration, it was not Dutch rule that had been accepted, but new styles
of organization and awareness. The young and the educated were be¬
ginning to measure Aceh’s dignity in terms not of desperate muslimin
defiance to the conqueror but of catching up with the new forces trans¬
forming both the Islamic and Indonesian worlds.
BACKING THE ULfiEBALANG

Nowhere in the Dutch empire could official careers be so quickly
made or broken as in Aceh, and every governor was dogmatic about

the special formula necessary to solve the painful ‘Aceh-problem’. Al¬
though the conflict was often bitter between what would today be called
hawks and doves, two principles were so fundamental that they came
to be regarded as the essence of a rigid and distinct Atjeh-politiek (Aceh-
policy). The first was force. Whatever the appearances, the doctrine
went, Acehnese had only hatred for their infidel conquerors and had
to be constantly reminded that the Dutch were strong. A force of at
least 4,000 men had to be maintained, spread as broadly as possible
around the province in small brigades. Any hint of rebelliousness had
to be decisively crushed.
Trust in the uleebalang became firmly established as the second prin¬
ciple during a reaction against the tough policies of the disgraced gover¬
nor Van Daalen (1905-8), although its roots went back to Snouck Hur-
gronje and beyond. The principle laid down by a special government
commissioner, Liefrink, in 1909, was
... to make the broadest possible use of the services of the native chiefs, and to
entrust them with the principal responsibility for the way things are done. . . .
When, as a result of the apparent untrustworthiness and wavering senti¬
ments of many uleebalang, the true reasons for which were not perceived,
an attempt was made for a lengthy period to govern without them, the results
were exceedingly disappointing [i.e. Van Daalen].
Despite the many undesirable qualities and faults of these chiefs, they are
the ones who have influence on the population and thereby have much to
offer in enabling us ... to reach our goal. The more that can be left to them,
the better it is.16
In the early years of this policy, under Governor Swart (1908-18), it

was still a highly flexible principle of offering to locally influential figures
all possible inducements to co-operate. In later years the charge was
made that the uleebalang were ‘bought’ through unrealistically high
allowances to both the so-called zeljbestuurders (autonomous rulers)
who governed each district, and a host of lesser uleebalang and ulama.17
Later governors developed the special role of the uleebalang into a
dogma, which could be used to defend the status quo on a whole range
of issues against initiatives from Batavia. Because the uleebalang were the
basis for Dutch influence in Aceh, it was argued, nothing could be done
either to alienate them or to undermine their authority. On these grounds
Governor Goedhart, for example, rejected all the reforms under dis¬
cussion in Java—the establishment of representative councils under
the decentralization laws; the amalgamation of some of the 103 ‘self-
governing’ statelets18 ruled by uleebalang into more manageable units;
the ‘normalisation’ of uleebalang salaries; or the institution of an in¬
digenous bureaucracy.19 A corollary of this emphasis was an exaggera-
tion of the traditional supremacy of the uleebalang over his obedient

people. ‘They [the uleebalang] feel themselves still to be the feudal lords,
and are also considered as such by the people. Certainly, the Acehnese
people will in the long run not be able to avoid the influence of modern
concepts, but I ask myself why the Government should want to hasten
the process.’20
Feudal lords the Acehnese uleebalang had never been. They had
always enjoyed deep respect from their people, but their economic
position had nothing of the feudal relation of lord to serf. Aceh was,
indeed, one of the few areas in Indonesia where Islamic property law
was applied to land-holding, vesting the fullest rights of ownership and
disposal of land in the individual farmer.21 The most typical traditional
roles of the uleebalang were those of war leader and entrepreneur. In the
Acehnese frontier regions of the east and west coast he was the pioneer
and financier of the opening of a new pepper-growing settlement.
If he also had political and military skills, he would become the raja or
uleebalang of a little statelet, but his income continued to derive almost
exclusively from trade. By controlling a port or river he levied a 5 per cent
toll on all imports and exports; pepper and betel exports, as the major
crops, earned him a special return of about a dollar a pikul; and much of
the produce of his statelet was controlled entirely by him as the principal
capitalist and trader.22 Even in the most densely-settled rice-growing
area in Aceh, the plain of Pidie, Siegel has argued convincingly that
the position of the uleebalang rested basically on control of trade and on
his own economic activity, not on a domain principle or control of
irrigation.23
Throughout indirectly-ruled Netherlands India a distinction between
the income of the raja and that of the kerajaan (government of the statelet)
came with Dutch-controlled treasuries (landschapskas), introduced to
Aceh in 1912. The ruling uleebalang received an allowance fixed during
the period of warfare, anywhere between f. 10,200 a year in the biggest
states and f.240 in the village-sized ones. As well as the size of the
statelet, its strategic importance to the Dutch was a determinant. The
uleebalang in Pidie tended to be so well paid as to consume over half the
statelets’ income, whereas those on the west coast were relatively
poor. The only additional official income they were allowed was
a proportion of the royalties paid by European estates and mining
companies, in order to provide an incentive for ‘development’. Only in
eastern Aceh was this a factor, with Peureulak in particular growing
rich on oil and rubber royalties.24
In practice, however, there was only a gradual decline in ‘the tradi¬
tion existing among many rulers of increasing their incomes by more
or less unlawful emoluments at the expense of their subjects’.25 Among
the more lawful were the uleebalang's traditional levy of up to 10 per cent
of inheritances he adjudicated, and taking possession of land abandoned
by its owners. Among the less lawful were levying corvee for private
purposes, seizing the land of those who lost in legal suits, and using the
control of irrigation to advance their private purposes. Some also
devised novel forms of income, such as embezzlement of the religious
tithe (zakat) previously controlled by ulama.26 Since the administration
of law and religion was also concentrated in their hands, there was
little chance for appeal.
If the majority of the population experienced a dramatic rise in the
burden of tax and corvee due to the colonial government, without any
comparable diminution of obligations to the uleebalang, they of course
blamed the Dutch rather than the uleebalang for that. Nevertheless the
new role defined for the uleebalang under colonial rule drove them ever
further from their people.
The Acehnese uleebalang could not become overnight the aristocratic
administrator of Dutch or Javanese type. He remained extremely active
as an entrepreneur. But whereas his political power had previously been
a natural product of his power over the market, he now used the more
limited but secure administrative authority the Dutch allowed him to
promote his economic ends. His complete dominance in his statelet
made him effectively the only large entrepreneur, profiting from new
opportunities to open estates of coffee and rubber as well as the tradi¬
tional pepper, rice, and betelnut. Supported by the government agricul¬
tural service, the uleebalang also established in the 1930s a virtual
monopoly of rice milling, which strengthened their economic control.
In 1936 the Governor hailed this development as ‘an example of what
can be achieved in Aceh if the Uleebalang take an interest in it. That
they thereby serve themselves handsomely can moreover only promote
our interests, for a rich Uleebalang is better than a poor.’27
Unused land was customarily regarded as in the gift of the ruler, so
that in sparsely settled areas like Tangse or the west coast there was plenty
of opportunity for economically ambitious uleebalang to open new estates.
In the irrigated plain of Pidie, however, the valuable land was almost all
regarded as privately owned, by either the uleebalang in his private
capacity, or his subjects. The economic ambitions of uleebalang here
brought them most directly into competition with their people. The
slender available evidence suggests that uleebalang ownership of land
in Pidie increased dramatically during the Dutch period. Already in
1923 Broersma had remarked how the system of landholding, ‘in the
hands of relatively few, militates against a reasonable distribution of
welfare’ in the Pidie region.28 Siegel’s informants claimed that the Pidie
rulers had come by the end of the Dutch period to own a third to a
half of the rice land in their statelets—half in the case of the grasping
T. Oemar of Keumangan.29
Although one should not ignore the personal loyalty which most
uleebalang continued to enjoy, these developments steadily widened
the gulf between them and their subjects. The fine new houses which
a few of them were building,30 and the Dutch education and life-style
their sons were acquiring, were simply the most obvious outward sign
of the change in their economic role. As early as 1921 the scholarly
adviser to the Netherlands Indian Government on native affairs, R. A.
Kern, had warned of the dangers this trend posed even for Dutch au¬
thority, since many attacks on Europeans in fact were traceable to griev¬
ances against the uleebalang. So little was this warning heeded that
the Governor in 1936 wTas still deliberately putting all responsibility
for applying restrictions on rubber growing in the hands of the uleebalang,
‘so that eventual grievances will not be ascribed to the Kompeuni [the
Dutch]’.31
Steadily if imperceptibly, the total reliance of the Dutch regime on
the uleebalang was being reversed. In the much more stable conditions
of the 1930s, it was increasingly the uleebalang who had to rely on the
Dutch to achieve their ends. Some of those in the Pidie area even asked
the Dutch to provide troops to make their people work harder in the
rice fields.32 A late Dutch formulation of the Atjeh-politiek (1936)
put the question in somewhat different terms from earlier versions:
Their [uleebalang’s~\ influence on this feudal-agrarian society, in which
they are mostly great landholders at the same time, is still so enormous that
they can be made fully responsible for the conduct of affairs in their area.
Fortunately they themselves are aware of the fact, that without our protection
they would constantly be exposed to attacks from their neighbours, while
many moreover can only maintain their power over the chiefs subordinate
to them with our support.33
When in 1939 a spate of criticism of uleebalang oppression suddenly

came to the surface, there were Dutch officials ready to admit that
Aceh policy had reached a sort of impasse, where each possible avenue
of reform was closed off by fear of the repercussions among the ulee¬
balang. Dutch disenchantment with ‘the caste of hereditary uleebalang
dynasties’34 had grown to the point of allowing this criticism to be
voiced, but not to the point of taking any positive steps to modernize
the system of government.
PATTERNS OF ULEEBALANG RESISTANCE
Dutch reliance on the uleebalang after 1908 should not be taken to

mean that a smooth or dependable partnership had developed. As sal-
aried rulers the uleebalang had most to lose at Dutch hands in the event
of a renewal of warfare, but it would be a long time before the Dutch could
expect to find in them the sort of ‘loyal’ and efficient instruments with
which the colonial bureaucracy liked to work. One instance of the dangers
of handling old-style uleebalang must have remained vividly before
the Dutch officials for some time. In 1913 the much-decorated officer
presiding over the musapat (court) of Sigli, in which several uleebalang
sat, dismissed abruptly the demand of the ruler of Titeue for a stiff
penalty for a commoner who had struck his son. The disgruntled ulee¬
balang sprang up and stabbed the Dutchman fatally with his rencongp0
The great weakness of the uleebalang was their inability to do anything
together. Almost every statelet had a dispute with its neighbours for
control of some village or waterway, and many were internally divided
by the desire of some mukim for autonomy. Although some individual
uleebalang could be extremely independently-minded, there was seldom
any resistance by his peers when such a man was dismissed or exiled
by the Dutch regime. The keys to arousing a wider pan-Acehnese
movement were Islam and (to a lesser extent) the aura of the vanished
sultanate, and these were not in uleebalang hands. Only once did it
appear likely that they could mobilize a populist movement under their
own leadership, and the failure of this attempt was crucial for their
subsequent development.
Sarekat Islam was the first and most important Java-based political
movement to reach Aceh. Founded in Surakarta in 1912 it quickly
developed into the embodiment of ethnic Indonesian solidarity against
European and Chinese pressures. By 1916 the younger, educated
Acehnese were already aware of it as a growing force in the land.
Government policy appears initially to have been indulgent toward
the movement, which was rightly perceived as leading Aceh away from
the increasingly negative and self-sacrificial pre-occupation with its
lost freedom towards a positive movement of economic and political
reform.36 There were indeed implications in this new movement which
appeared to bring hope to a people who had nearly lost it. Trust in God
alone was supplemented by trust in the unity of the brotherhood; and
the oath to die together as muslimin was replaced by an oath to protect
and strengthen one another until victory.
Whoever enters S.I. has become kaum muslimin. Formerly we became

muslimin carrying a rifle, but now that is no longer necessary, now sepakat
(accord, harmony) is enough. If we are in accord we are already numerous,
and whatever we want to achieve will take place; and moreover what the
Assistant Resident or the Governor want will not take place, because they
are simply individuals without numbers. From here as far as Java sepakat
has been achieved among the descendants of Islam. . . .
The learned men have looked in their books, and they say it is true. If
there is brotherhood, if something goes wrong the uleebalang will help. The
uleebalang sits in the court, and the [Dutch] controleur can onlv listen. Who¬
ever breaks the secret will be killed. If the one who kills is fined by the Kom-
peuni the Sarekat group will pay the fine. ... Do not keep faith with other
races, for it is of no use, because if a man helps the Kompeuni he is not there¬
after helped by the Kompeuni?1
As the movement spread in the area of the north coast of Aceh around
Lhokseumawe, members were sworn to mutual aid and protection by
the so-called yasin water oath. Water, said to have been brought
from Sarekat Islam in Java, was drunk while the yasin (36th chapter of
the Kuran) was recited to strengthen the resolve. According to some
hostile witnesses, the form of the oath was similar to that used by the
muslimin who fought the Dutch.38 The intentions of the leaders,
however, were entirely different.
As in other parts of Indonesia, Sarekat Islam in Aceh was led at
the local level by members of the traditional elite able and willing, for
a variety of reasons, to seek their legitimacy in popular support rather
than Dutch recognition. Three uleebalang in the Lhokseumawe area,
all among the first Acehnese to have a Dutch secondary education at
the Government training college in Bukittinggi, provided the essential
thrust for Sarekat Islam. Teuku Rhi Boedjang had ruled Nisam since
his brother was dismissed in 1912. An energetic reformer, he had es¬
tablished a regular market day and attempted to abolish herendienst.
In 1918 he founded Islam Menjadi Satu (Towards Muslim Unity), whose
programme represented the first attempt in Aceh to bridge the gap
between government and Islamic education by establishing an Islamic
teachers’ college.39 Despite the increasing friction arising from his forceful
manner with local Dutch officials, the governor had to concede ‘because
he is an honorable ruler, who does not exploit but always helps and
supports his people, he has his whole statelet behind him’.40
Teuku Chik Mohamad (Mat) Said, ruler of Cunda, was particularly
active in forming co-operatives to help his people withstand the pressure
of Chinese and European buyers. Politically he was less forceful than
the other two, but encouraged Sarekat Islam to make its headquarters
in his statelet and his chief Imeum (religious official), Teungku Boedi-
man, to become one of its leaders. The youngest member of the group
of uleebalang was Teuku Abdul Latif, son and heir of the ruler of Geu-
dong. More Europeanized than the other two, he emphasized the anti¬
capitalist rather than the Islamic-solidarity aspect of Sarekat Islam,
and appears to have written a joint appeal the three uleebalang sent
to the Governor in November 1920 about concessions to foreign estates
in eastern Aceh: ‘it will not be believed by a single native that land
which has fallen into the hands of those companies has been given with
the consent of the uleebalang, unless with persuasion from government
officials.’41
Until the middle of 1920 it appeared as though Sarekat Islam’s in¬
fluence as a popular movement was limited to these three statelets near
Lhokseumawe. At that point, however, an unexpected ally was found
in the most influential uleebalang of the district, the old, rich, and con¬
servative Teuku Maharaja of Lhokseumawe. He returned empty-handed
and annoyed from a mission to Batavia in pursuit of an irredentist
claim on neighbouring Samalanga. He had also gained the impression
that Sarekat Islam was immensely powerful in Java, with its leader in
a position to dictate to the Governor-General. With his encouragement
the younger propagandists were now able to win over the majority of
uleebalang in Lhokseumawe district, and some of those in the Lhoksu-
kon and Idi districts to the east, to their view that strength lay in sol¬
idarity rather than reliance on the Dutch. Teungku Boediman was sent
to meet Tjokroaminoto in Java in November 1920, with messages to
the effect that the uleebalang of Aceh would support each other in dis¬
putes with the Dutch, and would work to prevent any weakening of
Sarekat Islam. In an effort to win over sceptics like the uleebalang of
Bayu, who asked why he should join an organization not led by an
Acehnese, the militants also sponsored another short-lived group—
Uleebalang Sepakat (uleebalang solidarity). They steadily became more
confident in their relations with Dutch officials, and denounced as boot¬
lickers (jilat pantat) those uleebalang who attempted to oppose them
by setting up Sarekat Setia (loyal union) groups. ‘The faithful rulers
in the Lhokseumawe district felt helpless against the rapid corrosion
of this undermining of government authority, and were uncertain about
their people.’42
Dutch repression was relatively slow in this case only because the
activists were precisely the group from whom they had hoped the most—
the new generation of Dutch-educated uleebalang. In February 1921,
however, Boedjang, Mat Said, and Abdul Latif were all detained. The
first two were subsequently interned far from Aceh for the remainder
of the Dutch period; the younger T. Abdul Latif proved more flexible
during his exile and eventually succeeded his father to become the most
influential uleebalang in Lhokseumawe. The movement died remarkably
quickly, because the mediation of the uleebalang was essential to it.43
The same factors which drove these young men to seek support in a
populist movement—a modern education and relatively weak ascriptive
claims—made it easy for the Dutch to replace them by their brothers.
The new gospel which they preached was one of solidarity between
the uleebalang and their respective peoples. It was not, could not yet
be, understood in the sense of solidarity against or in spite of them.

The failure of the Sarekat Islam movement and the punishment of
its leaders ensured that the experiment would not be repeated by the
uleebalang. There were many who must have sympathized with Teuku
Boedjang’s complaint that the uleebalang were ‘played about with, treated
like children, the needs of their statelet ignored and its property abused
by the [Dutch] official in charge of the treasury .. . some rulers get
the impression they are regarded by the official like a beggar or a
barking dog’.44 Several were subsequently dismissed for pursuing just
such an indignant line. They attempted, however, neither to act
together nor to mobilize their people as their basic source of strength.
\\ hen next a movement of solidarity emerged among the uleebalang, in
1939, it was directed against populist demands, and it arose not from
Lhokseumawe but from Pidie, where the polarization between perge-
rakan (the popular movement) and kerajaan (the statelets) had become
most complete.
The monopoly of Dutch-medium education by the uleebalang
ensured that they alone would have much continuing interest in
Indonesian nationalism, particularly in its more secular form after 1926.
The first two Acehnese appointed to sit in the Volksraad (People’s
Council) in Batavia were both Dutch-educated uleebalang—T. Mohamad
Thajeb of Peureulak (1918-20), and T. Njak Arif, Panglima Sagi of
the XXVI Mukims in Aceh Besar (1927-30).45 Both were regarded
as failures by the Dutch, partly because of their inability to over¬
come sectional loyalties within Aceh, but mainly because they quickly
associated themselves with the nationalists in the Volksraad. Thajeb,
the most westernized Acehnese of his generation, was subsequently
dismissed as ruler of Peureulak, largely on account of his growing dis¬
trust of Dutch officials, and his ‘dreams of a free and united Indonesia’.46
Dutch officials never lost their concern over this ‘disloyal inclination
. . . precisely among the so called intellectual uleebalang'A1 It was
this tiny group educated in Dutch-medium schools outside Aceh who
patronized the occasional ineffective rally which the largely non-Aceh-
nese population of Kutaraja mounted in support of nationalist causes,
and it was they who provided the only contact with such prominent
nationalists as Iwa Kusuma Sumantri and M. H. Thamrin when they
visited the province.
For the overwhelming majority of Acehnese, on the other hand, such
issues were totally alien and irrelevant. Even the bond of Islam was
insufficient to outweigh the prejudice against Indonesians who had come
to Aceh as agents or camp-followers of the conquering Kompeuni.
In the 1920s the 8,000 Minangkabaus in Aceh were still apt to be dis¬
missed contemptuously as kaphe Padang, no matter how strictly they
observed their religious duties.48 Although Islamic movements had more

chance of interesting Acehnese than secular ones, it was a long uphill
struggle.
West Aceh, and especially the large Minangkabau colony in Tapak-
tuan, was the natural channel of West Sumatran religious radicalism
into Aceh, and in the 1920s the Sumatera Thawalib began to have a
considerable impact in that area. Following the ‘Bakongan revolt’ in
1926-7, however, the Dutch placed such an absolute ban on religio-
political activity in West Aceh that this region became the most isolated
and traditional of any. Muhammadiah, the successor to much of the
Sumatera Thawalib’s influence in West Sumatra, had learned the ex¬
pediency of presenting a rigorously non-political face to the Dutch.
Founded and led by Dutch-educated urban Muslim modernists in
Java, Muhammadiah had built by the 1930s a most impressive network
of schools and supportive organizations throughout Indonesia. From
the moment it opened its school in Kutaraja in 1928, it represented
the most significant national organization in Aceh.
Muhammadiah spread quickly to Sigli, Lhokseumawe, and Langsa,
but its urban orientation and its identification with Minangkabaus
prevented any expansion to rural Aceh. In 1932 it was estimated that
only 7 per cent of its members were Acehnese, and only two Acehnese
were among the initial class of fifty who enrolled in its Lhokseumawe
school.49 In its endeavour to overcome this limitation Muhammadiah
placed itself under the patronage of the most notable of the ‘intellectual’
uleebalang sympathetic to it. The first Muhammadiah Consul in Aceh
(1930-5) was Teuku Mohammad Hasan,50 one of the ablest young ulee¬
balang attached to a government office in Kutaraja. In 1935 he was called
to succeed his father as ruler of Glumpang Payung, in Pidie, and was
succeeded as Consul by a younger Acehnese, Teuku Cut Hasan, brother
of the uleebalang of Meuraksa and a mulo graduate.
Muhammadiah brought these men into sympathetic contact with
the Indonesian national movement. T. Cut Hasan carried his national¬
ism to the point of rejecting office with the government and making
explicitly anti-colonial speeches.51 The Dutch continued to be worried
by Muhammadiah, the only organizational threat they perceived in
the 1930s. Yet despite the politicization of its uleebalang leadership
Dutch officials were anxious that they should retain control, to prevent
the greater danger of a challenge to uleebalang dominance of Acehnese
society.
To the great majority of Acehnese Muhammadiah and the national
movement it represented were extremely remote. The young western¬
ized uleebalang of Kutaraja had hardly more claim on their support
than the ‘foreign’ Minangkabaus and Javanese. The Dutch education
which drew the sons of some uleebalang closer to the Indonesian national
movement could only distance them from the bulk of the Acehnese
population.
Contemporary with these modern and national activities by some
uleebalang, however, others were demonstrating how much loyalty they
could evoke on a purely traditional base. The case of Teuku Sabi is a
useful reminder of the continued potency of the bond between many,
probably most, Acehnese and their uleebalang. T. Sabi was dismissed
in 1930 as uleebalang cut (junior uleebalang) of the II Mukims Tunong
because of the disturbance evoked by his campaign for autonomy from
the uleebalang of Samalanga (Bireuen onderafdeling). For the following
seven years his followers refused to be governed by any of the
brothers appointed in his stead. In February 1932 half the population,
700 men, simply left the region. They returned a few months later
after a compromise settlement, but in the following year ninety people
had to be arrested because they refused to pay their taxes to anyone
but T. Sabi. This stubborn resistance continued until Sabi was exiled
from Aceh altogether in 1937.52
EDUCATION
In Dutch eyes the traditional kuranic education the ulama had pro¬
vided taught Acehnese youths nothing but ‘hatred and scorn for the
kafir’ and the ability ‘to drone a few uncomprehended kuranic texts’.53
An exceptional effort was put into replacing this with a government
system of schools, less out of idealism or a desire for educated officials
than as an integral part of the strategy of ‘pacification’. In the first place
this meant educating the sons of uleebalang, the future rulers, in the
language, outlook, and bureaucratic practice of the ruling power. This was
provided in what came to be known as Dutch-native schools (H.I.S.),
of which there were by 1938 eight in Aceh with about 1,500 pupils. A few
of the more successful uleebalang sons were sent for secondary education
to Bukittinggi or to Java, although it was regarded as much more desir¬
able to keep them in Aceh, where a MULO was opened for them in
the 1930s. Most uleebalang showed considerable enthusiasm for this
Dutch-medium education, so manifestly suited to their changing role.
For the masses a simple three-year volkschool was first initiated in
1907, designed to teach reading and writing in romanized Malay.
This was a much less popular idea. During their first decade these Dutch-
sponsored schools were equated with training to become a kafir and
the idea was circulated that those who learned to write the romanized
script would lose their right hand in the hereafter. As late as 1919, when
the nominal enrolment at volkschools had risen to 15,000, coercion was
still applied to obtain regular attendance.54 Fathers of non-attending

pupils might even be forced into extra labour on the roads. Despite
this unpromising beginning, however, there were by 1935 over 33,000
children attending volkschools in Aceh willingly, a slightly higher pro¬
portion than in Java or Indonesia as a whole.55 In the neighbourhood
of the towns and the main roads, enthusiasm for the new schools was
particularly marked. The crucial years for this change in attitude appear
to have been the early 1920s. The parallel is striking with the positive
attitudes to modernization pioneered at the same time in the political
arena by Sarekat Islam.
Soon the very elementary grounding provided by the three-year
volkschools failed to satisfy those Acehnese who had tasted a little of the
new life of the towns. Apart from a further two years of Malay-medium
education for the wealthier Acehnese (3,200 were at such courses
in 1938), the government provided virtually no access for commoners
to the precious western knowledge. The demand by graduates of the
volkschools from the late 1920s was therefore met privately. The two
great educational organizations of Indonesia, Muhammadiah and Taman
Siswa, entered Aceh in 1928 and 1932 respectively, in part as a deliberate
demonstration of the Indonesian unity they both championed. By 1938
these two organizations operated a total of seven Dutch-medium pri¬
mary schools (H.I.S.) in the towns, almost as many as the government.
They had in addition an elaborate structure of kindergartens, ‘link’
schools from the Malay medium, and teachers’ colleges. Despite sincere
attempts to dress its national message in Acehnese clothes, however,
Taman Siswa could as little escape the Javanese label as Muhammadiah
could the Minangkabau. Up to 1942 the majority of their pupils, and
almost all their teachers, were non-Acehnese.
Not until an educational movement truly Acehnese in its leadership
and its religious inspiration began to attract the graduates of the govern¬
ment volkschools could the thirst for modernization affect the mass of
Acehnese. This movement of the 1930s was to arise from the ranks of
traditional ulama.
THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL
Almost all Acehnese boys, both those who attended the new govern¬
ment volkschools and the greater number who did not, spent some time
with the ulama, learning to recite the Kuran in Arabic as for centuries
past.
By the late 1920s, however, the teaching style of the day ah, the highest
level of Islamic school in Aceh, was challenged by the volkschools on
the one hand, and the new concepts of organization and education rep-
resented by Muhammadiah on the other. A few prominent ulama

responded eagerly to the challenge by establishing schools with a broader
syllabus and more modern methods.
To teach the less traditional subjects they relied on the trickle of
young men who had gone to modern Islamic schools in West Sumatra
in the 1920s, and even a few who had studied in Java, in Egypt, or in
Mecca. The better schools were not only compatible with the volk-
schools, but increasingly required the three-year government course
as a prerequisite.
From the late 1920s such schools began to ‘spring up like mushrooms
from the ground’, with many uleebalang competing in their patronage of
them.56 Among the most famous were the progressive Perguruan Islam
of Teungku Abdul Wahab in Seulimeum (of which the beginnings
took shape in 1926); Syed Husein’s Madrasah Ahlu’s-Sunnah zval Dja-
ma’ah established in Idi in 1928; Teungku Abdul Rahman’s Al-Islam
Peusangan opened in 1930 under the powerful patronage of the ruler
of Peusangan: and Teungku Sjech Ibrahim’s djadam (Jamiatuddini-
yah Al-Mustaslah) in Montasiek in late 1931. Because they represented
reform within the Acehnese social context, promoted by accepted Mus¬
lim leaders, these schools wrought a much more profound change in
rural Aceh than the more religiously radical and politically nationalist
Muhammadiah. Many of the young teachers who had studied at the
Thawalib-school or other reformist institutions in West Sumatra were
regarded as kaum muda (young group, reformist), opposing such tradi¬
tional Acehnese practices as funeral feasts and the repetition of the
daily sembahyang luhur (noon prayer) after the Friday prayer. Although
these issues had aroused considerable ill-feeling in the 1920s, the re¬
ligious revival of the 1930s was able to transcend them. Solidarity was
forged in a common struggle in 1932 against the government’s ‘wild
schools ordinance’ on the one hand, and the heterodox Ahmadiah
(Qadian) movement on the other. Even religious conservatives, moreover,
began to realize that new methods of organization and instruction were
imperative, even if once associated with kaum mudaM
One of the school-building efforts deserves further attention because
of the wide organization and charismatic leadership it was able to devel¬
op. This was the Jamiatul Diniyah established by Mohammad Daud
Beureu’eh at Garot, near Sigli, in 1930.58 Daud, born at Beureu eh,
in Keumangan, in 1899, had had all his education at traditional religious
schools within his native Pidie. He was nevertheless receptive to new
ways of promoting religious education and practice, as well as popular
welfare, and he quickly made a name for himself as a highly gifted and
persuasive orator. In the 1920s the outspoken young ulama had had
to leave Keumangan because of a quarrel with its unscrupulous old ulee-
balang, Teuku Oemar. With the protection of Tuanku Raja Keumala,

chief religious adviser to the Dutch Governor, he had gone to teach
successively in Tapaktuan (West Aceh) and Lhokseumawe, in each
case demonstrating great skill and energy in overcoming kaum muda-
kaum tua antagonisms.
At this stage Daud Beureu’eh was still a young man, a tireless organ¬
izer and conciliator rather than a famous ulama. In establishing his
Jamiatul Diniyah he nevertheless gained the support of many of Pidie’s
most distinguished religious scholars, including the famous Teungku
Haji Abdullah Ujung Rimba. Among the valuable keys to this support
were the letters of another distinguished Acehnese ulama, Teungku
Syech Abdul Hamid, exiled to Mecca for his part in the Sarekat Islam
activity, which invoked the example of Egypt and Ibn Saud’s Arabia
for the path of reforming Islamic education. Jamiatul Diniyah es¬
tablished its first school at Blang Pase, in Pineueng, in 1931, and
others soon followed in Ie Leubeue and Kelapa Satu.
Although a few uleebalang were associated with its foundation,59 Jam¬
iatul Diniyah could not rely like most of the other new schools on a
single powerful uleebalang patron. The rivalries among the fragmented
Pidie statelets were too great, and the richest of them, Keumangan,
was hostile. This weakness became a strength in the hands of Daud
Beureu’eh, who took his appeal to the people by extensive use of tabligh
(public sermons). While the succession of ephemeral reformist move¬
ments in the larger towns of Aceh were lucky to draw a few hundred
to a meeting, as many as 7,500 villagers might come on foot to some
small rural mosque for one of the Jamiatul Diniyah's tabligh.60
It was especially the young leader of the movement that people wanted
to hear. Where Sarekat Islam had made a political appeal in religious
dress, Daud Beureu’eh belonged to the authentic tradition of religious
revival. Change was required in the first place in men’s hearts, in their
willingness to fulfil conscientiously their religious duties. The Dutch
and the uleebalang quite rightly tolerated and even welcomed the revival,
which appeared rather to overcome than to create tensions such as those
between kaum muda and kaum tua.61 In the long run, however, the
new movement was to be more successful than Sarekat Islam in showing
Acehnese a path that led forward rather than back.
In Dutch eyes the change which began to come over Aceh in the
1930s was welcomed as ‘normalization’. Atjeh-tnoordand the oath to die as
muslimin had virtually disappeared by 1940. The journalist Zentgraaff
remarked in 1938 that since his previous visit nine years earlier the border
between Aceh and the rest of the colony had ceased to be noticeable.
The acceptance of western-style dress, which prior to 1929 had been
associated indelibly with the kafir for ordinary Acehnese, was only the
most spectacular change.62 To younger Acehnese writers of the time

what was happening was an exciting total transformation of their society,
marked not only by modern schools and organizational life, but by
newspapers, irrigation projects, and shops and businesses in Acehnese
hands.63 ‘Awareness’ (kesadaran) and ‘consciousness’ (keinsafan) were
the key words by which the younger writers described this transforma¬
tion, and for many of them it was pre-eminently Daud Beureu’eh who
deserved the title, ‘Father of the self-awareness of the Acehnese
people’.64
PUSA
The climax of this reformist enthusiasm was the organizational unity

provided in 1939-42 by pusa (Persatuan Ulama Seluruh Aceh—All-
Aceh Ulama Association). The Association emerged from a carefully
prepared conference convened in May 1939 by Tgk. Abdul Rahman
of the Al-Islam school movement in Peusangan. Stressing the need to
standardize Islamic education in Aceh, the conference brought together
most of the leaders of the purely Acehnese Islamic schools of modern
type. The leadership selected at the conference, however, showed that
its main base of strength was in Pidie and the north coast of Aceh. Daud
Beureu’eh as chairman, Noer el Ibrahimy as first secretary, and T. M.
Amin as treasurer all resided in Sigli, where the pusa headquarters
was established. The other significant leaders were the principal
promoters of the founding conference, both from the Bireuen area—
Teungku Abdul Rahman (vice-chairman) and Ismail Jakoeb (second
secretary and eventual editor of the pusa journal Penjoeloeh). West
Aceh, where reformism had been inhibited by the Dutch since 1926,
was unrepresented. Aceh Besar was represented in the executive by Tgk.
Abdul Wahab of Seulimeum, yet pusa here had to compete with some
well-established rivals.65
Aceh Besar was the centre of Muhammadiah activity, the home of
some progressive uleebalang, and the destination of many of those young
Acehnese returning in the 1930s from a modern and somewhat nation¬
alist religious education in West Sumatra. From these elements had
sprung a succession of Islamic reformist groups. In 1938 Ali Plasjmy and
other Minangkabau-educated teachers in Seulimeum had also formed
an active pemuda (youth) group eventually labelled Peramiindo.66
Especially from the time of its first Congress near Sigli in April 1940,
pusa was clearly the nearest approach to a popular movement of an
all-Aceh character, and began to attract existing groups under its
umbrella. A scout movement in Bireuen dating from 1934, Kasjsja-
fatoel Islam, became the pusa scouts. The Seulimeum Peramiindo and a
Sigli youth group under Hasan Aly, Pemuda Aceh Sepakat, associated
themselves with PUSA, but they retained their identity and rejected
the pusa youth group, Pemuda pusa. The latter had been founded
at the 1940 congress when a brash young ulama from Idi (East
Aceh) had volunteered for its leadership with the cry, saya sanggup
(T can do it’).67 With this characteristic beginning Tgk. Amir
Hoesain, who rejoiced in the nickname Almujahid (the fighter), had
become the leader of Pemuda pusa, and Idi its headquarters. It gathered
a large following among religious school pupils, but its style did not
appeal to some of the urban and Dutch-educated youth.
Among Acehnese ulama, two prominent elements remained aloof
from pusa: firstly some conservative day ah teachers, especially in Aceh
Besar and West Aceh, and secondly the leading Acehnese theologian
in Muhammadiah, Teungku Mohd. Hasbi As-Siddiqy. Nevertheless
there was by 1941 some truth in the claim that pusa was coming to
represent ‘the voice of the people of Aceh’.68
If we look at the whole history of Dutch relations with Aceh, it
may seem extraordinary that such a potentially powerful weapon for
resistance was allowed to arise under idama leadership. This was pre¬
cisely what the earliest Dutch ‘pacifiers’ most feared. Myopic as it seems
by hindsight, however, it was Muhammadiah which the Dutch dis¬
trusted in the 1930s, precisely because it was a non-Acehnese organiza¬
tion responsive to the currents of Indonesian nationalism—which had
now replaced Islam as the great colonial bogey. By contrast Dutch
officials in Aceh were apt to look with paternal warmth upon reforming
movements of a distinctly Acehnese character, as suggested in this re¬
mark of Governor Goedhart.69 ‘I do not despair of an eventual good
understanding between us and the Acehnese people. The exclusive¬
ness of the Acehnese and his strongly developed sense of his own worth
will, I predict, in the long run persuade him of the advantage of being
bound to us rather than being absorbed into one Indonesian people.’
This sentiment, together with the realization by progressives such as
Governor Paauw (1938-42) and his secretary Dr Piekaar that commit¬
ment to the uleebalang had put the Atjeh-politiek in an impasse where
some new initiatives were required, explains the relative indulgence
of the Dutch towards pusa. Opponents of the new movement alleged
that it was in fact a tool of the government.70 The close association
of its foundation with the uleebalang most beloved by the Dutch, T.
Chik Peusangan, lent some credibility to the charge, although in practice
he represented protection rather than guidance.
Except for the personal bitterness between its chairman, Daud Beu-
reu’eh, and Teuku Oemar of Iveumangan, there was little in the orien¬
tation of pusa that implied hostility to the uleebalang. The projects
which attracted most of its activity and pride were the establishment
of an Islamic teachers’ college at Bireuen in December 1939; agreement
on an approved curriculum for religious schools and on a way of fixing
the beginning of the fasting month; and the launching of its monthly,
Penjoeloeh, in November 1940. Uleebalang attended the major pusa
conferences, and the leadership maintained a correct tone towards them.
The peculiarly tense situation at the moment of pusa’s birth, however,
ensured that the new movement would be seen as a political factor
of great importance.
ULEEBALANG UNDER FIRE
The events of the last four years of Dutch rule in Aceh indicate a
very rapid erosion of the effectiveness of the bond between the uleebalang
and their subjects. Some of the changes in attitude must have begun
much earlier, prompted by the changed economic role of the uleebalang
and the emergence of stronger counter-elites, represented by the small
traders beginning to flourish in such places as Sigli, Garut, Bireuen, and
Idi,71 the reformist schools, and the nationalist-inclined youth coming
back from West Sumatran schools. To extend Scott’s model,72 a change
occurred during the 1930s in the ‘terms of trade’ not only between
peasants and uleebalang, but also between the latter and the colonial
government. The old assumption that the Dutch would be helpless
in Aceh without the uleebalang no longer appeared convincing, and some
saw the roles reversed.
The first fruit of a new Dutch attitude was the dismissal in 1938 of
Teuku Oemar, the rich ruler of Keumangan, not because of ‘disloyal’
inclinations as in previous dismissals, but because of the spate of
complaints against his exploitation and malpractice. When these com¬
plaints had begun about 1930 the Dutch had simply braced themselves
to resist a klewang attack from the aggrieved parties,73 but now more
positive measures were possible. The flexibility of Governor Paauw
was similarly apparent in official tolerance of a press campaign against
uleebalang oppression on the one hand, and appeals for basic change
in the political structure of Aceh on the other.
Resentment against the oppressive and scandalous behaviour of some
uleebalang was suddenly galvanized in November 1938 by a broadside
from the Medan weekly Penjedar. Written anonymously by H. M. Zain-
uddin, an experienced Acehnese agricultural specialist and nationalist,
it demanded that the government abandon its old Atjeh-pohtiek and
take its investigations much further than Keumangan. ‘Many things
are brought to our attention; we hear that ruler A murders people,
ruler B seizes the property of his people, ruler C suppresses people’s
rights, ruler D perjures himself, etc. etc.’74 This daring attack unleashed
a flood of complaints and denunciations of uleebalang behaviour over
the next eighteen months. Most of the articles anonymously sent in
were from Pidie. Three young petty traders of Sigli—Hasan Aly, Peutua
Husain, and Djohan Ahmad—were especially active as agents and cor¬
respondents first for Penjedar, and from August 1939 for the new Medan
weekly Seruan Kita.lb An early example of the catalogue of complaints
was that of Djohan Ahmad: ‘Among the Acehnese rulers there are also
those who embezzle the property of orphans, and the Baitalmal (pro¬
ceeds of religious tax), who seize religious endowments as their own
property, who bring goods in by smuggling, who ravish young girls,
who accuse people of murder without cause, and do whatever else they
please.’76 Penjedar and Seruan Kita became the most widely read journals
in Aceh, and according to some correspondents they acted as a more
effective check on uleebalang licence than the courts.77
Of the three major reforms sought by various correspondents, it was
the formation of a representative council in Aceh and removal of the
courts from uleebalang control which were most pressed by serious
progressives. The importance of the latter issue was made painfully
clear in May 1940 when the three principal promoters of the press
campaign in Pidie were imprisoned on a charge of conspiring against
the government, though lack of evidence brought the release of Hasan
Aly and Djohan Ahmad.78 This blow effectively ended the press cam¬
paign.
It was however the third idea for reform, the restoration of the Aceh
sultanate, which aroused the strongest emotions in Aceh. In part this
was because the government appeared to be seriously considering it,
as an extension of the policy of re-emphasizing indirect rule which had
recently brought rajas back to Bali and to Goa (South Sulawesi). The
Volksraad in Batavia had on the whole supported the sultanate in July
1938, in the hope it might reduce the fragmentation of government
in Aceh.79 Government policy was still not clear in January 1939, when
a spate of pro-sultanate petitions from ulama, small traders, and others
in Aceh suddenly brought it into the news.
These appeals may, as the uleebalang alleged, have been prompted
by the leading member of the former royal family, Tuanku Mahmud.
Having no place in the uleebalang power system, some of the old royal
family had attached themselves closely to the Dutch. Mahmud himself
had been appointed in 1929 as adviser to the Governor on popular
movements because he ‘knows how to stand above factions, and is very
loyal towards Netherlands authority’.80 For the same reasons the Gover¬
nor-General had named him Acehnese representative in the Volksraad
since 1931. He was too ineffective a spokesman for Acehnese interests
to arouse much enthusiasm in Aceh, however, particularly among the
uleebalang. In December 1938 the uleebalang of Aceh Besar urged
the government to replace Mahmud by one of their own number for
the 1939-42 Volksraad. When the restoration of the sultanate leapt into
the headlines the following month, to a background of press denunciations
of uleebalang oppression, the more politically conscious among them
believed Tuanku Mahmud was at the head of a broad counter-offensive
against their positions.
In their spirited defence of the status quo in early 1940, they for the
first time gave the impression of an organized bloc, representing a
particular vested interest. In reality it was only the rulers of Pidie, led
by the former Muhammadiah Consul T. Mohammad Hasan (Glumpang
Payung), who publicly formed a solid front against a restored sultanate.
At two meetings on 27 January and 4 March they organized an uleebalang
committee to fight the sultanate and oppose Tuanku Mahmud as a
Volksraad delegate through appeals to government and circulars to
their fellow uleebalang. The Governor had some difficulty quietening
their campaign in March by attempting to assure them that the govern¬
ment had no current plans for constitutional changes in Aceh.81 Even
though the issue was played out by the middle of 1940, a fundamental
change had occurred in the image of the uleebalang. As Bailey has
remarked of the Indian rajas, ‘Once such men begin to behave like
outsiders [by political campaigning], then inevitably they take on the role
of outsiders and lose their place in the moral community of the
peasants.’82 Something of the kind was happening to the uleebalang of
Pidie in 1939. It is particularly significant that the best educated of them,
T. M. Hasan, previously seen as a progressive representative of the
nationalist movement, had taken on the role of spokesman. In September
he too was explicitly denounced in the Medan press as guilty of a case of
oppression as bad as that of his old-fashioned colleagues.83 Although the
sense of group interest was nowhere as strong as in Pidie, the uleebalang
of Aceh Besar were sufficiently affected by the change in mood to form
their own union in October 1939.84
Neither the promoters of the restoration of the sultanate, nor the
assailants of the uleebalang in the Medan press, had any particular con¬
nexion with the leaders of pusa. Yet the defensiveness with which
the uleebalang reacted to these two threats thrust upon pusa the role
of harbinger of change. All of the anti-establishment forces gradually
associated themselves with either pusa or Pemuda pusa, transforming
them in the process into broader and more political organizations.
The first clear sign that pusa was headed for conflict with the ulee¬
balang came on predictable religious grounds. In September 1939 its
executive politely requested that religious teaching be removed from
the jurisdiction of the ‘native chiefs’.85 Soon after some of the pusa
leaders toured West Aceh to arouse support, and made a point of holding
lengthy discussions with Teuki Sabi, ruler of the insignificant Lageuen
statelet (Calang onderajdeling).*® Since T. Sabi was the only uleebalang
to have publicly supported restoration of the sultanate and became a
heroic leader of the anti-Dutch revolt in 1942 (see below), the discus¬
sions seem likely to have centred on dissatisfaction with the status quo.
Another sign of pusa’s assumption of the role of spokesman for re¬
sistance was the promotion in 1940-1 of the fighting ulama Teungku
Chik di Tiro as the proper hero of the Aceh war, in place of the ulee¬
balang T. Umar.87
Daud Beureu’eh dates his own awareness of uleebalang enmity to
the establishment of pusa’s teachers’ college in Peusangan in Decem¬
ber 1939. The Dutch initially forbade the principal of the college, Teung¬
ku Noer el Ibrahimy, to take office because of his past anticolonial
writings. On appeal the Dutch Assistant-Resident agreed to accept a
guarantee from the original patron of pusa, T. Chik Peusangan. He
gave it with such bad grace, however, that Daud Beureu’eh subsequently
trusted him as little as he did the uleebalang in Pidie.88 One by one
those who had been sympathetic to pusa began to fear its strength
and to oppose it where possible.
The approach of war with the Japanese ensured that divisive polemic
disappeared from the newspapers, but intensified in men’s minds. One
of the few who have recorded the tension on the eve of the Pacific war
is the Medan Muhammadiah leader, Hamka:
As time went on the rajas of Aceh became aware of where PUSA was
leading. The people became ever more conscious of their situation and of
their rights. They had become confident enough to demand their rights and
make the rajas aware of their duties. . . . The PUSA movement was seen as
dangerous . . . since this conflict had arisen with PUSA, Teuku Cut Hasan
had used the [Muhammadiah] organization to defend their political position.
Immediately, in 1941, people everywhere were asking to establish Muham¬
madiah. Very many members joined, in hundreds and even thousands,
indeed a whole mukim or statelet. . . .
Muhammadiah was established in various mukims one after the other.
Teuku Cut Hasan worked hard day and night, but it was clear what his pur¬
pose was. It was to ‘defend’ the position of the uleebalang.
I was invited to Blang Jeureuen for an open meeting on 7 December 1941!
There, besides the tension in the international situation, the tension could
also be clearly felt between the people (whose incarnation was pusa) and
the uleebalang (whose incarnation was Muhammadiah) in Aceh. I myself
when I met friends from the PUSA group, with whom I had long had good
relations, was greeted by them with eyes full of hate. For I was someone who
defended Muhammadiah very strongly.89
I was flabbergasted to hear the bitter words which came from Teuku Cut
Hasan’s mouth. He ridiculed the pusa organisation. . . . He went beyond
the limits of what ought to be said in the Muhammadiah organization. He
also discussed politics and history, defending the name of the uleebalang
of Aceh, who apparently had been accused by PUSA of being traitors to
their people.90
The final consequence of the Dutch occupation of Aceh was a bitterly

divided society.
1. Politiek Verslag Atjeh, 1927, p. 2, signed Goedhart, in Mailrapport 221x/28,

Colonial Archive of Departement van Binnenlandse Zaken, The Hague.
I am indebted to Prof. James Siegel for drawing my attention to this and
many other documents in this chapter.
2. J. Kreemer, Atjeh, 2 vols. (Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1922-3), I, p. 43.
3. Teungku is the Acehnese honorific generally used for ulama. Except in

eastern Aceh uleebalang used the title Teuku (abbreviated T.).
4. Liefrink report, 31 July 1909, pp. 53-5, in Mailr. 1280/09; Anthony Reid,
The Contest for North Sumatra, pp. 187-8 and 296. The shortage of man¬
power greatly altered landlord-tenant relations in favour of the latter. In 1898
they gave nothing to the landlord for the first three or four years and one-fifth
of the crop thereafter, whereas the landlord took half the crop in normal
times. Adatrechtbundels, 27 (1928), p. 16.
5. Memorie van Overgave van den afgetreden Gouverneur van Atjeh en on-
derhoorigheden [henceforth MvO Atjeh] A.Ph. van Aken, 1936, p. 1, Mailr.
504x/36.
6. MvO Atjeh, Lt.-Gen. Swart, 1918, p. 14, Mailr. 2398/18.
7. An example of Acehnese resentment of corvee is in the verse epic Hikayat

Perang Sabil, ed. H. T. Damste, BKI, 84 (1928), pp. 594-5. See also Liefrink
report, 1909, pp. 4-9, loc. cit.; Kreemer II, pp. 150-3; R. Broersma, Atjeh,
als land voor handel en bedrijf (Utrecht, Cohen, 1925), pp. 123-4; Governor
Van Sluys, 26 November 1921, Mailr. 1265x/21. Broersma points out that
the twenty-four days theoretical maximum herendienst per year was frequently
exceeded, ambitious Dutch officials considering this to be a sign of skilful
administration. The opportunity to commute the labour obligation into
money was offered to only two districts experimentally in 1919, but to all
Aceh by 1922. The extent to which this opportunity was used depended of
course on economic circumstances. In the 1930s very few could afford the
money equivalent.
8. Ibrahim Alfian, ‘Kontak Kebudajaan diawal Abad XX, dan akibatnja bagi
Masjarakat Atjeh’, stencilled, pp. 2-3.
9. My translation from A. Hasjmy, Hikajat Prang Sabi mendjiwai Perang Atjeh

lawan Belanda (Banda Atjeh, ‘Pustaka Faraby’, 1971), pp. 203-8. The Hi¬
kayat Perang Sabil, apparently written in 1881 by Teungku Cik Pante Kulu,
has survived very adverse circumstances in a number of diverse and
scrappy texts. The most complete published text is that used by Hasjmy, in
the form of four stories from Arabic originals with an opening exhortation.
A scrappier but probably earlier text, captured in Gayoland in 1903,

was published by Damste in BKI, 84 (1928), pp. 545—608, and parts of it
have been nicely Englished by James Siegel, The Rope of God (Berkeley,
California 1969), pp. 75-7.
10. Politiek Verslag Atjeh, 1st halfjaar 1929, p. 23, Mailr. 856x/29.
11. Politiek Verslag Atjeh, 1st halfjaar 1926, pp. 1-6, Mailr. 899x/26.
12. Politiek Verslag Atjeh, 1933, pp. 3-5, Mailr. 377geh/34.
13. ‘Nota betreffende het voorgevallen in de zelfstandige moekim Leupoeeng’,

in Mailr. 118x/38. A sign of the changing times was the criticism of Dutch
overreaction by the nationalist Soangkoepon in the Volksraad; Handelingen,
1938-9, p. 660.
14. J. Jongejans, Land en Volk van Atjeh, vroeger en nu (Baarn, Hollandia Druk-
kerij, 1939), p. 331. Paul van’t Veer, De Atjeh-oorlog (Amsterdam, Arbei-
derspers, 1969), p. 295. Less than a quarter of these attacks resulted in the
death of the European victim.
15. A. J. Piekaar, Atjeh en de oorlog met Japan (The Hague, Van Hoeve, 1949),
p. 3.
16. Liefrink report, 31 July 1909, pp. 66-7, Mailr. 1280/09.
17. Broersma, p. 123; MvO Atjeh, Goedhart, 1929, pp. 31-2, Mailr. 28x/29:
M. H. du Croo, General Swart: Pacificator van Atjeh (Maastricht, Neiter-
Nypels, 1943), pp. 130-1.
18. I use this artificial word for an artificial concept which in Dutch was ren¬
dered landschap or (in Aceh) uleebalangschap. It was that part of Netherlands
India over which the Dutch had acknowledged the hereditary claims of a
ruler, who had signed either the Korte Verklaring of complete submission
or (in the case of six East Sumatran rulers) a long Political Contract. The
population of such statelets varied from 354 (Pameue, in West Aceh) to
321,278 (Deli), and the social realities in many of them were indistinguishable
from such directly ruled areas as Aceh Besar. I have avoided the Acehnese
word nanggroe (Malay/Indonesian negeri—state, or region) both because
of its vagueness and because Acehnese themselves found it increasingly
necessary to use Dutch terms for a concept which was essentially part of
Dutch colonial convention.
19. MvO Atjeh, Goedhart, 1929, PP. 23-7, 31-3, 41, and 74, Mailr. 287x/29.
20. Ibid., p. 41.
21. C. van Vollenhoven, De Indonesier en zijn grond (Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1932),

pp. 5-7; Julius Jacobs, Het Familie en Kampongleven op Groot-Atjeh, 2
vols. (Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1894), II, pp. 109-12.
22. Siegel, The Rope of God, pp. 14-23; Kreemer, II, pp. 142-3 and 249-50.
23. Siegel, pp. 26-9.
24. A table of allowances is in Mailr. 2651/35 (Verb.6-4-27). For royalties

see MvO Atjeh, Van Aken, 1936, pp. 149-50, Mailr. 504x/36.
25. Piekaar, p. 8.
26. Teuku Ibrahim Alfian, ‘Sebuah studi pendahuluan tentang kontak kebuda-
jaan di Atjeh pada awal abad XX’, Kirsada (Fakultas Sastera, Universitas
Gajah Mada), no. 1 (1969), p. 121n, notes that the car of the uleebalang of
Bambi was popularly referred to as his ‘zakat car’.
27- MvO Atjeh, Van Aken, 1936, p. 52, Mailr. 504x/36. For uleebalang activity
in coffee, pepper, and rubber, see ibid., p. 67; MvO Lammeulo, Scholten,
1933, pp. 102-5 and 122-4, Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Am¬
sterdam (hereafter referred to as Tropen).
28. Broersma, p. 79.
29. Siegel, pp. 27 and 87. This information dates from the 1960s and must
be treated with caution, particularly in view of the silence of contemporary
records. Piekaar, p. 8, mentions the extensive land-holding of Pidie
uleebalang, but like other Dutch observers he appears to regard it as a
traditional phenomenon.
30. Notably the great compound of T. Oemar at Bireuneun, the capital of

Keumangan, described by Broersma, pp. 82-3.
31. MvO Atjeh, Van Aken, 136, p. 5, Mailr. 504x/36.
32. MvO Lammeulo, Scholten, 1933, p. 83, Tropen. The uleebalang concerned
were those of three small statelets in Lammeulo onderafdeling: Cot
Murong, Andeue, and Truseb.
34. Piekaar, pp. 7-11 and 335.
35. H. C. Zentgraaff, Atjeh (Batavia, De Unie, 1938), p. 50.
36. Kreemer, I, pp. 238-9. Koloniaal Verslag, 1917, cols. 9-12. Governor Swart
did, however, encourage the younger uleebalang around him in Kutaraja
to form an exclusively Acehnese ‘Sarekat Atjeh’, rather than follow the
lead from Java.
37. Speech by Abdul Manap at an open-air S.I. meeting in Geudong (Lhok-

seumawe onderaf deling), as recounted in Proces-verbaal Nja’ Gam, 23 April
1921, Mailr. 1259x/21. For similar aspects of Sarekat Islam at the local
level in Java see Sartono Kartodirdjo, Protest Movements in Rural Java
(Singapore, OUP, 1973), pp. 159 and 198-201.
38. Controleur M. van Rhyn, citing statements of Teungku Jid, 31 May 1921,
Mailr. 1259x/21. For the air yasin oath see Proces-verbaal Nja’ Gam, loc.
cit.
39. In Hindia Sepakat, 9 July 1921, Boedjang claimed his Islam Menjadi Satu
had almost 4,000 members, though Dutch reports suggest it was effectively
limited to his own Nisam (1930 popn. 9,600). Boedjang stated his position
at great length in a series of articles in the Sibolga daily Hindia Sepakat,
edited by the schoolteacher Abdul Manap (former S.I. propagandist in
Lhokseumawe) between July and September 1921. Sympathetic articles are
devoted to him in Seruan Kita, 1 December 1939; Penjedar, 30 January
1941; and Penjoeloeh, February 1941. The Dutch indictment of the three
S.I. uleebalang is in Mailr. 1259x/21.
40. Governor Van Sluys to Governor-General, 8 October 1921, Mailr. 1049x/21.
41. T. Abul Latif, T. Boedjang, and T. Mat Said to Governor Aceh, 17 No¬
vember 1920, in Mailr. 1259x/21.
42. Governor Van Sluys to Governor-General, 8 October 1921, Mailr. 1049x/21.

43. Probably the last representative of this wave of uleebalang resistance was
T. Muhamad Ali Basjah, the uleebalang of Matang Kuli (Lhoksukon on-
derafdeling) who was arrested in 1923, but received with such excitement
on his release in 1926 that he was rearrested for spreading ‘communist’
ideas and opposing established authority. MvO Atjeh, Goedhart, 1929,
Mailr. 287x/29.
44. T. Boedjang in Hindia Sepakat, 29 September 1921.
45. Teuku Njak Arif (1899-1946) was born in Uleeheue and educated at the
Bukittinggi Teachers’ College (Kzceekschool) and the School for Indonesian
Officials (osvia) in Serang. He replaced his father as Panglima Sagi of
the XXVI Mukim, in Aceh Besar, in 1920. Like Thajeb and other early
nationalists he married a non-Acehnese—a Minangkabau. In both Dutch
and Japanese periods he gained a reputation for courageously speaking his
mind to high and low alike. Although he was to fall foul of the revolution
(see Chapter VII) he was declared an Indonesian ‘national hero’ in 1976.
46. ‘Beschrijving van het zelfbesturende landschap Peureulak’, 12 December

1935, Mailr. 338geh/36.
48. Abdoel Ghafoer Achier, in Sinar lIS, 15 April 1940.
49. MvO Atjeh, Philips, 1932, Mailr. 1642/32; Politiek Verslag Atjeh, 1929,
p. 9, Mailr. 143x/30.
50. Teuku Mohammad Hasan of Glumpang Payung (1893-1944) was known

in European circles as ‘Hasan Dik’ (fat Hasan). He attended primary schools
in Sigli and Bukittinggi and continued his study at the Teachers’ College
(Kweekschool) in Bukittinggi in 1907-12. He assisted his father in administer¬
ing Glumpang Payung until 1918, when he was brought into provincial
government in Kutaraja by the Dutch. He worked primarily in the office
dealing with landschapskas of the statelets, and held the rank of ambtenaar
tot beschikking. In 1921 he studied briefly at an administrative school in
Java. After succeeding his father as ruler of Glumpang Payung, one of the
larger Pidie statelets, he gradually assumed the role of political spokesman
for the Pidie uleebalang.
51. At the 1939 Muhammadiah Congress in Medan Cut Hasan was among
the most openly political speakers, and was warned by the police; Politiek
Verslag SOK, July 1939, p. 10, Mailr. 1106geh/39.
52. Politieke Nota betreffende T. Sabi, 17 July 1936, Mailr. 468x/37.
53. MvO Atjeh, Swart, 1918, pp. 12-13, Mailr. 2398/18.
54. Ibrahim Alfian, in Kirsada, 1, pp. 124-5; Kreemer, II, pp. 159-69; Jonge-
jans, Land en Volk van Atjeh, pp. 249-50.
55. The comparative figures are in Atlas van Tropisch Nederland (1938), p. 9.
The leeway being rapidly made up in Aceh is shown by the discrepancy
between this figure and the very low figure for literacy in the roman
alphabet at the 1930 census (1.1 per cent of Aceh’s total population,
against 5.5 per cent for Java).
56. The same image is used in MvO Atjeh, Van Aken, 1936, Mailr. 504x/36,
and M. A. Samij, in Penjoeloeh 2 (December 1940), p. 40.
57. H. Ismuha, ‘Lahirnja “Persatuan Ulama Seluruh Atjeh” 30 Tahun Jang

Lalu’> Sinar Darussalam 14 (June 1969), p. 44; Moehammaddijah Hadji,
‘Wadjah Rakjat Atjeh dalam Lintasan Sedjarah’, Seminar Kebudajaan dalam
rangka Pekan Kebudajaan Atjeh ke-II (Banda Atjeh, stencil, 1972), pp. 6-9.
58. Although various dates between 1927 and 1932 appear in later literature
for the founding of Jamiatul Diniyah, the correct date, 6 March 1930,
appears in a contemporary journal, Soeara Atjeh, 15 March 1930.
59. Particularly T. Bintara (Pineueng), in whose statelet the first school was
established, and T. Muda Dalam (Bambi), who was vice-president of the
organization in 1933 despite his reputation as a playboy.
60. This attendance, for a tabligh in the mosque of Bambi in February 1933,
is reported in Politiek Verslag Atjeh, 1st halfjaar 1933, pp. 9-10. The
population of Bambi Statelet was only 5,600. Other tabligh drew 1,500 to
2,000 at Garut, 1,500 at Ie Leubeue, and 800 at Kelapa Satu.
61. Moehammaddijah Hadji, pp. 4-6; Politiek Verslag Atjeh, 1932, pp. 18-19,
Mailr. 667x/33; Ismail Jakoeb, ‘Soeasana Pergerakan di Atjeh dalam 10
Tahoen’, Sinar 7/8, 15 April 1940, pp. 125-7.
62. H. C. Zentgraaff and W. A. van Goudoever, Sumatraantjes (Batavia, ‘Java-

Bode’, n.d.), p. 167. While Moehammaddijah Hadji, p. 7, dates the Aceh
‘clothing revolution’ at 1929, and associates it with the Islamic school
movement, Zentgraaff ascribes it to better roads and the cinema.
63. Acehnese progress at the expense of Chinese and Indian businessmen,

especially in the Sigli area, is hailed by Osman Raliby, ‘Masjarakat Atjeh
Baroe’, Penjoeloeh, 12 (October 1941), p. 180. Also MvO Atjeh, Van Aken,
1936, p. 35, Mailr. 504x/36.
64. Njo Meunan, in Seruan Kita, II, 29 (9 February 1940), pp. 634-5. The
phrase is Bapak kesadaran rakyat Aceh. Some features of the thought of
this period are discussed in Siegel, pp. 98-133.
65. Ismuha, op. cit., pp. 44-5; Osman Raliby, in Penjoeloeh, 12 (October 1941),
p. 180; Nja’ Gam Tjoet in Sinar Deli, 28 April 1939, cited 7PO, 6 May 1939,
pp. 329-31. Abdullah Arif, ‘Tindjauan Sedjarah Pergerakan di Atjeh’,
Bingkisan Kenang2an Kongres Besar Pusa, 1950-1, pp. 17-22.
66. The name significantly changed in 1939 from an Acehnese identity, Serikat
Pemuda Islam Atjeh (sepia), to an Indonesian one, Pergerakan Angkatan
Muda Islam Indonesia (Peramiindo). A. Hasjmy, ‘Riwajat Kongres di Tanah
Iskandar Moeda’, Penjoeloeh, 16 (15 December 1941), p. 253. Among the
short-lived reform groups in Kutaraja were Nadil Islahil Islamy in 1932
and Persatuan guru Islam di Atjeh in 1936-9.
67. H. Ismuha, in Sinar Darussalam, 15 (July 1969), p. 34. Hoesain Almujahid

was born in Idi in 1915, and studied at the local school and the famous
Maslurah Islamic secondary school established by the Sultan of Langkat
in Tanjung Pura. He earned his soubriquet in schoolboy fights, being fined
once in Idi for punching a Chinese, and once by the kerapatan Langkat for
getting into a fight with one of the royal guard. In 1931-3 he studied at the
Jamiatul Diniyah school in Blang Pase, and in 1933—5 studied and taught
in West Aceh. From 1935 he taught in religious schools in Langsa and Idi.
68. Tiro Tjoet, in Penjoeloeh, 5/6 (March/April 1941), p. 587.
69. Politiek Verslag Atjeh, 1927, p. 2, Mailr. 221 x/28. Nazaruddin Sjamsud-
din, ‘The Course of the National Revolution in Aceh, 1945-1949’ (Un-
published M.A. thesis, Monash University, 1974), pp. 30-1, cites a warning
from the Dutch controleur at Bireuen to Ismail Jakoeb that pusa should
exclude Minangkabaus and Mandailings. Similarly the controleur of Idi told
Hoesain Almujahid that he privately sympathized with pusa’s aims, ‘so
long as it was not manipulated by the communists’—information from Al¬
mujahid.
70. Ismail Jakoeb in Pandji Islam, 35 (28 August 1939), p. 7326, refuted this
allegation which had appeared in one of the Medan dailies.
71. In the absence of harder data, the Acehnese advertisers in Penjoeloeh provide
some indication of the strength of this element. They include 5 small busi¬
nesses in Sigli (2 in medicines, 2 primarily textiles, and 1 laundry), 2 in
Bireuen, and 1 each in Kutaraja and Takengon. A 1924 report noted that
Acehnese exporters were concentrated in the Pidie region (31 exporters with
an average income of f.770) and in Idi (26 exporters with an average income
of f.5,013); Verslag van den Economischen Toestand der Inlandsche Bevolking,
1924 (Batavia, Landsdrukkerij, 1926), II, pp. 232-5.
72. James C. Scott, ‘The erosion of patron-client bonds and social change in
rural Southeast Asia’, JAS, 32, no. 1 (November 1972), especially pp.
16-17.
73. MvO Pidie, Van Suchtelin, 1930, p. 2, Tropen.
74. Atjeher (pseud. H. M. Zainuddin), ‘Atjeh problemen’, Penjedar, I, 14 (16

November 1938), p. 4.
75. Penjedar was begun by the former PKI leader Xarim M. S., but Medan
journalist and psii leader Mohammad Saidt took over as editor in November
1938, perhaps for tactical reasons. When Saidt left Penjedar during 1939
he received a donation from ‘T. Laksamana of Njong’ to begin Seruan Kita
on a similar basis (Interview). This could only have been T. Laksamana
Hoesin, whose strong claim to succeed to the rulership of Njong had been
disregarded by the Dutch, and who had been an executive member of Daud
Beureu’eh’s jfamiatul Diniyah in 1933.
76. D[johan] A[hmad], Sigli, in Penjedar, II, 1 (1 January 1939).
77. Djohan Ahmad, ‘Pengaroh pers di tanah Rentjong’, Seruan Kita, I, 10

(29 September 1939), p. 251; ‘Atjeher’ [H. M. Zainuddin] in Penjedar, II,
26 (25 June 1939), pp. 556-8.
78. S. M. Amin, Sekitar Peristiwa Berdarah di Atjeh (Jakarta, Soeroengan,

1956), pp. 136-9; Piekaar, p. 84; Interviews.
79. Volksraad, Handelingen 1938-9, pp. 567-8, 585-6, 919, and Bijlagen Ond.
1, Afd. IV, stuk 5, pp. 14-15.
80. MvO Atjeh, Goedhart, 1929, p. 67, Mailr. 287x/29. Tuanku Mahmud (c.
1895-1954) was a descendant of a side branch of the sultan dynasty, whose
members all carried the title Tuanku. He studied at the Batavia mosvia
school for government officials, and began his government service in
Sulawesi before being transferred to the Resident’s office in Kutaraja in the
mid-1920s. In 1929 he had nine months’ study leave in Holland, and in
Dutch eyes was exceptionally ‘courteous and cultivated’ (Piekaar, p. 14).
After entering the Volksraad he contracted a very advantageous marriage
with the daughter of the Sultan of Serdang, which advanced his stature as
a royal pretender. During the revolution he played host to the Sultan of
Siak, whose consort he was to take as his second wife in 1952 after a
lengthy affair.
81. Politiek Verslag Atjeh, 1st halfjaar 1939, Mailr. 959x/39. Correspondence
regarding restoration of the sultanate in Mailr. 742x/39. Penjedar, II, 5
(29 January 1939), p. 81; II, 7 (12 February 1939), pp. 123-4; and II, 16
(16 April 1939), pp. 330-1. IPO, 18 February 1939, pp. 116-21.
82. F. G. Bailey, ‘The Peasant view of the bad life’, in Peasants and Peasant
Societies, ed. Teodor Shanin (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1971), p. 309.
83. ‘Panjot Tjoelet’ [pseud. Hasan Aly], ‘Peristiwa Atjeh’, Seruan Kita, I, 10
(29 September 1939), pp. 232-3.
84. The Perkumpulan Uleebalang! Groot Atjeh was formed under T. Njak Arif’s
presidency on 8 October 1939: Politiek Verslag Atjeh, October 1939, pp.
8-9. Because Aceh Besar (Groot Atjeh) was technically directly ruled, the
uleebalang there had fewer interests to protect and polarization never became
as acute as in Pidie and the North Coast. Nevertheless Njak Arif was already
reacting defensively to criticism of the uleebalang in 1937, when he interrupted
a Muhammadiah meeting to object to reference to them as ‘rajas’, since
they no longer had real power. He countered ulama criticism: ‘We are all
guilty in this matter, not only the uleebalang who get the blame, but also
the Teungkus [ulama] who ... do not dare to say or do anything when they
see the uleebalang doing bad things such as drinking champagne, dancing,
and sending their children to Christian schools’; Pedoman Masjarakat, 10
November 1937, cited IPO, 21 November 1937, p. 787.
85. T. M. Amin in Pandji Islam, 25 September 1939, p. 7396.
86. Politiek Verslag Atjeh, December 1939, pp. 4-5, Mailr. 193x/40.
87. Dutch historians and novelists had given much attention to T. Umar and
his wife, Cut Nyak Dien, with the result that the Indonesian nationalist
movement had adopted Umar despite his many changes of sides. A biog¬
raphy of him by Xarim M. S. had appeared in 1939. During 1940 articles
by Ismail Jakoeb, Amelz, and ‘Poetera Atjeh’ in the Medan press advanced
the superior claims of Chik di Tiro. See especially Pandji Islam, 1 March
1940, pp. 7873-5, and Penjedar, 9 January 1941, p. 27. Ismail Jakoeb’s
well-researched biography of Chik di Tiro did not appear until 1943.
88. Daud Beureu’eh emphasized this incident in a 1969 interview.
89. Hamka, Kenang-kenangan hidup (Kuala Lumpur, Pustaka Antara, 1966)

pp. 170-2.
90. Ibid., p. 169.

Ill
THE ETHNIC WEB OF

EAST SUMATRA
‘Goldland, tanah emas, heaven for the capitalist; but a land to

wring the tears of the dead, a hell for the proletarian. . . . There
a sharp antithesis obtained between capital and labour, between
ruler and ruled. ’
Tan Malaka1
EUROPEANS
In the eyes of Western capitalism at the end of the nineteenth century,
the scattered Malay and Batak indigenous population of East Sumatra
might not have existed.2 The area was a frontier, whose essential image
was a European planter and a team of perspiring Chinese coolies clearing
a patch of rich volcanic soil from the endless primeval forest. It was
pictured as a bitterly hostile environment, less because of the occasional
Batak resistance than because of the tigers and diseases of the forest,
and the sullen hatred of the indentured work-force.
For the needs of the booming tobacco estates everything was im¬
ported. The food, supplies, and men were introduced, morever, not
from the established colonial world of Java with its relatively syncretic,
hierarchic, Indisch life-style, but from all parts of the world. The mana¬
gers of the tobacco estates were overwhelmingly Dutch, though the
rubber, tea, and oil-palm estates which developed in the twentieth
century brought an equal number of British, Americans, French, and
Swiss. The assistants on the estates were a very mixed bag, drawn by
the high wages and call of adventure directly from Europe. ‘Training
is not required. One just must be able to shout well at the coolies.’3
Differences of status were vitally important within the planter com¬
munity of the plantation district. The estate managers had European
wives, the assistants took Javanese concubines; the two ranks did not
mix socially whatever their respective social origins in Europe. These
distinctions, however, paled before the absolute tyranny of race.4 The
pioneering planters had felt so few, so isolated, and yet so proud of
the fantastic wealth they were wresting from the jungle, that they forged
a solidarity of colour among the Asian population which surrounded
THE ETHNIC WEB OF EAST SUMATRA 39
them. Every fortnight this solidarity and mastery was celebrated in

drunken, boisterous ritual at the club on the hari besar (holiday).
The twentieth century rolled the plantation frontier back, and created
settled amenities for the European population which were second to
none in the Indies. Yet the Deliaan, as planters of the whole plantation
district were proud to call themselves, remained a distinct type, stereo¬
typed as coarse, hard-drinking, impatient of ‘culture’, of civil servants,
or whatever else interfered with the efficient accumulation of profits.
‘The Chief Administrator of the Deli-Company is for him a more
powerful deity than the Governor-General.’5
The Deliaan took great pride in the modern, international, character
of East Sumatra, and the smartness of its capital, Medan. But if he
had many contacts with Malaya, Europe, and America, he had few with
Indonesians except in the most menial capacity. The 11,000 Europeans
of East Sumatra (1930), who included relatively few Eurasians, were
separated by a wide gulf from the other peoples of the Residency. Even
in the relatively progressive atmosphere of the Senembah-company,
Tan Malaka found the gulf impassable: ‘The sharp antithesis between
a white race stupid, arrogant, cruel, imperialist; and a brown race whose
experience is in the sweat of their brows, but who are cheated, exploited,
oppressed. . . this was what disturbed the climate of Deli.’6
The harsh pioneering background of Deli, the huge cultural and social
gap between its diverse immigrants, and the stubborn pride with which
the Deliaan viewed the fruit of ‘his’ labour, made the region a stereotype
of the neuroses which characterized colonial society. This paranoia
reached its most hysterical point in 1929, when attacks on Europeans by
desperate indentured labourers reached a peak. The fact that a woman,
the wife of a planter at Parnabolan, in Simalungun, was killed in such
an attack became the occasion for a great campaign among the Deliaan.
The funeral was widely attended, telegrams of outrage descended on
the Governor-General and the Queen, and preparations were made to
ensure that planters could defend themselves if they were not protected
by a ‘weak’ government. The movement climaxed with a privately
convened meeting on 16 July 1929, attended by 2,300 ‘Fatherlanders ,
demanding sterner measures. The Indonesian daily Pezvarta Deli, which
had the courage to dismiss the murder as a ‘small matter’ (perkara
kecil), earned the bitter hostility of the whole European community.7
It was in this vengeful mood that the right-wing Vaderlandsche Club
was born in Medan, before it had even taken clear form in Java. The
chairman of the 16 July meeting launched the local branch himself
less than a month later. Although the specific policies of the Vaderland¬
sche Club were unclear, it represented a conviction that Dutchmen
in the Indies had to stand together to defend the imperial bond against
nameless threats from all sides. Almost immediately it became the most
active European political group in East Sumatra, with 500 members
and the beginnings of its own defence corps.8 The Vaderlandsche Club
lost its momentum only in the period 1934-8, when the Dutch Nazi
party, the N.S.B., provided a more flamboyant outlet for the vigorous
minority of the extreme right. The East Sumatran branch of the N.S.B.
appears to have provided a substantial proportion of the financial support
for Dutch fascism. The branch was rewarded by visits from the Dutch
party’s leaders, Mussert and Van Geelkerken, who drew crowds of up
to 600 Europeans in Medan.9
LABOUR
If Europeans were the ‘general staff’ of the capitalist conquest of
East Sumatra,10 contract labourers were its reluctant foot soldiers.
From the beginning the planters found the indigenous population un¬
willing to toil on their terms. They became dependant on a constant
flow of indentured labourers, powerless captives, first from China and
later from Java. In the violent pioneering 1870s Chinese labour was
in effect ‘bought’ by the payment of large sums to ‘coolie-brokers’ in
Singapore and Penang, to overcome the notoriety of Deli among mi¬
grants. From 1888 the Deli tobacco planters began to bring about 7,000
Chinese labourers a year directly from China. About half a million
Chinese had entered East Sumatra on contracts by the 1930s, although
the peak was passed with the tobacco boom of the late 1880s, when
up to 20,000 entered annually.11
The difficulties of recruiting in China and the Straits Settlements
drove the tobacco planters reluctantly towards the obvious Netherlands
Indian source. Though continuing to insist that only Chinese tobacco-
growers would guarantee the high standards of the famous Deli wrapper
leaf, the tobacco estates increasingly used Javanese indentured labour
in other tasks. The coffee estates which began in the 1890s, and the
rubber, tea, and oil-palm which expanded rapidly after 1900, relied
exclusively on Javanese. The composition of the total plantation force
changed as follows:
TABLE 1
Contract Labour in East Sumatra12
1884 1900 1916 1920 1925 1929
Chinese 21,136 58,516 43,689 23,900 26,800 25,934

Javanese 1,771 25,224 150,392 212,400 168,400 239,281
Indians and
Others 1,528 2,460 n.a. 2,000 1,500 1,019
This shift speeded the transition from turbulent frontier to Netherlands
colony, for with the Javanese came a paternalistic involvement of the
colonial government, and a less speculative spirit among the powerless
contract labourers. Labour conditions were governed by the Coolie
Ordinance of 1880, which provided a maximum of three years’ contract,
after which the labourer had to be returned to his place of recruitment.
The inadequate protection this provided in practice was dramatically
shown in the pamphlet De millioenen uit Deli (1902), and the ensuing
inquiry. More elaborate standards and safeguards were then devised,
and by the 1920s it could generally be said that the health, education,
and social amenities for workers in East Sumatra were relatively good.
They remained, however, neither free nor well remunerated. The min¬
imum daily wage for male labour on initial contracts in East Sumatra
fluctuated between 30 cents per day (1935-7) and 55 cents (1920-1).
In 1924, when a government survey was made, the minimum contract
labourers’ wage was 42 cents, while the figure for factory labour was
53J cents, and unskilled urban workers were receiving 80 cents.13 It
is difficult to find figures which are exactly comparable, but the bitter
opposition of planters to reliance on market forces for their labour supply
was itself an eloquent testimony.
What kept the indentured labourers at their task was the ‘penal sanc¬
tion’ which the 1880 Coolie Ordinance attached to their contracts.
Workers who left their job or neglected their duties were subject to
fines or imprisonment. Elaborate fingerprint records were maintained
to trace the workers who ran away. From the beginning of the century
Dutch ‘ethici’ fought against this penal sanction, and from 1918 the
government was theoretically committed to its gradual abolition. The
TABLE 2
Estate Labour Force in East Sumatra15
Contract labour ‘Free’ labour

At end with penal under 1911 Labourers without
of year sanction contracts any advance Total
1928 247,769 30,909 17,781 296,459

1929 266,234 35,478 18,790 320,502
1930 236,747 40,304 13,959 294,010
1931 137,083 84,386 17,005 238,474
1932 27,338 140,259 8,546 176,143
1933 11,699 152,774 6,125 170,598
1934 6,029 152,080 8,677 166,766
1936 6,396 159,949 15,136 181,479
1938 4,670 185,360 18,376 208,406

vested planter interest was too strong, however. Almost nothing was
achieved until 1929, when the Blaine amendment to the U.S. Tariff
Act barred with the effect from 1932 imports of tobacco produced under
the penal sanction. The world depression spoke even more strongly
to the tobacco companies, making it more of a problem to dispense
with contract labourers than to hire free ones.14 The recruitment of
Chinese indentured labour ceased in 1930, and for Javanese labour use
was suddenly made of the so-called ‘free’ labour contract of 1911, per¬
mitting the worker to leave after giving notice.
Belatedly, therefore, a healthier labour pattern was forced upon the
estates of East Sumatra. One symptom of the unhealthiness of the earlier
relationship based on force was the frequency of attacks on European
and Javanese labour bosses by indentured labourers who could stand
it no longer. In the rough pioneering days violence on both sides of
the labour relation was to be expected. Yet even in the 1920s, when
labour conditions were carefully regulated, such attacks were common¬
place. Although planters denied that the penal sanction had any connex¬
ion with the attacks, experience proved them wrong. The attacks almost
ceased with the decline of the penal sanction.
TABLE 3
Attacks on Overseers by East Sumatran Estate Labour16
1924 ’25 ’26 >27 ’28 >29 ’30 ’3i ’32 1933
Attacks on Europane
‘assistants’
(labour overseers) 19 28 27 17 43 68 61 17 16 8
Fatalities resulting
from all attacks 1 3 — 1 2 5 2 — — —
After 1932 attacks on Europeans were insignificant, none at all being

recorded in 1940, although incidents continued with the immediate
bosses, Javanese viandur and Chinese tandil.
In the 1930s, therefore, the estates were losing their earlier aspect
of an ‘outdoor prison’. The Chinese contract labour force had virtually
disappeared, and those members of it who were not repatriated were
in the course of being absorbed into the flourishing Chinese merchant
community of East Sumatra. The Javanese estate labourers, about
one-quarter of whom were by now women, were also taking on a more
settled character. Overpopulation steadily increased the number of
landless in Java, and many Javanese labourers therefore welcomed the
opportunity to remain after their contracts in Deli. Some were given
estate land for cultivation in the hope they would form the beginnings
of a permanent labour force. Many more became subsistence farmers
in land around the fringes of the estates, where they frequently obtained
titles from the kerajaan. Already in the 1930 census Javanese formed
the largest single ethnic group in East Sumatra. Like the Chinese, how¬
ever, if for different reasons, they played a minimal part in the political
and social life of the residency. Those on the estates were tightly con¬
trolled and effectively sealed off from any outside political activity.
Those who had left were still tainted by association with the semi-captive
‘coolie’.
TABLE 4
Ethnic Categories in East Sumatra, 1930
Number 0/ Sub-Total 0/
/o /o
Europeans 11,079 0.7

Chinese 192,822 11.4
Other (primarily Indian) 18,904 1.1
Sub-total non-Indonesian 222,805 13.2
J avanese 589,836 35.0

Toba Batak 74,224 4.4
Mandailing and Angkola Batak 59,638 3.5
Minangkabau 50,677 3.0
Sundanese 44,107 2.6
Banjar 31,266 1.9
Acehnese 7,795 0.5
Other 24,646 1.5
Sub-total ‘immigrant’
Indonesians 882,189 52.3
Malay 334,870 19.9

Karo Batak 145,429 8.6
Simalungun Batak 95,144 5.6
Other 5,436 0.3
Sub-total ‘indigenous’
Indonesians 580,879 34.5
Total 1,685,873 100.0
DELI-LANGKAT-SERDANG: THE OPULENT SULTANATES

Prior to the devastating invasion of the foreign plantations East Su¬
matra had been the home of a primarily agricultural population of coastal
Malays, and Karo and Simalungun Bataks. It was the three Malay state¬
lets of Deli, Langkat, and Serdang, in the tobacco-growing area, which
MALACCA STRAITS
East Coast of Sumatra Residency under the Dutch

experienced first and most intensively the impact of this alien economic
monster. The contradictions inherent in Dutch indirect rule were
nowhere more acute than in these three wealthy sultanates. As the twen¬
tieth century progressed, bringing ever greater government centraliza¬
tion on the one hand and an increased theoretical emphasis on localized
‘self-rule’ on the other, these contradictions became ever more pressing.
Both planters and government officials had found the Malay sultan¬
ates extremely convenient in the first half-century of western
development. The planters obtained very advantageous terms for
their concessions, and found the system of bribes and perquisites
with which they kept the goodwill of the Malay elite much cheaper
than the taxation of a modern government structure. For government,
the rajas provided not only the basic pretext for a Dutch presence,
but an inexpensive intermediary to the baffling complexity and
autonomy of Batak social structure, and an invaluable shield with
which to cloak the more unpopular government measures—in particular
those directed against the demands of the national movement. Yet the
Dutch B.B. (Binnenlandse Bestuur—the European administrative serv¬
ice) constantly judged the ‘loyalty’ of the sultans in terms of their
immediate implementation of Dutch suggestions in all matters of im¬
portance to the central government—a category which expanded steadily.
In a bureaucracy as extensive as the B.B. there was no place for the
degree of symbolic deference British Residents paid to the sovereignty
of their sultans in Malaya.
The big three East Sumatra rulers had a number of advantages,
however, over most of their colleagues in either Netherlands India or
Malaya. Their Political Contracts allowed them autonomous adminis¬
trative and juridical structures of completely aristocratic-Malay composi¬
tion, with full nominal responsibility in a number of areas. One of these
areas was land, which of course explained the special concern of the
estates for the welfare of the rulers. By paying large sums to the rulers
personally as persen tanah when each land concession was made, the
estates ensured that the annual rental was fixed very low. A good example
of the advantage the estates drew from the sultanates was the debate
of the 1930s over the terms on which the plantations would have their
land under the new erfpacht (long lease) regulations. Although the estates
had been accustomed to paying a minimal rent of f. 1.42 per hectare,
the Agricultural Affairs Department estimated at the beginning of the
debate that f.25 per hectare per year would be fair return for such pro¬
ductive land. By 1937, the planters’ organizations had succeeded in
persuading the pliable Sultans of Deli and Langkat to accept a figure of
f.3.50. Although the then Resident found this rather low, he was not
prepared to support the higher demand of the ‘troublesome Sultan
of Serdang, the sultans having so little sense of the value of money.17

Soon after, the Resident discovered to his indignation that the tobacco
companies had undertaken to show their appreciation of the attitude
of the Sultans of Deli and Langkat by financing their visits to Europe
to the extent of f.85,000 each. As a planters’ representative said in
defence, this was simply ‘the policy followed by the tobacco enterprises
towards the sultans for years’.18
The enormous wealth which flowed from this symbiotic relationship
with the estates was another guarantee that the rulers would remain
too visible to be pushed aside lightly. Even after the distinction was
established between the landschapskas (treasury) of each statelet and
the personal income of its rulers, a large percentage of the royalties from
estates and (in Langkat) from oil continued to flow to the sultans and
their datuks. In 1915 39.2 per cent of the revenue of Deli, 37.9 per cent
that of Langkat, and 51.9 per cent that of Serdang went personally
to the sultans and their chiefs, in the form of official allowance plus
their large share of the royalties. This compared with 16.1 per cent and
10.9 per cent respectively for Simalungun and the Karoland, whose
rajas were under the Korte Verklaring (Short Declaration). Even in 1928
Dutch efforts had brought the proportions down only to a little less
than a third of the revenues in each case.19 The wealthiest of the sultans,
Tuanku Machmoed of Langkat,20 with the advantage of the oil royalties
from Pengkalan Brandan, had a personal income of f.472,094 in 1931,
while Sultan Amaloedin of Deli received f. 184,568 and Sultan Soeleiman
of Serdang f.103,346.21
Such wealth enabled the rulers to maintain the lavish palaces, the
fleet of limousines (Sultan Machmoed had thirteen in 1933, and an un¬
used launch), the racehorses, the receptions for influential Europeans,
the tours to Europe, and the army of dependent aristocratic relatives,
which kept them before the public eye as true monarchs, making up
in kemuliaan (majesty) what they lacked in power.
The dissatisfaction of Indonesian ‘intellectuals’ from other regions
over the conservatism and extravagance of the rulers could be dismissed
as the grumblings of foreigners. For the immediate Malay and Karo
subjects of the sultans there was little cause for complaint. The Malays
in particular, numbering only 40,451 (18.57 per cent of the population) in
Langkat and 61,953 (14.35 per cent) in Deli-Serdang in 1930, had a close
and comfortable dependence on their rulers and on the tobacco estates.
They had not disputed the right of their rajas and datuks to alienate
land to the estates in the early days, nor had they been disappointed
in the share of the proceeds they received. All the contracts had
clauses providing that each family living within the area of the conces¬
sion should be allocated 4 hectares, or in later concessions 4 bahu
(2.8 hectares), on a shifting basis for their own crops. In practice the
tobacco estates tended to ignore this clause, preferring to plant where it
suited them throughout the concession. So precious was the unique
Deli wrapper leaf that the planters were prodigal with the land, con¬
vinced that any one plot should be planted in tobacco no more than
once every eight or nine years. This rotation system allowed the estates
to turn over the fields from which tobacco had been harvested for one
year’s cultivation of food crops, before they reverted to fallow for the
intervening six or seven years. Each family was allotted each year a
jaluran of 0.6 hectare of this ‘heavily fertilized, beautifully prepared,
and generally superior land’.22 Such a plot could provide a generous
harvest of 600 gantangs (1920 kg) of rice for a minimal amount of
labour.23
The opportunity to receive jaluran in this way reduced interest
among Malay farmers in the 4-hectare (or 4-bahu) lots, on which much
more preparation and attention would have been required for a usually
smaller crop. Those Malay farmers who continued to enjoy these lots
as well either used them as orchards or leased them to Chinese or
Javanese.24 In the early freewheeling days of the estates prior to 1920
it was only the jaluran which were in demand, and any objections could
be met by a more generous allocation of the prepared plots especially
to influential chiefs or ulama. Later acts of concession wrote the pro¬
vision of jaluran into the obligations of the estates.
The tax burden on subjects of the major sultanates was also rela¬
tively light. Most aristocrats were exempt homherendienst, and the rulers
did not usually press it on subjects for whom it was a burden. For
Malays content with their traditional lot, the estates had made life both
secure and comfortable. But dependence had sapped many of the habits
and talents required in the new commercial economy of the region.
By the late 1920s, when virtually all the land in the Malay areas of the
three sultanates was occupied by estates, jaluran were almost the only
form of Malay agriculture. There was scarcely any planting of cash
crops or intensive rice cultivation in irrigated fields. Few parts of Indo¬
nesia showed such a complete dearth of Indonesian buyers, middlemen
and exporters. Small trade was overwhelmingly in Chinese hands.25
As the population of the tobacco area grew by natural increase and
immigration from less favoured parts of the residency, it became harder
for the estates to meet all the demands for jaluran. The reduction of
planting during the depression years, and consequent reduction of
jaluran, threw the whole system in the balance. The estates now made
clear that they wished to withdraw from the increasingly troublesome
jaluran distribution altogether, even though there was scarcely enough
land available to provide the alternative of 4 hectares to which they were
bound. Having long seen themselves as the most privileged community

of the region by reason of their close and comfortable clientship to
the rulers, the Malays discovered they were also the most vulnerable,
facing an uncertain future without the land, the talents, or the power
the situation demanded.
The Karo Batak subjects of the three big sultanates (28,079 in Langkat
and 37,341 in Deli-Serdang in 1930) were in a less dependent position,
even though they showed an equal enthusiasm for tobacco jaluran
where they could obtain them. The Karos were overwhelmingly con¬
centrated in the so-called dusun (literally: garden) or upland section of
the three sultanates, bordering on Karoland proper. Until the coming
of Dutch administration and the estates their basic socio-political unit
had been the village (kuta), governed, as in other Batak areas, by mem¬
bers of the founding marga. A kinship link was acknowledged to the
parent village (perbapaan) of a group of villages, but it was at the level
of the kuta that land was controlled. The conflict between this Karo
custom and the claim of the Malay sultans to a right to alienate land
anywhere in their theoretical dominions has already been discussed
as the origin of the ‘Batak war’ in Sunggal in 1872. As a consequence
of continuing Karo resistance to estates in the dusun the Dutch es¬
tablished direct contacts with them in 1888 and channelled one-sixth
of estate royalties to the Karo village headmen. Some Karo villages
in tobacco areas established the same dependence on jaluran as the
Malays. In the higher land of the dusun perennial crops (particularly
rubber) were more typical, and most Karos oscillated between casual
work on the estates and shifting cultivation on their 4-hectare plots.
The sultans had traditionally dealt with the Karos through datuks,
who though of Karo descent had long identified themselves as Malay
and Muslim. These datuks had built the rudiments of Malay-style
courts near the frontier between Karo and Malay settlements, and
operated independently for most purposes. The Karos of the dusun had
traded with the datuks lower down their respective rivers, and sometimes
supported them in wars, without ever being directly administered by
them. Dutch rule, however, having made the initial decision to include
the Karo dusun within the Malay kerajaan, steadily extended the sultans’
bureaucratic and judicial sway over them. A hierarchy of Karo officials
was established beneath each datuk, who in turn was subordinated to
the bureaucracy of the sultanate.26 At the other end of the scale the
village bond was gradually eroded, and a tendency was observed towards
individual land tenure.27 One Dutch official argued that this process
had gone so far that ‘the village community no longer offers a viable
basis from which successfully to operate [decentralization reforms]’.28
More obviously than most inhabitants of East Sumatra, the Karos of
the dusun were in a volatile state of transition between traditional village

loyalties and new bureaucratic or organizational ones.
THE SOUTHERN MALAY STATES
d he vast swampy plains in the south of the East Sumatran residency

were slow to feel the impact of the foreign estates which clustered on
the volcanic alluvium around Medan. There were nine Malay statelets
in the three great basins of the Rokan, Siak, and Kampar rivers, but
eight of them were underpopulated and poor, and their rajas under
the terms of the Korte Verklanng had virtually no bargaining power
with the Dutch.
The ninth, Siak Sri Indrapura, had once dominated the whole East
Coast. Even after these claims were bought out by the Dutch in 1888,
Siak had difficulty accepting the formal equality of the upstart Sultans
of Deli and Langkat, despite the opulence which had flowed to the
latter from Dutch enterprises.29 Relatively little penetrated by foreign
estates, and those mostly Japanese, Siak had retained more of its tradi¬
tional character and vigour than the other Malay states. Ethnically its
117,000 people were relatively homogeneous, with some 30,000 Mi-
nangkabaus the only complication. Only here was there a class of sub¬
stantial Indonesian merchants, trading in the smallholder rubber and
copra which were grown within the sultanate. In 1924 there were 109
indigenous traders in Siak with incomes in excess of f.760 p.a., more
than twice the number in the whole remainder of the residency.30 The
regime of Sultan Sjarif Kasim (1915-46) appears to be remembered
kindly by his people for reforms in education and administration. To
the Dutch, however, it appeared maddeningly independent, backward,
and corrupt.31
Further north, the afdeling (district) of Asahan formed the southern
frontier of the estate region, still growing rapidly in the 1930s. Here
however the estates grew rubber or oil palm rather than tobacco, and
there were no jaluran to distort the traditional pattern of agriculture.
Although little waste land remained by 1940, enough was in Indonesian
hands for a healthy smallholder production of export crops.32
Ethnic and historical factors had given the rajas of Asahan a more
modest, consensual role than in the other Malay states. The five small
statelets of the Batubara confederation derived from eighteenth century
Minangkabau immigration, and were held together by kinship rather
than monarchy. In the sultanate of Asahan, much the largest statelet
in the district, the orang Asahan were predominately of Toba Batak
descent. The process of Islamization was relatively swift and unimpeded
until about 1920, when there were estimated to be only four or five
thousand remaining animist Bataks among the 106,000 subjects of the

sultanate. The Islamic majority considered itself Malay rather than
Batak, but a form of Toba Batak was still the mother tongue of most
of them.33
The long minority of Sultan Saiboen34 after inheriting the throne
at the age of six allowed the Dutch to intervene freely in Asahan affairs.
The aristocracy of Asahan by the 1930s appeared more businesslike,
more co-operative with the Dutch bureaucracy, and less given to pomp
and extravagance, than their colleagues in the other Malay sultanates.
Immediately to the south of the Asahan sultanate were four more
small Malay statelets of the Labuhan Batu sub-district. Three of these
shared with the Batubara statelets the stern terms of the Korte Verklar-
ing, their treasuries pooled and under complete Dutch control. Only
one, Kualuh, enjoyed the privileged status of a ‘Political Contract’ along
with Langkat, Deli, Serdang, Asahan, and Siak. The reasons for the
anomalous status of this statelet of only 36,000 people were partly his¬
torical, and partly the longevity of its stubborn ruler, father-in-law to
the Sultan of Langkat. As the modern economy penetrated Kualuh in
the 1930s, however, the extravagant pretensions of this old man became
a source of additional tension.
The easy relations between Toba Batak and Malay in the Asahan
district were altered somewhat with the Christianization of the Toba
homelands, widespread by 1920. The Toba emigrants from Tapanuli
to Asahan in the 1920s were typically Christian, and did not melt like
their predecessors into the ‘Malay’ coastal community through rapid
Islamization. In the 1930 census there were already 27,000 who declared
themselves Batak or Toba Batak in the Asahan district. After the depres¬
sion of the 1930s the migration became a flood as western plantations
developed rapidly in the district, pressure on land in Tapanuli inten¬
sified, and the ‘Toba-Asahan’ road provided easy access. Most migrants
went to work on the new estates, though in the Labuhan Batu sub¬
districts in particular there was still land available for them to open farms
of their own. A 1937 report noted that the Bataks had penetrated almost
to the coast in Kualuh, while the Indrapuri statelet in Batubara had
become almost wholly Batak and its neighbours heavily so.35 Here too
was a potential source of conflict.
THE SULTANS AND THE DUTCH IN THE 1930s
Since the beginning of the century the Dutch bureaucracy had sought
gradually to move the six sultans under political contracts towards a
more ‘normal’ situation, with their incomes and autonomy reduced
nearer to the level of Korte Verklaring rajas. The skill of the sultans at
using their powerful contacts where possible, and bending before

pressure when necessary, provided few opportunities for direct govern¬
ment intervention. At the death of each ruler, however, the bonds were
tightened and the incomes reduced for his younger successor. The
thrust of Dutch policy was consistently towards eenhoofdig (unitary)
rule whereby tributary rajas, in name or in fact, were gradually reduced
to functionaries of one of the more successful sultanates.36 The ideal
was considered to be Asahan, where since 1918 all subordinate chiefs
had been abolished, so that the colonial government had only to control
one man, and through him a bureaucracy of aristocratic Malay district
officials. This emphasis in the long run only further accentuated the
‘problem’ of the major sultans.
The ‘problem’ came to a head in the depression years, when both
the estates and the kerajaan treasuries experienced unprecedented diffi¬
culties. The depression brought no change to the official incomes of
the sultans and chiefs, unlike the powerless Korte Verklaring rulers
whose stipends were reduced by 10 per cent in 1932. It drastically
reduced Dutch tolerance, however, for their extravagance and self-
indulgence. The earlier estate practice of overcoming or precluding
resistance on land questions by lavish gifts to the influential Malay
elite began to seem a luxury. The estates increasingly resorted to the
courts when they did not get what they wanted, and sought to collect
debts from the Malay tengkus instead of writing them off for political
reasons.37 Relations between the estates and the kerajaan began to
deteriorate, and the financial problems of the latter became disastrous.
If anything the extravagance of the sultans and their circle seemed to
increase in the depression years as appeals to royal patronage became
more frequent. The competition among the Malay aristocracy for the
lavishness of their entertainment and the luxuriousness of their limou¬
sines had reached a level that had little relation to earning power. By
1931 the bad debts of the Serdang court had become so notorious that
European financiers refused any further loans, driving the sultan in¬
creasingly into the hands of Indian moneylenders. The sultan’s debts
were thought to have reached about 300,000 guilders in 1933, but by
1935 they were revealed as just over a million. Sultan Machmoed of
Langkat, with a much larger income, had built a spectacular debt of
f. 1,318,000 by the end of 1934. For Machmoed, always suspicious and
unsure of himself, this became a further source of acute anxiety.38
The apparent unwillingness of these rulers to reduce their expenditure
or put their affairs in order at a time of general belt-tightening drove
local Dutch officials into a rage of frustration. Far from accepting Dutch
pressure for sacrifices, the sultans showed exceptional energy and co¬
ordination in a campaign during the height of the depression to extend
exemption from automobile tax to even their most distant relations.39

In 1934-5 the Dutch felt obliged to take over the personal finances
of the Sultans of Langkat and Serdang, to avoid further erosion of the
rulers’ public image. The creditors were paid off with massive loans
from the landschapskas of oil-rich Kutei (East Kalimantan), while all
the Sultans’ incomes except a fixed monthly allowance were devoted
to repayment of these loans.
Ezerman, the Governor who grappled with these problems at their
worst, laid all the blame at the feet of the sultans and their bevy of
dependent tengkus, ignoring the Dutch role in bringing the situation
about.
In the Malay states here there stands ... a mountain of egoism and greed
and of sacrifice of group interest for self interest. . . .
In all attempts ... to bring the rulers round to other views, and to replace
the egocentric, despotic notion of sovereignty with fellow-feeling for society
and its needs, one is confronted with the ‘dignity’ of the kerajaan, and they
insist on kemuliaan and similar concepts, which are in reality irrelevant but
which serve to provide a solid armour for the old standpoint. . . .40
The tengkus and nobles always reply to the European B.B. in words which
amount to: ‘The good that you desire, I will not do. I cannot do it because
for us only the ego exists and we have no feeling for your societal principle.’
That symbolizes the whole relationship. It is not hostile, simply fruitless.41
Ezerman became so exasperated with the way the Sultan of Siak in¬
dulged the corruption of his relatives that he sent four army brigades
from Aceh to camp opposite his palace and bring him to heel. The only
remedy he could see for the situation was a drastic reduction in the
autonomy of the sultans, and he was frustrated to find this ran counter
to all the favourite schemes for decentralization in Batavia. His governor¬
ship dramatically accented at an even earlier period the trend we have
noticed in Aceh, of a decline in the return Dutch officials thought they
were getting from the rajas. Ezerman’s successors were more tactful
in handling the Malay rulers, but they did not differ in their basic
assessment.42
This loss of credibility in relation to the central bureaucracy was
not lost even on some of the Malay elite in the larger towns.
The respect and consideration which the Malay rulers formerly enjoyed
has gradually declined, and people have come to regard most rulers here as
having power in consequence of the political contracts (indeed it is these that
give authority, not the love and affection of their people), and as nouveaux-
riches, but not as good leaders. . . .
There is criticism now and it is malicious. It is directed not only at the
behaviour and values of the kerajaan, but it goes further and dwells upon
history, making comparisons with rajas under the Korte Verklaring and with
the rulers in Java. Formerly this criticism did not exist, people were satisfied
with the aura which used to hang around the sultans.43
While this criticism was articulated especially by the non-Malay per-

gerakan, it was increasingly being felt in aristocratic Malay circles. It
moved a later governor to the optimistic view that internal pressures
would eventually be sufficient to democratize the kerajaan.u
The increased conflict between government and rulers in the 1930s
provided an opportunity for the sultans to draw closer to the national
movement for support. Only the oldest and most forceful of the rulers,
Sultan Soeleiman of Serdang, took an interest in the option. He infu¬
riated the government not only by the extravagance he shared with his
colleagues, but also by a stubborn distrust of Dutch intentions which
sometimes operated in his subjects’ interests. While the other sultans
tended to surround themselves with Europeans, he employed two Jap¬
anese in his palace and patronized a number of nationalists. He fought
hard for a better deal from the estates in the 1938-9 negotiations, and
checked the desire of some Dutch officials to levy heavy corvee in the
building of roads.45 For the other rulers, however, the younger they were
the more dependent they appeared to be on the government. Their only
strength was in their weakness, offering a more malleable front to both
the estates and the government than either could expect from a more
democratic alternative.
SIMALUNGUN
The higher land of the East Coast residency, still exclusively Batak
country at the time of the Dutch advent, formed one afdeling (district)
of Simalungun and Karoland. The differences between these two distinct
Batak sub-groups, however, were as wide as they were instructive. Alone
of the Bataks, the Simalungun (sometimes also called Timur Bataks)
had developed an institution which the Dutch and Malays could rec¬
ognize as kingship. The system of exogomous marga or clans existed
among them as among other Bataks, but it occupied a less central role
in land-holding and village government. Land was held not only by
the dominant marga of a particular village, but by the larger village
community itself, through its hereditary ruler. Perhaps in imitation
of the neighbouring Malay states, the Simalungun village clusters were
therefore able to develop towards petty monarchies by absorbing neigh¬
bours or accepting tribute from them.
Dutch rule battened gratefully upon this appearance of monarchy.
In 1907 seven distinct urung (statelets) were recognized and their rajas
signed the Korte Verklaring of submission to the Dutch. The high degree
of autonomy which subordinate chiefs had held was eroded to give
more power in theory to the seven rajas, in reality to the Dutch. 1 he

budgets of the seven statelets were tightly controlled by the B.B. ‘in
practice not a single thing can now be left to them’.46 Because the rajas
appeared to control the disposal of uncultivated land, Simalungun was
the only Batak area congenial to western plantations. The three statelets
of Pane, Siantar, and Tanah Jawa became an integral part of the East
Sumatran plantation district, with rubber and tea the principal crops.
Almost a third of the total area of Simalungun was alienated to estates
by 1938, and the Javanese who came with the estates outnumbered the
Simalunguns.47
The Simalungun rajas enjoyed considerable benefits from the estates,
even if not on the scale of the Malay sultans. Besides their salaries
of f.6,720 per year the two wealthiest rajas enjoyed a travelling allowance
of f. 1,800 and extensive traditional forms of tribute from their people.48
For the ordinary Simalungun farmer, on the other hand, there were
none of the advantages enjoyed by the subjects of the Malay sultans.
Simalungun farmers were heavily taxed when compared either to farm¬
ers elsewhere in the residency or to non-farmers in Simalungun.49
Among the burdens of the Simalungun peasantry was saro, a traditional
corvee which involved working the raja’s fields or doing his bidding
for about ten days a year, in addition to the usual herendienst on govern¬
ment roads. If the Simalungun were discontented with this situation,
however, they were too traditional and rural a community to make it
known. Simalunguns were scarcely represented in the secular political
movement, and Islamic movements could involve only the small Muslim
minority. A (non-Simalungun) gerindo leader in Siantar complained
that ‘it was quite difficult to get the uneducated followers to understand
that the rajas were the agents (kakitangan) of colonialism’.50
It was the influx of Christian Toba Bataks to Simalungun after 1910,
much more than the insulated Javanese and Europeans of the estates,
which gave a political tinge to Simalungun self-awareness. The Rhen-
ische Mission attempted to extend its success among the Toba Batak
by establishing a mission in the Simalungun statelet of Raya in 1903.
Christian Tobas were encouraged to migrate to agriculturally undevel¬
oped Simalungun, to give an example not only of Christian living but
of wet-rice agriculture in permanent, bunded fields. The government
also encouraged this migration and provided irrigation channels, as a
means of easing the gross food deficit in the East Sumatra residency.
By 1920 there were 26,000 Tobas in Simalungun, by 1935, 42,000, and
by 1943, 50,000. The rice terraces they built around Pematang Siantar
and in Tanah Jawa were a model for the slash-and-burn farmers of the
rest of the residency. Christianity was much less successful, partly be¬
cause it was presented in Toba Batak dress, by Tobas who looked down
on the ‘primitiveness’ of the Simalungun.51
It was nevertheless the few hundred Simalungun Christians who
led the movement to assert a separate cultural identity, at a gathering
in Raya in 1928 to celebrate a lean quarter century of evangelization.
A committee Na Ra Marpodah was formed to promote purity of Sim¬
alungun language and custom, and produced a stream of translations
and tracts. One consequence was a marked increase in the rate of Chris¬
tianization. Another was a greater self-awareness of Simalunguns in
general, which ultimately ensured that they would reject the path of
identification with either the Christian Tobas or the coastal Malayo-
Muslims.
Although the government had initially given the Tobas a favoured
and autonomous position, by the 1930s it was showing both impatience
with their unruliness and anxiety at their growing numbers. Greater
stress was placed on their obligations to the Simalungun rajas, to whom
the migrants had been theoretically subject since 1918. The natural
reluctance of the Toba farmers to accept ‘feudal’ obligations to which
they were not accustomed reached a breaking point in 1933. Four hun¬
dred Toba farmers emigrated from Simalungun in protest against the
high irrigation fees charged by the statelets, and protest meetings were
held in Tapanuli when the government imprisoned the leaders of the
movement. Three years later a committee was formed among Tobas
in Simalungun to fight the saro system.52 The pergerakan in the city
of Pematang Siantar, as in Medan itself, was still dominated by Muslim
Sumatrans (mainly Mandailing and Minangkabau), but the growing
number of Christian Toba Bataks was a surer long-term source of oppo¬
sition to the Simalungun establishment.
KAROLAND
So satisfactory had Malay and Simalungun monarchy been for colo¬

nial and plantation interests that Dutch officials in East Sumatra sought
to create the institution where it did not exist. The 77,000 Karos (in
1930) who lived on the plateau beyond coastal Malay influence were
traditionally as free of notions of statehood as their Toba cousins. The
basic social unit was the kesain (hamlet), of which there were about
500 in Karoland, many of them grouped together into villages governed
jointly by the penghulu of their kesain. In Toba areas the influence
of the missions had helped the colonial regime to understand and partly
come to terms with this statelessness. However Dutch rule entered
Karoland from the east coast, and Tapanuli (the Toba and Mandailing
area) from the west.53 Quite different principles were applied. There
was no disguising official impatience with ‘the aversion to authority
which the Karo has in such high measure. . . . Ever since our establish¬
ment [in Karoland] we have striven to make an end to this multiplicity
of rulers, which was in fact no democracy, but anarchy.’54
Dutch rule came suddenly to Karoland in 1904, when in accordance
with the classic formula troops were sent to avenge hostility to the
pioneering Christian missionary. The administration immediately
battened upon the urung, a grouping of villages ruled by the same marga
and acknowledging the primacy of a common parent village. Fifteen
urung were acknowledged, and the Dutch attempted to rule through
the penghulu of the parent village as if he were a hereditary raja. As
this number was still unwieldy, five prominent chiefs were designated
as sibayak55 governing two or more urung, and these signed the Korte
Verklaring in 1907. The realities of power obliged the Dutch to acknow¬
ledge two or more joint claimants to these novel offices in the early
years, but by supporting the one who lived longest they had by the
1930s established what looked like hereditary ruling dynasties of si¬
bayak and raja urung. In reality, ‘if one sees how a sibayak or a
raja urung is even now received in a kesain one realizes his authority
must be very slight, and previously must have been still less’.56 This
artificial nobility received its authority not from below but from the
colonial regime. Sibayak were paid a salary averaging f.2,400 p.a.—
less than the other East Sumatran rajas but still enormous in traditional
terms.57 They sat in the highest courts; they were held responsible
for order; and their sons received the best Dutch education available.
The Dutch did not, however, transfer control of land from the kesain
to the new aristocracy. This fact, together with the antipathy to the
tobacco estates which the Karos had absorbed from the experience of
their brethren in the dusun, ensured that no land was alienated to foreign
plantations in Karoland. By the 1930s there were officials ready to sup¬
port Karo resistance to the estates, and to compare their lot favourably
with that of the Simalunguns beginning to suffer from land shortage.58
In other respects too Karoland was unique in East Sumatra. With
the opening of the first road between Kabanjahe and Medan, in 1909,
the Karo economy began to ‘take off’. The Karos responded enthusias¬
tically to the opportunities demonstrated to them of growing vegetables
for markets in Medan and even Malaya. Within eight years the Karos
were sending 340 tonnes of potatoes to Medan each year, and a thousand
new Karo ox-carts were plying the road. The money economy was
accepted with vigour. At the same time there was a great demand for
education which taxed all the resources of the Nederlands Zendings-
genootschap (NZG), the missionary organization entrusted with educat¬
ing the Karo. While the Karo economic drive continued, making them
perhaps the most commercially successful farmers in Indonesia,59 within
a few years the Karos began to turn their backs on the cultural element
of westernization Christianity and modern education. A missionary
historian writes that ‘during the 1920s interest among the Karo in edu¬
cation was dwindling rapidly with a reported truancy rate of 80 per
cent or more in most areas .60 There was no university-trained Karo
in 1942.
How do we explain this uneven response to the western impact, so
much at variance with the Toba experience? The crucial years when
the Karo turned away from Dutch-style education appear to have co¬
incided with the First World War. Some of the reasons may be summa¬
rized as follows:
1. A persistent distrust of Dutch motives having its origins in the
‘Batak-war’ of 1874 and the Dutch conquest of 1904.
2. The steep rise in taxation which followed Dutch control, partic¬
ularly in 1914 when there was a threefold increase. In the 1920s and
1930s Karos paid more tax per capita than other Indonesians of East
Sumatra, though they were also better able to afford it than most.61
3. Until the 1920s the government subsidized the mission schools
of the NZG among the Karos of the plateau and the dusun, rather than
provide the secular syllabus offered in Muslim areas. A 1919 report
commented,
In general, despite the desire for knowledge of the Karo-Batak in particular,
the mission education cannot be called popular, so that on the plateau one
often finds children who do not go to school but try to learn the essentials
from some krani or clerk. . . . Too much compulsion too quickly introduced
also had a bad influence; parents of school-going children were fined io cents
for each day’s truancy, which often mounted up to considerable sums ... in
1913 about 1300 children went to school in the highlands, and this had fallen
to 600 two years later.62
4. The millenarian Parhudamdam movement swept through the

whole Batak area in the period 1915-18, inducing Karos to refuse taxes
and join the new sect in expectation of a great upheaval which would
inaugurate a holy Batak kingdom under the priest-king, Si Singaman-
garaja.63
Although there was little violent resistance in Karoland after 1904,
and the government ‘neutral’ schools introduced in the 1920s proved
less unpopular, Karo suspicion of Dutch intentions remained strong.
Not until independence would the Karos add education to their agenda
for modernization. In the turbulent 1940s they would become the most
wholehearted supporters of revolution against the Dutch.
Internally, although social distinctions were less marked than with
Malays or Simalunguns, tensions accompanied the introduction of
irrigation to some areas. Most of the Karo plateau was very difficult
to irrigate because of the depth of the ravines. Beginning about 1920,

however, an irrigated area was gradually developed through elaborate
irrigation channels in that part of Lingga statelet which embraced the
large villages of Batu Karang, Tiga Nderket, and Payung—-already
centres of economic enterprise and, in the case of Batu Karang, of
resistance to the Dutch in 1904.
Traditional collective ownership of land broke down before the greatly
increased value of this sawah (permanent wet-rice land), even though
it had been irrigated by the joint efforts of the village. In general each
family was allocated one bidang (plot), while three bidang in each village
project were given to the penghulu and raja urung respectively, and two
to the sibayak. This enabled some aristocrats to accumulate unprece¬
dented landed wealth. The raja urung of Batu Karang was said to have
amassed forty hectares of sawah. The concept of individually-owned,
permanently cultivated land was a novelty which gave rise to constant
disputes even in the 1930s. In the 1940s more violent protests were
possible and the aristocrats lost all their sawahP4
THE URBAN SUPERCULTURE
In their impact on political and social life, the spontaneous Indonesian

migrants to the ‘dollar land’ of East Sumatra were much more important
than the larger number of contract labourers. The majority of these mi¬
grants came to the booming cities and towns of the residency. Although
they could not break into the Chinese domination of urban commerce,
they came as clerks, as teachers in both Islamic and secular schools,
as craftsmen, peddlers, small shopkeepers, and throughout the service
sector. In the period under study Medan and Pematang Siantar were
probably the fastest growing cities in Indonesia. Medan’s population
rose between censuses from 45.2 (1920) to 76.6 (1930) to 479.1 (1961)
thousand. In 1930 the autonomous municipalities of East Sumatra were
the following:
TABLE 5
City Population of East Sumatra, 1930
Indonesian Chinese Total
Medan 41,270 27,287 76,584

Pematang Siantar 9,711 4,964 15,328
Tebing Tinggi 8,377 4,844 14,026
Binjai 4,740 3,860 9,176
Tanjung Balai 3,299 3,162 6,823
67,397 44,117 121,937

Freed from both the adat (customary) restrictions of the societies from
which they came and from the authority of the Malay kerajaan, the
Indonesian inhabitants of these cities developed a vigorous new culture.
Here, a Dutch journalist noted, ‘the native life vibrates and speeds at
a form and tempo like nowhere else in the archipelago’.65
The Malayo-Muslim culture of the coast had for centuries shown
its abdity to assimilate newcomers into a commercially-oriented amal¬
gam. The predominance of Sumatran Muslims—Mandailings and
Minangkabaus in particular66—among the urban Indonesian migrants
facilitated the smooth development of this traditional culture into a
modern Indonesian one. Indeed the fact that Malay, acclaimed the
national language, Bahasa Indonesia, by the 1930s, was native to East
Sumatra gave Medan a quite disproportionate role in the development
of the urban national superculture. As Hamka put it:
. . . there eventually developed a new generation which was called anak Deli
[a child of Deli]; and this anak Deli was a bud which blossomed splendidly
in the development of the Indonesian people. The father of an anak Deli
would originate from Mandailing, but his mother was a Minangkabau. The
mother of an anak Deli was a woman from Kedu, and his father a Banjar. . . .
The outlook of this [new] man was free, and his Malay was fluent, having
lost the accents of the place of his ancestors; eventually he made it the founda¬
tion stone in the building of the new Bahasa Indonesia.67
In some respects Medan in the 1930s was the most ‘Indonesian’ city
in Indonesia. Its Indonesian-language publishing industry was second
only to that of Batavia, and sustained some of the leading Indonesian
journalists and writers of the period. Most influential was the daily
Pewarta Deli, professionally edited from 1931 by Djamaluddin Adine-
goro, a Minangkabau and relative of Muhammad Yamin. Adinegoro68
was also the senior Indonesian member of the last Medan gemeenteraad
(municipal council). Under his moderate nationalist editorship the
newspaper had by 1940 a circulation as large as any Indonesian daily
in the country. There were two other dailies in Medan, the radical-
nationalist Sinar Deli and the pro-government Pelita Andalas, as well
as some of the most popular Islamic weeklies in Indonesia.69
THE POLITICAL MOVEMENT
This ‘Indonesian’ character ensured that most significant political

parties and nationalist organizations which arose in Indonesia were
represented in Medan, and that the press of the city vented the growing
number of issues which could be said to be of ‘national’ concern. The
enormous diversity of interests, however, made it very difficult for any
‘Indonesian’ movement to extend from its natural constituency among

the educated urban class, predominately Mandailing and Minangkabau,
to the Malay aristocracy and its subjects, the Karo or Simalungun small
farmers, and the enormous but strictly controlled estate population of
Javanese contract labour.
The first phase of nationalist activity in East Sumatra began in 1918,
the annus mirabilis of progressive politics throughout Indonesia. Sarekat
Islam, ably led by Mohammad Samin, the multi-racial Nationale Indi-
sche Partij (Insulinde), and the radical daily Benih Merdeka (the seed
of freedom), led a vigorous campaign centring around democratic re¬
forms and the economic problems which began to affect the labourer
and peasant with the end of Deli’s reckless open frontier during the
first world war. In September 1920 the Deli railway was brought to a
standstill in an impressively effective strike, which was broken primarily
through the vulnerability of the large percentage of Javanese contract
labourers among the railway workers. Like the estate labourers, they
quickly fell into line when threatened with penal measures for breaking
their contracts to work.70 During 1921 the whole movement began
to decline largely because the courts became tougher in prosecuting
nationalist politicians and journalists.
Marxist ideas had been spreading outward from some Europeans
during this early period, partly through the presence of the still un¬
committed Tan Malaka in 1920-1.71 The communist party, PKI, only
became organized in the region in 1925, however, under Soetan Said
Ali. In November of that year it already organized an embarrassing
strike at the Belawan docks at the moment of a visit by the Governor-
General. Although its primary base was among organized urban labour,
the PKI was the only party to make a real impact among estate labourers,
and it also brought the first modern political ideas to the animist Karo
Bataks, who had remained untouched by Sarekat Islam.72
The 1926-7 revolts in Java and West Sumatra provided the local
authorities all the repressive machinery they needed to crush the party
and any of its successors which became dangerous. The introduction
of preventive detention enabled the police, by purely administrative
decision, to arrest and intern in Boven Digul (New Guinea) all PKI
activists. Among the many interned in 1927-8 was a cell of nine PKI
members in Pematang Siantar under a young Dutch-educated Toba
Batak, Urbanus Pardede, alleged to be planning ‘terrorist’ action among
the estate workers of Simalungun. That ‘the measure of internment
was applied on too broad a scale’ by the tough conservative Van Kempen
was admitted by one of his successors as Governor of East Sumatra.73
Nineteen alleged East Sumatran communists were released from Digul
in 1930, including Urbanus Pardede. A few more prominent ones were
freed in subsequent years: Xarim M. S., a fiery orator and leading

communist in the Aceh region (released in 1932 though not allowed back
into Aceh); his brother-in-law Nathar Zainuddin;74 and the brothers
Nerus and Nolong Ginting Suka, who had been at liberty as leaders
of the Karo PKI as late as 1928.75
In the course of his campaign against the ‘extremists’, Governor Van
Kempen established an enormous machinery of repression even by
contemporary Netherlands Indian standards. In 1926 he created the
Gewestelijk Recherche (provincial research), an intelligence organization
for East Sumatra which had grown by 1930 to include over sixty
permanent officials, in addition to a small army of undercover spies.
Alongside this organization the Governor prompted the two planters’
organizations, DPV and avros, to establish their own intelligence
service to weed out ‘dangerous’ individuals on the estates. Outside East
Sumatra the planters’ intelligence quickly became notorious because
of the way some contract labourers were mishandled by spies. It was
gradually limited to a more strictly intelligence function, but it succeeded
in making political activity impossible on the estates.76 The vulnerability
of the contract labourers to immediate deportation or detention, together
with a very effective ban on outsiders visiting the estates, made them
for the rest of the colonial period a political void sealed off from the
life of the province.
After 1927 political activity was largely restricted to the main towns,
and took on the specific language and goals of Indonesian nationalism.
Mr Iwa Kusama Sumantri, fresh from his experience with the League
against Imperialism in Europe, gave a considerable impetus to this mood
with his Medan law practice, his short-lived newspaper, Matahari
Indonesia, and his promotion of unionism among drivers and government
employees. Within eighteen months he was exiled to Banda Neira.77
Although all East Sumatran organizations were casting themselves in
a more national mould, it was only with Sukarno’s second party, part-
indo (Partai Indonesia), that a strong and popular nationalist party
structure emerged. Two charismatic Mandailings, Abdoel Hamid Loebis
and Mohammad Djoni, drew large crowds to partindo rallies in Medan
and Siantar in the early 1930s.
Before partindo was crippled nationally by the government pro¬
hibition on all its meetings in 1934, it had already suffered heavily in
East Sumatra from the constant arrest of its leaders and a ban on its
activities in Langkat by the kerajaan there. Hamid Loebis was interned
in 1934, and the party was hobbled by impossible restrictions until
it finally gave up the unequal struggle in 1936.78 Its demise gave new
importance to the party of Hatta and Sjahrir, the PNI-6ar«, which was
experienced in the ways of circumventing the ban on meetings. In
general, however, the political movement was effectively suppressed in

the middle 1930s.
A Dutch report for 1935 described succinctly the factors which in¬
hibited the movement in East Sumatra:
a. great diversity of national character, race, and religion, and the very
conflicting economic interests of the population.
b. the prevailing lack of intellectuals and educated leaders, with those
who are here mostly originating from elsewhere. . . .
c. the difficulties of direct contact with the respective central executives
elsewhere [i.e. Java].
d. the conservative autochthonous population has in general little feeling
for political issues.
e. the standpoint taken by the kerajaan with respect to extreme associ¬
ations in particular and against any political expression in general.
f. last not least the stricter Government measures since August 1933,
providing the means for government and police to act forcefully against anti¬
government activities. . . ,79
The fifth of these factors deserves particular attention. Ever since
Van Kempen’s campaign against the PKI it had been realized that the
authority of the five rulers with long contracts over the rights of political
assembly and expression could be used with advantage by the Dutch
regime. The sultans’ dislike for politicians as ‘foreigners’, impertinent
upstarts, and potential rivals was undoubted. Yet the kerajaan would not
and could not take strong steps against politicians without the blessing
of the government. The point was rather that the provincial government
could move more strongly against nationalists through the sultans than
government policy publicly allowed, while at the same time diverting
criticism of this repression towards the kerajaan. The Langkat sultanate
became in 1933 the first area to forbid partindo activitv, while the
attempt of the party to establish a branch in Asahan in 1935 ‘was
wrecked without difficulty through the agency of the kerajaan’.80 That
this policy had the effect of increasing antagonism between the nation¬
alist parties and the kerajaan was no particular cause for regret on the
part of the Dutch government. It was one of the demands of even the
moderate nationalists that authority over the right of political association
be withdrawn from the five big sultanates to the more predictable central
government.81 As far as politicians were concerned, the political re¬
pression practised by the kerajaan was a more frequent and genuine
source of dissatisfaction than its extravagance or its anachronism.
As in other parts of Indonesia, the unfavourable climate for political
activity in the 1930s directed nationalists of various persuasions into
broader social activity. Banks, insurance companies, and co-operatives
of various sorts were founded on a self-reliant ‘national’ base, excluding
the economically dominant Europeans and Chinese. In particular there
was a feverish expansion of educational facilities. Despite the relative

wealth and social and geographic mobility in East Sumatra, which
created a high demand for education, only 22.41 boys and 7.52 girls
were in government elementary schools for each 1,000 of the Indonesian
population in 1934-5, fewer than in Java and much fewer than in Aceh.82
The earliest Dutch-medium schools had been the ‘Deli-school’, ‘Lang-
kat-school’, ‘Serdang-school’, and ‘Asahan-school’ established from
1904 for the Malay aristocracy and a few favoured children of higher
government officials. In 1916 these were converted into Dutch-Native
schools (H.I.S.) and gradually extended to a slightly wider section of the
Indonesian elite, while four additional government H.I.S. were opened.
By the late 1930s, however, the majority of those obtaining the much-
desired European education in Dutch were attending private schools
established by a variety of national organizations.
Budi Utomo had been one of the earliest organizations in this field,
operating a number of schools for Javanese labourers and migrants.
With the growth of national feeling several of these were transferred
to Taman Siswa, which opened its first Sumatran branch in Medan
in 1929. Despite its Javanese origins and leadership (under Sugondo
Kartoprodjo83 from 1934) Taman Siswa sought with some success to
strike local roots while representing a national aspiration. By the late
1930s it had an extensive network of primary and intermediate schools
teaching Indonesian, Dutch, and English throughout East Sumatra.
The number of local revolutionary leaders it produced was a fair tribute
to its aim of ‘building a man who is free in his thought, free in his ac¬
tivity, a free man through and through’.84
At least in the towns outside the control of the kerajaan, Muhamma-
diah built up a still more impressive organization. Introduced in 1927,
it developed not only a large number of Dutch and Indonesian-medium
schools and teachers’ colleges, but also important organizations for
women (Aisjah), scouts (Hizbul Wathan—already the most important
scouting group in the province in 1933 with 400 members in ten
branches), and youth (Pemuda Muhammadiah). The movement showed
its strength during its twenty-eighth national Congress, held in Medan
in 1939, when public meetings drew between 2,000 and 5,000 people
every night for a week.85 Despite the undoubted nationalist orientation
of its urban, educated membership, Muhammadiah set out very delib¬
erately to be ‘non-political’ and avoid conflicts with the authorities.
With the colonial government it succeeded, apart from periodic excesses
by its youth branches. The kerajaan, however, never ceased to regard
the movement with hostility. In religious matters the Malay rajas had
nominally supreme authority, and they stood ‘unconditionally and
without exception on the side of the kaum tua’8e—the conservative
tradition of Islam as long practised in the Malay world. Part of their

objection rested on Muhammadiah’s acceptance of the ideas of the
Egyptian reformers Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida, in particular
its alleged readiness to use precedents from all the four orthodox schools
of Muslim law, rather than adhering exclusively to the Shafi’ school
long dominant in South-East Asia. Part was simply the challenge which
Muhammadiah posed as a strong national organization to the exclusive
control of religious affairs by the rulers and their kadhi. Conflicts arose
over the date of celebrating the end of the fasting month, over religious
texts for use in schools, over which ulama were permitted to teach and
preach under kerajaan jurisdiction, and which could officiate at mar¬
riages. Inevitably the high proportion of Minangkabaus in the leadership
of Muhammadiah was also held against it. In most of the long-contract
states it was impossible for Muhammadiah to open schools or to hold
public tabligh.
The antagonism between Muhammadiah and the kaum tua was at
its most intense in the late 1920s and early 1930s. It was partly in reaction
to what were seen as the divisive qualities of Muhammadiah that more
traditional teachers and ex-students of Medan’s leading religious school,
the Maktab Islamiyah Tapanuli, established the Jamiatul Wasliyah
in the city in 1930. Mandailing ulama dominated the leadership of the
new group, but many of them were thoroughly assimilated into the
East Sumatran milieu, like Serdang-born H. A. R. Sjihab, who led the
movement from 1933. With sympathy from the rulers, particularly the
sultan of Deli, it expanded very rapidly. Initially it simply co-ordinated
and extended the traditional village kuranic schools of East Sumatra
and Tapanuli, but soon became involved in missionary work among
animistic Bataks. Younger and better educated men were attracted to
its leadership, and some of its schools began to add modern subjects
including Dutch and English. By 1941 it was by far the biggest religious
organization in East Sumatra, with 12,500 pupils in the 242 schools
and madrasah under its auspices.87
Despite its traditional beginnings and predominantly rural support,
the very success of Jamiatul Wasliyah as an organization of national
type gave it common interests with Muhammadiah. The latter organiza¬
tion was in turn playing down divisive issues in the late 1930s, and
joined Wasliyah in attacking the heterodox Ahmadiah movement.88 By
the end of the Dutch period the leaders of these large Islamic organiza¬
tions could see themselves as legitimate spokesmen for Islam in East
Sumatra, whose purposes were frequently impeded by the conservative
legal apparatus of the kerajaan. Significant of the mood was the es¬
tablishment of Ichwanus Safa Indonesia in 1939, as ‘an association of
intellectuals and ulama in Medan’. It brought the leaders of both
Wasliyah. and Muhammadiah into dialogue with Dutch-educated

journalists and officials of nationalist orientation. Chairman of the group
was a young Acehnese lawyer employed in the office of the Governor of
Sumatra, Mr T. M. Hasan. When in 1941 the third Indonesian Islamic
Congress entrusted Wasliyah with the establishment of an all-Indonesian
missionary headquarters, the existence of the I.S.I. made it easy for
H. A. R. Sjihab to construct a broadly-based committee with only the
kerajaan unrepresented.89
The quiet appearance of Indonesian political life in the 1930s was
an illusion, created primarily by the rigorous police controls. The na¬
tional movement, the pergerakan, was in reality developing rapidly in
breadth and depth during this period, while Dutch policies were alienat¬
ing it relentlessly from the kerajaan. The pergerakan, in its many forms,
was increasingly representing the more modern, urban, and educated
sections of the Indonesian community, while the Malay sultans were
adopting a more and more defensive position based on the unquestioning
loyalty of their immediate Malay subjects. Signs of the representative
character of pergerakan leaders were not wanting, even if they were
invariably ignored by Dutch officials. The principal Indonesian-lan-
guage periodicals were almost unanimous in their sympathy for the
national movement in general terms. The tiny elite of Indonesians in
East Sumatra qualified to vote for the municipal councils regularly
elected recognizable pergerakan figures to these bodies. Even if some of
them were too mindful of their positions to associate openly with political
parties, they took a united position in December 1939, braving Dutch
scorn to begin using Indonesian rather than Dutch in the Medan council
meeting.90 The still smaller elite of twenty-one East Sumatran electors
to the Volksraad, in Batavia, regularly elected one of the most radical
nationalists in that body, Maharadja Soangkoepon,91 to represent them.
In 1939, when the Malay aristocracy made a bid to replace him with
one of themselves, they lost by 8 votes to 11,92 The abstention of the
majority of the Islamic movement from politics was tactical, but there
could be little doubt that the members, and especially the younger mem¬
bers, of Muhammadiah and even Wasliyah saw themselves engaged in
a great national renewal.
In the late 1930s the pergerakan in East Sumatra again found an
opportunity to express itself politically, primarily through gerindo
and parindra. That two nationalist parties rather than one were
required was again largely a consequence of Dutch repression. Govern¬
ment officials were not permitted to join political organizations of a
radical populist kind, such as partindo and later gerindo. Since few
other avenues of employment were open to Indonesians with secondary
or tertiary education, there developed in practice a marked occupa-
tional distinction between the small number of government officials

and professional men in the relatively moderate parindra, and the
much larger partindo-GERINDO mainstream, parindra (Partai Indonesia
Raya) was established in 1935 by a fusion of Budi Utomo and Dr
Sutomo’s study club, but its East Sumatra branch attracted such
diverse elements as Sjahrir’s elder brother St. Noer Alamsjah, and
two young radicals who were later prominent in the PKI, S. M.
Tarigan and Mr Luat Siregar. The core leaders in the years immediately
before the Japanese occupation, however, were a doctor at the city
hospital, R. M. Pirngadi, and the Taman Siswa leader Sugondo. The
total membership of the party probably did not exceed 100 in East
Sumatra, but it achieved some influence on youth through Sugondo’s
pupils and KBI scouts, and after 1938 through its own scouting organ¬
ization, Surya Wirawan. When a giant like the party’s national leader,
M. H. Thamrin, visited Medan (November 1939), it could draw a crowd
of thousands.
gerindo (Gerakan Rakyat Indonesia) was established nationally in
1937 on the principle that the common front against fascism justified
Marxist-inclined nationalists in co-operating tactically with the govern¬
ment. In East Sumatra it was immediately embraced as an opportunity
for the radical-nationalist former members of partindo to organize
again in the hope of less repressive government treatment. Of the three
major partindo figures, Abdoel Hamid Loebis was in Digul and
Djauhari Salim in a mental asylum in 1937. The third, Mohammad
Djoni,93 became the principal propagandist for the new party. He and
the other provincial leaders who emerged from a younger partindo
generation—Jacub Siregar,94 Mohammad Saleh Oemar (Surapati),95
and Adnan Nur Lubis—made a tenuous living as journalist/politicians
and occasional agents in legal cases. In the big city branches of Medan
and Siantar the executive members appear to have been primarily small
traders, craftsmen, tailors, or clerks in Chinese and Indonesian firms.
The party also established active branches in such smaller towns as
Binjai, Arnhemia, and Tanah Jawa (all 1938); Kisaran and Sunggal
(1939); Tanjung Balai and Kabanjahe (1940). In at least three of these
simple farmers were a major element in the leadership: Karos of the Deli
dusun in Arnhemia and Sunggal, and Toba migrant farmers in Tanah
Jawa. From its formation until the Japanese occupation gerindo was
the largest and most effective political party in East Sumatra. All of
the branches mentioned could hold regular members’ political ‘courses’
several times a month, and up to 1,500 attended the public rallies the
party held in Medan cinemas. The paid-up membership for the whole
province at any one time, however, does not appear to have exceeded
300.96
T he East Sumatran branch reflected the same nationalist militance

as its partindo predecessor, and repeatedly urged the gerindo
headquarters in Batavia to abandon its co-operative stance. For its part,
the Gewestelijk Recherche had refound its principal antagonist and
wasted no time in imposing as many restrictions as legally possible.
Djoni was prevented from speaking when he mentioned the struggle
for freedom in gerindo’s first public rally in Medan, and the Resident
of East Sumatra immediately asked Batavia for power to silence
him permanently.97 Since government policy was still relatively mild
towards gerindo, however, the local authorities were allowed only
to ban Djoni from attendance at all political meetings for a three-month
period from September 1938, and Djoni and Adnan Nur Lubis for
another three months from April 1939. Meanwhile, in December 1938,
the East Sumatra police received government permission to attend
all meetings of gerindo. Covert spies of the Gewestelijk Recherche
had already reported on all meetings, even the courses restricted to
members only, but they had not been able to interfere. Henceforth
speakers even at closed meetings were stopped as soon as they began to
refer indirectly to the subject of freedom, or to imply that the economic
and social poverty of Indonesians was related to colonialism.98 gerindo
meetings quickly developed into bland educational affairs, occasionally
punctuated by these frustrating games with the police.
The local government continued to demand the internment of Djoni,
the ‘driving force’ of gerindo and by far its most popular speaker.99
Batavia preferred to work through the gerindo central executive,
however, threatening it with restrictions on the whole party if it proved
unable to control its unruly East Sumatran branch. The party secretary,
Tabarani Notosoedirdjo, was duly sent to tame the branch in Medan
in June 1939. What this meant in practice was to re-arrange the local
power structure so as to minimize, and finally exclude, the influence
of Djoni. By August, Jacub Siregar, younger, MULO-educated, and more
sophisticated in dealing with the Dutch, had been appointed commissaris
of gerindo for East Sumatra. The following month Djoni resigned
and began to construct a rival branch of parpindo, the party of Mr
Muhammad Yamin, who had himself been expelled from the central
executive of gerindo.100
That there was more to gerindo than Djoni’s charismatic oratory
was demonstrated by the continued steady expansion of the party
until May 1940, when all public political meetings were forbidden by
the army commander in East Sumatra. Djoni’s parpindo flourished
briefly when Yamin visited Medan in January 1940, but the mercurial
Minangkabau did not succeed in enrolling even his influential half-
brother Adinegoro. Djoni attracted no significant leaders to his party,
although militant branches were established in Medan and Siantar.

gerindo continued to represent the mainstream of radical nationalism
in the province, and parpindo its flamboyant vanguard, locked in
continual battle with the police. Djoni was finally arrested and in¬
terned in June 1940, and four other leaders of his party were barred
from all political activity for various periods between March and July
1941.101
PERSATUAN SUMATERA TIMUR
Eventually the growing breadth and strength of the national move¬

ment had to affect even the Malay population of East Sumatra, either
by attraction or repulsion. Until the late 1930s it had appeared that
the Malay aristocracy, to whom post-primary education had been vir¬
tually limited, accepted the general premise that Malay problems should
be resolved through traditional palace channels. So dominant were the
rulers within Malay society that it was extremely difficult for any high¬
born Malay, however sympathetic with nationalism as a young student,
to place himself outside the court circle.
The first evidence of change came from a small group of Dutch-
educated Malay commoners in Medan, who established the Persatuan
Sumatera Timur (East Sumatra Association), or PST, in April 1938.
The two leading figures, Abdoel Wahab and Zahari, were school-teach¬
ers acutely aware of the relative backwardness of the three ‘autochthon¬
ous’ ethnic groups of East Sumatra in education, and hence in every
other sphere. One specific reason for their concern appears to have
been the growing proportion of less assimilable Toba Batak Christians
among the steady influx of school-teachers and officials to fill positions
in East Sumatra for which there were no qualified locals. Zahari ex¬
plained the reasons for founding the association:
When we look outside our residency and see the rapid progress of our
brothers from other residencies, we begin to realise that we sons of East
Sumatra have really been left behind in everything, but especially in education
and economy. . . . That being so, we will be little respected by anyone. Just
look at the situation of the sons of East Sumatra now in every field! Backward
and left behind by the foreigners. In government offices, in agriculture, in
commerce, etc. Let us not be jealous; let us not be resentful. Let us not blame
them or anybody else, but accept that the fault lies at our own door. Why
do we continue to sleep ? Why do we not pull ourselves together and put our
own house in order?102
The organization made rapid progress in its first few months, pri¬
marily amongst Malay, Karo, and Simalungun commoners in the towns,
resentful of the dominant position of ‘foreigners’ there. It quickly ran
into two types of problem howev< r. The first was the difficulty of defin¬
ing who was an anak Sumatera Timur (son of East Sumatra) entitled
to membership. An elaborate compromise was eventually worked out,
whereby all who regarded East Sumatra as home for themselves and
their children were entitled to various junior ranks of membership
(groups B, C, and D), whereas group A members were defined as those
whose ancestors had already come to reside in the area before it was
opened to Western plantations in the 1860s.103 This formula ended
neither internal wrangling nor criticism from outside that the organiza¬
tion was ‘directed against other ethnic groups’.104
The other problem, which the PST shared with the persatuan being
established for similar reasons by Malayan Malays, was the traditional
loyalty and deference of Malays to their rulers. When the early common¬
er leadership complained of the ‘obstacles’ to the further development
of the PST, and the resistance of those who ‘feared the PST was a
radical or leftist organization’; when they pleaded for co-operation from
the rajas, they testified to the birth-pains of a totally new concept of
power within Malay society.105 Much as the PST professed its loyalty
and its non-political character, in the eyes of the rulers it necessarily
represented a challenge to their leadership, especially when led by urban
commoners. The aristocracy held aloof, while much of the early support
came from already de-traditionalized migrants to the city. The first
branch formed in Medan had a Karo GERiNDO-member as its secretary.
The branch executive resigned en masse in October 1938, after an
irreconcilable conflict with the main leadership. Mohammad Saidt, a
prominent journalist who had been expelled from parindra’s executive
for helping to found the PST, also dropped out as the other leaders
continued to woo the Malay elite with a cautious policy emphasizing
ethnic interests.106
This policy had its reward at the PST’s first major conference in
February 1940, where the Malay establishment demonstrated dramati¬
cally its change of heart. The crown princes of Deli and Serdang graced
the reception, and the leading ‘intellectual’ aristocrats offered themselves
for the leadership. Dr Tengku Mansur,107 uncle of the Sultan of Asahan,
was elected chairman, and Mr Tengku Bahrioen of Deli secretary, while
the original commoner leaders became junior members of the executive.
The rapid expansion of the PST was assured. The better-educated
aristocrats in each region formed branches, including the two leading
Simalungun ‘intellectuals’, Madja Poerba and Mr Djaidin Poerba, in
the Siantar branch. By 1941 the PST had over 900 members all over
the province. The cost of this success was the conservatism to which
the PST became committed, once it represented within itself a social
hierarchy little different from that of Malay society as a whole. The
changes it implied were of fundamental importance in extending

a sense of identity from the particular statelet or ethnic group to the
whole residency; in establishing a more able and educated group of
aristocrats as potential leaders; in showing ‘for the first time interest . . .
in royal circles for an association set up for and by the people .108
Under Dr Mansur the association nevertheless diverged irreconcilably
from the national movement as a whole, not only by its parochial
emphasis but also by its caution; its sense of hierarchy; its
pro-Government stance; its exclusivism. In relation to the pergerakan
as a whole it was ‘like a drugged man, never making his voice heard;
without strength to face any new issue, still simply content with his
shortcomings’.109
THE LAND ISSUE, 1938-1941
As a general rule the factors outlined above limited the membership

of modern political movements to the towns. The 1930s, however,
marked an increasing period of uncertainty for farmers of the tobacco
area (Deli-Serdang-Langkat), which eventually provided the rudiments
of an important rural base for the parties.
The willingness of the tobacco estates to offer prepared jaluran fields
to all those with some sort of claim on the land already began to weaken
during the 1920s for the reasons explained above. In earlier years any¬
body with a house in the affected village might expect a jaluran. By
the late 1920s a practice had developed in the Karo areas of Deli of
giving only a half jaluran to recent migrants from the Karo plateau.
Dutch officials were also critical of the jaluran practice, both because
it inhibited the development of more productive sawah (wet-rice) agri¬
culture, necessary to make the province more self-sufficient in rice,
and because it was thought to encourage laziness and lack of initiative
on the part of the recipients.110
The first commission was established in 1929 to seek a permanent
solution to the conflicts which increasingly arose each year when the
harvested tobacco fields were distributed. The commission became
enmeshed in broader problems, however, while the issue was exacer¬
bated by the effects of the depression after 1930. The tobacco estates
reduced the area planted, and hence the area available for jaluran, while
at the same time more people were thrown back on agriculture by the
disappearance of casual labouring jobs. In 1932 a much closer official
investigation was made to distinguish those fully entitled to land alloca¬
tions on the grounds that their ancestors were there at the time of the
original concession (group A), from those who had moved in later and
were therefore regarded as having only a half-entitlement (group B).
It proved necessary to cut down on jaluran as perquisites to the Malay

chiefs, and to reduce the size of each jaluran from the previous norm
of 6000 sq. metres (0.6 hectare).111
Despite the hardship these measures imposed, they appear to have
aroused little protest. One reason was undoubtedly the mood of crisis
requiring sacrifice all around. The other was that the reduced interest
of the estates in planting made it possible to allocate other land, in
lieu of jaluran, to those who had the energy to clear it.
As the acreage planted by estates again increased after 1934, planters
demonstrated an increasing impatience with the whole system of jaluran.
It was not difficult to foresee a time when it would greatly restrict their
freedom of using the concession land. Some scientific opinion argued
that it was unsafe to allow any cultivation save the carefully controlled
tobacco-planting on the precious soil. An opportunity to abandon the
system was presented by the plans being drawn up in the 1930s to convert
the estate concessions, the earliest of which had already expired in 1931,
into erfpacht (long-term leases). The insistence of the sultans, and more
importantly of Governor Van Suchtelin (1933-6), that the population
could not survive the total abolition of jaluran, held up this impetus
for a time. Under a new Governor, however, a scheme for erfpacht
giving the estates full control of their land without jaluran took solid
shape in a report of late 1937.
The original concession agreements had obliged the estates to provide
for the inhabitants an area immediately surrounding each village, plus
at least 4 bahu (2.8 hectares) of land for each cultivator on a shifting
basis. The tendency of some farmers in the depression to insist on this
right because of the reduced size of jaluran was another reason for the
estates to seek to limit the demands upon them. In the 1937 report,
therefore, it was proposed to give each fully-entitled cultivator (group
A) his 4 bahu, but on a permanent rather than a shifting basis. Group
B farmers would receive 2 bahu in compensation for the jaluran they
had been enjoying for years. Although not all estates were willing to
surrender sufficient land to make this possible, larger slices would be
taken from the big concessions. Between 16 and 20 per cent of the
concession area was to be alienated in this way, which was calculated
as more than enough for the 7,944 householders reckoned to belong
to group A and 7,854 to group B in Deli, Serdang, and Langkat.112
When this scheme became a matter of public discussion during 1938
it naturally aroused anxiety among the farmers of the region. The land
to be alienated was decided rather at the convenience of the estates
than the villagers, and many of the lots were at a considerable distance
from the homes of those to receive them. Some of those who had received
jaluran in the past were excluded in the more rigorous investigation
for these permanent allocations .Most important, despite the Governor s

doubt whether the Malay farmer had sufficient initiative left in him
to cultivate so large an area, 4 bahu was too small an area to cultivate
by the old slash-and-burn methods. To allow so small a plot, let alone
half that amount, presupposed a more intensive land use than was
traditional in East Sumatra, in areas for the most part difficult to irrigate.
It was the Karos of the Deli dusun who resisted these moves most
actively. They were much more strongly attached to agriculture than
the Malays, most of whom were expected to rent or sell their plots
to Chinese and Javanese as they had done in the past. Moreover the
corporate nature of the Karo hamlet and village units provided a natural
basis of organization independent of the kerajaan hierarchy. As had
happened in the past, Karo disaffection appeared to be most intense in
the Sunggal region, now known officially as the Serbanyaman urung of
the Deli sultanate.113
The first evidence of this unrest occurred in early 1936, when a
village headman in Serbanyaman was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment
for having incited his fellow Karos to cease paying tax and performing
herendienst.lu Much more serious was the dissatisfaction when jaluran
were distributed in May 1938 on the basis of the new registration of
entitlements. About 600 Karo farmers from the dusun formed a deputa¬
tion to complain to the Sultan of Deli. The two major political parties
had already begun to emphasize the threat which the new erfpacht or¬
dinance posed to farmers, with Jacub Siregar the most active spokesman
for gerindo and Mr Luat Siregar for parindra.115 This evidence
of massive Karo dissatisfaction provided a rare chance for gerindo
to reach the masses. Mohammad Djoni immediately took up the land
issue, attacking the Sultan of Deli in a strong speech at Siantar before
being stopped by the police. He promised to raise the difficulties of
the farmers of the plantation area with authorities in Batavia. In June
the party established a branch in Arnhemia, the only sizeable town in
upper Deli, with a couple of Karos in the executive. The response
exceeded their expectations. Ten Karos from the dusun journeyed to
the gerindo clubhouse in Medan the same month, to ask help in
making their grievances heard. The result was the immediate formation
of Sarikat Tani Indonesia (Indonesian farmers union), or setia, under a
former village headman and partindo member, Minta Karo-Karo.116
setia expanded very quickly, with branches holding regular meet¬
ings at several villages. It was exclusively an organization of Karo
farmers of the Deli dusun, seeking a common solution to the jaluran
question and other agricultural issues. As a non-political organization
it enjoyed more freedom than gerindo, though the ever-present spies
of the Gewestelijk Recherche believed it to be completely under the
influence of that party. Before long the administration of the Deli sultan¬
ate was brought into play against the growing strength of the movement.
Four penghulu (village headmen) resigned from setia in September 1938
after warnings from their superiors, though professing to their comrades
that they would nevertheless ‘remain loyal supporters of setia in their
hearts’.117 Three months later two village leaders who had not withdrawn
were dismissed from their posts. Tengku Otteman, the crown prince of
Deli, warned his Karo subjects in Sibolangit against the movement,
urging them to bring their complaints to the ‘proper authorities’. In
the same month (December), the secretary and vice-president were
imprisoned for two weeks for embezzling some setia funds, although
their followers naturally regarded them as political martyrs.118
Faced with this pressure the setia leaders attempted to place more
emphasis on co-operative buying of fertilizers and selling of crops. The
demand for land was not forgotten, however, even if it had to be pursued
in different ways. In Medan Mohammad Djoni tried to make up the
ground he had lost in leaving gerindo by floating a grandiose Comite
Pencegah Kelaparan (committee to prevent starvation), to register all
land requirements and demand appropriate grants by the estates.119
The Karos appear to have begun to organize more quietly and effec¬
tively. According to a Japanese police report on the aron disturbances
of 1942,120 setia responded to government repression by:
. . . gradually transforming itself into an underground movement resembling

a secret society, and forcing the inhabitants to enter the movement. Those
who refused to enter the movement were beaten or killed. Members of this
aron party undertook:
1. to keep the secrets of the aron;
2. to pass on quickly any information obtained by members;
3. to fight bravely against any officials who came to the place where mem¬
bers were working [land illegally];
4. to sentence to death members who betrayed the secrets of the aron... .
Thus the aron party organized about 2,000 inhabitants of 331 villages in
Arnhemia [i.e. Upper Deli] district, and established one large secret society.
An aron in Karo society is a group of less than ten men who jointly
plough and harvest their fields, so that the ‘secret society’ could only have
acquired this name when it reached the stage of cultivating land illegally.
Some such illegal cultivation may have been allowed in 1940-1, as this
coincided with government wartime policy of emphasizing subsistence
rather than export agriculture. The violent phase of the movement
probably began only as Dutch authority was collapsing in 1942. Never¬
theless the scale of the disturbances which broke out when the Dutch
regime had departed show that in East Sumatra, as in Aceh, there were
acute areas of tension beneath the calm surface of the colonial regime.
1. Tan Malaka, Dari Pendjara ke Pendjara, vol. I (Jakarta, Widjaya, n.d.),

pp. 48-9, and p. 47.
2. The first careful estimate of the population of the Deli Sultanate, in 1876,
listed 11,963 Malays, 20,060 (Karo) Bataks, and 4,543 Chinese and others;
E. A. Halewijn, ‘Geographische en Ethnographische gegevens betreffende
het Rijk van Deli’, TBG, 23 (1876), pp. 147-58. Most estimates for the
whole East Sumatran population prior to 1880 are under 150,000.
3. Ladislao Szekely, Tropic Fever. The adventures of a planter in Sumatra, trans.

Marion Saunders (London, Hamish Hamilton, n.d.), p. 8. This autobio¬
graphical sketch is set in the period 1910—14. Cf. Tan Malaka I, p. 51: With
a white skin, a big stick, a few words of market Malay and thirteen godver-
dommes, they could get all the knowledge and experience from the chief
mandur (foreman).’
4. ‘The first thing I learned in Sumatra was that there are two kinds of people
in the world: white and coloured. The white man is the master, master
and ruler in the strict sense of the word.’ Szekely, p. 45.
5. Willem Brandt, De Aarde van Deli (’s-Gravenhage, Van Hoeve, 1948).

Brandt’s warmly sentimental picture of the Deliaan is a contrast and to some
extent a response to the more detached and critical picture in the novels
of a number of non-Dutch or women writers, notably Annie Salomons,
Mevr. Szekely-Lulofs and her husband L. Szekely, and Tscherming
Peterson. The Dutch literature of Deli is discussed in Lily Clerkx, Mensen
in Deli (Amsterdam, stencil, 1961); and Rob Nieuwenhuys, Oost-Indische
Spiegel (Amsterdam, Querido, 1973), pp. 346-52.
6. Tan Malaka, I, p. 51. Tan Malaka, fresh from a teachers’ college in Holland,
was employed by the progressive director of the Senembah Company, Dr
Janssen, to teach in an experimental school for the children of plantation
workers at Tanjung Morawa, between December 1919 and June 1921. Des¬
pite the unusually privileged working conditions Dr Janssen intended for
him, Tan Malaka was radicalized by the climate of Deli, like many another
Indonesian intellectual.
7. Oostkust van Sumatra [OvS] Instituut, Kroniek 1929 (Amsterdam, 1930),

pp. 43-8.
8. Ibid., 1929, pp. 35-6; 1930, pp. 38-9. Dr H. C. van Rooyen, the propagan¬
dist at the heart of the 1929 hysteria, did not retain his leadership of the
Vaderlandsche Club as it became more respectable. In 1930 he had to
defend a libel suit for an offensive attack on the head of the Labour Office.
9. Despite having only sixty paid-up members, the Medan N.S.B. Branch
was active enough to produce a militant monthly, Hou Zee, in 1934-5.
OvS Instituut, Kroniek, 1934, pp. 63-5; 1935, pp. 63-4; 1938, p. 65. Politiek
Verslag SOK 1934, p. 4; 1935, 1938, pp. 3-4; in Mailr. 602x/35, 308x/36,
and 384x/39 respectively. J. M. Pluvier, Overzicht van de Ontwikkeling der
Nationalistische Beiceging in Indonesie, in de jaren 1930 tot 1942 (The
Hague, Van Hoeve, 1953), p. 40.
10. The image is that of Charles Robequain, Malaya, Indonesia, Borneo and
the Philippines (London, Longman, 1958), p. 334.
11. Anthony Reid, ‘Early Chinese Migration into North Sumatra’, in Studies
in the Social History of China and Southeast Asia, ed. J. Ch’en and N. Tar-
ling (Cambridge, 1970), pp. 289-320.
12. The figures up to 1916 are from the Koloniaal Verslag, and thereafter
from the annual Kroniek of the OvS Instituut.
13. Verslag van de Economischen Toestand der Indische Bevolking, 1924, II,
pp. 214-24. See also A. D. A. de Kat Angelino, Colonial Policy (The Hague
Nijhoff, 1931), II, p. 557.
14. The intense debate over the penal sanction for Deli labour is well covered
in De Kat Angelino, II, pp. 497—578; and J. H. Boeke, The Structure of
the Netherlands Indian Economy (New York, 1942), pp. 142-51.
15. From annual Kroniek of OvS Instituut.
16. Ibid. The Kroniek for 1929, pp. 48—51, and 1930, pp. 59—60, provide more
detailed figures for the most violent year, 1929: 36 attacks (2 deaths) and 19
threats against Europeans by Javanese workers; 4 attacks and 8 threats against
Europeans by Chinese workers; 14 attacks (1 death) and 2 threats against
mandur by Javanese workers; 15 attacks (1 death) and 3 threats against
tandil by Chinese workers; and 1 fatal attack by a Batak on a Javanese mandur.
17. See especially Bouwes Bavinck to Governor-General, 9 October 1937,

PP- 59—67, Mailr. 67x/39; and other correspondence collected in Verbaal,
1 June 1939, no. 14. The Sultan of Deli made clear that he wished the
erfpacht question speedily resolved so that he could enjoy the large initial
persen tanah before resigning the throne to his son. Geheime MvO SOK,
Ezerman, 1933, p. 58, Mailr. 886x/33; and Geheime MvO SOK, Bouwes
Bavinck, 1938, p. 12, Mailr. 538x/39.
18. Bouwes Bavinck to Director B.B., 20 June 1938, Mailr. 534x/39. An earlier
and more indulgent Governor described with apparent approval how the
Senembah Company had built a fine stone house for the Tengku Bendahara
Temenggong of Serdang, who was thereby ‘eliminated’ as an opponent
in negotiations over the terms for the erfpacht. Two Datuks had received
similar gifts not long before ‘whereby they were morally obligated to take
a fair standpoint towards the Company—which in general co-operates well
with European officials’. Geheime MvO SOK, Ezerman, 1933, pp. 12—13,
Mailr. 886x/33.
19. These figures are derived from the Koloniaal Verslag for 1916 and 1930
respectively.
20. Tuanku Machmoed Abdoel Djalil Rachmat Sjah was born in 1893 and
came to the Langkat throne on the death of his forceful and respected
father Abdul Aziz in 1927. His wealth and the organization of his state isolated
him more from his datuks than was the case in other states. Machmoed
quickly became morbid and suspicious to the point of paranoia, and believed
some of his relatives were attempting to poison him. Partly for this reason
he employed the psychiatrist and litterateur Dr Amir as private doctor
from 1937. He died in April 1948, two years after losing his throne in the
‘social revolution’.
21. Appendices 12-14 in MvO SOK, Ezerman, 1933, Mailr. 929x/33.
22. MvO Serdang, Gerritson, 1938, p. 43, Tropen.
23. Ibid., p. 74.
24. Bouwes Bavinck to Governor-General, 9 October 1937, p. 13, Mailr. 67x/34;

MvO SOK, Ezeiman, 1933, pp. 216-17, Mailr. 929x/33.
25. Verslag van den Economischen Toestand der Inlandsche Bevolking, 1924, II,
pp. 212-13.
76 the blood of the people
26. The fullest description of the administration of the Karo dusun is a 1932
note by the controleur of Boven Deli, W. B. Holleman, published in Adat-
rechtbundels XXXVIII, 1936, pp. 369-94.
27. MvO Boven Serdang, J. de Ridder, 1924, pp. 20-3, Tropen.
28. J. de Ridder, De invloed van de Westersche Cultures op de Autochthone

Bevolking ter Oostkust van Sumatra (Wageningen, Veenman, 1935), p. 93.
29. These tensions were at their worst in 1930, when the Siak Sultan attempted
to assert his formal precedence during his negotiations to marry a relative
of the Sultan of Langkat. The latter responded by boycotting the entire
wedding, to the extent of cutting the electricity supply to the reception.
Straits Times, 1 February 1930.
30. Verslag van den Economischen Toestand. . . 1924, II, pp. 212—13.
31. Compare Peranan Keradjaan Siak dalam Sedjarah Nasional Indonesia
(stencil, Universitas Riau, 1970) pp. 20—1 and 31—4, with Geheime MvO
SOK, Ezerman, 1933, pp. 98-102, Mailr. 886x/33.
32. In 1924 there were fifteen exporters in the district with incomes in excess
of f.1,000; Verslag van den Economischen Toestand . . . 1924, II, p. 213.
33. Paul Pederson, Batak Blood and Protestant Soul (Grand Rapids, 1970)’
p. 120. H. H. Bartlett, The Labors of the Datoe, Michigan Papers on South
and Southeast Asia no. 5 (1973), pp. 317-25, has a sensitive treatment of
the Malay/Batak language boundary.
34. Sultan Saiboen was born in 1908, and was acknowledged as successor on
the death of his grandfather Sultan Hoesin of Asahan in 1915. Until 1933
Asahan was governed (very efficiently in Dutch eyes) by a regent, Saiboen’s
uncle Tengku Alang Jahja. Although well educated in Batavia schools,
Saiboen was easy-going and genial, more of a sportsman than a politician.
Even after assuming the throne he remained under the influence of his
able uncles—first Tengku Musa and later Dr Mansur, both of them
westernized Malays with Dutch wives but conservative temperaments.
35. MvO Asahan, Boterhaven de Haan, p. 28, Tropen.
36. Money was one measure and weapon in this process. Deli had been the
most successful at absorbing under Dutch aegis rulers who had been
autonomous or independent in the nineteenth century, like the rajas of
Padang and Bedagai, and the datuks of Hamperan Perak and Sunggal.
Under the Dutch Deli was still regarded as having a more collegial and
diffuse power structure, though the sultan’s income by 1931 was four times
that of his wealthiest chief (Bedagai earned f.41,350). The sultans of
Serdang and Langkat earned four or five times as much as all subordinate
chiefs combined. Appendices 12-14 in MvO SOK, Ezerman, 1933, Mailr.
929x/33.
37. Geheime MvO SOK, Ezerman, 1933, pp. 11-15, Mailr. 886x/33. Tengku
is the most common title for Malay nobility. Unlike the Aceh dynasty,
only the ruler bore the title Tuanku.
38. The debts and other problems of the rulers were the principal concern
of the geheime (secret) Memories van Overgave of Governors Ezerman and
Van Suchtelin, and Resident Bouwes Bavinck, and are discussed in detail
there. The extravagant ‘Sodom and Gomorrah’ life-style which the younger
Malay aristocrats were reputed to lead in Medan at this period is luridly
suggested in M. O. Parlindungan, Tuanku Rao (Jakarta, 1946), pp. 534-54.
39. Herinneringen vanjhr. Mr B. C. dejonge, ed. S. L. van der Wal (Groningen,
1968), pp. 172-3. Geheime MvO SOK, Ezerman, 1933, pp. 30-1, Mailr.
886x/33.
40. Geheime MvO SOK, Ezerman, 1933, pp. 2 and 15, Mailr. 886x/33.
41. Ibid., p. 71.
42. Geheime MvO SOK, Van Suchtelin, 1936, pp. 1—3, and Bouwes Bavinck,
1938, pp. 1—5. Mailr. 251 x/36 & 538x/30 respectively.
43. Geheime MvO, Ezerman, 1933, pp. 18-19.
44. Geheime MvO SOK, Bouwes Bavinck, 1938, p. 5.
45. Dutch indignation with him on the corvee and erfpaclit questions, among
others, are in MvO Serdang, de Ridder, 1924, pp. 19-20; and Geheime
MvO SOK, Ezerman, 1933, pp. 5—10, 22—3 and 42. Sultan Soeleiman
Sjarifoel Alamsjah was born in 1861 and came to the throne as a minor
in 1880. He signed the Acte van Verband with the Dutch and ruled person¬
ally only in 1887. His first overseas visit, in 1898, was to Japan, and unlike
his colleagues he never visited Holland. He employed Japanese rather than
Dutchmen, including one, Ohori, who was responsible for the management
of the palace in the 1930s. The two Japanese palace employees disappeared
just before Pearl Harbor, though Ohori returned to Palembang during
the war as a Lt.-Colonel and political adviser. The sultan also annoyed
the Dutch by using as a political adviser Tengku Fachroeddin (1882-1937),
a journalist and Islamic nationalist who had introduced Sarekat Islam to
Serdang. He entertained such prominent nationalists as Ki Hadjar Dewan-
toro (1938) and M. H. Thamrin (1939). His health began to fail during
the war and he died in Republican detention in 1946.
46. J. Tideman, Simeloengoen, p. 219.
47. In 1938, 151,295 hectares were alienated to estates of a total land area of
420,158 hectares in Simalungun: MvO Simeloengoen en Karoland [hence¬
forth S & K], Meindersma, 1938, p. 24, Tropen.
48. Appendices in ibid.
49. A study of income and taxation in 1929 sampled various social categories
in different parts of the residency. Among the highest taxed, at rates above
10 per cent, were both food and cash-crop farmers in Simalungun. Verslag
van den economischen toestand en den belastingdruk met betrekking tot de
Inlandsche bevolking van de gewesten Oostkust van Sumatra en Lampongsche
districten (Weltrevreden, 1929), I, pp. 41-4.
50. Interview Abdullah Jusuf, 17 August 1972.
51. An example of this attitude was a report prepared for the Japanese in 1942:
‘About 60 years ago, these [Simalungun] people had no civilization at all,
being a race of degenerate savages and hunters who produced their daily
rice food by burning down jungle and planting the seeds in the ashes. . . .
The Netherlands Government brought peace, order, and an existence
worthy of human beings to these people’; The General Agricultural Con¬
dition of Simeloengoen (stencil, 1942), p. 7. See also K-S-S, 23-X-2603.
52. Lance Castles, ‘The Political Life of a Sumatran Residency: Tapanuli
1915-1940’, Unpublished Ph.D. thesis (Yale, 1972), pp. 191-5; Politiek
Verslag SOK, 1933, pp. 3-4, and 1936, p. 4, Mailr. 816x/34 and 427x/37,
respectively; MvO S & K, Van Rhijn, 1936, pp. 5-7, Tropen.
53. Lance Castles, ‘Statelessness and Stateforming Tendencies among the

Batak’, in Pre-colonial state systems in Southeast Asia, ed. A. Reid and L.
Castles, p. 72, suggests that indirect rule through rajas originated with
estate interests in East Sumatra, while the pattern of direct rule in Tapanuli
originated in West Sumatra where it had proved more compatible with
the system of forced cultivation.
54. MvO S & K, Van Rhijn, 1936, pp. 37-8. See also W. Middendorp, ‘The
administration of the outer provinces of the Netherlands Indies , in B.
Schrieke (ed.), The effect of Western Influences on native civilisations in the
Malay Archipelago (Batavia, 1929), pp. 54-6.
55. The concept of sibayak derived from the ‘four rajas’ designated by the
Sultan of Aceh in the sixteenth or early seventeenth century to represent
his authority in Karoland. By the nineteenth century little remained of the
institution but the memory.
56. MvO S & K, Van Rhijn, 1936, p. 37.
57. The salaries ranged from f.3,960 p.a. for the sibayak of Lingga (which
contained over a third of the population of Karoland), to f. 1,200 p.a. for
the sibayak of Kuta Buluh. Appendix to MvO S & K, Meindersma, 1938,
Tropen.
58. Ibid., pp. 22-4. Meindersma defended a Karo belief that the Dutch had
promised in 1904 that no estates would be permitted in Karoland.
59. Middendorp, pp. 63-4. Cf. D. H. Penny and Masri Singarimbun, ‘Economic
activity among the Karo Batak of Indonesia: A case study in economic
change’, in Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 6 (February 1967),
pp. 31-65.
60. Pederson, p. 138. Meindersma, in MvO S & K, 1938, pp. 10-11, likened
the Karos to Spartans and the Simalunguns to Athenians, because of the
latter’s relatively ready response to western ideas! The Karo church had
begun earlier than the Simalungun under the aegis of planter interests,
but appeared to stagnate in the 1920s and 1930s.
61. J. M. van der Kroef, in Millenial Dreams in Action. Essays in Comparative

Study, ed. Sylvia Thrupp (The Hague, 1962), pp. 100-1; MvO Karolanden,
Lanting, 1937, p. 69: MvO S & K, Meindersma, 1938, pp. 26-7. In 1924
the average Karo taxpayer was estimated to pay f.9.07 in all forms, Verslag
van den Economischen Toestand . . . 1924, II, pp. 215-20.
62. Encyclopaedisch Bureau, Oostkust van Sumatra (Weltevreden, 1918-19),

I, p. 204.
63. Van der Kroef, pp. 100-1; Castles, ‘Political Life’, pp. 82-90.
64. Encyclopaedisch Bureau, Oostkust van Sumatra, II, pp. 13-15; ‘Nota Ling¬
ga’ signed Van den Berg, 1934, pp. 9 and 21-8, Tropen; Interviews. For
a discussion of land disputes in the 1960s, see Masri Singarimbun in Villages
in Indonesia, ed. Koentjaraningrat (Ithaca, 1967), pp. 121-3.
65. Zentgraaff and Van Goedoever, Sumatraantjes, p. 164.
66. Although an ethnic breakdown of urban population is not available, pro¬

portions can be gauged from the 1930 figures for the Deli/Serdang afdeling,
which included Medan and Tebing Tinggi. These were 21,369 Mandailing
and Angkola Bataks and 11,856 Minangkabaus, as against only 2,472 Toba
Bataks. E. Bruner, ‘Urbanisation and Ethnic Identity in North Sumatra’,
American Anthropologist, 63 (1961), pp. 508-21, has stressed the resistance

of the Christian Toba Batak to assimilation in Medan, but their massive
migration occurred only after 1940.
67. Hamka, ‘Pendahuluan tjetakan ketiga’, Merantau ke Deli (Jakarta, 1966),

pp. 5-6.
68. Djamaluddin Adinegoro was given the former name at his birth in Sawah-
lunto (West Sumatra) in 1903, but adopted the latter as a journalistic sou¬
briquet. He was closely related to both Dr Amir and Mr Muhammad
Yamin. He first studied medicine at the Batavia stovia (1918-25) and
then journalism at the University of Wurzburg and in Munich (1926-30).
It was considered a great coup when Pezvarta Deli hired him in 1931 at
the unprecedented salary of f.250 a month. Of the six Indonesians elected
to the Medan gemeenteraad in August 1938, he was the only one occupying
the higher office of wethouder.
69. A 1940 report in S. L. van der Wal (ed.), De Volksraad en de Staatkundige

Ontivikkeling van Nederlands-Indie (Groningen, 1964-5), II, pp. 594-5,
gives a circulation figure of 2,500 for the three leading dailies (including
Pewarta Deli) and also for the leading weeklies (including Medan’s Pandji
Islam and Pedoman Masjarakat) in Netherlands India.
70. MvO SOK Grijzen, 1921, pp. 5-6, Mailr. 2663/22.
71. Although Tan Malaka wrote frequently for the nationalist press in Medan
and was a candidate for the East Sumatran seat in the Volksraad in 1921
(Benih Merdeka, 11 January 1921), he appears not to have joined the PKI
or Sarekat Islam before leaving the region in June 1921. At least one later
PKI leader, Joenoes Nasution, nevertheless acknowledged in an interview
having learned his Marxism from Tan Malaka.
72. According to one informant, PKI propaganda in Karoland was somewhat

crude at this period, advancing the argument that whoever killed a Dutch
official would take his place.
73. Ezerman to Governor-General, 25 November 1930, Mailr. 1297x/30.
74. Nathar Zainuddin (1900-50) was born in Natal (West Sumatra) of mixed
Indian and Minangkabau parentage, but grew up in Idi (eastern Aceh),
the birthplace of Xarim M. S. (1901-60). Despite their early friendship
there, where Nathar married Xarim’s sister, they appear to have followed
different paths into the PKI and espoused very different types of com¬
munism.
Xarim (originally Abdul Karim bin Moehamad Soetan) had the better
education, including three years in the Dutch medium. He worked first as
a draftsman in the Lhokseumawe branch of the Public Works Dept., and
was very active in its union (vipbow). His first political enthusiasm was
for the nationalist National Indisch Partij, whose Lhokseumawe chairman
he was until transferred to Padang in 1920. Always an active journalist
and writer, he edited Hindia Sepakat (Sibolga) and later Utusan Rajat
(Langsa). He entered the PKI in Langsa and by the end of 1924 had become
a member of its national executive. He was sent to Digul in May 1927.
After his release in January 1932 he became a ‘non-political’ journalist
in Medan. Notoriously a communist with very bourgeois tastes, he some¬
times joked that his initials meant man senang (looking for a good life).
He left the PKI in 1952.
Nathar was a conductor on the Atjeh tramway and active in the com¬
munist-led vstp (railway workers’ union). He was expelled from Atjeh
in May 1923 following a vstp strike. He then became associated with

the West Sumatran PKI leader Haji Datuk Batuah, whom he had reportedly
converted to communism. Both men taught at the Sumatra Thawalib Islamic
School in Padang Panjang, the centre of Islamic-communist ideas in Suma¬
tra, until arrested in November 1923. Nathar edited the popular Islamic-
communist journal Djagol Djago! during this Padang Panjang period.
He and Batuah were both sentenced to internment in January 1925, first
in Timor and then in Boven Digul. Unlike Xarim and Urbanus Pardede,
Nathar joined the militant Aliarcham faction among PKI internees, and
was released later than the others, in 1937.
75. MvO SOK Van Kempen, 1928, p. 44, and Van Sandinck, 1930, p. 8, Mailr.
3058/28 and 214x/31 respectively.
76. MvO SOK Van Kempen, 1928, pp. 57-60, and Van Sandinck, 1930, pp.
87-105. Van Sandinck to Governor-General, 11 August 1930, Mailr. 214x/31.
77. Iwa opened his Medan law practice in January 1928, and was arrested after
a house search in July 1929, ostensibly on the basis of incriminating foreign
contacts. MvO SOK, Van Sandinck, 1930, p. 6.
78. Politiek Verslagen SOK, 1933 to 1936. Among the more effective partindo
leaders was the young Adam Malik (Indonesian Foreign Minister from
1966), who led the flourishing Siantar branch. The headquarters of the party
moved to Siantar in 1936.
79. Politiek Verslag SOK, 1935, pp. 1-2, Mailr. 398x/36.
80. Ibid., p. 2.
81. E.g. the resolutions submitted by the North Sumatran branch of parindra
to its national congress in December 1938; Politiek Verslag SOK, December
1938, p. 11, Mailr. 222x/39.
82. Atlas van Tropisch Nederland, 1939, p. 9.
83. Sugondo Kartoprodjo was born in Yogyakarta in 1908, and in 1932 was
sent to Kutaraja by the Taman Siswa headquarters to open a school there.
He moved to Medan in 1934 where he has headed the Taman Siswa ever
since. He had been in Sukarno’s PNI and Hatta’s PNI-baru while in Java,
but in Sumatra joined the local executive of parindra when it was formed
in 1935. He was a member of the Medan gemeenteraad in 1938-42.
84. Address by Sugondo Kartoprodjo to second conference of Taman Siswa

East Sumatra, as quoted in Penjedar, 25 September 1941.
85. Politiek Verslag SOK, July 1939, pp. 8-10, Mailr. 1106x/39.
86. Politiek Verslag SOK, 1933, p. 1, Mailr. 816x/34.
87. Penjedar, 16 and 23 January 1941, pp. 43 and 77-8 respectively. Mahmud
Junus, Sedjarah Pendidikan Islam di Indonesia (Jakarta, 1960), pp. 169-71.
Interviews H. Arsjad Thalif Lubis and Tgk. Jafizham.
88. ‘Memperkokoh Solidariteit dalam kalangan agama’, in Pewarta Deli hari

raya number, 16 December 1936.
89. Pandji Islam, 5 February 1940 and 22 September 1941, shows the member¬
ship of the missionary headquarters to be almost identical with that of
the I.S.I. On the latter, see also IPO, 25 February 1939, p. 140 and 3 May
1941, pp. 672-3; and Hamka, Kenang-kenangan hidup, pp. 118-19. For
Mr Hasan, see below, p. 144, n. 43.
90. Penjedar, 14 December 1939, pp. 1083-4 and 1090.
91. Abdul Firman gelar Maharadja Soangkoepon (1885-1946) was the son
of a kuria (district) head in Sipirok, South Tapanuli, but had left home
for East Sumatra in 1902 when passed over in the succession to his father.
He studied in a teachers’ college in Leiden (1910-14) and joined Pewarta
Deli briefly on returning. In 1915 he joined government service, holding
a variety of clerical posts in East Sumatra and Tapanuli, with periods in the
Pematang Siantar and Tanjung Balai gemeenteraden. He was first elected to
the Volksraad in 1927, and in 1931 joined its standing committee, the College
van Gedelegeerde. His brother Abdul Rasjid was the elected member for Ta¬
panuli from 1931, and like Soangkoepon a member of the Nationale Fractie.
92. Penjedar, 22 January 1939, pp. 61 and 64.
93. Mohammad Djoni (1900-64) was born in South Tapanuli, but began to
make a political reputation in East Sumatra from about 1922 as a fiery
orator, nicknamed banteng gemuk (the ‘fat bull’, in contrast to the ‘little
bull Hamid Loebis). He was the dominant figure in the East Sumatran
partindo after Hamid Loebis was interned in 1934, although himself
imprisoned in 1933 and 1935 for short periods. Interned in Digul in 1940,
Djoni was in Java for the revolution, initially with the PKI. His flamboyant
rejection of all negotiations with the Dutch led him to form a breakaway
red PKI in 1947, and to convene a radical ‘guerrilla congress’ at Prambanan
in September 1949. He returned to a quieter life in Medan after a period
of arrest in 1950.
94. Mohammad Jacub Siregar (1912-60?) was the son of Sutan Martua Radja,
a wealthy Mandailing businessman and publisher in East Sumatra. Al¬
though MULO-educated, Jacub was the ‘black sheep’ of the family, pre¬
ferring politics to his father’s business or any other ‘respectable’ calling.
He joined partindo in 1932, and frequently defended the underprivi¬
leged in legal cases (as a pokrol bambu) and in other ways. About 1936 he
married a celebrated Eurasian beauty, Chadidjah, popular as a singer and
later also as a political leader. Jacub appeared prone to depression, suffering
several months’ illness in 1939. According to Inoue Tetsuro (see below)
he was impotent.
95. Mohammad Saleh Oemar, who often used the pen-name Surapati, was
born in Pengkalan Brandan (Langkat) in 1909, the son of a kadhi. Outside
politics his principal interest was writing, and journalism earned him his
meagre income. He was one of the most energetic promoters of the theatre
as a medium of social and political comment, particularly under the Japanese.
Two of his many children were educated in Chinese schools, eventually in
China.
96. In August 1938 the paid-up membership was Medan 84, Binjai 30, Arnhemia
61, Pematang Siantar 37. In January 1940 the Medan branch suspended 77
members for non-payment of dues, leaving 70 approved members. Politiek
Verslagen SOK, August 1938 and January 1940, Mailr. 1004x/38 and
463x/40. Larger estimates of up to 2,000 members in East Sumatra, made
by ex-GERiNDO informants, probably refer to the pool of sympathizers.
97. Politiek Verslag SOK, February 1938, pp. 3-4.
98. Details of police intervention are in the monthly Politiek Verslagen. In

the first month, December 1938, police stopped two speakers in Binjai,
two in Medan, one twice in Siantar, three in Pematang Tanah Jawa, while
a public meeting in Binjai was dispersed. Pluvier, Overzicht, pp. Ill and
143, calculated that nine closed meetings in the province were dispersed
between September 1939 and February 1940, a much higher level of
repression than elsewhere in the colony.
99. Politiek Verslagen SOK, September 1938, p. 9, and December 1938, p.

8, Mailr. 1080x/38 and 222x/39 respectively.
100. Politiek Verslagen SOK, June—August 1936.
101. Politiek Politioneele Overzicht 3 and 4 of 1941, Mailr. 26x/41 and 40 /41
in Londense Archief, Binnenlandse Zaken [Bi.Z.].
102. Zahari speech of January 1939, in Soematera-Twioer no. 3, 15 January

1940, p. 31.
103. Ibid., pp. 30-1.
104. Tjerdas, 26 April 1941, as cited in IPO, 10 May 1941, pp. 709-10.
105. Soematera-Timoer 3, pp. 29, 30, and 32.
106. Politiek Verslagen SOK, July 1938, p. 10; August 1938, pp. 20-1 ; October
1938, pp. 16-17; Mailr. 871x/38, 1004x/38, and 1217x/38 respectively.
Penjedar, 6 November 1938, p. 7.
107. Dr Tengku Mansur (1897-1955) was a younger son of Sultan Hoesin

of Asahan, and thus an uncle of Sultan Saiboen. As a student at the Batavia
medical school (stovia) he became the founding president (1917-19)
of the student organization Jong Sumatra, which included many later
nationalists. Dr Amir was the moving spirit of Jong Sumatra at this time,
though the relations between the two men became strained in the 1930s.
Tengku Mansur completed his medical studies at Leiden, specializing
in surgery, and acquired a Dutch wife. He worked in Sulawesi and Batavia
before returning to Medan, where he became well-knowrn both as a surgeon
and as a writer of medical handbooks in Malay/Indonesian. He was to
become, in December 1947, wall negara (premier) of the Dutch-backed
State of East Sumatra (NST).
108. Tjerdas, 26 April 1941, as cited in IPO, 10 May 1941, p. 710.
109. A. Aziz Jahja in Seruan Kita, 1 December 1939, p. 427.
110. MvO Deli-Serdang, Bouman, 1929, pp. 46-7; MvO Serdang, De Ridder,
1933, pp. 30-3; MvO Langkat, Coolhaas, 1933, pp. 11-13: Tropen.
111. MvO SOK, Ezerman, 1933, pp. 213-24, Mailr. 929x/33.
112. The report is in Bouwes Bavinck to Governor-General, 9 October 1937,

Mailr. 67x/39. The following table, relating to tobacco land only, is derived
from that report:
Malay & Karo Claims on estates Land Land %

adult males required offered of
(1930 census) group A group B (bahu)* by total
A X 4 estates estates
B X 2
Deli ) OQ A 1 'l
(3,297 3,399 18,435 27,263 16.7%
Zo,41 J
Serdang ) 11,596 1,365 9,102 9,234 18.7%
Langkat 18,516 3,051 3,090 17,124 28,360 19.5%
Total 46,929 7,944 7,854 44,661 64,857
*The total in this column is slightly lower than expected because some
land was regarded as fit for sazvah and therefore only half the allocation
was allowed.
113. For the 1872 ‘Batak war’ in Sunggal see above, p. 4. Karos of the area
frequently burned estate property in the period 1886-94, and a Datuk
of Sunggal (Serbanyaman) was banished for his defiance as late as 1895.
114. Politiek Verslag SOK, 1st halfjaar 1936, p. 1, Mailr. 877x/36.
115. Politiek Verslag SOK, May 1938, pp. 6, 9, and 16, Mailr. 668x/38. The
issue was discussed at length in the Volksraad College van Gedelegeerde
by Soangkoepon (31 May-13 June 1938). For a summary of press comment
see IPO, 16 April, 7 May, and 2 July 1938.
116. Politiek Verslag SOK, June 1938, pp. 3-7, Mailr. 766x/38. The land
question was still lively enough in December 1939 for a gerindo branch
to be established in Sunggal by forty farmers discontented about the
allocation of land; Politiek Verslag SOK, December 1939, p. 3 Mailr
239x/40.
117. Politiek Verslag SOK, September 1938, pp. 15-16, Mailr. 1080x/38.
118. Politiek Verslag SOK, December 1938, p. 10, Mailr. 222x/39.
119. Politiek Verslag SOK, October 1939, pp. 14-15, Mailr. 1489x/39.
120. Rural unrest in Sumatra, 1942: A Japanese Report’, edited by A. Reid

and S. Shiraishi, Indonesia, 21 (April 1976), pp. 131—2. Confirmation from
Dutch sources is difficult because intelligence reports on East Sumatra
were not sent to Europe after the fall of Holland in 1940. It may be sig¬
nificant however that setia members established a tolong menolong (co¬
operative) society called Ripe Kematen in Rumah Mbacang in December
1938, when government repression was heaviest. Another such group
was formed three months later in Ujung Labuhan, also a setia and aron
stronghold. Politiek Verslagen SOK, December 1938, pp. 16-17, and
March 1939, p. 23, Mailr. 222x/39 and 544x/39.
IV
1942: THE HANDS DECLARED
‘The majority of the inhabitants had expected that under the

[Japanese] military administration . . . the abolition of the sultan
and raja systems would be immediately realised, and that they
would be able to live in freedom.'
(Japanese Police Report, 1942)1
The growing defensiveness and isolation of the Sumatran rulers, de¬

scribed in the previous chapter, had developed against the backdrop
of a regime calmly confident of ruling for many more peaceful decades.
The dramatic events of 1942 not only demolished this complacent fa9ade
at a stroke; they showed how little Sumatra had developed its own
consensus on the way its society should be ordered. The contestants
for power for the first time declared their hands openly as they greeted
their new masters or liberators.
The lightning Japanese advance upon Malaya had placed Penang
in their hands on 19 December 1941. Japanese troops did not land in
North Sumatra until 12 March 1942, a few days after the surrender
of Java. The intervening three months formed a curious twilight when
the Dutch governed as before, but Indonesians began to regard each
other with a new caution. Penang had been a commercial, recreation,
and communication centre for North Sumatra for a century and a half.
Its radio now beamed Japanese propaganda towards Sumatra, often
through the voice of former Sumatran nationalist leaders like Mohammad
Samin.2 The voyage across the straits to Penang was not difficult,
even in a small Indonesian prahu. But who would make use of this
opportunity to contact the future rulers? Was that the way to a safer
place in the rising sun?
CONTACTING THE JAPANESE
Many of the missions which were sent to the Japanese in Penang

appear to have resulted from private and local initiatives. In so far as
there was organizational backing, it comes as no surprise that this was
1942: THE HANDS DECLARED 85
from the anti-kerajaan forces—pusa in Aceh and gerindo in East

Sumatra.
Japan had a particularly good image in Aceh, which was hardly in¬
fluenced by the ‘anti-fascist’ declarations of leading Indonesian nation¬
alists like Hatta and Dr Sutjipto. Rumours of help from Japan had
already been a factor in rekindling Acehnese resistance in the years
following the 1905 Russo-Japanese war.
According to the leading pro-Japanese ulama, Said Abu Bakar, a
decision to throw off the Dutch yoke whenever the world war engulfed
Indonesia had already been taken secretly during the April 1940 pusa
conference.3 Shortly after that conference Abu Bakar had moved to
Malaya as a religious teacher for the Acehnese emigrant community
at Yen (Kedah). He attempted to contact the Japanese as soon as they
occupied northern Malaya. Later, in February, several missions were
sent to Penang in small boats by separate Acehnese groups acting in¬
dependently. One, headed by two minor uleebalang from the Lhoksukon
area, departed on 13 February and was saluted over Penang radio when
it arrived on 4 March. Another left Idi on 20 February, comprising
two prominent PUSA ulama from the Pidie area as well as Pemuda
pusa envoys from Hoesain Almujahid.4
East Sumatran opposition groups were less advanced in their plans,
although both the gerindo leader Jacub Siregar and the handful
of ex-Digul communists made similar attempts to send envoys to
Penang.5 The two politicians who had independently maintained secret
contacts with the Japanese consulate in Medan—the former PKI leader
Xarim M. S. and a by-passed Karo aristocrat, Raja Mulamanik—had
both been arrested and sent to Java as soon as war was declared in
the Pacific.
On the Japanese side, the organization of fifth-column work was in
the hands of the Fujiwara kikan, or F-kikan (F-organization). Its leader,
Major Fujiwara Iwaichi, was a young officer with remarkably little
prior knowledge of the region, high-school English being his only
linguistic preparation. Nevertheless the genuine warmth with which he
responded to the pro-Japanese nationalists he came to work with in
Malaya, and his rapid conversion to their view that Japan had a special
destiny to liberate the southern countries, have led some Japanese to
compare him with Lawrence of Arabia. His F-kikan had been hastily put
together in Tokyo in September 1941, with five recent graduates from the
Nakano-gakko (military intelligence school), and a slightly larger number
of area specialists with either language training or South-East Asian
commercial experience. The small group assembled in Bangkok in
October, and then joined the invasion of Malaya at Songkhla (South
Thailand) the day after Pearl Harbor. Its primary task was to facilitate
the conquest of Malaya by mobilizing anti-British elements especially

among Indian troops and the Malay nationalist Kesatuan Melayu Muda.
After the fall of Singapore the Y-kikan was to become pre-occupied
with the problems of the Indian National Army which the Japanese
organized in Malaya.6
Political preparation for the subsequent task of the Japanese 25th
Army, the conquest of northern Sumatra, was a very low priority for
Fujiwara’s group. Yet paradoxically it was only in northern Sumatra
that the Y-kikan as such was to become an important domestic factor.
It seems unlikely that Fujiwara had even heard of Aceh before the
Malayan campaign. He recollects the surprise of the Japanese at the
enthusiasm and determination the Acehnese showed for co-operation
with them. All the contacts took place at the initiative of Acehnese, who
developed what the Japanese saw as a simple fifth-column operation
for intelligence and perhaps sabotage, into a full-scale revolt.7
As soon as Japanese troops rolled through southern Kedah, Said
Abu Bakar made his way on foot and by boat to Penang, searching for
a Japanese who would listen to his plan for using pusa to facilitate
the Japanese invasion of Aceh. He eventually caught up with Major
Fujiwara in Taiping, and was instructed to recruit as many Sumatran
members as possible for a fifth-column operation. On 14 January Abu
Bakar’s men reassembled in Kuala Lumpur. There were now five
Acehnese in the party, plus a similar number from West Sumatra
and a few from Inderagiri who appear to have contacted the Y-kikan
separately. An ‘Indonesia House’ was commandeered for them in Kuala
Lumpur’s plush Kenny Hill. At least the younger members of the group
appear to have thought it all rather a lark, until some signs of Japanese
military brutality made them wonder if they were heroic liberators or
simply Japanese prisoners.8
Fujiwara appears to have learned of the polarized situation in Aceh
only through Said Abu Bakar’s explanation at their 14 January meeting:
. . . the people of Aceh were extremely hostile to the Dutch Government,

and also to the uleebalang because they also oppress the people, even more
than the Dutch. . . . The people of Aceh are very committed to Islam. They
prefer to struggle under the Muslim banner, so that all organizations in
Aceh are based on Islam. They are not afraid to die in the name of Islam.
The largest Islamic organization in Aceh now is pusa.9
The two men agreed that Abu Bakar’s recruits should attempt to contact
pusa to ensure its close co-operation with the Japanese. The people
so contacted would be identified by the ‘F’ armband of the Fujiwara
kikan, and their task would be to propagate goodwill for the Japanese,
to protect bridges and vital installations from Dutch scorched-earth
measures, and to provide the invading army with supplies and assistance.
There was apparently no suggestion at this stage of an Acehnese
revolt against the Dutch. Fujiwara was struck how the Acehnese, in
complete contrast with the Indians who were his major headache, made
no specific demands of the Japanese in return for their services. Certainly
there was no discussion of independence either for Aceh or for Indonesia
as a whole, since this was explicitly forbidden by Tokyo. In his memoirs
Fujiwara admits only to an undertaking that the Japanese ‘would respect
the happiness and the religion of the Acehnese people’.10 He knew too
little about pusa-uleebalang rivalry to comment on it, but he did appar¬
ently add that the Japanese would not ‘levy taxes exorbitantly like
the Dutch’.11 A letter from Acehnese supporters of the F-kikan which
fell into Dutch hands a few days before the Japanese landings was
more sweeping: ‘Freedom from taxation and heretidienst had already
been promised by the Japanese.’12 It seems probable that the bland
and vague assurances of Fujiwara were quickly translated by Acehnese
activists into the language of their own demand for change.
REVOLT IN ACEH
Impatient to begin his mission, Said Abu Bakar sailed from Kuala
Selangor two days later. The small motorboat which carried him and
about six others landed a few days later near Tanjung Balai, Asahan.
A second boatload landed near Bagan Siapiapi with a similar number
of F-kikan infiltrators—mainly Acehnese, but also a few Minangkabaus,
Bataks, and others. Both groups abandoned the arms they had been
given, surrendered to the Dutch authorities, and were imprisoned in
Medan. A third boatload of Acehnese sent by Masubuchi from Penang
on 13 February was similarly imprisoned in Idi. All adhered so con¬
vincingly to their story of being ‘refugees’ from the fighting in Malaya
that most of them were allowed to go home during February. The
most important of them, Said Abu Bakar, was released in Aceh on 13
February, having already contacted pusa colleagues from prison and
invoked guarantees of his reliability from such prominent Acehnese
officials as Mr T. M. Hasan and Tuanku Mahmud.13
Abu Bakar immediately went to Seulimeum, about twenty-five miles
upriver from Kutaraja, where he had formerly been associated with the
progressive Perguruan Islam, headed by Teungku Abdul Wahab. So
enthusiastically was his project received that a full-scale revolt began
in Seulimeum on 19 February with a growing wave of sabotage to
telephone, telegraph, and railway lines. The culmination was reached
on the night of 23 February, after an intense Muslim rally at the religious
school. The local Dutch official (controleur), Tiggelman, was killed and
5,000 guilders seized from the post office. The following day the director
of the Aceh railway, Graaf von Sperling, was killed when inspecting
obstructions to the line nearby at the Keumiroe bridge. Also killed
in the incident were three Acehnese wearing the new symbol of rebel¬
lion—a letter F on the arm.14
The inspiration for this Seulimeum revolt derived from the two most
famous ulama of the district—Teungku Abdul Wahab of Seulimeum,
and Teungku H. A. Hasballah of Indrapuri. The support of the principal
uleebalang of the region, the youthful Panglima Polim Muhammad
Ali15 was however equally crucial. He and several other uleebalang of
Seulimeum went ‘underground’ after endorsing the rebellion on 23
February. Seulimeum was not one of the strongest pusa centres. Of
the three key leaders of the revolt only Abdul Wahab was strongly
identified with the association. The reasons the revolt began here were
quite different: the fact that it was Said Abu Bakar’s base; the good
relations between uleebalang and ulama; and the anti-Dutch tradition
of both. Later developments on the west coast were to confirm that
an overt rebellion tended to occur only in traditional centres of re¬
sistance where many uleebalang still shared the antipathy of the ulama
to Dutch rule.
When Dutch reinforcements re-established a tenuous control over
Seulimeum and no Japanese troops appeared, there was a lull in acts
of sabotage. The counter-measures of the Dutch military nevertheless
steadily broadened the base of dissent. With the leaders of the Seul¬
imeum revolt still hiding in the hills, the most influential remaining
uleebalang and ulama in Aceh Besar met at Lubo’ on 4 March, to ensure
that future resistance was concerted. The meeting entrusted T. Njak
Arif with choosing the moment for revolt and co-ordinating strategy
throughout Atjeh. Two days later the announcement of rebellion was
posted to government offices in Kutaraja and delivered to various sym¬
pathizers throughout Aceh.16 March 7 appears to have been chosen
as the time for revolt, and a systematic movement of sabotage and dis¬
ruption began that night throughout Aceh Besar and the northern
parts of Aceh’s west coast.17 A frontal attack was mounted against the
sub-district headquarters of Calang, on the west coast, on the night
of 9 March. This was personally directed by the most forceful uleebalang
of the district, Teuku Sabi, who had maintained good relations with
pusa since coming out strongly for a restoration of the sultanate in
1938-9.18
The collapsing Dutch regime was so confused about these moves
that T. Njak Arif was able to meet the Governor openly as late as 8
March. He offered to take over full responsibility for administration
in Aceh, and when Governor Paauw declined he too went underground
1942: the hands declared 89
to devote himself to the rebellion. Under nightly siege in Kutaraja itself,

the Dutch decided their position in Aceh was untenable, and began
to evacuate to the south and east on 10 March.
In Pidie and the north coast, where the uleebalang continued to
support the colonial status quo, the F movement was relatively quiet. The
pusa secretary, T. M. Amin, was arrested when the sabotage began
on 7 March, having been identified as a source of the F flags being
found in Pidie. Sab Cut, a militant Pemuda pusa leader from Gigieng,
led an attack on Sigli on the eve of the Japanese arrival (12 March),
killing the Assistant-Resident and routing the handful of Dutch troops
remaining in the town.19 Along the west coast, the southward retreat
of Dutch forces had to face constant attacks and obstruction, stimulated
in part by the atrocities the demoralized soldiers themselves had com¬
mitted in Lam No, Calang, and Tapaktuan. Hundreds of Acehnese died
in these areas and in Aceh Besar.20
The question who deserved the credit for inspiring this revolt, already
raised by the different missions to the Japanese in Malaya, became
an open one as soon as the new regime was established. Teuku Njak
Arif and other uleebalang on the one hand, and the pusa colleagues
of Said Abu Bakar on the other, each claimed sole responsibility for
the movement.21 The pusa claim is more convincing. Some sources
even suggest that a plan of revolt was drawn up by the pusa executive,
though with considerable vagueness as to dates.22 In view of the apparent
passivity of the pusa leader, Teungku Daud Beureu’eh,23 it is easier
to envisage a pattern of separate initiatives by locally influential ulama,
most of whom were associated with pusa or its youth wing. If there
was any central direction for the movement, it lay with Said Abu Bakar
and the ulama of Seulimeum, not with the pusa executive in Sigli.
THE E-KIKAN IN CONTROL
A state of full-scale insurgency lasted for only four days in Aceh

Besar, and less than that in most other areas. Japanese troops landed
near Kutaraja and at Peureulak (East Aceh) on 12 March. They reached
the major towns within a day of the collapse of the Dutch regime to
be greeted by enthusiastic crowds. Nevertheless the upheaval in Aceh
presented the Japanese with a serious set of problems. Where other
Indonesians were awestruck at the might of the new conquerors, the
Acehnese had only ‘strengthened their self-confidence in their [own]
traditional bravery’.24
The revolt had not only driven out the Dutch, but also created a
panic among the non-Acehnese Indonesians in government service.
The Japanese could not, as in East Sumatra, take over a functioning
bureaucracy. Still more important was the polarization in many areas

between the uleebalang and their critics. Only in Aceh Besar was this
no problem. T. Njak Arif and T. Panglima Polim had both joined the
rebellion early enough to enjoy some moral authority over it, while
the other leading uleebalang had been saved from having to make a
choice when the Dutch military commander impetuously arrested them,
finding nobody else to blame for the revolt. The Japanese therefore
accepted the authority of a peace-keeping committee for Aceh Besar
headed by T. Njak Arif, giving this aggressive nationalist an excellent
position to influence later Japanese policy.25
Elsewhere it was a difficult time for the uleebalang. The leading anti-
uleebalang elements, Pemuda pusa members prominent among them,
had donned the F armband of the Fujiwara kikan to claim their reward
from the new rulers. From Malaya Major Fujiwara had deputed four
of his staff to accompany the invasion of North Sumatra, and Aceh
immediately demanded all their attention. Leader of the group was
Masubuchi Sahei,26 a fluent Indonesian speaker with a remarkable
talent for winning people’s confidence. His influence was decisive in the
provisional civilian arrangements made by the Japanese army. Naturally
he made quick contact with Said Abu Bakar and his other friends from
the F-kikan in Malaya. Leaders of Barisan F in most localities dominated
the peace-keeping committees (chian-iji-kai) which took the place of
government during March and April.27
Said Abu Bakar accompanied the first Japanese expedition down
the west coast of Aceh on 21 March, and had a particularly direct in¬
fluence on the composition of the provisional committees set up there.
Revenge was taken on two pro-Dutch uleebalang of the Meulaboh region
who had arrested envoys from the rebellious ulama in Seulimeum (one
of whom was later shot by the Dutch). Both these uleebalang were de¬
nounced by the Barisan F and soon executed, along with some of their
officials.28
In many areas the rebellion had rejected uleebalang authority as surely
as that of the Dutch, ‘pusa youths, encouraged by the ulama, refused
to recognise the authority of the uleebalang. Marriages were sealed
without reference to the official marriage registrars; land transactions
took place illegally. The mukim and village heads were also pushed
aside.’29 This was the first taste for the uleebalang of what was in store
for them if their antagonists came to power, and they did not forget it.
EAST SUMATRA IN DISARRAY
Although hope of change was hardly less widespread in East Sumatra,

conditions were entirely different. From the Japanese perspective East
Sumatran oil and estate produce were far more important than any
purely political objective. A smooth takeover of these resources was
so vital that Dutch personnel were retained in technical positions for
a year or more.
As always, the pluralistic nature of East Sumatran society also hin¬
dered the emergence of a coherent reforming leadership, let alone the
sort of popular consensus on which Said Abu Bakar could rely in Aceh.
The envoys the gerindo leader Jacub Siregar claimed to have sent
to the Japanese in Malaya appear to have made little impression on
Fuji war a. In turn the ‘refugees’ whom the F-kikan sent from the Se¬
langor coast to prepare a fifth column in East Sumatra had no particular
social or political base. Many of those who emerged as F-kikan activists
during the Japanese takeover appear to have been Toba Batak youth
with purely personal motivation. Jacub Siregar had attempted to collect
weapons and prepare for an underground resistance movement, but
he had no control over these elements. In the first few days which
followed the unopposed entry of Japanese troops on 13 March the ‘F’
armband was popularly considered a licence for looting rather than a
symbol of resistance.
Far from earning leverage with the Japanese, these activities brought
the F-kikan into disrepute. When the Japanese cracked down fiercely
on looting in Medan, exhibiting the heads of five executed Chinese on
poles in the central market, some would-be F-kikan members were
among those who suffered.
It appeared the Kenpeitai felt a law unto itself and took no notice of the
letter F . . . . Most of those who were chosen to be ‘F’ members were wicked
scoundrels with empty heads, who didn’t know right from wrong. After they
were arrested by the Japanese themselves, many of them were ‘taught a lesson’
to the point of never rising again.30
While gerindo leaders were making underground preparations

to aid the F-kikan, the more moderate politicians of parindra had
taken the initiative a few days before the Japanese arrival to form a
Comite Indonesia in an attempt to present a united pergerakan front
to the Japanese. Leaders of parpindo and Partai Islam Indonesia,
as well as a number of Islamic leaders, joined Sugondo Kartoprodjo
on this committee in Medan, while an energetic Karo branch was also
formed under the ex-communist Nerus Ginting. Believing that the
Japanese would implement at least a few of the liberation promises
which had been beamed from Penang radio, Sugondo hoped to be able
to negotiate for a new Indonesian-controlled administration. It was
hardly a good beginning, however, when the procession he led to greet
the conquerors on 13 March was dispersed by Japanese rifle fire.31
Sugondo failed to bring gerindo into his committee. Jacub Siregar
showed Sugondo his collection of firearms, implying that gerindo had

a prior claim on Japanese support through the F-kikan. Action was
required, as well as words, if the radical goals of gerindo were to be
achieved under Japanese auspices. Here parindra parted company.
Its scouts, Surya Wirawan, were instructed to patrol Medan to try to
keep order during the changeover, but to have nothing to do with
the F-kikan. In Karoland too relations between the F-kikan and
Comite Indonesia became embittered.32
The two approaches were equally futile. Masubuchi had entered
Medan with the Konoe Division, and all the major pergerakan figures
assembled in the Taman Siswa building to hear him on the morning
of 14 March. Sugondo began an elaborate speech of thanks for freeing
Indonesia, which Masubuchi interrupted to give his instructions. Every¬
body present should put on the ‘F’ armband and get busy arresting
Allied nationals, confiscating cars, and spreading goodwill for the new
regime. Jacub Siregar and his gerindo supporters carried out these
instructions zealously, but the departure of Masubuchi for Aceh the
following day left them with only the cynical Kenpeitai as Japanese
contacts. Most moderate politicians at the meeting supported Sugondo’s
Comite Indonesia project. For a few weeks the committee appeared
to offer leadership if only because nobody had a better way of getting
through to the Japanese. Even the sultans began discussions with it
for joint efforts to maintain order in the interim. Gradually however
it became clear that the Japanese were interested neither in the commit¬
tee nor in politicians in general, and the sultans made their own direct
arrangements.33
One of the reasons for the sultans to court Sugondo’s group had been
the threat to their position represented by Jacub Siregar and the
F-kikan. When the Japanese entered Pengkalan Brandan they were met
by an enthusiastic demonstration carrying such slogans as Hapuskan
raja2 (demolish the rajas). In the Karo dusun where resistance to the
kerajaan had been focused, land was seized and village officials over¬
thrown in the name of the F-kikan.34 Yet even from the moderate poli¬
ticians of Sugondo’s committee there was little comfort for the rajas.
When negotiations began, one of the politicians brusquely stated that
‘he was prepared to co-operate with the rajas, just so long as they were
prepared to surrender their powers to the people’.35
In practice Japanese policy towards the sultans was little influenced
by demands from either the pergerakan or the kerajaan. It was never¬
theless of critical importance that the two sides were making opposed
demands, and each feared the machinations of the other. Initial Japanese
military conduct was sufficiently confused and high-handed to keep
both fears and hopes alive.
After Masubuchi’s departure, a reliable channel of contact between

Japanese and Indonesians was only established with the return to Medan
of the last Japanese consul in the city, Hayasaki, from Dutch internment.
He became mayor of Medan in about May 1942, and also an influential
advisor to successive chokan (governors) of East Sumatra, Lt.-Col.
Nakagawa and General Nakashima. Hayasaki immediately assembled
his pre-war Indonesian contacts, Xarim M. S. and Raja Mulamanik,
both themselves just out of Dutch internment, as well as such other
leading citizens as Adinegoro, Mr Muhammed Jusuf, and Mr Luat
Siregar. These men formed a sort of political advisory group, the first
to which the Japanese appeared willing to listen. Their advice included
drastic reduction of kerajaan powers. Hayasaki also organized a ques¬
tionnaire for prominent Indonesians. To the question about the position
of the kerajaan we know at least one Muslim leader replied that they
should be abolished.36 The fate of the rulers must have seemed to many
to be hanging in the balance.
RETURN OF THE RAJAS
Whatever hopes had been raised by pro-Japanese propagandists, the

plans for Greater East Asia included no concessions to any party in
Indonesia. Sumatra and Malaya, jointly administered by the Japanese
25th Army, were regarded as ‘the nuclear zone of the Empire’s plans
for the Southern area’,37 by virtue of their economic resources and
strategic location. This zone would remain an integral part of the Japa¬
nese empire, and thus vital functions were to be controlled with special
care. ‘All actions or statements which may encourage native independ¬
ence movements should be carefully avoided’.38 In practice this meant
that the national red and white flag which had been flying everywhere
to greet the Japanese was quickly banned, Indonesians were congratu¬
lated on having become Japanese, and political parties were first dis¬
regarded and then banned.39 There was no room at all in the Tokyo
blueprint for Indonesian nationalism in Sumatra.
Towards the indigenous administration Japanese intentions were
fundamentally conservative. Disruption of existing government struc¬
tures was to be minimized, ‘native officials’ employed wherever possible,
and ‘radical changes’ in the position of the sultans avoided. An instruc¬
tion of July 194240 nevertheless made clear that any contractual or
hereditary claims to sovereignty were unacceptable. The slogan for
Malaya and Sumatra had to be that of the Meiji restoration—Hanseki
hokan (all domains yield to one sovereignty). In Aceh the Japanese
eliminated the problem by simply not accepting that the uleebalang
were autonomous rulers. From the outset they were recognized purely
as officials, with the title used in Japan for the administrative head of
a village—soncho. What the uleebalang lost in the constitutional niceties
of the Dutch ‘indirect rule’ fiction, however, was more than compensated
for by the greater dependence a new and initially ignorant regime had
to place upon them.
Policy towards the Malay sultans was still more cautious, partly be¬
cause of the conservative inclination of chokan Nakashima, but mainly
because they appeared analogous to the sultans in Malaya, for whom
policies were developed in Singapore and Tokyo. Initially the objective
was that the sultans be induced to surrender their sovereign prerogatives
‘voluntarily’ to the Emperor. High-level policy quickly shifted to their
positive value in ‘winning the hearts of the people’. Their incomes,
titles, and religious authority should be maintained as before the war.41
In the Sumatran context, where great change had been expected,
this cautious policy was generally seen as a continuance of Dutch support
for the kerajaan. The strong bid for change represented by the Barisan
F in Aceh appeared to have been repudiated swiftly and completely.
On 20 April the Barisan F was abolished, and the following day the
new civil government of Aceh was provisionally inaugurated. The peace¬
keeping committees were disbanded and the uleebalang were gradually
restored to power as soncho. The most politically experienced among
them, in some cases also the most bitter rivals of pusa, became guncho
taking the place of Dutch controleurs in each sub-district (onderafdeling).
Thus the nationalist Muhammadiah leader T. Cut Hasan became guncho
in Bireuen where the influential T. Chik Peusangan was too openly
pro-Dutch for the task. In Sigli the previous Muhammadiah consul
and leader of the movement against the sultanate, T. M. Hasan (Glum-
pang Payung), became guncho.
Masubuchi remained an influential patron for the F group in his
various capacities as head of information, general affairs, and economic
affairs, finding jobs in the bureaucracy for his key proteges. His influence
on policy nevertheless declined with the steady influx of professional
administrators, especially during the second half of 1942. Of the twenty
guncho positions throughout Aceh, only the two most remote, in South¬
ern Aceh, went to Barisan F activists—Marah Hoesin and Said Abu
Bakar himself. Stung by the attacks of his enemies (see below) and the
poor reward from his supposed Japanese friends, Abu Bakar reportedly
tried to commit suicide in December. When discharged from the Ku-
taraja hospital he withdrew to Singapore to bring his complaints to
Fujiwara.42
Although, as we have seen, high-level Japanese policy had ensured that
the uleebalang would be brought back as the basic administrative corps,
pusa bitterness was intensified by the harshness which accompanied
the change. The pusa leader who had taken control in Lhokseumawe
was arrested by the Japanese in mid-April, with thirteen of his followers.43
As the uleebalang returned to positions of authority, all the major pusa
figures, including Daud Beureu’eh, T. M. Amin, Tgk. Abdul Wahab
(Seulimeum), and Hoesain Almujahid, found themselves brusquely
arrested by the Kenpeitai and in some cases tortured. Some Pemuda
pusa activists were killed. Although the pusa leaders were soon released,
they did not forgive the uleebalang whose vindictiveness they believed
responsible. As one pusa writer complained:
. . . the majority of uleebalang felt that pusa wanted to seize their rights
and become uleebalang, opening the way to all sorts of evil and corruption.
Thus began the anger and vengefulness in the hearts of some uleebalang. . . .
[When] they obtained the opportunity of contacts with Japanese officials,
they began to avenge their grievance against Said Abu Bakar and pusa,
with all kinds of slander and accusations.44
There is some evidence to support this pusa belief that its troubles
were attributable to certain uleebalang rather than to the Japanese direct¬
ly. From the polarized Pidie area came precisely the sort of uleebalang
attack which pusa suspected. In a bitter letter to the new civilian
Japanese administrators, T. M. Hasan (Glumpang Payung) denounced
Said Abu Bakar for stealing government money and inciting antagonism
towards the uleebalang. pusa, he complained:
. . . continued to meddle in political and administrative matters and went

on with its strident propaganda against uleebalang authority. Everywhere,
even where PUSA had no significant support under Dutch rule, its youth
branches were rising like mushrooms from the ground. Little remained of
its original programme, pusa had been established as an organisation of
ulama. . . . Its extension recently whereby in the sub-districts Sigli, Lam-
meulo and Meureudu alone (i.e. Pidie region) they already had thousands and
thousands of members, whereas the number of ulama in this region could
certainly not exceed a hundred, showed clearly the change in its purpose.
This purpose . . . was none other than taking the government of Aceh into
its own hands, using the Muslim religion as a weapon to force the Acehnese
people to become members. A fanatic/religious movement like pusa formed
a danger for the Japanese administration too. . . . Was it not the responsibility
of the government in the first place to protect the uneducated masses
against the misleading propaganda, whose fanatical religious hatred . . . was
directed against anyone of a different religion than Islam.40
The Japanese proved as susceptible as the Dutch to fears of Islamic

fanaticism. Whether or not influenced by the above letter, they prevented
PUSA from functioning during the occupation, while giving every
encouragement to the ‘non-political’ Muhammadiah. T. M. Hasan
himself, by now the sworn enemy of PUSA, became one of the most
influential Acehnese in the Japanese regime.
THE ARON MOVEMENT
In East Sumatra too there could be no further doubt that the old Indo¬
nesian hierarchies would be retained once civil administration was firmly
established under Lt.-Gen. Nakashima about August 1942. The province
in fact became notorious among Japanese for the leisurely Dutch-
colonial ways of the administration—the siesta, Sumatran rather
than Tokyo time, and a large number of Dutch officials and planters
in advisory functions. The apparent uncertainty of the Japanese in the
first four months about the constitutional position of the sultans never¬
theless prolonged the anxiety in some Indonesian minds. Following
the failure of the F-kikan in East Sumatra the strongest anti-kerajaan
spokesman, Jacub Siregar, had sought other channels of influence—the
Kenpeitai and Hayasaki’s group of advisers. Beyond a limited contact
with Japanese intelligence agents, there was still no sign that the Japa¬
nese were listening. It is possible that this impasse drove Siregar back
to his potential mass base among the Karo of the dusun. The Japanese
police believed he was connected with the aron movement there, whose
roots they traced to F-kikan propaganda among the Karos along the
lines: ‘When the Japanese come, the native chiefs will be thrown out,
and you can own whatever land you like.’46 Most of the evidence came
from sources hostile to gerindo, however, and the Japanese in charge
of the investigation admitted that it was not conclusive.47 We know at
least that there was a gerindo stimulus to the predecessor of the
aron. That movement developed, however, as a purely Karo phenom¬
enon with land as its object and peasant solidarity as its weapon.
The previous chapter described the land grievances which led the
Karos of the dusun to form setia in 1938, and the apparent transition
of this body into a secret society in 1941-2.48 When the Japanese be¬
came aware of the movement, in July 1942, its leaders were the former
setia secretary and assistant secretary, Kitei Karo-Karo and Gumba
Karo-Karo. It was known only as the aron (cultivation co-operative),
and its essence appeared to be mutual solidarity in defiance of the official
government hierarchy. Members were initiated by a ritual involving
drinking the blood of a sacrificial chicken. Japanese reports49 are more
concerned with the economic roots of the movement than the nativistic
or chiliastic features a Dutch perception might have emphasized. That
the time was also ripe for Parhudamdam revivals, however, was in¬
dicated by the foundation of the Golongan Siradjabatak Indonesia in
June 1942, calling all Bataks back to the religion of their ancestors.50
The aroti undoubtedly achieved its greatest influence during the

transition between two regimes. Japanese policy was to extend control
only gradually into rural areas51 from the cities. No longer sure about
support from above, the Malay establishment was thrown onto the
defensive. The PST leadership tried to provide balance to the F-
kikan and aron forces through its own secret paramilitary organization_
SiaP Sedia• A group of rural Malay Islamic students had already formed
a Persatuan Anak Deli Islam (padi), during the 1938 land crisis. They
too moved into a defensive position against the threat to kerajaan au¬
thority.52 But these nascent forces were no substitute for the vanished
certainties of colonialism. The aron spread rapidly through the dnsun
and into Karoland itself, with some estimates of membership as high
as 15,000.°3 The cause of its eventually coming to Japanese attention
may have been as much the return of kerajaan confidence as its own
rise in militance.
The earliest violent incident reported to the Japanese occurred not
in the dusun but in Karoland itself on 1 June. The aron there had a
very specific focus in the Batu Karang area which had been irrigated
before the war. First in Batu Karang itself, and then in the Mardingding
village of the neighbouring urung of Tiga Nderket, the aron type of
organization was used to take over the extensive holdings of sawah of
a few wealthy village or urung heads. In Batu Karang the movement
was encouraged by one of the leading F-kikan figures in Karoland,
Koda Bangun, whose family felt it had the rightful claim to the office
of raja urung. On 1 June the incumbent raja urung summoned police
from Kabanjahe in fear of 300 aron members who were demanding
that he surrender his land or step down. Fighting broke out, and a police¬
man and three villagers died before the crowd dispersed. In Marding¬
ding the village head was hospitalized after trying to defend his land.54
In quick succession violence was reported from villages in the centre
of real aron strength in the dusun—especially the Serbanyanam (Sunggal)
urung of Deli. The pattern was to intimidate or kill those village headmen
who had remained loyal to the Malay hierarchy of Serbanyanam and
Deli, or had brought in police to prevent the illegal occupation of land.
Between 3 and 25 June two village headmen were reported killed, and
the wife and children of a third.55 The police of the Deli Sultanate
retaliated on 18 June, executing fourteen aron members in the Pancur
Batu region. This enraged the Karos, who surrounded the Pancur
Batu police headquarters until dispersed two days later.56
In the ensuing weeks police control of the situation in the Deli dusun
deteriorated further. The kerajaan hierarchy appeared unlikely to sur¬
vive in the area unless the Japanese interfered in favour of the status
quo. That it eventually did so was due in part to the skilful manipulation
of the situation by some well-placed Malays, notably Tengku Arifin

Tobo, the senior Indonesian officer in the former Dutch Gewestelijk
Recherche and now in the Japanese police department.
After failing in an attempt to investigate an incident near Pancur
Batu on 26 July, the police detained one Karo, evidently an aron leader,
in the Pancur Batu police station. Aron members quickly began to mo¬
bilize, and marched about 500 strong towards the police station. It
appears that the police, encouraged by Tengku Arifin, deliberately lured
the aron into a trap by creating the impression that the police post was
unsuspecting and virtually unprotected, while secretly reinforcing it.
A pitched battle developed that same night, in the midst of which the
Kenpeitai was called upon to intervene. The aron party was routed,
with twenty-one killed according to the official Japanese count, and
‘hundreds’ by other estimates.57
The Malay establishment had not only struck a heavy blow against
the aron\ it had manoeuvred the Japanese into taking its part against
its rivals. The Japanese chokan concluded that the aron was ‘the cancer
of north Sumatra’, and ordered his police chief, Lt. Inoue Tetsuro,
to investigate and destroy it.58 The leaders of the aron were quickly
rounded up and many were executed, although positive measures were
also taken to meet the Karo demands for land. The last violent spasms
of the aron occurred in September and October, with three more village
headmen being killed in separate incidents. Inoue finished it off by
personally beheading its leaders in a melodramatic public ritual.59
The repression did not stop with the aron itself. The affair provided
an opportunity for Tengku Arifin to direct Japanese suspicion against
the gerindo leaders who had been his own antagonists in Dutch
days60 and the principal threat to the kerajaan since. By implicating
Jacub Siregar and Saleh Oemar in the aron movement he reversed the
advantage of their anti-Dutch credentials. The Japanese arrested and
tortured both these gerindo leaders. Inoue eventually found other
uses for them, as police informers and then as leaders of a contingency
guerrilla force, but they were never again able to capture the central,
public role to which their pre-war record appeared to entitle them.
The enmity between the GmiNVo/F-kikan/aron element on the
one hand and the kerajaan on the other was now firmly established.
The Japanese regime itself could not avoid being involved in it. Chokan
Nakashima61 and other senior Japanese officials cultivated good personal
relations with the rajas and shared their revulsion towards the unruly
populist elements who had shown their colours in the aron. On the
other hand the police authorities who had suppressed the aron and
arrested the gerindo leaders came to sympathize with their view
of things, as indicated by one police report:
. . . the military administration has utilized the former Netherlands Indies
officials and the sultan and raja systems in the general administration as a
tentative policy. This has widened the cleavage between popular expectations
and the realities of the military administration. Moreover the officials, sultans,
and rajas who participated in the administration abused their authority and
power contrary to people’s expectations, either to show the Japanese army
their loyalty or merely in continuance of their old habits. . . . The inhabitants
ha\e come to be extremely alienated from the government and antagonistic
towards it.62
The same report went on to demand that the rulers ‘be placed under
the strict supervision of Japanese officials’.63 Although such views never
became Japanese official policy, they continued to receive a measure
of patronage from some elements of the loosely co-ordinated Japanese
regime.
The end of 1942, in East Sumatra as in Aceh, saw the kerajaan es¬
tablishment comfortably in authority, and its opponents licking their
wounds instead of riding the rising sun into power. But the bitterness
with which each side remembered this contest for Japanese favour in
1942 would ultimately bring destruction upon both.
1. ‘Rural unrest in Sumatra, 1942: A Japanese report’, ed. A. Reid and S.

Shiraishi, Indonesia 21, p. 124.
2. Mohammad Samin (bin) Taib had been the leading Sarekat Islam spokesman
in North Sumatra (see above) as well as a frequent contributor to Benih
Merdeka and other papers. After the Dutch crack-down of 1921 he was
more active as a pokrol bambn than in politics. He moved to Penang in the
late 1930s, founded the influential journals Saliabat and Snara Malaysia
(both 1939) and inspired a progressive Young Muslim Union among English-
educated Malays. He formed another group, Persatuan Indonesia Merdeka,
to welcome the Japanese, although quickly becoming disenchanted with
them. Later in 1942 Samin Taib returned to Medan on the same boat as
Tan Malaka. He became associated with the uleebalang of Lhokseumawe
who had been his S.I. colleagues, apparently trying to replicate there the
deft use of the Japanese by Xarim M. S. and Nathar for nationalist purposes.
He was however killed at the same time as these uleebalang colleagues in
1946 (interviews).
3. Interview Said Abu Bakar. M. Joenoes Djamil, Riwajat barisan ‘F’ (Fudji-
zvara Kikan) di Atjeh (Kutaraja, 1943, reissued in stencil 1975), p. 69.
4. There is considerable difficulty reconciling the names of envoys to Penang

mentioned in Indonesian, Japanese, and Dutch accounts. The two missions
described here are clearly documented in Joenoes Djamil, pp. 6-8 and 41-2;
Fujiwara Iwaichi, F-kikan (Tokyo, Hara Shobo, 1966), p. 273; and A. J.
Piekaar, Atjeh en de oorlog met Japan, p. 143. Less reliable accounts assert
that as many as fifty envoys were sent {Asia Raya [Jakarta], 19 October
2602 [1942]), and enough of them mention a mission from the xdeebalang
cut of Jeunieb (Samalanga) to make this probable.
During the Japanese occupation newspapers used the Japanese calendar,

in which 1942 was 2602.
5. For Jacub Siregar see Inoue,BapaDjanggut, p. 77. NipXarim, son of Xarim

M. S., sailed to Penang at the urging of his uncle Nathar Zainuddin as
‘interpreter’ for a (second?) Pemuda pusa mission from Idi. In an in¬
terview, however, he recalled that Samin Taib had dissuaded him from too
close an identification with the Japanese. Nip and Nordin Sufi of Pemuda
pusa persuaded the Japanese to let them return home separately rather
than with the invasion forces like the two earliest Acehnese missions.
6. K. K. Ghosh, The Indian National Army: Second Front of the Indian

Independence Movement (Meerut, Meenakshi Prakashan, 1969), pp. 17-36.
Joyce C. Lebra, Jungle Alliance: Japan and the Indian National Army
(Singapore, Donald Moore, 1971), pp. 1—42. Fujiwara, F-kikan, passim.
7. Fujiwara, F-kikan, p. 149. Interview Fujiwara, August 1973.
8. Abdullah Hussain, Terjebak (Kuala Lumpur, Pustaka Antara, 1965), pp.

27-41. Also Fujiwara, pp. 149-51; Joenoes Djamil, pp. 8-10, and 14-19;
Nakamiya Goro, ‘Sumatora Muketsu Senryo no Kageni’ [Behind the blood¬
less occupation of Sumatra] in Syukan Yomiuri, Nihon no himitsu sen (To¬
kyo, 1956), pp. 93-6.
9. Joenoes Djamil, p. 17. Fujiwara, F-kikan, pp. 200-1, follows the language
here so closely that he must have the same source.
10. Fujiwara, F-kikan, pp. 201-2; cf. Joenoes Djamil, p. 19. F-kikan, p. 150,
quotes Said Abu Bakar expressing only the most general expectations from
the Japanese: ‘Our aim is to escape Dutch rule, for the liberation of the
nation and the freedom of all Muslims.’ Abdullah Hussain, pp. 44-6, re¬
cords a speech by Fujiwara in which the subordinate role of the F-kikan
was made even more explicit. The group of Sumatrans were to be a fifth
column, whose role was to enable ‘a country to be conquered easily’.
11. Interview Fujiwara, August 1973.
12. Piekaar, p. 145.
13. Abdullah Hussain, pp. 47-85. Fujiwara, F-kikan, pp. 275-6. Joenoes Djamil,
pp. 10-11, 19-20, and 42.
14. Piekaar, pp. 63-7. T. M. A. Panglima Polim, Memoir (Tjatatan) (Kutaraja,

stencilled, 1972), pp. 3-5.
15. Panglima Polim was the title of the Panglima Sagi of the XXII Mukim, the
largest of the three Sagi (or federations of uleebalang) in Aceh Besar. Since the
seventeenth century the dynasty had been one of the most powerful in
Aceh. Muhammad Ali’s father had led resistance against the Dutch in the
period 1898-1903, but then became a highly respected part of the Dutch
administration. Muhammad Ali was about thirty-five at his father’s death
in 1941, and was only very reluctantly installed by the Dutch as successor
because of his anti-Dutch reputation.
16. Joenoes Djamil, p. 43. Cf. Fujiwara, F-kikan, where the date of the meeting
is given as 1 March.
17. Fujiwara, F-kikan, pp. 276-7. Piekaar, pp. 158-9.
18. Joenoes Djamil, pp. 52-5. Piekaar, pp. 94-104. See above, p. 30.
19. Joenoes Djamil, pp. 70-4. Piekaar, pp. 83-4.

20. These events are carefully chronicled from the Dutch side in Piekaar, pp.
85-106, and 120-88, and from the Acehnese in Joenoes Djamil, pp. 50-68.
The latter lists over 100 killed in Tapaktuan onderafdeling, while commem¬
orative articles in Asia Raya, 19-X-2602 and Atjeh Sinbun, ll-xii-2604
estimated 150 Acehnese killed in the Calang area.
21. The pusa view appears to have been first advanced in an article in Pewarta
Deli (Medan), 7 May 2602, cited in Piekaar, pp. 176-8. An extreme ulee-
balang view, apparently conveyed to Parada Harahap, appeared in Asia Raya,
19 October 2602. In general, published Japanese sources give an exaggerated
view of the pusa role, probably because a common source for them is
either Joenoes Djamil or a paper by Said Abu Bakar.
22. Piekaar, p. 177 citing the Pewarta Deli article (21 December); Fujiwara,
pp. 274-5 and Joenoes Djamil, p. 69 (mid-December); and Nakamiya Goro,
p. 67 (6 March).
23. In a 1969 interview, Daud Beureu’eh categorically denied that pusa or¬
ganized the 1942 revolt. He explained the envoys to Malaya as an insurance
against the certainty that the Japanese would work through the uleebalang
unless pusa had good relations with them. Ismuha, in Sinar Darussalam,
15 (July 1969), p. 36, chronicles the history of pusa without mentioning
organization of the revolt, beyond the spontaneous participation of members
of the youth group, Pemuda pusa.
24. Southern Army document of 28 November 1942, cited in Shiraishi Saya,

‘Aceh under the Japanese occupation—rival leaders in Aceh Besar and
Pidie’ (Unpublished M.A. thesis. International Christian University,
Tokyo, 1975), p. 19.
25. Panglima Polim, pp. 7-8. Piekaar, pp. 73-6, and 124-6.
26. Masubuchi Sahei had spent about twenty years in the Malay world, some
of them as a rubber planter in Siak. He had returned to Japan in 1938,
and published a number of essays and a Malay-Japanese dictionary (1941).
As the Sumatran specialist of the military administration in Aceh he came
to wield great influence. His numerous Acehnese proteges referred to him
affectionately as Bapak Aceh.
27. Fujiwara, F-kikan, pp. 277-80. Piekaar, pp. 128-30. Abdullah Hussain,
Terjebak, pp. 99-104. Aoki Eigoro, Achie no Minzoku-undo, 1955, typescript
translation by Mitsuo Nakamura, p. 3.
28. Joenoes Djamil, pp. 57-8. Piekaar, p. 161.
29. Piekaar, p. 190.
30. Hamka, Kenang-kenangan hidup, p. 184. Also Willem Brandt, De Gele

Terreur (The Hague, Van Hoeve, 1946), p. 22. Tengku Luckman Sinar,
‘The East Coast of Sumatra under the Japanese heel’, Sumatra Research
Bulletin I, pt. 2 (1972), p. 29. Pedoman Kota Besar Medan (Medan, 1956),
pp. 24—5. Evidence of Frans Schlette in RvO I.C. 009384-5. The relative
prominence of Tobas may be partly explained by 1) the number of young
dislocated Toba men who temporarily migrated to Siantar and Medan
before marriage; 2) the benefit to Toba businesses during the pre-war
Chinese boycott of Japanese goods.
31. Abdullah Hussain, Terjebak, p. 89. Interviews.
32. Interviews.
33. Hamka, Kenang-kenangan hidup, pp. 184-8. Abdullah Hussain, Terjebak,

pp. 91—8. Inoue Tetsuro, Bapa Djanggut (Tokyo, Kodansha, 1953), pp.
59 and 77.
34. Hamka, Kenang-kenangan hidup, p. 197; and see above, pp. 97—8.
35. Ibid., p. 186. This may be the origin of Dr Amir’s statement on 14 June
1946 (RvO I.C. 005966) that Sugondo and Dr Pirngadi tried to overthrow
the sultans in May 1942 through the Comite Indonesian.
36. Hamka, Kenang-kenangan hidup, p. 197. Much of my information on Haya-

saki comes from an interview in Tokyo in August 1972 with Sato Satio, a
Medan-born Japanese who spoke fluent Indonesian, Dutch, and English,
and worked for Hayasaki both in the pre-war consulate and the wartime
Medan municipality.
37. ‘Instructions on the administration of Malaya and Sumatra’, April 1942,

in H. J. Benda, J. K. Irikura, and K. Kishi (eds.), Japanese Military Ad¬
ministration in Indonesia: Selected Documents (New Haven, Yale University
Southeast Asia Studies, 1965), p. 169.
38. ‘Principles governing the military administration of Sumatra’, 27 April

1942, in ibid., p. 172.
39. Asia Raya, 10-vi-2602 reported that Indonesian political organizations

in Medan ‘voluntarily’ disbanded at a rally attended by over 2,000 people
on 7 June. The meeting was ‘reminded that the members of those political
organizations have helped Japan to defeat the Dutch army’.
40. ‘Items concerning the heads of autonomous areas’, July 1942, in Benda,
Irikura, and Kishi, pp. 184-6.
41. Ibid., p. 190. Okuma Memorial Social Sciences Research Institute, Waseda
University, Japanese Military Administration in Indonesia, trans. JPRS,
no. 21,359 (Washington, U.S. Dept, of Commerce, 1968), pp. 150—2. Inter¬
view Professor Itagaki Yoichi, August 1973.
42. A suicide attempt was the Japanese explanation for Abu Bakar’s admission
to the Kutaraja hospital, though rumours were not wanting that he had
been attacked by his enemies (Piekaar, p. 199). Remote South Aceh is still
renowned for the potency of its magic, and mysterious deaths are frequently
reported. For a fuller discussion of guncho appointments see Piekaar, pp.
194-5, and 339-43.
43. Piekaar, p. 139. Accusations against the pusa leader, Hasan Sab, had
been made by his Dutch predecessor as controleur!
44. Joenoes Djamil, pp. 83-4. Similar views are in Abdullah Arif, Tindjauan
Sedjarah Pergerakan di Atjeh: Bingkisan kenang-kenangan Kongres Besar
pusa dan P. pusa, 1950-1 (Kutaraja, 1950), p. 27; and Ismuha, in Sinar
Darussalam 15 (July 1969), p. 37.
45. A copy of this letter was retained by the Dutch official whom the Japanese
asked to translate it. I translate here from what appears to be a paraphrase
in Piekaar, p. 198.
46. Inoue, Bapa Djanggut, p. 54.
47. Ibid., p. 59.
48. See above, pp. 70-73.

49. Inoue, Bapa Djanggut, pp. 50-5. ‘Rural unrest in Sumatra’, pp. 130-2.
50. Paul Pederson, Batak Blood and Protestant Soul, pp. 43-4.
51. Benda, Irikura, and Kishi, pp. 172-3.
52. Tengku Luckman Sinar, ‘Satu Tengah Malam jang Berdarah’ (typescript)
Interviews.
54. ‘Rural unrest in Sumatra’, p. 125. Interviews. See above, pp. 57-8, for the
roots of this conflict.
56. ‘Rural unrest in Sumatra’, p. 126.
57. Ibid., p. 130. Tengku Luckman Sinar, in Sumatra Research Bulletin, I,

no. 2, pp. 33-4.
58. Inoue, Bapa Djanggut, pp. 52-3.
59. See A. Reid, ‘The Japanese occupation and rival Indonesian elites: North¬
ern Sumatra in 1942’, JAS, XXXV, no. 1 (1975), pp. 58-61; and ‘Rural
unrest in Sumatra’, for a fuller discussion.
60. Tengku Arifin Tobo, related to the Serdang royal family, as police zvedana
in the Gewestelijk Recherche had been the most senior of the officials
authorized to interrupt or disband political meetings. In this capacity he
had had some angry exchanges with pergerakan leaders, including M. H.
Thamrin, who took him to court for stopping his Medan speech in Decem¬
ber 1939. Pandji Islam, 8 January and 26 February 1940, pp. 7692 and 7825
resp. Cf. IPO, 17 December 1938, p. 839.
61. Retired Lt.-General Nakashima had been a military attache in Paris before
the war, as well as a senior instructor at the Imperial Military Academy.
His knowledge of French proved a link with the crown prince of Deli,
Tengku Otteman.
62. ‘Rural unrest in Sumatra’, p. 124.
63. Ibid., p. 128. According to the Sultan of Langkat, ‘many Japanese had
informed him that the people no longer wanted the rulers’; Hans Post,
Politionele Actie (Medan, Pax, 1948), p. 122.
V
THE JAPANESE EXPERIENCE
‘Even if the independence of Indonesia finally fails in being upheld

by diplomatic negotiations after the termination of the war ... even
the enemy will not be able to deny the fundamental truth that inde¬
pendence inevitably follows the formative development of a people.’
(Japanese Foreign Ministry, 1944)1
The fate of Sumatra at Japanese hands was determined by high-level

policy for the ‘southern regions’, which went through three major phases.
Until the middle of 1943 Sumatra and Malaya were together regarded
as ‘the nuclear zone of the Empire’s plans for the Southern Area’ be¬
cause of their strategic and economic importance, and were jointly
administered by the 25th Japanese Army. A new stage was inaugurated
with the shift of 25th Army Headquarters from Singapore to Bukittinggi
(central Sumatra) in May 1943, its loss of administrative authority for
Malaya, and General Tojo’s policy speech the following month. Tojo’s
government rejected a policy of separate self-government for Java in
favour of a much milder ‘participation in government’ for the whole
of the East Indies—Sumatra and eastern Indonesia being more likely
to face an Allied counter-attack. Finally the Koiso statement of Sep¬
tember 1944 belatedly set the whole of Indonesia on a course towards
the ‘independence’ which Burma and the Philippines had already en¬
joyed since 1943.
ADMINISTRATIVE CHANGE
In the first stage the separation of Sumatra from Java was a deliberate
policy, based primarily on the importance to Japan of Sumatra’s oil
and rubber, and secondarily on an assumption that nationalism on the
island was undeveloped. Even so grotesquely pro-Japanese an organ¬
ization as the Three A movement in Java was forbidden by the 25th
Army to operate in Sumatra. After May 1943 there was a greater tend¬
ency for Japanese policies in Sumatra to follow those in Java, yet
contact between Indonesian organizations and individuals in the two
THE JAPANESE EXPERIENCE 105
Kerajaan of East Sumatra, and Administrative

Divisions of 1942-1946
islands remained virtually impossible. Pre-war Indonesian organizations

which were allowed to continue, of which the only important ones
were the Islamic movements Muhammadiah and Wasliyah, were forced
to operate independently at the Sumatra level. To the bitter end Bukit-
tinggi refused to allow any propagandists from Java to enter Sumatra.
Even organization at the Sumatra level became difficult. A very high
degree of administrative autonomy was assumed by the Japanese chokan
of each shu (residency), and the Indonesian propaganda bodies they
formed were all different in both name and character. Complete econom¬
ic self-sufficiency was also progressively forced on each shu by the
breakdown in shipping and other communications links after 1943.
For three years the shu had to be the effective limit of Indonesian organ¬
izational horizons.
It was a time of both danger and opportunity. The Japanese regime
was more arbitrary, unpredictable, and ruthless than its predecessor,
yet it was at the same time much more reliant on Indonesian co-operation
and information than the Dutch had been for decades. Those Indonesian
officials and politicians who successfully manipulated the new rulers
had a real chance to affect the destiny of their people; those who went
too far faced torture or execution.
The basic administrative divisions of Netherlands India continued,
with one exception. The former afdeling of Siak was transferred from
East Sumatra to Riau shu. Pakanbaru, in Siak, became the capital of
Riau, while the off-shore Riau-Lingga archipelago which had given
the residency its name was made a direct Singapore responsibility.
In September 1942 when the military administration assumed its
definitive shape there were only 244 Japanese administrators in Sum¬
atra,2 and they spread more thinly than the Dutch had done. Each
of the ten Dutch Residents was replaced by a Japanese chokan, and
Assistant-Residents by a Japanese bunshucho. Below this level most of the
administration was onesiand.In In Aceh, as we have seen, each Dutch
controleur was replaced by a prominent uleebalang bearing the Japanese
title guncho—a purely administrative head of the gun [onder afdeling,
or district). In East Sumatra the statelets already provided a higher
level of authority. A number of Japanese fuku-bunshucho (deputy bun¬
shucho) were appointed initially to replace controleurs, but except in the
major centres like Kabanjahe and Tebing Tinggi they gave way to kera-
jaan administrators during 1943 and 1944. The term guncho was occa¬
sionally used, but more often fuku-bunshucho, wakil kerajaan (kerajaan
representative) or kepala luhak (district head) in deference to their dual
responsibility to the Japanese and the kerajaan.3
As explained in the previous chapter, the uleebalang were permitted
to govern in the capacity of district officials (soncho), while the whole
kerajaan apparatus in East Sumatra continued to operate. At the end
of 1942, policy in Tokyo had moved so far in favour of the sultans as
to urge that ‘their prestige should be enhanced above their colonial
experience’.4 The following month the Japanese commander publicly
reassured the sultans of Malaya and Sumatra about their position at
a ceremony in Singapore, where East Sumatra was represented by the
young and obliging Sultan of Asahan.
While in the legal field Japanese policy was to standardize the courts
throughout Sumatra.into a three-tiered Japanese structure, the kerapatan
(or adat courts) of the East Sumatran rajas retained their competence
within the kerajaan. The powers of the sultans over the jurisdiction
of Islam similarly continued throughout the war. In both these respects
the East Sumatran rulers fared better than the uleebalang poncho in
Aceh, who lost their control of the judiciary in early 1944 (see below).
In other respects the East Sumatran rulers suffered a similar loss
of autonomy to their colleagues in Aceh. Land was taken out of their
jurisdiction after the aron affair. The police was also organized in a
uniform manner throughout Sumatra, with local police resorts made
responsible to their superiors within the police hierarchy, not to the
local official or ruler as under the Dutch. Only at the level of the chokan
were the police directly subordinate to administrative control. The
occupation brought a vast increase in the independent authority not only
of the political police (tokko-ka), which was almost exclusively Japanese
run, but also of the mainly Indonesian hoati-ka, responsible for all rou¬
tine police matters. Both the pre-war N.I. police and new Japanese-
trained men, some of them in Aceh chosen from among younger F-
kika?i activists, occupied positions of responsibility as police-chiefs
at district level. In areas as polarized as Pidie, they were the first clear
manifestation of a neutral ‘professional’ element, who could be called
upon to adjudicate between the uleebalang and the pusa group.5 The
matters which took most police time during the occupation, however,
were ‘arrests for smuggling goods between Aceh and East Sumatra, . . .
complaints that Japanese had arrested or struck people, and finally
studying political reports which were brought to the police station’.6
More significant than these administrative changes was the active
public style demanded by the new rulers. In all the public rituals, an¬
niversaries, and celebrations with which the calendar abounded under
the Japanese, representative sultans had to share the stage with politi¬
cians, singing the same tune in praise of the war. More startling still
must have been the sight of the rajas and their relatives wielding a
cangkul (hoe) to give a public example of farming or ‘voluntary’ road¬
building, as was required of them increasingly as economic conditions
deteriorated. The Japanese never sought to conceal the fact that it was
they who ruled, and that the Indonesian elite who served them had to
earn their keep.
NEW ROLES FOR THE PERGERAKAN
Although administrative functions remained firmly in the hands of

the traditional aristocratic elite, the new order did have a specified area
of operations for prominent politicians, even in the first and most con¬
servative phase. In two of these areas, the press and urban administra¬
tion, the pergerakan had found an outlet even under the Dutch. Under
the Japanese military administration pergerakan domination of these
areas was institutionalized through the loose (and often internally con¬
tradictory) bureaucratic structure which embraced every facet of oc¬
cupation life.
Throughout the occupied areas the most senior Japanese with pre-war
experience in the area tended to be used as city mayors. We have seen
how the pre-war consul in Medan, Hayasaki, became mayor of that
city in mid-1942, and began to gather around him a number of Indo¬
nesian intellectuals and nationalists in an advisory capacity. Several of
these were permanently employed by his mayoral office (sicho). His
two principal deputies were Dutch-trained lawyers of very different
personalities. Mr Mohammad Joesoef,7 who had continued the success¬
ful Medan law practice begun by Iwa Kusuma Sumantri and Sunarjo
in the 1920s, was a highly professional, scholarly nationalist of about
forty, an administrator and conciliator rather than a propagandist. Mr
Luat Siregar,8 like Joesoef a pre-war parindra member, was five
years younger, much less established as a lawyer, and showed an active
interest in the cause of the land-hungry farmers of East Sumatra. The
most influential figure in this Hayasaki circle, however, was the
communist Xarim M. S., the most rousing orator in the region, who
conducted the public relations of the city office until drawn into more
important propaganda functions in mid-1943.
Only one Indonesian-language newspaper was permitted in each
shii, as an organ of the official Japanese propaganda service. The Medan
newspaper (Sumatra Sinbun from November 1942; Kita-Sumatora-
Sinbun [North Sumatra News] from August 1943) found a prestigious
editor in another member of Hayasaki’s circle, Adinegoro of the pre-war
Pewarta Deli. The Atjeh Sinbun, established on a twice-weekly basis
in June 1942, was the first really viable Indonesian newspaper ever to
appear in Aceh, and gave an opportunity for a number of able young
Acehnese writers to gain experience as journalists. Selected under Masu-
buchi’s auspices, most of them were Islamic-educated and sympathetic
to pusa, like Ali Hasjmy (who assumed responsibility from the Japanese
editors in April 1944), Amelz, and Abdullah Arif.
Only a few of Medan’s many journalists and journalist/politicians
could find a place in the Sumatra Sinbun. Others were employed in
the Sendenhan (propaganda service), like Mohammad Saidt (ex-
Penjedar), and the gerindo leader Saleh Oemar after release from his
imprisonment for alleged involvement in the aron. The Sendenhan
sponsored a varied range of propaganda and cultural activities, ranging
from concerts and art exhibitions to anti-western lectures and dramas*
It was the Aceh Sendenhan which sponsored the most original work,
providing unprecedented opportunities for public expression of Aceh-
nese patriotism. Its drama group toured all the towns of Aceh as well
as Medan with a repertoire of new plays by local authors. Two used
the 1942 anti-Dutch uprising as their themes, and another related the
story of Cut Nyak Dien, the heroine of the Aceh war. The new sense
of pride in the Acehnese past was equally apparent in a competition
in 1944 for the best historical novel about Aceh, and in Ismail Jakoeb’s
well-documented biography of the fighting ulama Chik di Tiro.9
Although not designed to help the nationalists, the official ban which
the Japanese placed on the Dutch language produced at a stroke an
undreamed-of victory for the nationalist cause. Almost overnight In¬
donesian had to become the prime medium of instruction, government,
commerce, and culture. Rather than accepting the terms defined by
the language commission in Jakarta, the 25th Army characteristically
established a separate Lembaga Bahasa Indonesia in Medan in early
1943. It immediately provided a test of strength between the Malay
intellectuals of the pre-war PST (Dr Tengku Mansur, Mr Tengku
Mahadi, Zahari) and such leading pergerakan writers and intellectuals
as Adinegoro, Dr Amir, Dr Pirngadi, and Hamka. The former insisted
that the language should be Malay, both in name and in the purity of
its content, while the latter group, all originating in other areas, held
out for the national language, Bahasa Indonesia. When the Malay
spokesmen yielded to superior numbers and professional skills after a
heated, two-hour debate, it marked a significant victory for x\ie pergerak¬
an position.10
Direct access to the senior Japanese officials in each shu was the most
important index of power, both actual and potential. The choice of
Indonesian advisers to each chokan was therefore critical. In Aceh the
regime confirmed the early pre-eminence of T. Njak Arif, a. pergerakan
figure in national terms but certainly a kerajaan one in Aceh. In Decem¬
ber 1942 he was put in charge of a research office (chosa-kyoku) to
investigate problems referred to him by the chokan, and in August 1943
his role as adviser to the chokan was officially confirmed. In late 1943
another leading uleebalang, T. Panglima Polim, was put in charge of
a new office like that of an ombudsman (koseikyoku), to receive and

process petitions from the people. As adviser for Islamic affairs lino
appointed Tuanku Abdul Azis in January 1943.11 Like the Dutch before
them, the Japanese found it convenient to use the prestigious but power¬
less sultanate dynasty in this way, preserving a tenuous neutrality
between the real antagonists.
The extreme complexity of social forces in East Sumatra appeared
too much even for the Japanese. This was to be the only shu in Sumatra
where no single leadership emerged during the occupation—there was
no equivalent to T. Njak Arif. As koseikyoku Nakashima appointed
the former Volksraad member Soangkoepon in late 1943, though he
fell from grace at the beginning of 1945. He was replaced first by a
kerajaan man, Tengku Hafas, and later by the Acehnese lawyer/official,
Mr T. M. Hasan. The Muhammadiah leader Hamka was an early
favourite with Nakashima, although his father was paradoxically a major
thorn in the Japanese side in Java.12 His role as Islamic adviser to the
chokan was made official in November 1943. Yet he too appears to have
overplayed his hand in seeking to get the better of the kerajaan, and
was taken less seriously as an Islamic leader by the end of the occupa¬
tion.13
The Japanese system of courts provided further opportunities for
men opposed to the kerajaan or at least independent of it, particularly
when the lowest courts in Aceh were taken out of uleebalang hands at
the beginning of 1944 (see below). Even in the early years when only
the higher courts in the large towns were affected by Japanese reforms,
new judicial responsibilities were conferred on a number of private
lawyers, jaksa (government prosecutors), and schoolmasters. The
placement of Tuanku Mahmud in the Kutaraja Chiho-Hoin (Dutch
landraad) in November 1942 would later prove of considerable advantage
to PUSA.
Finally, some of the most desperate politicians resorted to a sinister
and dangerous role as covert political informers for the Japanese. The
element of truth in allegations of Japanese ‘divide and rule’ tactics in
Indonesia14 is that different elements of the very loosely co-ordinated
Japanese regime cultivated different Indonesian groups, sometimes for
mutually contradictory purposes. It was the radical politicians associated
with the F-kikan whose position was most vulnerable once Japanese
official commitment to the kerajaan became clear. They tended to be
rescued from imprisonment by Japanese specialists in counter-espionage
and political intelligence, who saw in them a useful source of information
against the Indonesian establishment.
Lt. Kondo Tsugio was one of four graduates of the famous Nakano
intelligence school sent to Sumatra in January 1943 after a thorough
briefing by Fujiwara in Singapore. Kondo, an Indonesian language spe¬
cialist, immediately took over the political intelligence section (tokko-ka)
of the East Sumatran police. He quickly had Jacub Siregar released from
prison to provide information with a different bias from that which
he was receiving from the former Dutch political intelligence official,
Tengku Arifin T obo. Kondo justified this alliance with the left in terms
of the kind of foresight expected of Nakatio-gakko graduates. The former
officials were indispensable in administration, but they would return
to serve the Dutch in the event of an Allied come-back. Kondo later
maintained that Siregar accepted the invidious role of informer not
under duress but because he found common ground with Kondo in
the belief that the Japanese would eventually be forced to grant in¬
dependence.15 An index of the vulnerability of Siregar’s position, how¬
ever, is that the police chief who had arrested him in the wake of the
aron affair, Lt. Inoue Tetsuro, had taken his celebrated Eurasian wife,
‘the rose of Binjai’, on to the clerical staff of the Medan police, and she
conceived a son by him about the time of Siregar’s release in February
1943.16
Other radical politicians appear to have taken informer roles without
Japanese pressure. Nathar Zainuddin had been in the pre-war PKI like
his brother-in-law Xarim M. S., and shared the latter’s exile in Boven
Digul. Although an ‘Islamic communist’ very acceptable to Acehnese
Muslims, Nathar was well to the left of Xarim, particularly in his read¬
iness to resort to political violence. Whereas Xarim enjoyed the lime¬
light, Nathar was never mentioned in the press after his release from
Digul, preferring to stay in the background, working through others.
He lived by petty trade, based primarily in Meulaboh (West Aceh) and
Idi (East Aceh). In each place he established a strong influence over
a group of young political activists, particularly Hoesain Almujahid’s
Pemuda pusa group.
Pro-Japanese Nathar was certainly not. He was nevertheless prepared
to exploit a close relationship with the Kenpeitai both to direct its suspic¬
ion against what he regarded as the enemy (pro-Dutch aristocrats), and
to make possible the extraordinary freedom with which he moved about.
The bitterness of many pusa leaders against the uleebalang provided
the ideal climate for him to gain their confidence and encourage more
radical political attitudes. Despite the Japanese pass he carried, he im¬
pressed his contacts as a sincere nationalist who insisted that the only
hope for Indonesia was Indonesians themselves, never the foreign ruler.
Some of the Pemuda pusa activists of Hoesain Almujahid’s Idi strong¬
hold appeared also to be working for Japanese political intelligence,
whether or not in connexion with Nathar.17 The nature of the very
loosely integrated Japanese regime made it always possible for the
embittered element which was excluded from direct political power to

pursue its goals through some other Japanese channel.
ISLAMIC POLICY, 1942-1943
Despite the reputation of Sumatra as in Indonesian terms a stronghold

of commitment to Islam, the Japanese appear to have begun with no
clear religious policy. The few Japanese Islamic ‘experts’ available were
sent to Java, where an office of religious affairs was immediately es¬
tablished and steps taken for mobilizing Muslim leaders for propaganda
purposes.
In Sumatra by contrast early religious policy remained at the most
elementary level: ‘Native religious beliefs and customs shall be respected
as much as possible, and interference shall be avoided.’18 This striking
distinction reflected the purely colonial and exploitative policy originally
envisaged for Sumatra and Malaya, in contrast to a more sophisticated
approach to popular forces in Java.
The evidence of Islamic strength provided by the Acehnese uprising
against the Dutch did nothing to change this attitude of passive neglect.
Only when religious fervour was demonstrated at Japanese expense
was it taken seriously. There was not long to wait. In November 1942
the Japanese were shocked to find themselves in bloody confrontation
with just the kind of Acehnese Islamic leadership which had led a revolt
in their favour scarcely six months earlier.
Having apparently had no briefing about Muslim sensitivities, the
Japanese soldiers who swarmed into Sumatra alienated rural Acehnese
particularly quickly. ‘They appeared to have no idea of courtesy, to be
uncivilized, to bathe in the nude, to behave altogether like monkeys.’19
Still more offensive was the early insistence on a bow of homage (keirei)
in passing Japanese offices and barracks, enforced by an intolerable slap
on the face.
One young but traditionally-oriented ulama, Teungku Abdul Djalil,
head of a locally famous religious school at Cot Plieng in Bayu (Lhok-
seumawe) reacted by preaching openly against the new rulers and the
traitorous pusa supporters who had invited them to Aceh. He reputedly
coined the popular aphorism that the F-movement had ‘driven out the
dogs and brought in the pigs’. He equated the Japanese with Yajuj and
Majuj (Gog and Magog), the demonic destroyers of Islamic eschatology,
and revived among his students the sacred ideal of martyrdom embodied
in the Hikayat Perang Sabil. From about August 1942, as Japanese
interest in him gradually increased, he prepared to meet that martyrdom
by isolating himself in a state of fasting and meditation (khalwat), and
encouraging a state of religious excitement among his students through
recitation (ratib). When T. M. Hasan (Glumpang Payung) came to warn
him about the futility of resisting the inevitable Japanese measures against
him, he is reported to have replied with the splendid disregard for death
of Acehnese tradition: ‘It is not resistance which is futile; it is the attack
which is futile. The aggressors are not certain of martyrdom, but there
is no doubt that those who resist die as martyrs.’20
The Japanese attack finally came on 10 November, after the failure
of numerous interventions, appeals, and ultimata. Three days later the
mosque and school of Cot Plieng were reduced to ashes. Teungku Abdul
Djalil and over 100 of his followers were massacred by Japanese mortar
and machine-gun fire, though not before their rencong and spears had
accounted for eighteen Japanese dead. Masubuchi quickly promulgated
a broadsheet intended to discredit Abdul Djalil as an evil, dissolute
madman, but in vain. Aceh had gained another martyr and hero; it
could look these kafir rulers in the eye with the same confidence it had
the Dutch.21
The Bayu revolt forced the Japanese to take Islam seriously. Almost
all the Acehnese they trusted were asked to report on the reasons for
Abdul Djalil s stubbornness, while from Medan Nakashima sent Xarim
M. S. and Hamka for the same purpose. A more active policy for making
use of Islam was gradually developed.
The revolt did nothing directly to help pusa. Even if Abdul Djalil’s
hostility to pusa could not be overlooked, the uleebalang were able to
play upon Japanese fears of any political expression of militant Islam.
The policy of chokan lino was to downgrade pusa to merely one of
several religious organizations.
The first step, mentioned above, was the appointment of Tuanku
Abdul Azis as a ‘neutral’ Islamic adviser. The second was the estab¬
lishment in March 1943 of maibkatra (Majlis Agama Islam untuk
Bantuan Kemakmuran Asia Timur Raya) as a propaganda vehicle for
ulama. Tuanku Abdul Azis was appointed chairman of the new body,
with its remaining membership balanced between pusa and Muham-
madiah. pusa was represented by Daud Beureu’eh as second vice-
chairman, Joenoes Djamil (a close collaborator of Said Abu Bakar) as
secretary, and T. M. Amin as commissioner. Teungku Mohammad
Hasbi, Muhammadiah Consul for Aceh since 1942, became first vice-
chairman and T. Djohan Meuraxa represented Muhammadiah as
commissioner. The same careful parity was maintained at branch level,
even though in practice Muhammadiah was restricted to the towns.
The Japanese message was unmistakable, pusa was to be regarded as
the same sort of non-political religious organization as Muhammadiah.
No special claim on the Japanese through its popularity or its role in
the anti-Dutch uprising was to be recognized. The task of maibkatra
was clearly specified as explaining the sacred nature of the war against
the West and the need to bear hardships cheerfully; and especially as
advising the people ‘not to interfere in government matters, and to direct
them towards the kind of attitude prescribed by the Muhammedan
religion, of a pure and upright heart’.22
The culmination of this policy of using prominent ulama for prop¬
aganda purposes was the Islamic conference in Singapore on 5-6 April.
Among all the delegations from Sumatra and Malaya the largest came
from Aceh and West Sumatra, the areas most politically advanced in
Japanese terms. Aceh was represented by the four top officials of maib-
katra. In East Sumatra the chokan evidently asked the sultans of
Langkat, Serdang, and Deli each to select a delegate, who turned out
to be Sjeich Abdullah Afifuddin, Tengku Jafizham, and (surprisingly)
Hamka. The conference proved to be entirely stage-managed by
the Sendenhan. Even the modest probe by Hasbi to add to the ‘oath
of loyalty’ which closed the conference the words ‘and we believe in
the promise of Japan to aid the Muslim religion’, was overruled as
dangerous politics. As the first taste of the generous allowances and
V.I.P. treatment with which the Japanese furnished their clients on such
occasions, the conference was nevertheless not without its appeal.23
Even the narrowly propaganda function envisaged for these ulama
provided new opportunities for those of them with a charismatic touch.
In the propaganda tours of Aceh by maibkatra it was Daud Beureu’eh
who drew the crowds, even if Hasbi did more of the administrative
work. Similarly in East Sumatra it was Hamka rather than the kerajaan
ulama who responded eagerly to the mass rallies which became a feature
of Japanese public ritual.
The first opportunity for such a rally was the anniversary of the
Japanese invasion—one year of New Sumatra—on 13 March 1943.
T. Njak Arif was the leading speaker in the Kutaraja rally, and Adine-
goro and Hamka in Medan. Following the Singapore Islamic conference
there were further opportunities to enjoy the limelight. The biggest
rally ever staged in north Sumatra up to that time was the Rapat Besar
Kaum Muslimin Sumatera Barn (Mass rally of the Muslims of New
Sumatra) on the Medan city square on 20 June. For the first time the
organizers had the means to provide special trains and buses to bring
60,000 people in from the countryside. Leading kerajaan ulama also
spoke, but it was Hamka who responded most enthusiastically and
became the star of the propaganda film the Japanese made about the rally.
Overestimating his power, he publicly launched his campaign against
kerajaan powers, warning the assembled rulers that they must embrace
their people now that the old divide-and-rule tactics of the Dutch had
gone for ever.24
THE JAPANESE EXPERIENCE J J5
In reality the greatest success for Hamka and Muhammadiah during

the occupation was the shift of A1 Jamiatul Wasliyah, and to a lesser
extent the small Al-Ittihadiah organization, into alignment with them
rather than the kerajaan. The power of the rajas had been sufficiently
weakened by the change of regime for the pergerakan ulama to see a
chance of moving Islamic administration out of their hands altogether.
The Wasliyah leader, H. A. R. Sjihab, took the initiative after the
Medan rally to unite the ulama of East Sumatra under reformist leader¬
ship. The analogy with pusa in Aceh was borne out in his name for
the new organization Persatuan Ulama Sumatera Timur, or pust.
As the chokan s Islamic adviser Hamka was envisaged as its president.
The attempt of these leaders to obtain endorsement from the sultans
was a fiasco, however, succeeding only in showing the Japanese how
divided East Sumatran Muslims really were. When the Medan Islamic
rally was repeated in Tanjung Balai three months later the sultanate
kept tight control, and used it to form a kerajaan-dominated Perikatan
Ulama Luhak Asahan (Asahan district ulama bond) or pula. On the
initiative of the sultanate of Serdang a kerajaan Islamic grouping was
organized for the whole shu—Persatuan Ulama2 Kerajaan Sumatera
Timur—and the pergerakan plan was perforce reduced to a loose and
unofficial grouping of the three Islamic associations. Hamka began to
see that he had only been used for the purposes of Japanese propaganda’,
and that the Japanese would not force the more influential kerajaan
to accept his leadership.25 What had emerged from this initial jousting
in 1943 was only a clearer demarcation between the rajas who adminis¬
tered Islamic affairs and the three modern movements for religious
education.
MILITARY MOBILIZATION
Early in 1943 the principal priority of the Japanese Southern armies

became the defence of each area from the possibility of Allied counter¬
attack, and other policies were increasingly subordinated to this end.
The shift of the 25th Army Headquarters to Bukittinggi on 1 May 1943
was a recognition both of the probable key role Sumatra would play
in any Allied counter-attack on Japanese territory, and of the necessity
for military self-sufficiency on the part of each territory. In the defence
of Sumatra Aceh was critical, as the likeliest initial target for Mount-
batten’s forces in India/Ceylon, and the key to the oil installations at
Pengkalan Brandan and the eventual contest for Malaya and Singapore.
Such Japanese expectations must have been confirmed by the increasing
frequency of Allied aerial and naval bombardments of Aceh ports, be¬
ginning with attacks on Kutaraja and West Aceh in December 1942.
The fighting core of the 25th Army, the Konoe-Daini division, was
stationed along the Sumatran north coast between Kutaraja and Medan.
How accurate these expectations were is revealed by the plans of the
British war cabinet in August-September 1943. Churchill pushed
very strongly for the code-named ‘Operation Culverin’ against the
northern tip of Sumatra, as the most manageable and rewarding offen¬
sive possibility in South-East Asia. Once in control of the coastal strip,
Churchill believed,
... we would constitute an immediate and sustained threat which the Japanese
could hardly afford to ignore. They would not know where we wTere going. . . .
We might go on to Malaya, we might reinforce northern Sumatra to cause
the Japanese further annoyance, or if it paid us, we might even withdraw
from it.26
Churchill’s central objective was not military but political, to demon¬

strate to the Americans ‘that we take a real interest in the operations
in the Pacific’.27 The Chiefs of Staff agreed to plan an amphibious assault
on Aceh in March 1944. The plan only slipped from the top of the list
of British preferences when it was discovered that the island port of
Sabang was untenable without controlling the adjacent Kutaraja area,
while the ports of the north coast would be unusable after the monsoon
began in May.28
The Japanese could not know of ‘Culverin’, but guessed at its prob¬
ability. Aceh therefore became the Sumatran province most burdened
by the need for defence installations, airfields, and the support of a
large occupation army. In addition, the Bayu rebellion had confirmed
the impression of March 1942 that the Acehnese were the most proud
and fearless of the peoples of Sumatra. Like the Karo Bataks of East
Sumatra, however, their aggressive spirit could be of service to the
Japanese ‘if we guide them in the right direction by suitable propa¬
ganda’.29 Throughout the occupation Aceh was therefore regarded by
the Japanese as the primary area for Sumatran recruitment into military
and semi-military roles.
The first proposal of this sort, in November 1942, was to recruit the
most politically active young Acehnese into a special force for service
against the predominately Chinese guerrilla movement in Malaya. The
sphere of this force was quickly redefined as Aceh itself, however, and
in February 1943 training began for the Tokubetsu Keisatsutai or special
police. This was a mobile armed force of military formation. Indonesian
soldiers of the former Dutch army formed a small nucleus, but the
majority were Japanese-trained Acehnese youths. As the first oppor¬
tunity for Acehnese to obtain modern military training, the Tokubetsu
Keisatsutai attracted many able young men. By the time of the Japanese
surrender it comprised about 750 men spread along the whole Aceh
coast for defence duties and counter-intelligence. Although some In¬
donesians held junior officer rank, the overall commander was an intense,
tough-minded Japanese civilian, Kuroiwa.30
In May 1943 recruiting began throughout Sumatra for Heilio or
serdadu pembantu (auxiliary soldiers). They too would receive military
drill, but would simply be attached to Japanese units for menial tasks,
guard duty, and labour. There were no educational requirements and
pay scales began at a mere f.6 per month (35 for those living outside
the barracks with their families). The first batch of recruits appear to
have presented no great difficulty, with 169 being accepted from Asahan
and 320 from Simalungun and the Tebing Tinggi area. In Aceh particu¬
larly, however, the second drive for Heiho in November, and all those
that followed, were increasingly resented as an additional form of forced
labour.31
Nevertheless in East Sumatra, where the Heiho were for long the
only source of military training, Xarim M. S. threw himself enthusi¬
astically behind them. As propaganda chief for the Medan municipality
he led the recruitment drive in the city, and used it to argue the im¬
portance of Indonesians taking their destiny into their own hands. One
of his young proteges, Abdul Razak Nasution, entered the Heiho at
the first opportunity as a cadre for Xarim’s nationalist purposes within
it. Nasution rose to the highest rank open, equivalent to sergeant-major,
and was to prove a source of strength to Xarim during the revolution.
By the time of the second appeal for Heiho the Japanese need for
military mobilization was beginning to take precedence over colonial
considerations, and Xarim had a freer hand. With colleagues from the
Medan municipality who were to become his allies in the PKI, Mr
Luat Siregar and S. M. Tarigan, he toured the Medan market places
to harangue the morning crowds. His truck was decorated with slogans
like ‘The honour of our nation and our fatherland can only be redeemed
through our own blood.’ Here was a forum for the language of pure
nationalism: ‘You youths, the hope of the nation, use this opportunity
to show and prove to mother Indonesia that the spirit of self-respect,
the spirit of uplifting the fatherland, still flames within you.’32
GIYUGUN
The Japanese shift onto the defensive during 1943 rapidly brought
greater concessions to Indonesian nationalism, in the military as well
as administrative field. In June the Japanese were already developing
a new defensive strategy for the Indonesian islands which would better
allow the Japanese army to concentrate on the major battle fronts and
its strategic role as the core defence of each island. The task of territorial
defence of the extensive coastlines of the archipelago would be assumed
by native forces inspired with national sentiments. For this a self-reliant
force with its own officer corps would be essential. In order to win the
war the Japanese were now ready to provide Indonesians with a potential
weapon which the Dutch had never contemplated.
The first cautious steps to recruit the Indonesian officers for this new
army were taken by the Sumatra Gunseibu in Bukittinggi in late Sep¬
tember, shortly after the dramatic launching of the Javanese Giyugun,
which was to become known as the peta. Implementation of the scheme
in Sumatra was characteristically uneven, with West Sumatra beginning
a very public recruiting drive during October, Aceh not far behind
in November, and the other provinces including East Sumatra eventually
following suit on a more modest scale. In Sumatra the new army was
always known by its Japanese title Giyugun (volunteer soldiers). It was
emphasized that pay, conditions, and regulations would be the same
as for the Japanese army, with the possibility of rising to the rank of
captain at f.150 a month.
The long samurai sword of the Japanese officer had replaced the
Dutch briefcase as the pre-eminent badge of status in the new order,
and there appeared to be no shortage of Giyugun applicants aspiring
to wear it. The minimal educational standards were a simple primary
education, but a high percentage did in fact have either Dutch or Japa¬
nese secondary training. The principal factor for selection, however,
appeared to be a patron with some access to the Japanese, whether
through pergerakan or kerajaan channels. Dr Pirngadi, for example,
successfully nominated for Giyugun training nine members of Surya
Wirawan, the former parindra scout group, before any public re¬
cruitment had started. In Aceh a majority of the first group selected
for officer training were from prominent uleebalang families, and two
others were F-kikan activists close to Said Abu Bakar and Masubuchi.33
The Aceh Giyugun was the strongest in Sumatra, comprising more
than twenty companies each about 250 men strong—5,000 to 6,000
men in all. East Sumatra had only six companies and about 1,500 men.
Of the first eighteen Giyugun officers from North Sumatra commissioned
in May 1944, fifteen were Acehnese. None had reached the promised
rank of captain by the end of the war, but seven or eight Acehnese,
and two East Sumatrans, held a rank equivalent to first lieutenant.34
There was no attempt to develop a command structure above the com¬
pany level—a source of many difficulties for the later Indonesian army.
Their six-month training together did however give the Giyugun a strong
esprit de corps which to a considerable extent overcame different social
and regional backgrounds.
A distinct section of the Giyugun for airfield defence, the Hikojo Ki-
mutai, numbered only a few hundred men in northern Sumatra. Its
handful of officers, commissioned in September 1944, nevertheless
provided a significant source of military leadership during the later
revolution, alongside the Giyugun proper and the Tokubetsu Keisatsutai.35
All Japanese training was directed rather at instilling a new spirit and
discipline in young Indonesians than at academic teaching. The first
general post-primary school to re-open in Medan under the Japanese
had described its syllabus as follows:
Besides general knowledge there will also be spiritual training embodying

the spirit of Japan, correct behaviour, Eastern morality and the desire to
work, which will teach the youth of Asia Raya to be ardent in helping build
common prosperity.36
What this emphasis meant was made very clear to the terrified students
from the beginning, as suggested by this opening speech from the head¬
master of a leadership training school for Malaya/Sumatra in Singapore:
You were not brought here to enjoy yourselves but to learn Japanese seisin
(spirit), to learn discipline and hard work. If anyone doesn’t like it I will kick
them out. I don’t want any English or American attitudes brought in here....
I know how lazy the Westerners are, and the laziness they have taught you
for hundreds of years is going to be wiped out.37
The concessions to nationalism from 1943 did not alter this insistence
that Indonesians imitate Japanese discipline, self-confidence, and sacri¬
ficial patriotism if they were to be worthy of a larger role in Greater
East Asia.
In Japanese military eyes the Giyugun were the heart of this spiritual
remoulding, given the most intense exposure to the Japanization process.
The remarkable fighting spirit it produced in these young soldiers, the
core of the future Indonesian army, was by no means always in Japanese
interests, however. The failure of many Japanese military personnel to
accord Giyugun officers the equality of status they theoretically enjoyed
with Japanese ranks was a constant irritant. Just as it was the Dutch-
educated elite who had most resented European racial arrogance, it was
often these Japanized youth who reacted most bitterly against the Jap¬
anese military. In November 1944 T. A. Hamid, younger brother of
the uleebalang of Samalanga, led two of his platoons in an escape from
the Giyugun barracks to the hills, until forced to surrender by the arrest
of his relations. In July 1945 the Giyugun company near Pematang Si-
antar was led by Lt. Hopman Sitompoel into a rebellious attempt to
barricade itself and resist a Japanese siege, after a series of clashes pro¬
voked by Japanese slapping of the Indonesian soldiers. That the leaders
of these rebellions were imprisoned rather than executed appears to
reflect the reluctant admiration the Japanese military had for these
products of its own training.38
‘PARTICIPATION’
If the 25th Japanese Army administration in Sumatra had had its

way, concessions to Indonesian nationalism might well have been limited
to the military and quasi-military mobilization outlined above. The
25th Army consistently professed deep scepticism about the political
maturity and sense of unity of Sumatrans. Like the Dutch before them,
they dismissed the frequent demands of nationalists for progress towards
self-government as unrepresentative. Only the pressure of the war, and
of the Java command, dragged them reluctantly towards a few conces¬
sions.
The first full reconsideration of the original assumptions behind the
conquest came at an Imperial Council on 31 May 1943. The 16th Army
and in particular the Navy liaison officer in Jakarta (Admiral Maeda)
pressed hard for eventual independence for the East Indies as a wdiole,
whereas the other commands saw no need for any political concessions.
A compromise was sought which might increase support for the war
throughout Indonesia without endangering full Japanese control over
the resources considered vital. On 16 June Tojo announced publicly
to the Diet that the people of the East Indies, beginning with Java,
would be permitted to ‘participate in government’. By closing the door
for the meantime on independence this was a major setback to national¬
ists in Java. In Sumatra it could have represented real progress except
that for four months nothing was done to implement it. In communi¬
cating Tojo’s message to Aceh leaders Masubuchi typically warned
that ‘ “native participation in state government” is in no way similar
to “movement towards independence” ’.39
Only in the last two months of 1943 was there a short-lived period
of hope and excitement for nationalists in Sumatra. The formal an¬
nouncement on 8 November that ‘political participation’ would be im¬
plemented was one hopeful sign. Another was the establishment of the
Giyugun discussed above. Most important in practice was the greater
freedom for propagandists to orient their anti-Allied speeches in terms
of Indonesian patriotism rather than loyalty to Japan.
The cornerstone of ‘political participation’, advisory councils (shu
sangi kai) in each shu, was patent window-dressing. The councils were
to meet only twice a year to give advice on a list of questions submitted
by the respective chokan. They had no legislative or other competence.
Since the questions submitted all had to do with the best means to exact
more rice, labour, and enthusiasm from the oppressed people, a dis-
illusioned member was probably correct in surmising an intention to
direct popular hostility away from the Japanese and towards the
Indonesian leaders.40
1 he councils did however underline one of the most important fea¬
tures of the Japanese period—the consolidation of the local elite group.
Unlike the Dutch, who had ignored the Muslims and suppressed the
nationalists, the Japanese united these two counter-elites with kerajaan
leaders in a bond of vulnerable privilege. As members of the shu sangi
kai they enjoyed not only publicity but a handsome allowance of f.1,500
and various other privileges; yet as mediators between increasingly
harsh Japanese demands and a resentful people they ran great risks.
Some, like T. M. Hasan (see below), were executed by the Japanese;
others fell victim eventually to the wrath of their own people.
The composition of the councils reflected the nature of this leadership
group being fashioned during the last two years of Japanese control.
Since a large percentage of the members were selected from nominees
advanced by local officials, the kerajaan domination was very marked.
Pergerakan figures appeared in the list of Japanese appointees, and in
the nominees of a small electoral college for Medan city.
TABLE 7
COMPOSITION OF SHU SANGI KAI, 1943--194441
Appointed from Appointed Total
nominees directly
East Sumatra
Kerajaan 10 6 16
Pergerakan 2 2 4
Islam 2 2
Other 3 5 8
Total 15 15 30
Aceh
Kerajaan 13 4 17
Islam 4 3 7
Other 3 3 6
— — —
Total 20 10 30
As chairman and vice-chairman of the Aceh council T. Njak Arif

and T. M. Hasan (Glumpang Payung) were appointed, confirming the
pre-eminence of these two able uleebalang since 1942. When Hasan fell
victim to the Kenpeitai in August 1944 another prominent uleebalang
was elected in his stead, in the person of the conciliatory T. Panglima
Polim.
In East Sumatra leadership continued to be uncertain. Initially ap¬

pointed as chairman and vice-chairman were Soangkoepon and Tengku
Musa of Asahan, the two members with Volksraad experience. Soang¬
koepon fell from grace with the Japanese early in 1945, however, when
he was replaced as koseikyoku-cho by Tengku Hafas,42 an independent-
minded kerajaan administrator. The March 1945 meeting of the council
was permitted to elect a new chairman, and chose Dr T. Mansur, leader
of the pre-war PST. This transfer of Soangkoepon’s functions to two
of the ablest Malay aristocrats suggests a shift in favour of the kerajaan.
Yet the Japanese appear also to have had reservations about these two
men, either because of their insufficient pro-Japanese enthusiasm, or
their inability to transcend the many divisions in East Sumatran society.
Before the surrender Tengku Hafas was replaced by Mr T. M. Hasan,43
an Acehnese lawyer employed since 1938 in various government offices
in Medan. Dr Mansur retained a sort of formal pre-eminence, but never
represented East Sumatra at higher levels.
At the same time as the advisory councils were being established,
the pergerakan in East Sumatra acquired a more useful weapon in
bompa. Unlike Aceh’s maibkatra, which successfully diluted pusa
radicals with different points of view, bompa was established in No¬
vember as a propaganda organ for politicians. As implied in its full
title, Body to Support the Defence of Asia (Badan Oentoek Membantu
Pertahanan Asia), the declared objectives of the organization were to
arouse support for Japanese war aims, particularly in the recruitment
and financial support of Giyugun and Heiho soldiers.
As leader of bompa the Japanese again proposed the ageing Ma-
haradja Soangkoepon, though quickly replacing him with Mr Mohd.
Joesoef, who returned in November 1943 with a Sumatran delegation
which had visited Japan. From the beginning, however, the heart of the
organization was Xarim M. S., who proved remarkably adept at articu¬
lating his own intense nationalism in terms acceptable to Japan. The
other prominent figures in bompa’s central leadership included Xarim’s
protege Mr Luat Siregar, the pre-war parindra leader Dr Pirngadi,
and the former gerindo secretary Adnan Nur Lubis. At the end of the
year this group began a propaganda tour of the major towns together
with the two envoys back from Japan (Mr Joesoef and Zainoeddin) and
a representative of youth, who was another Xarim protege, Abdul
Razak Nasution.44
In one sense the bompa propagandists were justified in hailing it
as ‘an organization of the people’. They did succeed in addressing large
crowds directly, particularly in the larger towns, and making their names
familiar to a wide audience. Xarim could convey the burden of his
message, that ‘a new life for our nation and our people now depends
on us ourselves; depends upon our own efforts and exertions. I believe
that the Indonesians of today have a spirit of courage, a spirit which is
ready to die in order to live.’45 Yet like the shii sangi kai and other Japa¬
nese bodies bompa also represented a very clearly defined elite, privileged
in its access to information and travel, and in the distribution of scarce
resources. It addressed the masses, but its members were only a few
dozen key figures accepted as ‘leaders’ by the Japanese.
The prominence of politicians in the central Medan bompa probably
helped to narrow the gap between these men and the kerajaan, so fre¬
quent were the rallies and formalities when both sides had to sing the
same tune. A similar situation obtained in Langkat, where the bompa
branch included both kerajaan and pergerakan figures, with the well-
known writer and neuro-surgeon Dr Amir as its leading speaker. Be¬
cause of his Dutch wife and very Western life-style Amir was particularly
vulnerable to Japanese pressure.46 He suffered an apoplexy late in 1942,
and subsequently appeared to undergo one of the sudden reversals
which marked his whole career. He developed close relations with the
tokko-ka (political police), and placed his remarkable intellectual talents
at the service of the Japanese concept of ‘New Sumatra’.
In some parts of East Sumatra, on the other hand, the formation of
bompa only confirmed the hostilities which had come to the surface
in 1942. In Asahan, in particular, the sultan’s able and powerful uncle,
Tengku Musa, controlled the local branch of bompa as he controlled
most other activities, and excluded the politicians of gerindo and
the F-kikan. In Karoland it was the former PKI leader Nerus Ginting
Suka who occupied the key role as recruiter and propagandist for Heiho
and Giyugun within bompa. Nerus had been arrested by Karo F-
kikan activists at the beginning of the Japanese occupation, perhaps
because he supported the rival Comite Indonesia. Because of this in¬
cident and his subsequent use by the Japanese to help settle the or on
crisis, Nerus was the most bitter enemy of this F-kikan element centred
around the brothers Koda Bangun and Pajungbangun. This pattern
helps to explain the particular enthusiasm with which the excluded and
frustrated F-kikan elements in Asahan and Karoland supported the
alternative opportunity for action provided by Inoue (see below).
Unlike its Acehnese equivalent the peta (Pertahanan Tanah Air—
Defence of the Fatherland), which under T. Njak Arif’s guidance was
little more than a fund-raising arm of government, bompa did appear
to pose a challenge to kerajaan dominance in East Sumatra. In the second
half of 1944 Xarim was able to extend it beyond the main towns with
the establishment of a large number of rural branches led by men sym¬
pathetic to him. The addition to the bompa central executive of the
secretary of the Sultan of Deli, Mr T. Mahadi, and the appointment
of district heads as patrons of the bompa branches, did little to stem

this sense that the kerajaan was losing ground. In November 1944 the
Japanese allowed Tengku Otteman, the Crown Prince of Deli,47 to launch
a new unity body under kerajaan control, the Dai Toa Kensetsu Undo
(Movement for the building of Greater East Asia). Its aim appears to
have been similar to that of the Hokokai formed earlier injavaandafew
months later in Aceh and West Sumatra, to absorb existing propaganda
and religious bodies, as well as those for Chinese and Indians, into a
front so broad that it was barely distinguishable from government itself.
If so, the new movement was a failure. It slowly established its own
structure heavily dominated by the kerajaan in each locality, but bompa
was able to retain its separate, more vigorous, existence.48 Because
it was generally seen as an instrument for the kerajaan rather than for
unity, the new movement was counterproductive.
ECONOMIC PRESSURE
By early 1944 it was obvious that the Japanese understanding of

‘participation’ in Sumatra involved no major change in the internal
Indonesian power balance. The policy of Nakashima in East Sumatra
and lino in Aceh remained one of ruling through the traditional kerajaan
elite, and using those pergerakan figures they trusted for purposes of
propaganda and mobilization. The steady deterioration in the military
situation of the Japanese and the economic demands they made on
Sumatra gradually operated, however, in favour of more fundamental
change.
The original Japanese intention to make of Sumatra a source of raw
materials and a market for Japanese industry broke down completely
by mid-1943 because of the lack of shipping. All available Japanese
shipping was requisitioned for purely military purposes. During the
last year of Japanese rule not a single ship entered Belawan,49 formerly
Sumatra’s leading port. Manufactured goods steadily dried up, and for
the bulk of the population it was simply impossible to obtain cloth
during 1944 and 1945.
Japanese economic policy had to undergo a complete revolution dur¬
ing 1943 in the direction of self-sufficiency—self-sufficiency not only
for Sumatra as a whole but for each of its provinces, and even each
bunshu. East Sumatra’s vast plantation sector, the prize of the war, was
now useless. Rubber-tapping ceased in June 1943, and the acreage
devoted to tobacco dropped to a quarter. The estates had now to devote
all their efforts to growing enough food to feed their labour force.
To ensure food for the Japanese military itself and the city population,
market forces were increasingly abandoned in favour of crude govern-
r—I
JD <£>
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“ 3
2A Jimat, or amulet of in¬
vulnerability, belonging first to
Teungku Chik Saman di Tiro,
and then to another famous ula-
ma leader of resistance in Aceh,
Teungku di Cut Plieeng. It con¬
tains a caterpillar of stone, a bul¬
let, and most importantly arante
bui (boar chain), a magical stone
said to have been carried in the
mouth or nose of an invulnerable
wild boar. The amulet was cap¬
tured by the Dutch in 1904 and
deposited in the Koloniaal Mu¬
seum in Amsterdam.
2B Military vigilance. The bivouac or guardpost of the Dutch-officered

marechaussee in Tangse, during the 1930s.
3A The lavish house in traditional style of Teuku Oemar, uleebalang of
Keumangan, in the 1920s.
3B Polarization in Aceh. A cartoon in Penjedar during 1939, showing

isolated uleebalang as the obstacle to the people’s demand for an Atjeh raad,
or Council for Aceh.
6A Dutch Pride. Teachers and students of the Senior High School (HBS)
of Medan bicycle through Medan’s main street (Kesawan) to celebrate the
birth of Princess Irene in August 1939. (Penjedar)
6B Indonesian Pride. Leading Indonesian journalists of Medan entertain

M. H. Thamrin (stocky figure, centre, holding newspaper), the leading nation¬
alist in the Volksraad, during his visit to Medan in December 1939. Moham¬
mad Said(t) is the tall figure in the front row, fifth from left. Adinegoro is on
his left; Hamka immediately above these two. (Pandji Islam)
7A Sultan Machmoed of Langkat (1927—46). 7B Sultan Amaloedin Sani Perkasa Alamsjah of Deli
(1924—45), with his son and successor, Otteman (centre),
and his favourite son, Amiroeddin (right), in the 1930s.
8A Abdoel Hamid
Loebis, the ‘little bull’
(banteng kecil) of PAR-
TINDO in East Sumatra.
This picture was taken
after his exile to Digul in
1933. (Pandji Islam)
8B H. A. R. Sjihab, leader of the Ja- 8C A pre-war picture of Dr M. Amir,

miatul Wasliyah from 1933 until his death psychiatrist and writer,
in 1954.
9A Major Fujiwara Iwaichi, in his primary
role as contact with the Indian Independence
League. He is greeting N. Raghavan in Tokyo in
April 1942. (Fujiwara Iwaichi) ,
9B Monument erected in 1943 to the three

Acehnese killed at the Keumiroe bridge at the
beginning of the anti-Dutch uprising—24 Feb¬
ruary 1942. (At]eh Sinbun)
9C Bapak Aceh— Masubuchi Sahei. (Atjeh

Sinbun)
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HB Teuku Panglima Polim Muhammad Ali in 1945. (Atjeh Sinbun) 11C Teuku Cut Hasan, Muhammadiah Consul in Aceh,
1935—42. (Atjeh Sinbun)
12A Abdul Xarim M. S., leader
of Sumatran communism. (PRIMA)
12B Saleh Oemar (‘Surapati’) of GERINDO 12C Dr Tengku Mansur, as Wali Ne¬
and PNI. [PRIMA) gara of the State of East Sumatra. (KITL V)
13A Seated: Dr A. K.
Gani (left) and Djamalud-
din Adinegoro (right).
Standing: PNI leaders Ja-
cub Siregar (left) and Ad-
nan Nur Lubis (right).
{PRIM A)
13B Leaders of the

mass march in support of
independence on the
main square of Medan, 9
October 1945. In the
front row (left to right)
are T. Z. Anwar, Ahmad
Tahir, Sugondo Karto-
prodjo (in shorts), Abdul
Malik Munir, and Abdul
Razak. {PRIMA)
14B British preparing to occupy a school outside the British ‘camp’ in
Medan, 7 June 1946. (IWM)
15A Sumatran Gov¬
ernor Mr T. M. Hasan
(left), with Dr Ferdi¬
nand Lumban Tobing,
Resident of Tapanuli,
in Sibolga in 1946.
(Deppen)
15B East Sumatran

army leadership in De¬
cember 1945. Standing
left to right: Capt. Hop-
man Sitompoel, Capt.
A. Tahir, 1st Lt. R.
Soetjipto. Seated is
Sjahrir’s brother Mah-
ruzar, financial organiz¬
er of the TKR. (PRIMA)
16A Amir Sjarifuddin, as Minister of Defence, leading the Republican
government delegation to Sumatra in 1946. At left is an Allied Officer.
(Deppen)
16B Vice-President Hatta (right), visiting Aceh in 1949, shares a meal

with Daud Beureu’eh. (Deppen)
ment control and requisition. The movement of foodstuffs from one
bunshu to another was forbidden to the private sector. The government
commanded sufficient stocks of grain in 1942-3 to distribute a ration
in the towns, but thereafter was never able to meet the need. A growing
army of smugglers, black marketeers, and corrupt officials provided a
trickle of food for the hungry cities, but this was out of reach of the
poorest. Townsfolk were badgered into growing tapioca and corn on
every available plot of land. In September 1943 Nakashima began urging
the non-essential population of Medan to return to the countryside.
A system of registration and arbitrary arrest was begun a year later to
force them out.50
In contrast to East Sumatra, Aceh had been a major rice-surplus area
before the war, sending 36,000 tons outside the residency in 1941. Jap¬
anese reliance on requisitioning rather than an adequate price never¬
theless created acute shortages even here. 17,000 tons of rice and 3,000
tons of other foodstuffs were requisitioned from the 1943-4 harvest to
feed officials and the growing military force concentrated in Aceh. The
targets grew progressively higher—22,000 tons of rice for 1944-5 and
33,000 tons for 1945-6. Elaborate organizations were established right
down to village level to collect quotas which represented between 10
and 15 per cent of the harvest. Yet the targets were never reached.
In the first six months of the 1944-5 assessment it was admitted that
less than 7,000 tons had been collected. T. Panglima Polim estimated
in May 1944 that 65 per cent of the Aceh population was now short
of rice, representing not only townspeople and fishermen, but also farm¬
ers who had already sold their rice or surrendered 50 per cent of it
to their landlord. In the only comparable food crisis in Acehnese mem¬
ory, in 1918-19, the needy were able to obtain credit and to buy from
government at f.0.40 a bamboo. Now prices in the towns had soared
from the normal f.0.15 to f.4.00 a bamboo, out of reach of any but the
affluent.51
The major reason for the rice shortage was probably the evasion and
passive resistance of rice-growers against requisitioning at nominal
prices. The burden of other Japanese demands for land and especially
labour certainly also reduced the rice crop substantially, however. Every
gun was given quotas of new crops such as silk and cotton which had
to be grown to meet the new demand for self-sufficiency. Rural labour
was increasingly diverted into the feverish Japanese preparations to
meet the expected Allied attack on the northern Aceh coast. Dozens
of airfields were constructed, strategic roads built and fortifications
prepared, while further manpower was absorbed in coast-watching.
During 1944-5 the Japanese imposed a scale of forced labour on the
Acehnese before which the hated herendienst of the Kompeuni paled
into insignificance. Some of the military demands were ‘stupid and

insensitive’, one Japanese civilian recalled, like the forced cutting of
productive betelnut trees, ostensibly for use as stakes against Allied
parachute drops, but in reality often left to rot in piles beside the road.52
One index of the scale of this forced labour was a report that 7,000
workers a day had been requisitioned to build a road between Takengon
and Blang Kejeren in the first six months of 1944. Many of them died
in the process. The meetings of the shu sangi kai in 1944 were almost
exclusively directed to ensuring that all able-bodied Acehnese were mo¬
bilized for this forced labour. All males between sixteen and forty-five
were registered and enrolled in a work brigade, the Koa Hoko Dan,
under the control of the hierarchy of district and village officials. Evading
forced labour was made a crime punishable by twenty years’ imprison¬
ment. According to reports which later reached the Dutch, it was not
uncommon for men in North Atjeh to have to spend fourteen days
per month in such labour gangs. Admitting the effect all of this was
having on the agricultural labour force, the Japanese called for greater
use in the fields of women, the unemployed, and Chinese.53
This level of ruthless exploitation could not fail to create a deep bitter¬
ness towards the Japanese among ordinary Indonesians both in towns
and in the countryside. As far as Sumatra was concerned, the bitterness
was probably most intense precisely in Aceh where the hopes of 1942
had been betrayed by the realities of wartime exploitation. It was the
uleebalang administration which had to enforce these intolerable Japanese
demands: ‘They were between the frying pan and the fire. If they took
pity on the people they were hit by the Japanese; if they carried out
Japanese orders the people were oppressed. Their work was fraught
with hatred.’54 New tensions were placed on the standing of the ulee¬
balang with their own people, but also on their relationship with the
Japanese ‘elder brother’.
The outspoken T. M. Hasan (Glumpang Payung) was the most prom¬
inent uleebalang to fall victim to this dual pressure. As leader of the
Sumatran delegation to Japan in October 1943, vice-chairman of the
Aceh shu sangi kai, and guncho successively of Sigli and Kutaraja, his
forceful style had clearly been appreciated by some Japanese. It was
dangerous to go too far, however, particularly for someone with such
determined enemies on the pusa side. At the April 1944 meeting of the
shu sangi kai, reported publicly as a passive acceptance of all Japanese
proposals, he protested against the effect the heavy labour impositions
would have on the rice harvest and voted against the key resolutions.
Privately he told senior Japanese how much more adept Dutch officials
and policies had been. He was arrested a few months later, released,
and finally executed by the Kenpeitai in August 1944.55 His death and
that of a number of other uleebalang probably owed less to the ‘pro-
Dutch allegations their enemies made against them, than to the very
exposed position in which they were placed. The growing demands of
the war strengthened those elements in the Japanese regime looking
for an alternative source of support.
1 he ulama were fortunate that the propaganda role provided for them
did not involve the same degree of conflict. The appeals of maibkatra
in the Atjeh Sinbun for enthusiastic compliance with all Japanese
demands may have made nauseous reading for literate townspeople,
but did not affect their standing with the peasantry. At rallies in Pidie
to celebrate the birth (maulud) and ascension (mi’raj) of the Prophet,
Daud Beureu’eh in particular still attracted rural people by the thou¬
sand.56 Many rural ulama in Pidie continued to play their traditional
role of supporting peasant resistance to government demands, leading
to a number of clashes with the uleebalang,57
PUSA ADVANCES, 1943-1944
In late 1943 a growing number of Japanese began to take the view

that more reliance would have to be placed on the PUSA/F-kikan ele¬
ment if the Japanese were to obtain the support they needed even in
the conditions of an Allied invasion. This view originated less from
the original F-kikan patron Masubuchi, who remained very loyal to
lino, than from the judiciary and military intelligence. The intelligence
officer T. Adachi and the judicial official Aoki Eigoro both came to
Aceh in 1943 from Singapore, where they had independently been in
contact with Fujiwara. Each of these very independent-minded men
established close contacts with the pusa group during the year or more
they were in Aceh, and attempted in their different ways to move policy
in that direction. The renewed effort of Pemuda pusa in late 1943 to
establish a place in Japanese affections through voluntary contributions
of money, rice, and labour, well-publicized in the Atjeh Sinbun, was
probably related to the new hope they brought.58
The pusa lobby was lucky to find a patron in Major-General Iwa-
kuro, head of general affairs at the Sumatra Gunseibu in Bukittinggi
from mid-1943. As a former intelligence man himself Iwakuro had been
close to Fujiwara in Singapore, and from him had heard Said Abu
Bakar s story of the 1942 revolt. He supported Aoki Eigoro with money
and influence in trying to make pusa’s services to Japan in 1942 better
known. Having already made contact with pusa leaders through his
principal legal colleague in Kutaraja, Tuanku Mahmud, Aoki commis¬
sioned a pusa team headed by Teungku Joenoes Djamil to write a
detailed report on the revolt throughout Aceh. Translated into Japanese
and circulated among officials in Kutaraja and Bukittinggi, the report

naturally made the most of pusa’s role in the uprising, and mentioned
the unpopularity of the uleebalang.59 Although the booklet records no
explicit promises to Said Abu Bakar, Aoki himself accepted the view
that the Japanese were in honour bound to reward pusa at the expense
of the uleebalang, quite apart from the policy advantages he saw in doing
so.
On 1 December 1943 a uniform legal structure was decreed for all
Sumatra, following a meeting of Japanese legal officials from each shu.
Aoki had taken to this meeting in Bukittinggi not only Joenoes Djamil’s
pamphlet and his own report on ‘the Islamic problem’, but a detailed
plan, drawn up in consultation with pusa leaders, to implement the
new legal system in Aceh. In contrast to the pattern in East Sumatra,
his plan abolished the former kerajaan courts, the musapat, and sep¬
arated the new courts, both secular and Islamic, from the controlling
influence the (uleebalang) executive had always had over them. Secular
courts (hoin) would be established at the level of son (statelet), gun,
and bunshu. The religious courts would as before be under the kadhi
in each son and the teungku meunasah in each village, but a new shukyo
hoin (religious court) in Kutaraja, comprised of prominent ulama, would
oversee their operations and take over from the uleebalang the appoint¬
ment of kadhi.
Having obtained support for these changes in Bukittinggi, Aoki had
them promulgated by lino on 1 January 1944. lino’s uleebalang advisers
had aquiesced on the assumption that the staffing of the new secular
courts would as usual be left to the guncho-soncho hierarchy, who would
therefore continue to control them. Instead Aoki went directly to his
pusa friends, asking them for names of the thousand people he needed
to staff the courts throughout Aceh before they went into operation on
1 March. Aoki’s three conditions were that those selected should have
‘the confidence of the people; thorough knowledge of the adat\ and
the courage to resist uleebalang interference’.60 The pusa group en¬
thusiastically complied, with the result that on 1 March the uleebalang
found they had lost control of the judiciary by a fait accompli.61
The secular hoin immediately became a source of great tension. Aoki
defended them to an obviously hostile shu sangi kai:
Because the courts have just been organized and put into operation, it may
be that they are not yet functioning satisfactorily. . . .
We hear complaints that there are some members of the Ku-hoin and
Chiho-hbin who are not competent to occupy these positions. But we have
our own opinion.62
In the 1939 press campaign uleebalang control of the judicial process

had been attacked as the major cause of uleebalang oppression in Pidie.

The new courts were hailed in the same spirit: ‘The establishment of
these courts in Aceh is a promise that the cruel greed which used to
run riot will disappear.’63 Many uleebalang refused to help the establish¬
ment of the hoin in any way, but enthusiasm in Pidie was nevertheless
so great that villagers themselves erected buildings and donated equip¬
ment to enable them to function. As the courts gained momentum, Aoki
recorded, villagers no longer had to fear the uleebalang, who were de¬
prived of their right of [land] disposal. People even became bold enough
to try to recover land which had been unfairly confiscated by ulee¬
balang. 64 Alarmed by this development, the more aggressive uleebalang
assigned the new judges to forced labour and even employed their rakan
(followers) to intimidate witnesses and prevent attendance at court.
According to Aoki, hoin responded by organizing their own defence
forces on the basis of F-kikan precedent, and thereby ‘unifying the
villagers against the uleebalang'.65
The strenuous protests of T. M. Hasan and other uleebalang to lino
were too late to change the composition of the secular courts. They
had more success in modifying the changes to religious justice which
took effect more slowly. By the time the central Kutaraja Shukyo Hoin
was inaugurated on 25 March the uleebalang had already won the vital
concession that appointments of kadhi would continue to be made by
the soncho, with the Shukyo Hoin having only to approve the appoint¬
ments. Each side had advanced its own candidates for the Shukyo Hoin,
and the carefully balanced compromise list of ten ulama had to be an¬
nounced in order of age because of the continued bitterness about leader¬
ship. Said Abu Bakar, the bete noire of the uleebalang, had returned to
Aceh to help Aoki’s reforms, and he took the opportunity to counter¬
attack at the inauguration ceremony:
May the greatest curse be upon whoever has an evil interest in this body
or wishes it ill. . . . We regard them as the principal enemies of religion,
the nation and the fatherland, not to mention of ourselves.
Those who wish it harm in practice fail to understand that this gift of the
government is one of the rewards for the services of those who sacrificed to
bring about change in Aceh, it has not come out of the blue like a lottery.66
The establishment of the religious court was a great symbolic victory

for Acehnese Islam as a whole, unique in Indonesia, and was naturally
saluted by propagandists as something which proved that the sacrifices
of the ‘holy war’ in the Pacific were worthwhile. Yet the controversy
within and around it made it far less useful a weapon than the secular
courts. In practice its role was limited to approving kadhi wherever
it could agree with the uleebalang concerned, which in Pidie turned out
to be rather seldom.67 lino at first tried to ensure it would not become

a pusa weapon by making the Muhammadiah leader Hasbi its chair¬
man. This provoked a confrontation with Daud Beureu’eh, who made
clear he would resign rather than work under Hasbi. Not until 17 July
was lino able to announce a compromise chairman in the form of the
aged and honoured Teungku Lam Jabat.
The most important promoters of these controversial changes were
all dismissed by lino, for whom the whole affair had been an unwelcome
surprise. Aoki was sent back to Singapore in May 1944, movingly fare-
welled by pusa leaders in Kutaraja and Sigli—‘his name is written
in gold in the pages of the history of the rise of New Aceh’.68 Said Abu
Bakar was dismissed from the Shukyo Hoin in the same July decree
which appointed the chairman, leaving Daud Beureu’eh outnumbered
by two Muhammadiah sympathizers in the working executive of the
court. Abu Bakar’s close friend Joenoes Djamil was replaced as secretary
of maibkatra in May by a young member of the sultan dynasty,
Tuanku Hashim, who made a strong appeal ‘to practise unity and put
aside division’.69
Despite these setbacks the pusa element continued to grow in
strength in relation to both the Japanese and the uleebalang. They now
had something to show for their support of the Japanese--a network
of courts down to the level of the statelet which could provide a solid
focus of support against the uleebalang. The more desperate grew the
position of the Japanese, the more support they were obliged to seek
from this popular and (by now) implacably anti-Dutch element. The
second shii sangi kai in April 1944, for example, raised pusa representa¬
tion from 2 (out of 30) to 7 (out of 40). The conflict within Acehnese
ranks had however grown so bitter that it now infected the Japanese
regime itself, and there was no possibility that it would be resolved
by such attempts to represent all sides.
TALAPETA
Economic pressure on the farming population of East Sumatra was

less acute, in part because the vast reserve of idle estate labour was the
first to be mobilized for road and fortification building. Japanese officials
appeared to find the kerajaan hierarchy an adequate means of acquiring
the food and labour supplies they needed from the peasantry. The hopes
of Hamka that they might allow an Islamic organization comparable to
those in Aceh or Java were disappointed. Nakashima established a re¬
ligious office (Shumuhan) in July 1944 as a way of mobilizing and super¬
vising non-kerajaan religious leaders, while assuring the sultans that
their rights in the religious field ‘remain without any change as of old’.70
Because, unlike the religious bodies elsewhere in Indonesia, it had a
balanced membership of two Muslims and two Christians, with a ‘neu¬
tral’ young Japanese official, Usugane, as head, it was useless as a weapon
for ulama.71
There was nevertheless the same desire in East Sumatra as in Aceh
to ensure a firmer base of Japanese support in the countryside which
would serve even in the more desperate military situation which lay
ahead. The most significant effort in this direction was the highly orig¬
inal work of Lt. Inoue Tetsuro.
We have encountered Inoue already as the police chief responsible
for the suppression of the aron and the imprisonment of Jacub Siregar.
An agriculture graduate drafted into the army, with experience in or¬
ganizing farm communities in Brazil, Inoue was no ordinary Japanese
administrator. He believed passionately in the spirit of dedication, sacri¬
fice, and discipline the Japanese military had to offer Indonesia, and
threw himself enthusiastically into all his various roles. Seeing him as
a man ‘of wide experience and an unusual ability and knowledge’,72
Nakashima put such trust in him that Indonesians came to believe
there were no limits to his power. As well as police chief and secretary
to Nakashima he was bunshiicho of the key district of Deli-Serdang,
until in May 1943 he decided to concentrate all his remarkable energies
on a new school at Gunung Rintis, in the rural Karo dusun of Deli/
Serdang. He named it talapeta (Taman Latihan Pemuda Tani—
Young Farmers’ Training School).
The concept had undoubtedly grown out of his recommendation
for an agricultural training centre to help woo the Karos away from
the aron, but it assumed the much wider aim of producing disciplined
cadres instilled with Japanese military ideals, capable of dynamizing
and directing the East Sumatran peasantry towards Japanese war aims.
On 20 July the first 100 students, twenty-five from each of the East
Sumatra bunshu, began their one-year training. They rose at five each
morning; they toiled mercilessly on the land; their afternoons were
devoted to military drill. For an occasion like the two-year anniversary
of the Japanese landings they walked the 40 kilometers to Medan. Their
oath was:
1. We uphold the greatness of the peasant.

2. We work to the utmost.
3. We live with hope and purpose.
4. We honour the sky, we give thanks to the earth, and we have compassion
for all creatures.
5. We serve the country and become examples for it.73
Inoue’s determination appears to have been sorely tried by his young

trainees, ‘spoiled and lacking in moral training as a result of insidious

Dutch guidance’.74 After a year in his hands, however, they ‘became
very tough, not only physically but also mentally. We had no regard for
physical pain.’75 The talapeta experiment was considered promising
enough to be imitated in September 1943 at the Naga Huta estate near
Pematang Siantar. A similar mixture of practical and moral training
was advertised for 100 youths there, though for only a three-month
course.76
At the first talapeta graduation ceremony in August 1944 the
trainees were sent out ‘like leaders in the very front line’, whether to
work as government agricultural officers or as examples in the village.
Inoue was determined that his influence on them would continue: ‘I
your bapak [father] will always be at your side, like your shadow. When
you encounter obstacles in the course of your duty, remember . . . the
name of your bapak and your spirit will rise.’77 A talapeta Dosokai
was established to keep the graduates in touch with each other and with
their bapak, and to see that they maintained the high ideals of discipline
and determination they had learned.78
Whatever its original intention, this disciplined cadre structure formed
an ideal base for the secret preparations the Japanese made towards
the end of the war for guerrilla resistance against the Allies. Inoue’s
intimate relationship with Jacub Siregar and his talented wife had en¬
sured that even the earliest trainees included a large proportion of ger-
indo sympathizers. Siregar provided a continuing link also with the
counter-intelligence operations of the police and Kondo Tsugio. From
the time of the second intake of trainees, in August 1944, the activity
of talapeta became increasingly military and nationalistic.
The first semi-military organization set up by Inoue and Jacub Siregar
was the East Sumatra Kaijo Jikeidan (coastal self-defence corps) es¬
tablished among fishermen and coast-dwellers in mid-1944. Its purpose
was to provide a military-style organization for reporting and countering
the increasingly free movement of Allied warships around the Straits
of Malacca. Since Indonesian fishing boats were sometimes attacked by
these warships, fishermen responded eagerly to this new organization.
At the beginning of 1945 Inoue was apparently commissioned to
form another unit, this time aimed at countering pro-Allied activity—
particularly the Sumatran contacts being made by Malayan Chinese
guerrillas in preparation for eventual Allied landings. This provided
another sphere of activity for alienated ex-GERlNDO politicians, although
driving them ever more firmly into an anti-establishment role, eager to
find any evidence of pro-Allied activity on the part of the kerajaan elite.
Despite the success claimed by this anti-intelligence group it was soon
suppressed by the Kenpeitai on whose territory it was trespassing.79
At this point, however, the Sumatra military command was engaged

in desperate rethinking of its defensive position, having been obliged
to send much of its strength to the immediate war theatre in the Philip¬
pines. Japanese strength in Sumatra was steadily reduced, until in
May 1945 it rested on the Konoe-Daini division concentrated in northern
Sumatra, and one additional brigade in central and south Sumatra.
The Giyugun increasingly had to be considered as part of the central
strategic reserve, destined to defend strategic centres and mountain
strongholds in the event of Allied invasion. New Indonesian forces
needed to be raised on a guerrilla basis, both to watch against Allied
infiltration and to mobilize the population against the incoming Allied
administration. They would have to be trained very quickly, but secretly,
so as not to betray a lack of confidence in Japanese strength. Above
all they had to be uncompromising in their resistance to the Allies.
The obvious candidates for such forces were the radical elements which
had already acted against the Dutch regime in 1942—pusa and gerindo.
Perhaps because it was not well endowed with Giyugun, East Sumatra
was a leader in developing such a guerrilla force. Nakashima gave the
task to Inoue in March 1945, undoubtedly with the knowledge that
he would use his gerindo contacts as well as talapeta as a basis.
Inoue acted quickly to inaugurate, at a secret ceremony on 20 March
1945, what he called the Kenkokutai shintai (unit dedicated to upbuilding
the country). It was organized on military lines, with Inoue himself
as commander, Jacub Siregar Deputy Commander, Saleh Oemar chief-
of-staff, and other prominent gerindo figures such as Abdullah Jusuf,
his brother Mohammad Kasim, and Nulung Sirait as staff officers.
The whole pre-war gerindo structure now provided a network for
selecting leaders or potential leaders in rural areas throughout East
Sumatra, to come to talapeta for one-month or three-month courses
in military strategy, agricultural technique, and nationalist thought.
The total number trained at talapeta by the end of the war was
about 1,000 young activists. They, as well as the original better-trained
agricultural cadres, were sent off to organize units in rural areas. One
cadre was simply told ‘to set up a battalion of 500 people. You have
this person to rely on’.80
In this way Inoue claimed a total guerrilla force, based among peasants
and fishermen, of up to 50,000 men. Three sections were developed
with names beloved of Japanese ultra-nationalism: a Barisan Harimau
Liar (Mokotai) or Wild Tiger Unit comprised mainly of Karo, Toba,
and Simalungun Bataks to operate in the upland areas of the residency;
a Barisan Naga Terbang (Hiryutai) or Flying Dragon Unit for coastal
defences, especially strong in Asahan where it was led by Nulung Sirait;
and even a small Islamic unit known as Sabilillah (Junkyotai) or army
of martyrs. The urban gerindo politicians had only a loose co¬

ordinating role over these guerrilla units.
Although Nakashima had explicitly instructed Inoue to concentrate
on quality rather than quantity of trainees, and ‘not to arouse the anxiety
of the native rulers’, such massive preparations could not be kept secret.
The kerajaan was alarmed at the size and orientation of the Kenkokutai,
and had, in Inoue’s words, ‘an unreasoned prejudice against it’. The
climate of 1942 appeared to be returning with the promise of an open
contest for power. Once again kerajaan fighting groups were mobilized
in reaction to Kenkokutai strength. ‘Subsequently in many parts of the
slid conflicts occurred repeatedly between members of the two groups.’81
A number of other Japanese were involved in the last months of the
occupation in building secret contacts as a basis for guerrilla operations
after a Japanese landing. The intelligence officer, Kondo Tsugio, had
been allowed to establish his own Kondo-butai with just such a purpose
during 1944. It was essentially an organization among Japanese military
personnel in Aceh and East Sumatra, although maintaining contacts
with such radical opponents of the kerajaan as Jacub Siregar and Husein
Sab.
No other project developed the degree of organization among In¬
donesians of the Kenkokutai, however. The Aceh chokan, receiving the
same instructions as Nakashima in March 1945, gave the task of secretly
organizing a guerrilla group to Masubuchi. Whether because he was
too heavily involved in other administrative duties, too restricted by
lino’s pro-uleebalang policy, or because ‘there was no need in Aceh
to organize a separate guerrilla unit, because the pusa network already
provided that’,82 there appears to have been no real training in Aceh.
The Masubuchi kikan, modelled on the Y-kikan and using the same
personnel, was simply a set of contacts and leaders of a potential resistance
movement in the villages. Its most active Indonesian promoters were
Hoesain Almujahid, Said Abu Bakar, and T. M. Amin—Masubuchi’s
political ‘secretary’ at this stage. The only real training of Acehnese
guerrillas was that given to twelve selected pusa youths sent to Singa¬
pore in late 1944 for training by the Ibaragi kikan, which had taken
over the intelligence and 5th-column role of the Fujiwara kikan there.83
PREPARING ‘INDEPENDENCE’
The growing misery and bitterness affecting almost all sections of

Sumatran society during 1944 was briefly relieved by the promise of
‘independence in the future’ in Prime Minister Koiso’s speech of 7
September to the Japanese Diet. Re-assessment had been forced on the
Japanese war cabinet by disastrous military setbacks, notably American
penetration of the Mariana defence line with the taking of Saipan on

9 July. Called in to remedy a near-hopeless situation, Koiso presided
over a series of reconsiderations of the options, in which the fate of
Indonesia was one factor. Indonesian resources were already virtually
useless to Japan because of the collapse of shipping connexions. The
vital consideration was whether the defence of the Indonesian islands
would be better promoted by a total unity of Japanese control, or by the
degree of popular support which might flow from concessions on in¬
dependence.
As in the 1943 discussions, the only local command to support in¬
dependence was the 16th Army in Java. Army Headquarters in Tokyo
nevertheless decided for a commitment to independence for all the ‘East
Indies’, and Navy objections were overruled. Little was agreed on the
practical concessions to be made beyond permission for the Indonesian
flag and anthem, at least in Java and Sumatra.
The military administration in Sumatra made no secret of its scep¬
ticism about the practicality of the independence promise.
The opinion of the Japanese Army officials in Sumatra was that the people
of that country were not sufficiently developed, either politically or culturally,
to take on themselves the responsibilities of self-government. They therefore
approached the task in a ‘half-hearted manner’.84
In their speeches in Sumatra Japanese officials made clear that Indonesia

was still ‘like a weak child, which has to have guidance from its parents’,85
and that progress would be dependent on co-operation with Japan for
final victory. The practical effect of the promise on the conduct of ad¬
ministration was very slight. Its effect on political consciousness in
Sumatra, however, could hardly be exaggerated.
The Japanese spared no effort in exploiting the propaganda value
of the Koiso statement, the only positive gesture the propaganda machine
could use at a time of increasing misery and bitterness. In every centre
there were rallies, speeches, and special publications. The climax was
a massive celebration in Bukittinggi on 7-9 October, hailed as the
greatest display of Sumatran enthusiasm ‘since the world began’.86
The Bukittinggi meetings also provided the first opportunity for the
leaders of each Sumatran shu to compare notes and jockey for potential
leadership of the island. Adinegoro led the organizing committee for
the celebrations, and East Sumatra was also represented by three kera-
jaan delegates as well as Soangkoepon and H. A. R. Sjihab. Aceh sent
T. Njak Arif, Daud Beureu’eh, and a rising young uleebalang from East
Aceh, T. Daudsjah (guncho of Idi, and later of Langsa).
For most Sumatrans, and certainly for the conservative Malay sul¬
tanates, this was just another empty Japanese propaganda exercise.
Xarim M. S. saw that the concession came too late to modify popular
hostility to the Japanese, and began to speak more boldly of fighting
‘with or without Japan’.87 Nevertheless the advantages for the nation¬
alists were considerable. Their basic reason for collaborating with the
Japanese again appeared credible, and could be proclaimed without
fear of Kenpeitai retaliation. Japanese propaganda methods gave them
an audience for nationalist image-making beyond their pre-war dreams.
Whereas the red-white national flag had been totally forbidden since
1942, suddenly it was not only allowed but enforced. Every home had
to fly it (just a little behind the rising sun of Japan) during the celebra¬
tions, and twenty thousand voices reportedly joined at Bukittinggi in
singing the ‘Indonesia Raya’. Even in Aceh, where nationalist ideas
had been restricted to a tiny elite before the war, the Islamic-educated
young men grouped around the Atjeh Sinbun, the propaganda service
and other Japanese offices and armed units became genuinely excited
by the ideal of Indonesian independence. They gradually came to rep¬
resent a new force in Acehnese politics, more interested in unity than
in the old uleebalang-pusa conflict. The Japanese-sponsored propagan¬
da, Dr Amir later noted, did ‘more in one year for the idea of political
unity and urge for independence than ten years of ordinary propaganda
before the war’.88
THE REGIME IN CRISIS
Japanese moves during the last months of the Pacific War were marked
by a growing sense of unreality and desperation. Concessions towards
independence were forced on a reluctant 25th Army from above, and
an all-Sumatran leadership gradually emerged. Against the backdrop
of an increasingly wretched and embittered population, and an elite
becoming sceptical of Japan’s ability to win the war, these manoeuvres
took on the character of a sandiwara (play) in its last act. Rival Indo¬
nesian factions began as in 1942 to eye each other in the knowledge that
the colonial arbiter was on the way out, although they were now more
closely tied to one another in a variety of Japanese-inspired unity fronts.
Although the ratio of land to people made Sumatra less vulnerable
than Java, even in the larger island conditions were close to famine
by 1945. Despite the massive propaganda devoted to increased food
production, it was estimated that only 60-65 per cent of Acehnese rice
fields were planted in 1945.89 Hamka found himself an object of popular
hatred, as a member of the favoured elite being groomed for ‘independ¬
ence’, when he held a lavish feast for his son’s circumcision amid the
surrounding starvation. ‘The independence that was promised was only
a cheat. Misery had risen above their chests and reached their necks.
On the estates many coolies were dying of starvation. And naked!’90
The situation in Aceh may have been objectively worse—it was cer¬
tainly more actively resented by the sturdy Acehnese peasant. Presum¬
ably in an abortive attempt to frighten other farmers the Atjeh Sinbun
gave a rare glimpse into the growing rebelliousness in late 1944, when
it published the proceedings against peasants who had been sabotaging
the telephone line in Lhong, and refusing rice and labour in Pulau
Beras (both Aceh Besar). The accused villagers of Pulau Beras had
promoted the view, in March-April 1944, that
. . . since the Japanese Army came to Pulau Beras, all orang kampung (vil¬
lagers) have been forced to work for the Army, and foodstuffs like eggs, vege¬
tables, and rice have been bought at a cheap price, which is completely against
the interests of we orang kampung.
Eight peasants were accused of joining in the campaign to urge fellow-

villagers to refuse labour, guard duty, and supplies, and one had finally
agreed to kill the Acehnese village head. The leader was sentenced to
death.91
Though similar information was never released again, the bitterness
and rebellion spread ever deeper. Its most substantial outbreak was
the so-called ‘Pandraih rebellion’ of May 1945 in Jeunieb (Samalanga).
After a series of minor incidents over Japanese labour demands for a
nearby airfield, the Japanese sent a military unit to Pandraih to intimi¬
date the Acehnese. The villagers of Lheue Simpang responded by
launching a night attack on the camp, killing two Japanese before retrea¬
ting to the hills. The Japanese occupied their village and began reprisals
until they were again attacked by the rebel band, now in a mood to die
as syahid (martyrs). According to an Acehnese account the Japanese
soldiers were so surprised and demoralized that most of them fell victim
to Acehnese rencong and swords before the remnant succeeded in gun¬
ning down the last of the forty-three syahid. In the course of the conflict
both the senior Japanese official in the Bireuen area and the Acehnese
guncho, Teuku Jacoeb, were also killed by the rebels.92
All around Aceh there were unreported attacks on isolated Japanese.
‘Although the rebellions were not carried out systematically, the im¬
pression they produced was very great. Japanese no longer dared to
move about freely.’ A 1906 decree forbidding Acehnese to carry weapons
of any sort was revived and strengthened. Once again, as in the early
years of Dutch ‘pacification’, Acehnese were discovered reading the
forbidden Hikayat Perang Sabil and preparing for a martyr’s death.93
If the fabric of Indonesian society, the ties of obligation between
patron and client, lord and vassal, headman and villager, had been eroded
in the Dutch period, the process reached new and violent heights by
the end of the Japanese occupation. While the bulk of the population
experienced unprecedented hardship, the comfortable elite was pressed
ever more relentlessly into assisting to exploit them for Japanese pur¬
poses. Some leaders were adroit enough to retain a popular following
and subtly direct its anger against the Japanese or domestic Indonesian
rivals. But the credibility of the whole category so sharply defined under
the Japanese as pemimpin (leaders), whether traditional, nationalist,
or religious, was gravely and irretrievably damaged.
A new leadership whose potential for organized violence was much
greater than the old was formed by the pemuda (youth) who had received
their formative education at Japanese hands. Through the Giyugun,
Heiho, Tokobetsu Keisatsutai, talapeta, and numerous other schools and
organizations they had been exhorted to such values as sacrifice, patriotic
duty, and discipline. The Japanese intention of directing this exclu¬
sively against the Western Allies was increasingly difficult to sustain.94
While the cement of traditional society was dissolving in this way,
the Japanese worked desperately to construct new types of organiza¬
tional unity, on the twin programme of ‘independence’ and defence
preparation. The Tonarigumi (Indonesian: Rukitn Tetangga) system
of neighbourhood associations, to organize night patrols, rationing,
and the handling of government instructions at the lowest level, was
being formed in Medan in June/July 1944, and in the rural areas
of northern Sumatra over the following six months. The problem of
‘uniting the spirit of the people’ was now on the agenda of every meeting.
Vying with one another in the urgency of their appeals for unity, speak¬
ers left no doubt of the strains which the growing disintegration in
practice imposed. Daud Beureu’eh complained in December 1944:
‘Why is unity not achieved? Whose is the sin? ... To talk is easy but
what we must work on is the execution. . . . “Great indeed is the curse
of God on the man who preaches what he does not practise.” ’ In case
there was any doubt at whom he was pointing the finger, he insisted
a few days later that the religious movement culminating in pusa had
already unified the Acehnese people in 1939.95
The proposal of the third Aceh shu sangi kai for an all-embracing
organization for unity of struggle gave birth on 20 January to a hokokai
comparable to that established in Java almost a year earlier, maibkatra
and the other Aceh organizations for raising funds (KOA) and soldiers
(peta) were dissolved into this new body, which would include every
inhabitant of Aceh in its ranks. The first leader of the hokokai was
predictably T. Njak Arif. On 30 May he resigned, however, either to
concentrate on his destined role as understudy to the Japanese chokan,
or because of a genuine attempt to bring forward leaders acceptable
to all sides. The new chairman, Panglima Polim, and vice-chairmen,
Tuanku Mahmud and 1 uanku Abdul Azis, were all diplomatic in
manner and relatively acceptable to pusa opinion.
In the religious section of the hokokai, Daud Beureu’eh’s influence
was for the first time recognized by his official primacy over Muhamma-
diah s Teungku Hasbi. More significant, however, was Daud Beu-
reu eh s return to styling himself publicly as chairman of pusa rather
than using his Japanese title.96 No more than its East Sumatra shadow,
the Dai Toa Kensetsu Undo, could the Aceh hokokai alter the impression
that ‘New Sumatra’ was coming apart at the seams.
LEADERS OF SUMATRA
Although the degree of social dislocation and peasant unrest appears

to have been higher in Sumatra than in Java by 1945, its impact on the
Japanese was cushioned by the small, divided, and captive Sumatran
elite, cowed by the arrests and executions from which its Java equivalent
had been spared. The Sumatra command could continue to argue that
‘the demand for independence was not nearly so strong as in Java’.97
The only apparent progress towards the independence goal was the
announcement on 24 March 1945 of an all-Sumatran Advisory Council,
Chuo Sangi In. The forty members of this body (fifteen elected by the
various shu. sangi kai; twenty-five appointed) met in Bukittinggi on 26
June 1945 almost two years after its Java equivalent. Its significance was
the first opportunity it offered to extend to the Sumatra level the process
of shuffling the group of privileged and highly-paid pemimpin which had
already produced an acknowledged leadership in almost every shu. Even
though appointed by the Japanese the key leaders appear to have been
generally accepted. The West Sumatran educational reformer Moham¬
mad Sjafei was appointed chairman, and T. Njak Arif (Aceh) and Mr
Abdul Abbas (Lampung, though of Mandailing origin) vice-chairmen.
Adinegoro moved from his Kita-Sumatora-Sinbun in Medan to head the
permanent secretariat of the Council in Bukittinggi. This Sumatran
leadership was built up in the press during June and July. The former
national chairman of gerindo, Dr A. K. Gani, the best-known politician
in Sumatra and now chairman of the Palembang Council, also made
himself a nationalist spokesman through his prominence in debate.
Much of the Chuo Sangi In's time was taken up with laudatory speeches
and government questions about how best to further the war effort. On
the third day, however, it was permitted to advance its own proposals, all
designed to hasten progress towards independence. The major ones were:
(1) That the Chuo Sangi In was itself the legitimate Sumatran rep¬
resentative body, with a duty to represent and to guide its 10 million
people, as well as to advise the Japanese.
(2) That a Sumatra hokokai should be established as the people’s

movement for independence throughout the island, co-ordinating
the hokokai already formed in many shu.
(3) That the Giyugun and Heiho should be merged into a new ‘People’s
militia as the basis for the Indonesian army’. Dr Gani spoke of a
strength of 500,000 men in Sumatra.
(4) That a committee be formed in Sumatra to investigate independence,
and a team to be sent to Jakarta to co-ordinate with the similar body
already working there.
(5) That a tertiary Islamic college be established in Sumatra.
(6) That Indonesian advisers be attached to each department of the
military administration in Bukittinggi.98
By the time of these pronouncements, on 2 July, the Sumatra military
command was under intense and unwelcome pressure to speed up in¬
dependence preparations. At a conference in Singapore in late May, the
25th Army attempted to dissociate Sumatra completely from the inde¬
pendence moves now being rushed in Java. Having pleaded in vain
‘the unreadiness of the Sumatrans for independence’, General Shimura
was again overruled when he argued for a separate Sumatran state over
which the 25th Army could retain control. Tokyo was already committed
to a proclamation of the independence of the whole former Netherlands
Indies ‘at the earliest possible moment’. The only concession was that
Java would in practice become independent at the time of the proclama¬
tion, and the less prepared areas would be incorporated into the new
state as they became ready.99
This pressure had remarkably little effect on Bukittinggi. The only
action on the Chud Sangi In proposals was the naming of a Sumatran
committee to investigate independence, on 28 July. The council’s pro¬
posal for co-ordination with Jakarta was significantly not mentioned,
Bukittinggi no doubt hoping to continue to control the pace of develop¬
ments. Fortunately for eventual Indonesian unity, however, the 25th
Army’s preparation of a distinct Sumatran leadership was not only
slow, but finally abortive.
There seemed no doubt that Sjafei, Adinegoro, and A. K. Gani had
become ‘the Sumatrans’ leaders in all negotiations with the Japanese’.100
Sjafei and Adinegoro began a speech-making tour of Sumatra on 26 July,
having lengthy discussions with Gani in Palembang at the beginning
of August. The Sumatra independence investigation committee, which
never had time to meet, was again headed by Sjafei and Adinegoro, and
most of its twenty-four members were known from the well-publicized
Bukittinggi gatherings of October 1944 and June-July 1945. The only
newcomers in the investigating committee were Dr Amir and Mr
T. M. Hasan, two intellectuals from East Sumatra where the problem of
an acceptable leadership had still not been solved. The jealousy of the
dominant sultans of each other, but still more of any ‘popular’ challenge
to their sovereign position, had never been overcome by the Japanese.
The 25th Army’s cautious moves were overtaken by the drastic dete¬
rioration in Japan’s military position and the decision in early August
that 7 September should be fixed as the date for East Indian independ¬
ence. Three Sumatran delegates were to be sent immediately to join
fifteen from Java and three from Sulawesi at the preparatory committee
to meet on 18 August in Jakarta. Whether because of obstructionism
in Bukittinggi or simply communication difficulties, it was not the es¬
tablished Sumatran leadership which was now sent to Jakarta, but the
two East Sumatran newcomers. A third delegate, Mr Abdul Abbas,
joined Dr Amir and Mr Hasan in Jakarta on 14 August. It was on dis¬
united Medan that the burden of initiating the real independence move¬
ment in Sumatra was destined to fall.
The transfer of administrative functions to Indonesians was similarly
rushed belatedly at the end of the war, despite the much earlier example
of Java. In local administration the key Japanese to be replaced were
the bunshucho. In the last month of the war the abler kerajaan officials
in each region were designated as understudy bunshucho throughout
Aceh and East Sumatra (see Appendix 1). Since the Japanese had relied
heavily on just these men ever since 1942, they had nothing to learn
in moving to the higher office. The real question was whether the ap¬
pointees would be accepted in their new authority by their people.
In East Sumatra there appear to have been no Japanese appointments
of key officials at shu level. In Aceh, however, T. Njak Arif was the
obvious choice to replace the chokan, and an able group of ‘technocrats’
was designated to take over the departments of economic affairs, agri¬
culture, and police.101
When a bomb on Hiroshima brought the war to an unexpectedly
sudden end on 14 August, the society of northern Sumatra was far
from completely prepared for independence. The Japanese had partially
bridged the gulf between kerajaan administrators and pergerakan
propagandists, but with a span too delicate to withstand the pressures
ahead. The high pitch of sacrificial patriotism to which Japanese-trained
youth had been raised, together with the economic deprivation to which
most of their countrymen had been lowered, gave promise of a severe
testing time for what remained of traditional social structure.
1. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1944, in H. J. Benda, J. K. Irikura, and K. Kishi

(eds.), Japanese Military Administration in Indonesia: Selected Documents
(New Haven, Yale Southeast Asia Studies, 1965), p. 242.
2. Shiraishi Saya, 'Aceh under the Japanese occupation—rival leaders in Aceh

Besar and Pidie’ (Unpublished M.A. thesis, International Christian Univer¬
sity, 1975), p. 19.
3. For example, Tengku Hasnan became fuku-bunshucho of Labuhan Batu/

Rantau Prapat in addition to his traditional office of Tengku Besar of Bilah;
Tengku Hafas (replaced in January 1945 by Tengku Amir Hamzah) became
fuku-bunshucho (sometimes called guncho) of Pengkalan Brandan as well as
a Pangeran of Langkat: Kita-Sumatora-Sinbun (henceforth K-S-S), 24-
x-iii—2603, 13—x—2603, 7—xi—2604, 10—i—2605.
4. Army telegram 5 December 1942, in Benda, Irikura, and Kishi, p. 47. Also
ibid., pp. 169 and 184-6; Yoichi Itagaki, ‘Some aspects of the Japanese policy
for Malaya under the occupation, with special reference to Nationalism’,
Papers on Malayan History,ed. K. Tregonning (Singapore, 1962), pp. 256-7.
5. Mohammad Hasjim had to settle clashes between the uleebalang and their
subjects when police chief first in Meureudu (mid-1943) and later in Sigli
(end of 1943); interview October 1970. See also Piekaar, pp. 261-3.
6. Abdullah Hussain, Terjebak (Kuala Lumpur, Pustaka Antara, 1965), p. 276.
7. Mr Mohammad Joesoef (1903-68) was born in Kebumen, Central Java,

and studied at the Willem II School in Batavia and the Leiden Law Faculty
(1922-7). He was prominent in the Perhimpunan Indonesia in Holland and
the Indonesisch Studieclub in Surabaya on his return in 1928-9. After re¬
lease from a brief period of detention, in February 1930, he went to Medan
to replace Iwa Kusuma Sumantri (recently interned) in Mr Sunarjo’s law
practice. He was however a relatively subdued member of partindo and
parindra in Medan.
8. Mr Luat Siregar (1908-53) was born in Sipirok, South Tapanuli, and edu¬
cated at the H.I.S. in Siantar and the A.M.S. in Yogyakarta. He completed
his law degree at Leiden in 1934 and practised privately in Siantar, Padang
Sidempuan, and Medan until the Japanese occupation. Although he was
in parindra before the war, his brother Idris was a left-winger interned
in Digul. Luat himself showed an interest in the peasant question in 1938,
though it was primarily his wartime association with Xarim M. S. which
brought him into the PKI in 1945. As Resident of East Sumatra (April-
September 1946) he was much accused of gambling and corruption.
9. Sumatra Sinbun, 26, 27, and 29-vii-2603; Atjeh Sinbun, 4 and 12-iv-2604;
and 16-V-2605; Piekaar, pp. 210-11. Both the winner of the competition,
Surya [pseud, for Andi Miala], Lebumja Keraton Atjeh (1944), and Ismail
Jakoeb’s Tengku Tjhik di Tiro: Hidup dan perdjuangannja (1945), were more
widely reprinted after the war.
10. Sumatra Sinbun, 12-vii-2603; K-S-S, 23-viii-2603; Hamka, Kenang-

kenangan hidup (Kuala Lumpur, 1966), p. 119.
11. Piekaar, pp. 23-4, 201, 205, 213, 222, and 274-5.
12. Hamka’s father, the great reformist H. Abdul Karim Amrullah, had featured
in early Japanese propaganda in Java, but used the prominence so gained
for a dramatic public rejection of the keirei to the Japanese Emperor. In
Medan it was the Wasliyah leader H. A. R. Sjihab who led opposition to
this unacceptable imposition on Muslims. Hamka, Ajahku (Jakarta, Djaja-
murni, 1967), pp. 192-6 and 287-99; Kenang-kenangan, pp. 190—3.
13. K-S-S, 1 —xi—2603; Hamka, Kenang-kenangan, pp. 199-247; interviews.

14- This issue is more fully discussed in my ‘The Japanese occupation and
rival Indonesian elites: Northern Sumatra in 1942’, JAS, XXXV, no. 1
(November 1975), pp. 49-52.
15. Interviews Kondo Tsugio, Adachi Takashi, and Fujiwara Iwaichi, Tokyo,
July 1973. Inoue, Bapa Djanggut, p. 83.
) 6. This relationship is described at length in Inoue’s Bapa Djanggut, esp.

pp. 56-60 and 73-87. Inoue implies that Siregar was impotent.
17. Abdullah Hussain, Terjebak, pp. 277-9. Interviews.
18. ‘Principles governing the military administration of Sumatra’, April 1943,

in Benda, Irikura, and Kishi, p. 171. See also Y. Itagaki and K. Kishi,’
'Japanese Islamic policy—Sumatra and Malaya’, in Intisari, II, no. 3 (Singa¬
pore, n.d.), esp. pp. 14-15.
19. Hamka, Kenang-kenangan, p. 205.
20. Ibid., p. 207.
21. Ibid., pp. 202-11; Piekaar, pp. 304-7; Mohammad Said, ‘Teror Djepang
di Atjeh Nopember 1942’, Merdeka (Jakarta), 3 and 4 July 1972; Abdullah
Hussain, Terjebak, pp. 245-6; Shiraishi Saya, pp. 22-3.
22. Cited Piekaar, pp. 207 and 275.
23. Hamka, Kenang-kenangan, pp. 213-16; Piekaar, p. 207; Shiraishi Saya, pp.
23—4; interviews.
24. Hamka, Kenang-kenangan, pp. 217-19; Sumatra Sinbun, 21-vi-2603;

K-S-S, 23 -viii-2603. One hundred and fifty East Sumatra ulama met the
day before the rally, but apparently reached no decisions beyond a pledge
of loyalty to Japan.
25. Hamka, Kenang-kenangan, pp. 223-7; K-S-S, 24-viii-2603; Tengku

Luckman Sinar, ‘The East Coast of Sumatra under the Japanese heel’,
p. 41.
26. War Cabinet, Joint Staff, 8 August 1943, ‘Operations against the northern
tip of Sumatra’, WO 203/4893.
27. War Cabinet, Chiefs of Staff Committee, 28 September 1943, WO 203/

4893.
28. India Command, Report by Joint Planning Staff, Paper 93, 7 October
1943, WO 203/4893. The ‘Culverin’ alternative was still being considered
in July 1944, though by then less seriously than Burma: WO 203/1627.
29. ‘Rural unrest in Sumatra: A Japanese report’, p. 124; Shiraishi Saya, pp.
19-20.
30. Shiraishi Saya, pp. 16 and 20. Sumatra Sinbun, 17-iv-2603. The figure
of 750, in Piekaar, p. 263, appears more probable than the 250 estimate
in British Intelligence Summary 16, 16 February 1946, WO 172/9893.
31. Sumatra Sinbun, 24-V-2603 and 22-vii-2603; K-S-S, 6-ix-2603, 22 and

27-xi-2603; Piekaar, pp. 208-9.
32. Speech of Luat Siregar in K-S-S, 27-xi-2603.
33. K-S-S, 30-ix-2603, 9-X-2603, 25-xi-2603; Piekaar, pp. 219 and 238.
34. Piekaar, p. 238. Atjeh-verslag to 15 January 1946, Bi.Z. 21/1. ‘Arsip Se-
jarah’ (typescript compiled by prima—Pejuang Republik Indonesia Medan

Area, Medan, 1972), pp. 25-6.
35. K-S-S, 2-ix-2604; Piekaar, p. 219. Officers trained in the Hikojo Kimutai
included (later Brig.-Gen.) T. Hamzah of Samalanga, Aceh, and T. M.
Noerdin of Serdang, East Sumatra.
36. K-S-S, 23-ix-2603.
37. Abdullah Hussain, Terjebak, p. 206.
38. Tomon Hiroshi, Murudeka (Tokyo, Oogi Shuppan, 1975). Republik In¬
donesia Departemen Penerangan, 20 Tahun Indonesia Merdeka (Jakarta,
n.d. [1965?] ), III, p. 192. prima, ‘Arsip Sejarah’, p. 28.
39. Masubuchi circular 22 June 1943, reproduced in Piekaar, p. 360.
41. Compiled from lists in K-S-S, 20—xii—2603, and Piekaar, pp. 220—1.
42. Tengku Hafas (1895—c. 1955) was a grandson of Sultan Osman of Deli
and son of the Pangeran of Bedagai, a Deli dependency. Although appointed
ivakil sultan in Bedagai in 1932 he was repeatedly passed over for his father’t
title of Pangeran. Perhaps as a result of his consequent resentment againss
the Deli sultanate, he was employed by Langkat in 1943 as Pangeran of
Langkat Hilir.
43. Mr Teuku Mohammad Hasan was born in 1906, eldest son of the ruler
of Pineueng, in Pidie. Devout and studious, he proceeded quickly through
mulo and AMS in Bandung and University in Leiden, completing his
Law Degree in 1933 without having taken any active part in student politics.
He returned to private practice in Medan until 1938, when he joined the
staff of the new Sumatran Provincial Government as adjunct-referendans.
Although never part of the political sphere before 1945 he was active in
religious and social matters, establishing a scholarship fund for young Aceh-
nese (1939) and maintaining good relations both with pusa and with the
leading ulama in Medan.
44. K-S-S, 26 and 28-xi-2603; 10, 13 and 16-xii-2603.
45. Xarim M. S., ‘Menentukan sikap, memenuhi kewadjipan’, in K-S-S,

8-xii-2603.
46. Dr Mohammad Amir (1900-49) was a Minangkabau from Talawi and a

nephew of Adinegoro. As a medical student at the stovia in Batavia
(1913-23) Amir was a close colleague of Dr Tengku Mansur in launching
the youth movement Jong-Sumatranen-Bond, succeeding Mansur as its
chairman (1920-3). He also edited the journal of the movement, as well
as writing prolifically on questions of culture, philosophy, and popular
science for various Indonesian periodicals. In Batavia he became associated
with the Theosophical movement, which financed his further medical stud¬
ies in Utrecht (1924-8) where he specialized in psychiatry. He married a
niece of Ir Fournier, one of the leading Dutch theosophists in Java. Al¬
though in the pages of Pudjangga Baru he was one of the most eloquent
opponents of Takdir Alisjahbana’s demand for westernization, he at one
time became a Dutch citizen and his domestic arrangements were very
European (in contrast to those of Dr Mansur, whose Dutch wife affected
a Malay style). Amir returned to Indonesia in 1928 and Medan in 1934,
first in government service but from 1937 as personal physician to the
145
Sultan of Langkat. Some of his many writings are collected in his Boenga
Rampai (Medan, 1940). s
47. Tengku Otteman (c.1901-69), eldest son of Sultan Amaloedin of Deli

suffered as a young man of extravagant tastes from his father’s preference
for his half-brother Tengku Amiroeddin. The relatively low allowances
he received from his father ensured he was always in heavy debt and under
suspicion for embezzling government funds, until 1933, when he became
effective regent of the state at a salary of f. 1,000 a month. Otteman was
educated partly in Switzerland, enjoyed racehorses, and visited Europe as
often as possible. He succeeded on his father’s death in 1945, adopting
the title Sultan Osman Alsani Perkasa Alam.
48. K-S-S, 30-vi-2604, 3 and 6-vii-2604, 4, 6, and 22-xi-2604, 19 and 29-

xn-2604; At]eh Sinbun, 2-xii-2604 and 28-vi-2605; Hamka, Kenang-
kenangan hidup, p. 246.
49. Lt. Brondgeest, in Enquetecommissie Regeringsbeleid 1940-1945. Verslag

houdende de nitkomsten van het onderzoek, vol. VIII (A&B1 CThe Harnie
1956), p. 587. M g ’
50. K-S-S, 29-ix-2603; l-vii-2604; 15-ix-2604.
51. Atjeh Sinbun, 20-V-2604. For the statistics, revealed to meetings of the
shu sangi kai, see Atjeh Sinbun, 12-iv-2604, and Piekaar, pp. 222 225-6
and 290-2.
52. Interview Nakata Eishu, Tokyo, July 1973.
53. Atjeh Sinbun, 8, 12 and 15-iv-2604; Piekaar, pp. 229 and 295-6.
54. T. M. A. Panglima Polim, Memoir (Tjatatan), p. 8.
55. Piekaar, pp. 229—32; Hamka, ‘Teuku Hassan Glompang Pajong: Consul
Muhammadijah Pertama Atjeh’, Pandji Masjarakat, May 1969, pp. 30-1;
interviews. Hasan’s rather lukewarm impressions of his tour of Japan appear
in K-S-S, 1 l-xi-2603.
56. 6,000 attended at Ie Leubeue in July 1943; 6,000 at Ie Leubeue, 7,000

at Kg. Aree, and 3,500 at Jangkabuya in March 1944: Sumatra Sinbun,
29-vii-2603; Atjeh Sinbun, 18—iii—2603.
57. Interviews. One ulama, Teungku Madan, was killed as a result of a clash
with the uleebalang of Ribai (Sigli) in 1943, and a similar clash with T.
Mahmud of Meureudu also caused fatalities.
58. Piekaar, pp. 218—19; K-S-S, 22-X-2603; interviews.
59. Joenoes Djamil, Riwajat barisan ‘F’ (Fudjiwara Kikan) di Atjeh (re-sten-
cilled 1975 by plpis, Banda Aceh), esp. pp. 17 and 19. A list of uleebalang
participants is added to the front of this report, as if by another hand. The
Japanese version was Aceh-shu Kogun Shinchu Kyoryoku-shi (A history
of co-operation for the advancement of the imperial forces in Aceh).
60. Aoki Eigoro, Achie no Minzoku-undo (mimeograph 1955), p. 33. See also
p. 8 of a typescript English summary of this report in Cornell University
Library.
61. Ibid., pp. 29-35. Shiraishi Saya, pp. 33-9. Piekaar, pp. 263-8. Interviews
Aoki Eigoro, Said Abu Bakar, Azuma Toru, Yamaguchi Susumu, Hasan
Aly, Teungku Mohd. Hasbi As-Siddiqy.
62. Atjeh Sinbun, 8-iv-2604.
63. Mutyara, ‘Atjeh Utara Sekarang’, Atjeh Sinbun, 22—iii—2604.
64. Aoki Eigoro, Achie no Minzoku-undo, p. 39.
65. Ibid., pp. 40-1. Also Atjeh Sinbun, 18—iii—2604.
66. Atjeh Sinbun, 29—iii—2604.
67. Although about a quarter of the 102 Acehnese son were in Pidie, the fifty
kadhi appointments announced by the end of June 1944, included only
four from this area. Atjeh Sinbun, 3, 6, 10, 20 and 27—v—2604; 7 and
24-vi-2604.
68. Atjeh Sinbun, 29—iv—2604. Also ibid., 6 and 10—v—2604.
69. Ibid., 3-V-2604, 10-vi-2604 and 22-vii-2604. Nazaruddin Sjamsuddin,

‘The Course of the National Revolution in Aceh’ (Thesis, 1974), pp. 56-7.
Interviews Aoki Eigoro, Azuma Toru, Said Abu Bakar. Aoki Eigoro, Achie
no Minzoku-undo (English summary p. 11), gives as a reason for Abu Bakar’s
dismissal the organization of a mass rally in front of the Shukyo Hoin to
protest against ideebalang obstruction of its work.
70. The Shumuhan was announced on 4 July and officially opened in the pres¬
ence of the sultans on 19 August 1944. K-S-S, 5 and 21—vii-2604; 21 —
viii-2604.
71. Hamka, Kenang-kenangan hidup, pp. 235-9.
72. Speech at talapeta opening, K-S-S, 30-viii-2603.
73. Ibid., and Inoue, Bapa Djanggut, p. 81. See also K-S-S, 31 —viii—2603 and
28—iii—2604.
75. Zainu’ddin, ‘The Japanese occupation’, in Indonesian Nationalism and

Revolution: six first-hand accounts (Monash University, Melbourne, 1971),
pp. 13-14.
76. K-S-S, 14—viii—2603 and 13-ix-2603.
77. Ibid., l-ix-2604.
78. Ibid., 31-X-2604 and 4-xi-2604. talapeta Dosokai exhorted its members
to remember four points: (1) to repeat each day the pledge and the thanks¬
giving learned at talapeta; (2) to write down each day’s work and then
hansei (make a self-criticism); (3) to keep the hair short; (4) to work without
a shirt whenever possible; (5) ‘in good times and bad, to give as much
news as possible to our bapak’.
79. Inoue, Bapa Djanggut, pp. 86-8.
80. Zainu’ddin, ‘The Japanese Occupation’, p. 14.
81. Inoue, Bapa Djanggut, pp. 88-95. Also Iman Marah typescript (1947),
pp. 32-3, CMI Document 5331, ARA Archief Procureur-Generaal, no. 627.
Interviews.
82. Interview Kondo Tsugio, 28 October 1973.
83. Interviews. Cf. Piekaar, p. 245, and Abdullah Hussain, Terjebak, pp. 335
and 378-9.
147
4. Interrogation of Maj.-Gen. Shimura Fumie (Director of General Affairs
Dept. Sumatra Gunseikan 1944-5), 13 June 1946, RvO, I.C. 009403 On
the Japanese discussions see Okuma Memorial Social Sciences Research
entre’âseda[University, Japanese Military Administration in Indonesia,
anS^JnP?? (Washlngton- 1963)> PP- 372-80; Benda, Irikura, and Kishi,
pp. 240-62.
85. lino, in Atjeh Sinbun, 7-X-2604. Also Piekaar, pp. 233-4.
86. Atjeh Sinbun, ll-x-2604.
87. Hamka, Kenang-kenangan hidup, pp. 241 and 270.
88. Dr Amir’s notes 14 June 1946, RvO, I.C. 005964.
89. T. M. Daudsjah in Boekoe Peringatan Satoe Tahoen N.R.I. di Soematera:

17-8-’45-17-8-’46 (Bukittinggi, 1946), p. 39.
91. Atjeh Sinbun, 1, 11, 19, and 21-X-2604. Also Piekaar, p. 316.
92. Kusmamjah, ‘Siapa para Sjuhada 44 Lheue’, Sinar Darussalam, 12 (Mar./

Apr. 1969), pp. 51-6. Piekaar, p. 307. Abdullah Hussain, Terjebak, pp
324-5. FF
93. Abdullah Hussain, Terjebak, pp. 339-41. Also K-S-S, 8-vii-2604.
94. On 9 December 1944 Xarim M. S. organized a meeting oipemuda represent¬

atives from all East Sumatra, in the hope (apparently abortive) of obtaining
Japanese sanction for a militant youth movement. Had this succeeded East
Sumatran pemuda might have developed the same coherence and leader¬
ship as their colleagues in Jakarta. K-S-S, 11, 13, and 15-xii-2604.
95. Atjeh Sinbun, 5 and 8-xii-2604.
96. Ibid., 24—x—2604; 19—iv—2605; 2—vi—2605. Piekaar, pp. 240—1.
97. Interrogation of General Shimura, 13 June 1946, RvO I.C. 009403.
98. M. Sjafei, Menjatoe-padoekan Soematera Baroe (Bukittinggi, 2605), esp.

pp. 41-4. Atjeh Sinbun, 28-vi-2605, 3 and 31-vii-2605.
99. Interrogation Shimura, loc. cit. Statement of Major Ishizima Tadakazu,

16 November 1946, RvO I.C. 059295. Benda, Irikura, and Kishi, pp. 263-
74. Japanese Military Administration, pp. 384-6 and 647-51.
100. Interrogation Shimura, loc. cit. On the leadership question see A. Reid,
‘The birth of the Republic in Sumatra’, Indonesia, 12 (1971), pp. 22-31.
101. Atjeh Sinbun, 14-viii—2605.

VI
THE AGENTS OF REVOLUTION

IN EAST SUMATRA
‘After the jfalan Bali affair broke . . . like a great shock awa¬
kening the spirit of the Indonesian people, bands of pemuda were
formed at various places in and around Medan, by themselves
without being planned in advance, just like pools of water in
low-lying places when a great flood retreats after overrunning the
fields on either side of a river. . . . One man in each of these bands
then came to the fore as a leader, on the basis of his ability and
competence.'1
A CITY LEADERLESS
Dramatic decisions were taken in Jakarta in the week following the

Japanese surrender. The independence of Indonesia was declared;
Sukarno and Hatta were elected President and Vice-President of a new
Republic; a constitution was accepted. Sumatra was declared to be a
Province of the new Republic, with Medan as its capital and Mr T. M.
Hasan as its Governor. As the delegates sent to Jakarta by the Japanese,
Hasan and Dr Amir participated in all these brave words and deeds.
Yet as far as Medan itself was concerned, the whole drama might almost
have taken place on the moon. The reality was of a Japanese regime
about to end, and a British-Dutch regime expected to take its place.
The Japanese maintained a stricter control of information in East
Sumatra than elsewhere. Indonesians in the Domei news agency were
barred from work from 14 August. Few even of the privileged Indo¬
nesian leaders appear to have heard of the surrender of 15 August or
the independence proclamation two days later. Only on 22 August, after
a Singapore meeting of commanders had agreed to accept the surrender,
was the news publicly broadcast that ‘the war has come to a standstill’.
The Japanese, it was insisted, continued to be responsible for law and
order.2
Immediately before this public announcement the chokan had tear¬
fully given the same message to the circle of Indonesian pemimpin in
THE AGENTS OF REVOLUTION IN EAST SUMATRA 149
KOTA MA'SUM
Main roads 1 Palace of Sultan of Deli

2 Central Market
Railways 3 Pensiun Wilhelmina
4 Railway Station
5 Post Office
Built up areas
6 Hotel de Boer
7 Balai Kota (Town Hall)
0_ 2 4
8 Asrama Rensheikei
Kilometres 9 Principal Mosque
4 Medan in 1945
Medan. In response to a question he told some of them afterwards

about a report that an independence declaration had been made in Ja¬
karta. During August it was only on this level of distant rumour that
the Republic was known, and it seemed to have little enough relevance
to the situation in the city. The prime concern of most leaders was
with the effect that another change of colonial master would have on
the delicate balance between rival Indonesian groups. How far would
the solidarity of the favoured elite group extend in this newT crisis?
Dr Tengku Mansur, who had a certain primacy as chairman of the
shii sangi kai, invited a select group of leaders to his house on 25
August to discuss this problem. The majority of those present were
from the kerajaan, although the pergerakan was represented by the
obvious people—Xarim M. S. and Mr Joesoef among them. All were
concerned to prevent an outbreak of reprisals and denunciations of
‘collaborators’ to the incoming Allies. The group circulated a statement
calling on the population to remain calm, and elected a committee headed
by the Sultan of Langkat and Dr Mansur to explain to the Allies why
it had been necessary for everybody to co-operate with the Japanese.
This appears to be the factual basis for a widespread impression that
the kerajaan had formed a Comite van Ontvangst (reception committee)
to welcome the Dutch and even seize power before their arrival. ‘The
Sultan of Langkat and Dr Mansur were said to have formed a committee
to arrest the leaders of the pergerakan.’3 The gathering may indeed
have consciously excluded those it felt had gone too far with the
Japanese, as even Xarim had his suspicions of the gerindoI Kenkokutai
group. It certainly had neither the power nor the unity to act in the
manner suspected. The committee was very rapidly overtaken by events,
and the contacts the rajas did make with British and Dutch representa¬
tives later were generally discreet and on their own initiative. Never¬
theless belief in a nebulous but sinister Comite van Ontvangst remained
the most commonly-heard accusation against the kerajaan.11
It was the apparent certainty of a Dutch restoration rather than the
actions of their enemies which most demoralized those who now felt
themselves compromised. Dr Rooskandar, bompa leader in Sima-
lungun and responsible for the Siantar hospital where various prisoners-
of-war had suffered, took his own life in September. Hamka accepted
the offer of an official car from his patron, Nakashima, with which he
fled to West Sumatra on 24 August. Inoue Tetsuro appeared to have
equally little confidence in the possibility of resisting the Allied occupa¬
tion, even though he chose to go underground rather than face probable
war crimes trials. At the end of August he arranged vehicles for Jacub
Siregar, Saleh Oemar, and other Kenkokutai leaders to drive south with
the aim of reaching Java. By giving way to their fears in this way all
of these men seemed to confirm their own guilt, and found it difficult
to recapture the influence they once had. Saleh Oemar and Hamka
quickly realized their mistake and returned to Medan in late September,
although Siregar did not do so until Republican power was well-
established.5
To add to the difficulties of potential Republicans the Dutch presence
was established more quickly and energetically in Medan than elsewhere
in Sumatra or Java. An Anglo-Dutch country section (adcs) of
Mountbatten’s Force 136 was formed in Colombo early in 1945, and
parachuted three small commando units into northern Sumatra at the
end of June, d heir task was to prepare information and contacts which
might be useful in the British invasion of Malaya, planned for September
9. After the surrender these three units were instructed to leave their
bivouacs and contact the Japanese in Kutaraja, Rantau Prapat, and
Bagan Siapiapi respectively, to ensure the welfare of Allied prisoners-
of-war and internees. Two further units were hastily dropped north-west
of Medan as soon as a Japanese surrender became imminent, and both
had reached the city before the end of August. The senior British party,
led by South African Major Jacobs, moved quickly about Sumatra to
contact high-level Japanese and visit p.o.w. camps. The other, primarily
Dutch and led by Dutch Naval Lieutenant Brondgeest, had established
itself in Medan’s Hotel de Boer by 1 September. Brondgeest quickly
made contact not only with the Japanese but with the Sultans of Langkat
and Deli and other members of the pre-war elite who, while seeking
some reforms, promised to co-operate with the Dutch return.6
Brondgeest quickly formed the opinion that little active support for
a Dutch return could be expected from either British or Japanese. How¬
ever by acting independently with the support of local Ambonese and
Menadonese, he thought the Dutch officers could control Medan and
check any large-scale Republican movement until Dutch troops could
land. Through his Dutch superior in ADCS, Admiral Helfrich, he
obtained permission ‘to organize a police force to take power into our
own hands over as extensive as possible an area of East Sumatra’.7 On
14 September another Dutch commando, the tough and subsequently
notorious Lt. Westerling, and three Dutch sergeants were parachuted
into Medan, with 180 revolvers, to train and equip this police force.
By early October Westerling appears to have commanded a tolerably
well-armed and trained force of almost two hundred men, with some
hundreds more ex-p.o.w.s anxious to join it if arms could be found.
The force set a watch on strategic installations such as electricity and
water supply, and conducted regular patrols of Medan and the route
to Belawan with a couple of commandeered Japanese armoured cars.8
The Dutch claimed, with considerable exaggeration, that they controlled
the city until the arrival of British troops.9

During the first month following the Japanese surrender Allied radio
control and air supply was also better with Sumatra than with Java.
From 21 August leaflets began to be dropped in various parts of Sumatra
on behalf of nica (Netherlands Indies Civil Administration).10 On
the ground a provisional nica administration for Sumatra, under Allied
military auspices, was formed within a few weeks of the surrender under
Dr Beck and Resident Bruggemans, both brought from the Dutch camp
at Rantau Prapat. On 3 October about sixty more key men from the
pre-war administration were brought from the camp to Medan to begin
to reconstruct the ancien regime.n In the opinion of Brondgeest,12
the tactlessness and arrogance of the most senior Dutch civilians belied
official promises of a new type of Dutch-Indonesian relationship, and
contributed much to the evaporation of goodwill towards Europeans
after October.
The appointed leaders of the Republican Government in Sumatra, Mr
Hasan and Dr Amir, returned to Medan on 28 August in a thoroughly
demoralized mood. Having heard an exaggerated version of the Comite
van Ontvangst story in Tarutung, Dr Amir’s enthusiasm for the Re¬
public turned very quickly to scepticism. The initial soundings the two
men made among the Medan elite group convinced them that the politi¬
cians as well as the sultans wanted to avoid any step which would further
prejudice their standing with the Japanese or the returning Allies. Un¬
like the position in Java, there appeared to be no mass or pemuda organi¬
zations they could contact, bompa had dissolved itself on 23 August.
Following this initial disillusion in early September, Amir did not
return to Medan until about October 10. Mr Hasan kept the news of
what had happened in Jakarta within a very small circle. On 15 Sep¬
tember Dr Pirngadi received an indignant telegram from Dr A. K. Gani
in Palembang, asking why no effect had been given by the two leaders to
the Jakarta decisions.13 This telegram appears to have circulated within
the former bompa group and led to a second attempt by Hasan on
17 September to persuade them to form a KNI (Komite Nasional In¬
donesia) as decreed at the Jakarta meetings. Once again the fears of a
colonial restoration were too strong. It was agreed only to form a Panitia
Kebangsaan Sumatera Timur (the first two words of which have the
same meaning as Komite Nasional, but from a Malay rather than a
‘modern’ Dutch root). The only significant decision of this committee
was to establish a national bank from capital supplied by its members.14
Following the 17 September meeting a more impatient group of poli¬
ticians went to Tanjung Pura to see Dr Amir, who had been named
‘Minister of State’ in Sukarno’s first cabinet. Amir took the view that
he would support an independence proclamation by Hasan, but only
if some effective force could be mobilized to back it.15
THE PEMUDA MOBILIZE
The young Indonesians who had a measure of para-military training

and organization from the Japanese period shared the general shock
and disorientation following the news of surrender. The Giyugun, Heiho,
and Kenkokutai had been disarmed and disbanded from about 16 Au¬
gust, long before they understood what was happening. But for those
in Medan and the other sizeable towns there was no transport to take
them back to their respective villages. Many of them joined the growing
group of pathetic indigents displaced and then discarded by the Japanese
occupation. They also became a primary target for the hostility of those
who had suffered most under the Japanese.
It was this situation which gave rise to the earliest organization. To¬
wards the end of August some of the ex-Giyugun officers contacted
Xarim M. S., who had recruited many of them into the force and patron¬
ized them through bompa. Xarim was also the executor for former
bompa property, which he now put at the disposal of the indigent
Indonesian soldiers. A loose organization, Panitia Penolong Pengang-
guran Heiho dan Giyugun (Committee to help unemployed Heiho and
Giyugun) was formed to organize the feeding of these men from bompa
rice-stocks, and the housing of some of them at bompa head¬
quarters. After this mild success, the Giyugun officers quickly formed a
broader group, Persatuan Pemuda Latihan (Trained Youth Association),
intended to embrace and defend all those who had received Japanese
training as police or officials as well as soldiers against the accusation
of being fascists and collaborators. Through such informal organizations
Japanese-trained pemuda came together often to compare rumours about
Allied intentions and developments in Java.16
These youngsters with the greatest potential for military organization
had very little contact either with the elite politicians or with the shadowy
‘underground’ groups which were equally unsure of their direction.
Xarim M. S. was the link between all three elements, but perhaps for
this very reason he acted with great caution in the first weeks following
the surrender. Evidently only after A. K. Gani’s September 15 telegram
did he tell Abdul Razak, his principal pemuda assistant, about the grow¬
ing Republican movement in Java. Razak and some of his ex-Giyugun
colleagues immediately tried to contact Mr Hasan. Failing in that, they
went to Tanjung Pura on 19 September. From Dr Amir they at last
learned what had taken place in Jakarta, and they promised to support
any initiative the older leaders took to proclaim the Republic.17
From this point the Japanese-trained pemuda appear to have accepted
their own responsibility to take some initiative in view of the dilatoriness

of their elders. About 20 September the senior ex-Giyugun officer in
Medan, First Lieutenant Ahmad Tahir,18 began issuing invitations
for a large pemnda meeting at former bompa headquarters in Jalan
Istana.
At this point they joined forces with another group of Japanese-
trained pemuda, centred in the Asrama Rensheikei (on the site of the
present Dirga Surya hotel). This was a Medan hostel for young Indone¬
sians being trained in the Japanese vocational schools for police and
administrators and inTALAPETA or Naga Huta agricultural schools. About
fifty students were in residence, some of whom had recently also heard
about the independence proclamation. When the Japanese forbade
Tahir’s meeting at Jalan Istana, the venue was quietly changed to the
Asrama Rensheikei. On 23 September fifty-three pemuda gathered there,
almost all of them from the two groupings of Japanese-trained young
men.19
There were, however, at least two men present, Nip Xarim and Mar-
zuki Lubis, who had contact with ‘underground’ groups with some
pre-war left-wing experience. There appear to have been two major
centres for this underground activity about the time of the surrender.
One was a predominantly Karo group which had been involved in Hatta
and Sjahrir’s PNI-baru before the war. Although they thought of them¬
selves as nationalists rather than socialists, they had imbibed from the
party a distrust of the Japanese and a tradition of underground cell
organization. The leaders of this group—Selamat Ginting, Tama Gin-
ting, and Rakuta in Tanah Karo; Egon in Medan—maintained contact
in the last years of the war through a rice-distributing agency known
as Pusat Usaha Ekonomi Rakyat (centre for promoting the people’s
economy). The group had some contact with Malaya-based Chinese
underground groups, though none with Java.20
The major coup of the whole so-called ‘underground’ (no more than
a set of contacts at most) was the single-handed work of Selamat Ginting.
Shortly before the surrender he hitched a ride on an ammunition truck
and managed to kill the two unsuspecting Japanese soldiers in charge
of it with a pistol he had stolen earlier. He buried what he could of this
haul, notably a few score pistols and some ammunition, in a field near
the spot.21
The focus of another ‘underground’ network was Nathar Zainuddin,
the veteran Islamic communist who had used his Kenpeitai privileges
to build a network of Marxist and radical nationalist contacts which
he called the ‘Anti-Fascist Movement’. It included such communists
as Urbanus Pardede, Bustami, and Joenoes Nasution, as well as the
former parpindo leader Marzuki Lubis. The group certainly had
THE AGENTS OF REVOLUTION IN EAST SUMATRA
155
no contact with the Allies and little with underground Chinese groups,
and the possibility cannot be ruled out that one or two Japanese officers
knew and approved of Nathar’s potentially anti-Dutch network. After
the surrender this ‘Anti-Fascist’ group engaged in what it called ‘gather¬
ing intelligence’ and later in producing nationalist pamphlets.22
The two ‘underground’ groups were in contact by the end of Sep¬
tember, when Selamat Ginting was in Medan. He and Marzuki Lubis
went together to Xarim M. S. to try to bluster him into greater activity.
When they brandished their pistols he immediately asked whether they
had more arms. The result was that about twenty pistols from Selamat’s
hideout were transferred to Xarim. During October they came to form
the basis of the pasukan (unit) led by Xarim’s son, Nip Xarim, which
was loosely part of the ‘Anti-Fascist’ network.23
The 23 September meeting therefore represented most active pemuda
groups, whereas none of the older politicians invited put in an appear¬
ance. The meeting began with talk of forming another pemuda welfare
organization, but was set on a firmly ‘revolutionary’ course by the more
politicized pemuda, notably Abdul Razakand B. H. Hutadjulu of Xarim’s
bompa/Giyugun circle, and the fiery Aminuddin Nazir of Inoue’s
coastal guard. By evening a Badan Pemuda Indonesia (BPI) had been
formed with the aim of defending independence. Ahmad Tahir was
elected First Chairman and an activist Muhammadiah teacher A. Malik
Munir Second Chairman. A more prominent and experienced leader
seemed called for, however. The choice fell upon Sugondo Kartoprodjo,
who was popular with youth through his Taman Siswa work and had
held no position under the now discredited Japanese. Sugondo accepted
the appointment and the BPI began to canvass support for a large-scale
meeting at the end of the month. Two hundred and fifty invitations
were issued to key bompa politicians and to pemuda from all over
East Sumatra.24
THE REPUBLIC PROCLAIMED
The BPI rally which eventually took place on 30 September was given
additional urgency by the appearance of Medan’s first independent
newspaper the previous day. Mohammad Said had persuaded a nervous
printer to come out with a cautious news-sheet named after the pre-war
Pewarta Deli. Its first issue used an Australian broadcast based on a
Dutch news-agency report, to the effect that Sukarno’s house was under
Allied guard. Taken to mean house arrest, this threw pemuda of the
BPI and Nathar’s group into a panic. Some of them visited Mohammad
Said to demand explanations and sought out other leaders for infor¬
mation. One of the features of the following day’s rally became a public
apology by the editor for his ‘provocative’ report. Tht pemuda had made
their first hostage among the older generation.25
This incident raised the numbers as well as the temperature at the 30
September meeting. Close to 1,000 people attended. After Ahmad Tahir
and Sugondo had explained the BPI, Mr Hasan outlined the strength
of the Republic in Java, and called for support in Sumatra. But it was
Xarim M. S. who gave the pemuda a sense of direction with a fiery speech
taking issue, among other things, with Hasan’s legalistic approach to
the position of the Allies. The most magnetic speaker in East Sumatra,26
the leading bompa propagandist, and the most distinguished revolu¬
tionary of the 1920s, Xarim established himself at this meeting as
much the most influential of the older politicians. He was appointed
to head an advisory council for the BPI.27
Within a few days of this meeting BPI branches were formed in Lang-
kat, Asahan, and Karoland. In all the main towns young people began
to sport a red and white flash on the chest and to propagate what they
knew of the Republic. In Medan this process was very rapid. The older
politicians, with Xarim now in the lead, could no longer ignore pemuda
pressure. Whatever doubts Mr Hasan in particular felt about his position
must have been resolved by the publicity given in Java on 1 October
to the alleged lde facto recognition’ of the Republic by General Christi-
son.28 After another meeting of the Medan political elite to endorse
his action, and an assurance from Nakashima that the Japanese would
not interfere, Mr Hasan began to issue decrees as Governor on 3 Octo¬
ber. Among them were instructions to officials to follow the orders only
of Republican authorities, and to stop work in all offices where the
merah-putih could not be flown. Pemuda at several key offices were ready
to carry out this instruction the following morning. At the Post Office,
the railway station, and several other points the flag-raising presented
few difficulties. A few of the British officers staying at the Hotel de
Boer after parachuting into Medan even gave a wry cheer as the flag
went up at the Post Office opposite. At the police headquarters there
was an exchange of bluff between the Japanese in charge and the In¬
donesian policemen, who had retained their weapons after the surrender,
before the merah-putih was allowed to remain. At the Balai Kota (town
hall) Hayasaki was more determined, and seemed prepared to use troops
to prevent the Hinomaru being lowered. Mr Luat Siregar, second-
ranking Indonesian in the city administration, then intervened to tell
the pemuda he would set up a rival mayor’s office in Jalan Istana. The
Japanese-controlled Kita Sumatora Sinbun, which had continued as
Soematera Baroe since September, appeared on 4 October as a Repub¬
lican organ, Soeloeh Merdeka. Its first issue apologized to the pemuda
for having injured nationalist feelings in the past, and on the other hand
graciously thanked the Japanese staff it had just ousted. On the same
day Hasan s Panitia Kebangsaan of 17 September met at last to declare
itself a KNI and to elect Dr Soenario as chairman.29
In most offices the raising of the flag was taken by Japanese depart¬
ment heads as the symbolic end of their functions. In almost every
case they had already ceased to take an active interest in affairs after
the surrender. Real armed resistance by Japanese to a takeover of offices
by their Indonesian staff was very rare. Thtpemuda faced a more difficult
task persuading senior Indonesian officials to defy the Japanese and
the returning Dutch. Threats and occasional violence were necessary.
But the week beginning 4 October did see most government offices rid
of any effective Japanese control. Nominal Republican authority was
accepted—enthusiastically by the young; fearfully by many older offi¬
cials.
d he same week saw the rapid burgeoning of the pro-Republican
movement beyond the ranks of the few hundred Japanese-trained youth
active at the end of September. On 6 October the Republican flag was
officially raised at a mass meeting on the city esplanade.
Several thousand attended the speeches, but not as many as the
30,000 who had witnessed the traditional Malay ceremony to enthrone
Tengku Otteman as the new Sultan of Deli the same morning, where
Allied and Japanese representatives had been given more prestigious
places than the Republican Governor.30 Three days later, however,
a massive march in support of the Republic wound through Medan’s
streets, with over 100,000 reportedly taking part.31
With this the initiative in Medan passed decisively to the Republic.
The fifty or more Dutch officials who had been freely moving about
the city since 3 October in an attempt to re-assert control over its in¬
stallations were suddenly confined to the Beatrix-school, their temporary
hostel, on the day of the march. Westerling’s men mounted guard over
them. The Indonesian colleagues and friends who up to then had been
freely visiting the Dutch suddenly stopped coming.32
In East Sumatra as a whole the Republic was still very tenuous. Out¬
side the towns the effective administration was that of the kerajaan,
particularly after the unifying Japanese element withdrew in early
October. With these separate royal administrations the Republic could
attempt no more than a liaison function, at which they suffered an initial
disadvantage in relation to the Dutch. During September the sultans,
like most others, had assumed that Dutch power was returning and
would have to be placated for the events of the Japanese period. Langkat
and Deli had been quick to co-operate with Brondgeest. After the proc¬
lamation of the Republic the rajas generally attempted to retreat to
a more cautious wait-and-see policy. But there was no hiding the Dutch
sympathies and friendships of men like Datuk Djamil and 1 engku Musa,
secretaries to the sultans of Langkat and Asahan respectively. The new
Sultan of Deli hastened to send a secret message of loyalty to the Dutch
Queen.33 The most important politician in the ranks of the kerajaan,
Dr Mansur, decided against active co-operation with the Republic.
Even the new KNI, still attempting like the Japanese bodies it sup¬
planted to represent all sections of East Sumatra society, was unable
to take any effective action in the political sphere because of the op¬
position of kerajaan representatives.34
THE ALLIED LANDINGS, AND VIOLENCE
A brigade of the 26th Indian Division, about 5,000 strong, under the
command of Brigadier-General T. E. D. Kelly, began disembarkation
at Belawan on 10 October. The build-up was not completed until 5
November, after which date the British established small garrisons at
Binjai and Brastagi beside the main force in Medan. The earlier landings
in Java had already shown the difficulty of reconciling the demands
of the Dutch with the very limited resources and objectives of the British.
The pre-arranged terms for the Allied military administration of In¬
donesia had been worked out during 1944-5 for Sumatra, which until
June 1945 was the only part of Indonesia falling under Mountbatten’s
South-East Asia Command (seac). The agreement was extended to
the rest of Indonesia on 15 August. It provided that the Allied (British)
commanders would not formally assume authority so as not to undermine
Dutch sovereignty. They would simply announce their intention to
release prisoners-of-war, repatriate Japanese, and maintain law and order
until the lawful Government could again function. Nevertheless there
would be a preliminary stage in the occupation, while order was being
established, when the Dutch officials of the Netherlands Indies Civil
Administration (nica) would be fully subordinate to Allied military
authority, and act only through it.35
Developments during September had already made plain to Mount-
batten and his commander for the Netherlands East Indies, Lt.-Gen.
Christison, that the British troops available for Java and Sumatra, even
after expansion from one to three brigades, could not expect to do more
than hold the major cities. Beyond this, Japanese and Indonesian au¬
thority had to be relied upon to maintain order. Mountbatten’s policy
therefore had to adjust to eliciting co-operation from the Republic,
while at the same time assuring the Dutch that no recognition of the
Republic was implied. The angry Dutch reaction to Christison’s 29
September statement ensured that Brigadier Kelly would be particularly
sensitive on the latter part of his programme.
For his part Mr Hasan followed the official Republican policy of

co-operating with the Allies in their stated tasks, though without the
personal pleasure which Dr Amir or Mr Joesoef had from their British
contacts. Among his first official decrees was the instruction to all Su¬
matrans, ‘especially pemuda . . . not to disturb the peace of Japanese
Allies, Chinese or Dutch’.33 Towards the Dutch his opening statement
was very firm:
The Dutch would be mistaken if they thought that the situation now was
still the same as the old pre-war spirit. The Dutch would be better not to
seek ways and look for agents to reoccupy Indonesia as this would disturb
the state of public peace, because the Indonesian people in general and In¬
donesian pemuda in particular regard those Dutch agents as traitors. There¬
fore such an attempt on their part would seriously endanger the safety of
the Dutch themselves and their agents. Particularly if any Indonesian leader
was injured on this account, the probability is very great that the Dutch and
their agents would be purged from society.37
Despite the promises of some pemuda to bathe in blood before allowing

the Allied forces to land,38 there was no initial opposition or even contact
from the Indonesian side. Official Republican policy was being heeded.
Nevertheless, violence began very soon after the Allied landings just
as it did in Java. Th& pemuda may have felt that the initiative was falling
from their hands after a heroic beginning and that action was necessary
to avoid a sense of defeat.
Indonesian accounts also suggest that arrogance and provocation
from the Dutch side increased immediately after the Allied landings.
The flashpoint in Medan was the former Pensiun Wilhelmina, opposite
the Central Market in Jalan Bali, which was used as a hostel and centre
for Westerling’s ex-KNiL Ambonese. On the morning of Saturday
13 October39 an angry crowd began to gather outside this spot, report¬
edly after one of the Ambonese sentries had torn off and trampled
on the red-white emblem worn by a child. A fight began, knives were
drawn and several were wounded. During the fighting two Dutchmen
fired into the crowd from a passing car, killing an Indonesian. Japanese
troops quickly arrived to restore order and were joined by the BPI
ex-military group under Ahmad Tahir, then in the process of trans¬
forming itself into the Republican armed force. They eventually suc¬
ceeded in calming the crowd, with the promise that the Ambonese would
be removed from the building as quickly as possible. In the meantime
the Japanese took away a quantity of arms from the building and posted
a guard at the gate. The crowd dispersed at 1.30 p.m., leaving only
two Indonesians and one Ambonese woman dead.
Less than two hours later, however, the pemuda returned in strength
to attack the Jalan Bali hostel (and other vulnerable Ambonese), leaving
six killed and about 100 wounded among the Ambonese and Mena-
donese. The Dutchman in charge of the hostel was also killed, and a
Swiss family gratuitously murdered.40
The tide of pemuda violence spread almost immediately to Pematang
Siantar. A five-man detachment of Brondgeest’s Dutch soldiers was
billeted at the Siantar Hotel to attempt to check defections from the
large Japanese troop concentration there. On 15 October fighting devel¬
oped between the pemuda and these Dutchmen, with the result that
the Siantar Hotel was beseiged and then burned. All the Dutch soldiers
died, except for the officer-in-charge who was reporting back to Medan.
Also killed were about ten Ambonese, two pemuda on the Republican
side, and four Swiss who managed the hotel.41
To Europeans in East Sumatra these two incidents represented the
beginnings of the terror. Brondgeest angrily demanded that the Allies
send troops to Siantar. After a brief investigation Kelly refused, pre¬
ferring to concentrate his meagre resources in Medan.42 ‘Neutral’ Euro¬
peans and those who had left the camps fled to Medan, where the Allies
gradually established a ‘protected zone’ in the triangle formed by the
airport and the Deli and Babura rivers. Brigadier Kelly summoned Mr
Hasan, Dr Amir, Mr Luat Siregar, and other Republican leaders on 14
October to discuss means to maintain order. As in Java earlier, such a
meeting necessarily implied a degree of recognition of Republican au¬
thority, however much this principle was denied. At a Press Conference
on 17 October, his first public appearance since being appointed
a cabinet minister, Dr Amir announced that the Allies had recognized
Luat as mayor, with responsibility for order and for public services
within Medan.43 Dutch protests must have been immediate—Brondgeest
had wanted to arrest Hasan, Amir, and others.44 Brigadier Kelly had
to repudiate any inference that his dealings with Luat constituted
recognition of the Republic.45
Hasan promised to co-operate with the limited Allied objectives de¬
fined, and in the following days he issued a number of strongly-worded
if ineffective warnings to the pemuda against unauthorized attacks and
seizure of property. Kelly’s initial policy was to hold the Republican
authorities and police responsible for incidents in the city, and to try
to use their influence to disarm pemuda. On 18 October he announced
that ‘all weapons, whether firearms, spears or daggers’ would be sur¬
rendered to British troops in Medan, and followed this with a series
of raids on pemuda headquarters in various parts of the city.46 After
consultation with General Chambers in Padang, Kelly also disarmed
and disbanded the Ambonese force of Brondgeest and Westerling on
26 October. Control of Medan now became a British responsibility,
though the Republican authorities were frequently consulted. The
Dutch detainees remaining in camps outside Medan were again guarded

by Japanese rather than by Brondgeest’s men.4’ The Dutch were
furious. The group of Dutch commandos originally parachuted into
Sumatra as part of adcs soon withdrew to Jakarta, complaining they
could achieve nothing more. Only Westerling remained behind at
Kelly’s request to put his terrorist tactics to work for the British.48
PEMUDA IN ARMS
The violence of the Jalan Bah affair also wrought enormous changes
in the pemuda movement, and an upsurge of enthusiasm to participate
in the struggle. The period of watching and waiting seemed at last to
be over. The role of semi-militarized young men left high and dry at
the Japanese surrender was now clear. There was a rush to join some
pasukan dedicated to defending the Republic; to find some weapon of
whatever sort; to forge new bonds of kinship in struggle in place of
traditional ties. A new kind of leadership was also called forth. What
was needed now was not so much fine words as physical courage, deci¬
siveness, and loyalty to the group, the pasukan. This enthusiasm came
at the right time for the TKR (Tentera Keamanan Rakyat—People’s
Security Army), designated as the official armed force of the Republic
on 5 October. East Sumatra had been slow to produce a local wing
of this army, let alone its predecessor the BKR. Only on 10 October
did a meeting of the BPI in Medan decide to form a Pucuk Pimpinan
TKR (TKR top leadership) from among its leading ex-Giyugun mem¬
bers. Each officer rose one rank from his Japanese level. Ahmad Tahir
became commander with Captain rank, and Soetjipto Chief-of-Staff
and 1st Lieutenant. Several of the other leading Giyugun officers were
sent to recruit their own former soldiers and anyone else with military
training in their respective centres. Captain Hopman Sitompoel began
to recruit pemuda in Siantar, Lt. Martinus Lubis in Brastagi, and Lt.
Djamin Gintings in Kabanjahe.
The first major task of the Pucuk Pimpinan TKR in Medan was to
attempt to provide military training for the hundreds of pemuda who
demanded it as a result of the Jalan Bali violence. The original plan
of basing the TKR solely on trained Giyugun and Heiho soldiers was
seen to be unrealistic because of the dispersion of most of them in vil¬
lages throughout East Sumatra. Only Medan and some other major
towns offered the opportunity and the means for organized armed
struggle. Beginning on 23 October, at eight centres in different parts
of Medan, Japanese-trained lieutenants began a two-week programme
of drilling pemuda with wooden sticks instead of rifles.
As a result of this training programme four TKR pasukan emerged
in the Medan area during November, still with virtually no arms. Wheth¬
er the pasukan were nearer to companies or battalions did not yet
seem important. Each answered to the leadership of an ex-Giyugun
officer, and possessed a little more discipline than the non-TKR pasukan.
With the three pasukan separately formed in Siantar, Brastagi, and
Kabanjahe, these were constituted during November the IVth Division
of the Sumatra TKR, all under the command of twenty-three-year-old
Captain Tahir. Because of its ‘official’ character, its contact through
Xarim M. S. with Republican leaders, and the Japanese training of its
leaders, the TKR did not need to resort to plunder. A younger brother
of Sutan Sjahrir, Mahruzar, was designated by Mr Hasan and Xarim
to find the necessary funds for the TKR through taking over Japanese
warehouses. Yet despite these advantages even the TKR attracted a
number of those accustomed to violence in the semi-criminal Medan
underworld.49
The TKR pasukan were in any case quickly outnumbered by other
fighting gangs of all sorts, sometimes comprising youths of the same
ethnic group or the same part of the city, but defined by loyalty to one
forceful figure who showed his decisiveness at a critical moment. The
symbol of authority was always the pistol. ‘At that time no pasukan
commander felt sufficiently dashing and fierce without a pistol at his
waist.’50
The strongest of these fighting bands were built from the various
pemuda groups already active before the Jalan Bali affair. Nathar Zainud-
din’s ‘Anti-Fascist’ group, for example, had declared itself Nationale
Controle about the time BPI was formed, and had been active distrib¬
uting pamphlets. After Jalan Bali one of its principal figures, Marzuki
Lubis, emerged as leader of a pasukan called Pelopor (vanguard). Timur
Pane, a petty criminal before the war, also had some connexion with
Nationale Controle. His predominantly Toba-Batak pasukan was one
of those which showed more enterprise in plundering wealthy Chinese
and Indians than in confronting the Dutch. A third Nationale Controle
figure was Nip Xarim, twenty-four-year-old son of Xarim M. S., who
under the Japanese had been a junior journalist in the Medan mayor’s
office. As a result of the guns collected by his father from Selamat Gin-
ting his pasukan was better armed than any TKR unit in Medan. Though
in a potentially strong political position, Nip Xarim preferred to see
himself as part of the TKR than as the arm of any party. When the
Division IV structure was established on 5 November, he was designated
head of its armament section. His unit was affiliated with the TKR
on a special footing, and became known as TKR-B.51
Another pemuda group with a shadowy existence prior to the Jalan
Bali violence was the Badan Kebaktian Pemuda Indonesia (Indonesian
Youth Loyalty Body) or bkpi. This appears to have been formed in
reaction to BPI in late September by pemuda who had no particular
connexion with the Japanese. Among its leaders was Sarwono S. Soe-
tardjo, a young Taman Siswa teacher who had been active before the
war in the Sabang branch of parindra. During October Sarwono
emerged as the head of one of the strongest fighting gangs in the city
centre, which he called Gagak Hitam (black crow).52
At the ground level, the effective picture of Medan after mid-October
was of numerous gangs of this type, each attempting to control a different
part of the city, with whatever resources they could command there.
The TKR pasukan were part of this pattern, though at one end of the
spectrum in terms of discipline, acceptance of ‘official’ Republican
control, and orderly means of meeting their material needs. At the
opposite extreme were a number of robber bands profiting from the
revolutionary label and the demoralization of police to take what they
needed, especially from Chinese and Indians. Some of the political
leaders attempted to use these violent men to extend their influence, as
Sarwono did with a well-known criminal Amat Bojan:
In the beginning Sarwono’s intention in getting together Amat Bojan and

his hoodlum friends was to use them as his fighting unit. But it turned out
that Amat Bojan was still Amat Bojan, and could not shed his old habits,
especially when there was such opportunity. Amat Bojan’s unit became a
band of gangsters, plundering the homes of Chinese, and violating women . ..
until there was no order in Medan.53
Amat Bojan was eventually killed by members of a more disciplined

gang.
The relatively coherent pemuda leadership provided initially by the
BPI broke down as a result of the Jalan Bali affair. The majority of those
with military training had their hands full organizing the TKR. The
remaining ‘civilian’ leadership broke up under the pressures of violence.
As BPI President Sugondo attempted in vain to prevent the pemuda
attacks on the afternoon of 13 October. At a subsequent meeting he is
said to have collapsed when some of the militants threatened to shoot
him. This ended the direct involvement of established political figures
in the pemuda movement.54 A confused period followed, in which the
only effective leadership of the BPI was that of some of the fighting
units which associated themselves with it. During late October and
November clashes between these gangs were a frequent occurrence,
whether caused by conflicts of territory, of personality, or of ethnic
composition. Whatever rivalries existed were sedulously fostered by
Lt. Westerling who, to judge from his memoirs, made no distinction
between moderate and extreme elements. His object was to distract
attention from the manoeuvres of his own men by stoking internecine

pemuda quarrels:
I . . . proceeded to dictate a few violently insulting notes which were turned

into the native tongue and delivered to the different bands, as if they had
been sent to them by their rivals. ... In no time at all a lively civil war was
going on among the guerrillas.55
A degree of superficial unity was eventually restored to the Medan

pemuda movement through the efforts of Xarim M. S., Nathar Zainuddin,
and the senior remaining official of the original BPI, Abdul Malik Munir.
The central elements in the early BPI and Sarwono’s bpki fused to
form PRI (Pemuda Republik Indonesia) at the end of October, imitating
the title of the best-known youth group in West Sumatra and in Java.
Another stimulus to unity was the Yogyakarta youth congress of 10
November which produced the merger of Java’s strongest urban youth
groups into pesindo (Pemuda Sosialis Indonesia). The groups which
had formed PRI in Medan called themselves pesindo from 16 No¬
vember, aspiring to share the sense of unity and direction which the
movement in Java appeared to possess. Although there were few Japa¬
nese-trained youth in its leadership, pesindo in Sumatra was slow
to acquire the left-wing ‘anti-fascist’ political colour which Amir Sjari-
fuddin gave it in Java. It regarded itself, initially, as the legitimate and
all-embracing Republican youth movement. Its leadership, however,
was in disarray. Sarwono’s Gagak Hitam had declared itself the Barisan
Pengawal (guard unit) of PRI/pesindo, and became the strongest
single force within it in the strategic Medan area. During December
Sarwono became the chairman of pesindo Sumatra, and succeeded
in dividing Medan into eight sectors, ‘each containing a group of about
thirty ruffians known as the Pelopor [shock troops] who are responsible
for the more violent crimes committed in that area’, as a British report
put it.56 There were many pasukan, particularly outside Medan and
among the groups trained by the Japanese, who did not accept Sarwono’s
lead and took little part in pesindo decision-making. It was not until
January that the growth of political parties provided some political
legitimation for their differences.
Accusations that the rival gang was secretly an instrument of the
Dutch were always a factor in the constant conflicts between pasukan
in East Sumatra. There was an element of truth in the accusations in
respect of at least one force which rejoiced in the peculiarly appropriate
title Pasukan V (Fifth Column). The elderly Maharadja Soangkoepon
had established it as a ‘moderating’ force late in September, after con¬
sultation with a British adcs officer. It was predominately Toba Batak,
although it also had a base of support among victims of the aron in
Karoland. Its first leader was a pre-war Batak police officer, Sihite.
Pasukan V was caught up with other pemuda in the Jalan Bali fighting
and a number of clashes with British troops. It quickly affiliated with
BPI and its successors PRI and pesindo. In the street-fighting of
October/November there was in practice nothing ‘moderate’ about it.
Nevertheless it remained associated both with Soangkoepon’s resent¬
ment of the newcomer Governor Hasan and his Acehnese bodyguard,
and with long-standing ethnic hostilities between Toba Bataks and
Muslim groups in Medan.
In the ‘civil war’ encouraged by Westerling, Pasukan V appears to
have been the principal victim. Other pesindo units accused it of
having a suspicious amount of money and equipment, perhaps from
the Allies; of running its own vegetable-carrying business from Karo¬
land; of truculence towards other pasukan; and of planning ‘to make
a proposal to the President of the Republic that Mr Teuku Hasan be
replaced by Maharadja Soangkoepon’.57 The leaders of Pasukan V were
seized in mid-December and taken to Brastagi, where Sihite was shot.
The others were eventually released, including Dr Nainggolan, who
with his ex-Giyugun son Boyke Nainggolan now became the most in¬
fluential leader of Pasukan V. Nainggolan was genuinely anti-Dutch,
but remained deeply suspicious of the revolutionary pemuda leadership.58
Gradually Pasukan V assumed the form of a conservative ‘opposition’
within the Republican camp. In January it established contacts with
some of the Malay youth groups which had begun to reform in opposi¬
tion to Inoue’s Kenkokutai out of the original padi (Persatuan Anak
Deli Islam) established in 1939-42. Some of the padi pemuda had also
taken part in the Jalan Bali fighting, but like Pasukan V they took fright
at the revolutionary direction in which the mainstream pemuda move¬
ment was heading, padi increasingly concentrated on drilling its forces,
allegedly 5,000 strong, to defend the kerajaan status quo. Sunggal, the
centre of the aron in 1942, was particularly polarized. Datuk Itam, the
sultan’s representative there, obtained arms and training for his 800
Malay youths by joining Pasukan V directly. Relations between Pasukan
V and the remainder of pesindo continued to be tense.59
CONFRONTING THE BRITISH AND JAPANESE,

NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1945
Because of the Allied presence in Medan, closer control was exercised

over Japanese weapons in the vicinity than in remoter areas such as
Aceh. Until late November 1945 the pemuda of East Sumatra were
armed with only a few pistols and rifles, and for the rest made do with
parang and bamboo spears. They were in no position to fight any pitched
battles with Allied troops even had they been disposed to do so.
During November there was a rapid rise in anti-British sentiment
on the part of pemuda, mainly as a result of the publicity given to the
Surabaya fighting from November 10. In late November and the first
half of December this sentiment gave rise to a series of skirmishes with
British troops. The same period also saw a peak in the number of clashes
with Japanese troops, as pemuda attempted to seize from isolated Jap¬
anese units the weapons they needed to resist the British.
The greater success in acquiring Japanese weapons in late November
was mainly a product of increasing pemuda determination, but the Re¬
publicans were also assisted by a rising number of Japanese defectors
motivated by personal ties and loyalties, fear of Allied retribution, or
a desire to continue the war in a new form. The Japanese reported 163
defectors in East Sumatra at the end of 1945, though a later Indonesian
count of 350 seems closer to the true figure. The most senior was Inoue,
who believed there would still be an important role for him in guiding
his talapeta trainees. These Japanese defectors brought some arms
with them, and assisted pemuda to locate and seize more by a combina¬
tion of bravado and negotiation.60
The first major coup was the work of pesindo at the Mariendal
plantation on the outskirts of Medan. The Japanese air force had stored
a large quantity of aircraft parts and weapons in the tobacco sheds,
guarded by only twenty-one Japanese. Following lengthy negotiations
with the lieutenant in charge, the pesindo youths surrounded the Jap¬
anese on 22 November and tied them all up after a mock fight in which
nobody was hurt. Throughout the night pemuda and the surrounding
villagers carried off arms, bullets, and a vast quantity of textiles to their
respective homes, without any real co-ordination. When the following
day a Japanese force was sent to Mariendal by the Allies to recover
the arms, most of them were well hidden. Once again ‘diplomasi’ suc¬
ceeded in inducing the unenthusiastic Japanese force to release the nine
pesindo hostages they had taken without having obtained in return
34 machine guns, 24 rifles, and a large quantity of ammunition which
the Allies had insisted on recovering. Some of the arms ultimately reach¬
ed the hands of the TKR; the rest remained with pesindo or whatever
other pasukan or individual had seized them at the time.
Nip Xarim’s TKR ‘B’, which moved its base on 10 November to
Two Rivers Estate, a few miles south of Medan, obtained a large quantity
of arms a few weeks later. After an abortive attack on a Japanese armoury
at Bekalla on 7 December, negotiations began with the Japanese
commander through the mediation of a prominent Japanese defector.
The Japanese commander eventually promised to hand over enough
rifles and ammunition to equip a full company, as well as mortars
and machine guns. The promise was made good a few days later, from
a Japanese reserve supply near Siantar not yet known to the Allies.61
Incidents of this kind occurred throughout East Sumatra during De¬
cember. In the Siantar region in particular, where Japanese strength
was concentrated with relatively less control by the Allies, a large quantity
of arms reached the TKR. Another channel was the harbour at Belawan,
where the Allies had instructed the Japanese to jettison unwanted weap¬
ons in deep water after taking them to pieces. The Japanese in charge
of the operation managed to slip about 200 of these rifles to the TKR
during December rather than jettison them. Moreover as soon as the
operation was complete Indonesian divers began to retrieve the parts
from the seabed, and a lively market sprang up in salvaged and recon¬
structed weapons. The ‘syndicate’ in charge of the salvage operation
would sell to anyone and most of these arms probably went to the Re¬
public. A considerable quantity of arms also reached the East Sumatran
petnuda from Aceh by way of barter. Finally the British Indian soldiers
who began to desert to the Republican side in 1946 out of sympathy
with the anti-colonial cause often brought British weapons with them.62
The first major clash with the British occurred not in Medan but
in Karoland, where a healthy disrespect for Western colonial authority
had never died. A small British unit had been posted to Brastagi about
the second week in November, as an advance party in case the 4th Indian
Infantry Brigade in Medan was sent on a sweep through the interior
to Padang. On 25 November a few men from Medan visited the Brastagi
detachment, and they appear to have become involved in a raid on pes-
indo headquarters and some skirmishing with pemuda there. The
Karo population was immediately up in arms. The small British party
was ambushed outside Brastagi on its return journey and attacked with
rifles, spears, blowpipes, and parang. The process was repeated at two
points further down the road. The British eventually fought their way
through to Medan with the loss of two men and some equipment.63
This affair led to the immediate withdrawal of the British detachment
in Brastagi and the abandonment of plans to patrol outside the Medan
area. It must have influenced the decision taken during Sir Philip Chris-
tison’s visit to Sumatra (26-27 November) that civil government in
Sumatra would for the time being be a Japanese responsibility outside
the three cities occupied by the Allies. This decision was conveyed to
Republican leaders in Medan on 1 December, explicitly reversing the
de facto recognition which the Republic had earlier appeared to enjoy.
It brought Japanese and Indonesians into serious collision in several
areas, and contributed to the rapid deterioration of British-Indonesian
relations in Medan.64
In the week beginning 6 December the British made a series of sys-
tematic raids on pemuda headquarters to seize weapons and arrest leaders

accused of terrorism. For the first time they began to meet real resistance
and to experience counter-attacks on British troops. Nine European
civilians were killed during the ensuing two weeks after a lull since the
mid-October violence.
The heaviest fighting occurred to the south of Medan on 10 December
when the British attempted to recover a captured armoured car and
three soldiers from Delitua. They encountered strong resistance from
the TKR, TKR ‘B’, and other pasukan, and some of their raiding parties
suffered heavy casualties. The whole British force had to withdraw
the same day without fulfilling its objectives.65
This was the first pitched battle in which pemuda used their newly
acquired weapons and it confirmed Indonesian determination to restrict
the Allied operations to Medan. The British appear to have accepted
this message, with the exception of Westerling’s vicious commando
operations against individual gangs of the more criminal type.66 On 13
December Kelly defined an area 8| km. beyond the Medan and Belawan
city boundaries, within which anyone carrying arms would be shot on
sight.67 Within these limits the 26th Indian Division became very tough
with ‘extremists’, as they called the pemuda bands. Beyond them, they
appear to have put pressure on the Japanese to take reprisals against
pemuda who had attacked or disarmed them.
Up to this point Japanese reaction had been consistently mild. At
the highest level Japanese commanders had made tacit or explicit agree¬
ments with the Republic that arms would be surrendered to avoid a
fight. Even the killing of one or two Japanese soldiers was no obstacle
to the peaceful surrender of arms by dispirited Japanese troops. However
some pemuda did not know where to stop.
Tebing Tinggi, a particularly unstable town, saw the worst atrocities.
As the centre for an important rice and vegetable producing area, it
experienced a constant influx of traders and hungry individuals during
1945. Already in the late occupation period it had been the centre for
a Muslim-based anti-Japanese movement.68 There was, moreover, no
moderating TKR or tx-Giyugun element among its youth. The Japanese
complained that forty of their men had been killed or captured in the
area up to 10 December. On 11 December, pemuda blocked in Tebing
Tinggi a train carrying a large number of Japanese civil officials, with
a sizeable armed guard, from Medan to a camp in Kisaran. When the
usual negotiations for arms failed, the pemuda threatened not to release
the four Japanese who had come to negotiate nor to allow the train to
leave unless their demands were fully met. All the arms on the Japanese
train were then handed over, but three Japanese hostages including a
Captain Namara were nevertheless killed. This was too much for the
Japanese, especially after having been pressed by the Allies to take action
against ‘extremists’. As they were preparing counter-measures the Te-
bing Tinggi pemuda cut off the following day’s train as well, killing some
more Japanese and a Danish missionary who carried a pass from the
Republican Resident.
On the 13th, over a thousand Japanese troops with tanks took savage
reprisals against Tebing Tinggi on orders from General Sawamura.
For four days they engaged in wholesale slaughter by no means limited
to pemuda. A Dutch estimate presumably based on the Japanese count
put the figure of dead at 500-800, but all Indonesian accounts and that
of a Swiss Red Cross official agree there were between 2,000 and 5,000
victims.69
The severity of these clashes forced both British and Republicans
to the negotiating table. Immediately after Mr Hasan’s return from
Aceh on 17 December he was summoned to talks with Brigadier Kelly
about the deteriorating situation. On 26 December General Chambers,
British Commander for Sumatra, had a more productive conference
with Mr Hasan and Mr Mohammad Joesoef, the Republican mayor
of Medan. Chambers gave tacit recognition to the TKR, now ‘permitted
to bear any arms they already happen to possess outside the key areas
under British control . Having disarmed the Medan police a month
earlier the British now agreed to issue seventy weapons to a reconstituted
Indonesian force for the city. Chambers undertook that the British and
Japanese would not interfere in civil matters unless peace was seriously
disturbed. In return Hasan promised to end an Indonesian embargo
on services and supplies for the Allies.70
Hasan was able to present this as a further recognition of the Republic,
and to impress upon pemuda the need to show responsibility vis-a-vis
the British. His efforts bore considerable fruit, and not for several months
was there a renewal of violence comparable to the level of early December.
From direct confrontation with Allies and Japanese the revolution now
turned inwards. Pemuda and radical energies were directed to such
objectives as gaining control of plantations and other sources of wealth,
and confronting conservative or unpopular elements within Indonesian
society.
THE REPUBLIC AND THE KERAJAAN
Throughout this period the Republican government of Mr Hasan

was effectively limited to a liaison function between the Japanese, the
British, and the kerajaan on one side, and the fighting pemuda on the
other. Hasan enjoyed loyal support from his very capable secretary,
Mas Tahir,71 his experienced colleague in the Governor’s office before
and during the Japanese occupation, and from an Acehnese bodyguard

of young men. He had, however, neither charisma nor a direct link with
any substantial pemuda force. His major assets were the prestige which
the idea of the Republican government held for pemuda, and the con¬
ditional support of Xarim M. S., much the most influential political
figure in Medan. These gave Hasan at least a degree of moral influence
over pemuda leaders. Since there appeared to be nobody else either the
British or the sultans could hold responsible for terrorism, the Repub¬
lican leadership gained an increasing degree of recognition.
Outside the pemuda-domimX.t& towns, the machinery of government
remained in the hands of the kerajaan. As the son of an Acehnese ulee-
balang Hasan well understood the dilemma of rulers caught between
pemuda pressures and contractual as well as emotional ties to the Dutch.
His sympathies as well as his political sense suggested a conciliatory
policy of wooing rather than threatening the rajas. His early government
appointments were all made with an eye to drawing the kerajaan around
to the Republic’s side.
In the initial appointments he announced on 4 October, Mr Hasan
accepted the fait accompli of Mr Luat Siregar as Republican mayor of
Medan. As Resident of East Sumatra he appointed Siregar’s war-time
superior in the Medan municipality, Mr Mohammad Joesoef, a moder¬
ate nationalist with few enemies who seemed likely to be acceptable
to both Japanese and British. These were the only Republican appoint¬
ments for the Residency until 29 October, when a PRI mass meeting
demanded ‘that the civilian government of the Indonesian Republic in
East Sumatra be made effective in the fullest sense as quickly as
possible’.72
Hasan then attempted to bring the functioning kerajaan government
under the Republican umbrella. As Resident of East Sumatra he chose
Tengku Hafas, who had been prominent in early 1945 as koseikyoku-cho.
Although of no great status in the national movement, Hafas was one
of the few experienced kerajaan administrators willing to serve the Re¬
public actively and overtly. His task was to induce the rajas to place
themselves behind the Republic rather than in opposition to it. At the
same time Hasan appointed as wakil pemerintah NRI (representatives
of the government of the Indonesian Republic) the same kerajaan stal¬
warts who had been appointed fuku-bunshucho by the Japanese in July/
August.73 For both Madja Poerba74 in Simalungun and Ngeradjai Meliala
in Karoland the Republican title undoubtedly strengthened their au¬
thority over the weak Korte Verklaring rajas in their districts. It was
otherwise with wakil pemerintah in the major Malay sultanates. Tengku
Musa in Asahan and Tengku Amir Hamzah in Langkat did not decline
their Republican appointments, but continued to operate as officials
THE AGENTS OF REVOLUTION IN EAST SUMATRA
171
of the kerajaan. The Deli sultanate was in a position to deal directly
with British, Dutch, and Republican leaders in Medan without resort
to the former clerk, Tulus, appointed wakil pemerintah there. The rela¬
tionship between Republic and kerajaan would be decided not by such
appointments but by the power situation on the ground.
The appointment of Tengku Hafas released Mr Mohammad Joesoef,
whom Hasan was anxious to use in the key role of mayor of Medan!
Effective Allied recognition of this office created a need for a more mod¬
erate and experienced figure than Luat Siregar, able to negotiate with
the British. This change was made in early November. Luat Siregar
joined Xarim M. S. and the ‘elder statesman’ Soangkoepon with the
rank of Resident attached directly to the Governor’s staff.75 In Xarim
and Luat Mr Hasan hoped to retain a direct channel of influence on
pemuda while the conservatism of his other appointments was calculated
to appeal to the Allies and the kerajaan.
In numerous statements Republican leaders emphasized that they
recognized the autonomy of the rajas as Sukarno had recognized the
rulers of Surakarta and Yogyakarta. Every meeting of the sultans with
Republican leaders and organizations was publicized, and every royal
gesture in the Republic’s direction exaggerated into an indication of
support. This policy bore some fruit in the maintenance of formally
correct relations between the palaces and the Republic. But the mounting
strength of the pemuda movement made the coolness and caution of the
rajas less and less acceptable.
Growing cohesion in the ranks of the militant pemuda brought new
pressures on the sultans at the end of November. We have seen the
attempts of Xarim M. S. to restore coherent leadership to PRI/pes-
indo under Sarwono S. Soetardjo. Working in the background,
Xarim’s communist colleague Nathar Zainuddin extended this work by
the creation of a Markas Agung (supreme headquarters) to co-ordinate
revolutionary action in the Medan area. It was again headed by Sar¬
wono, but included representatives of the TKR (Tahir and Sitompoel)
and all the former members of Nathar’s ‘Anti-Fascist’ underground
who now had their own fighting groups—Marzuki Lubis, Nip Xarim,
Selamat Ginting, D. Egon, and Timur Pane. Six older ‘advisers’ were
listed, of whom four (Xarim, Nathar, Joenoes Nasution, and Bustami)
were founder members of the revived communist party. The remaining
advisers were ‘non-party’ legal officers who had shown sympathy for
the pemuda cause.76 The Markas Agung was for some time an ideal
instrument through which Nathar Zainuddin in particular could direct
pemuda action towards particular targets. ‘This Markas Agung had great
influence, and the government itself was often dictated to by those who
sat within it.’ Sarwono explained to one writer that it interfered in the
government ‘because there were still many suspicious elements in the

ranks of officials’.77
Immediately following the formation of this radical front there was
a sudden increase in pemuda pressure on the sultans. On 30 November
the Sultan of Langkat received an ultimatum from pesindo demand¬
ing immediate recognition of the Republic, termination of all contacts
with the British and nica, and the handing over of two-thirds of his
weapons to pesindo. After a vain attempt to appeal to Governor
Hasan the Sultan capitulated. On 4 December the Republican press
published his expression of support and added that he had donated
10,000 guilders to the cause. From then on he no longer dared have any
direct dealings with Dutch representatives. The Sultans of Serdang
and Asahan were reported at the same time to have raised the merah-
putih and pledged support. Only the new Sultan of Deli, Osman (Otte-
man), could still expect Allied protection for his palace in Medan. He
continued to treat the Republic with royal aloofness, while arguing with
Dutch representatives that even their constitutional proposals threatened
to place him under ‘Javanese domination’. What he sought was a direct
relationship with the Dutch crown under a High Commissioner, placing
the Malay rulers outside any form of Indonesian state. In mid-December
the sultan retired for a week in hospital, ‘not so much as a patient as to
be free for a while from the red-and-whites who make his life intoler¬
able’.78 The datuks of Deli, more exposed than he to pemuda pressure,
took advantage of his absence to recognize the Republic officially.79
THE FORMATION OF POLITICAL PARTIES
The formation of a multiplicity of political parties within the Re¬

public was authorized in a decree signed by Mohammad Hatta on 3
November 1945, ‘because with such parties every current of thought
which exists in society can be guided into an orderly path’.80 In Java
as in Sumatra the thrust of the early revolution came from fighting
youth groups with no common aim save to struggle against the enemies
of the Republic. The eventual formation of political parties provided
a means for elite politicians to acquire leverage over these pasukan, and
to mediate between them and the Republican government. East Sumatra
continued, however, to be peculiarly resistant to this process of channel¬
ling pemuda energies. Pasukan did affiliate with parties in the long run,
but in most cases without surrendering their freedom to carry on the
struggle as they thought best.
The first party in the field was the ‘PNI State Party’ launched by
the revolutionary leaders in Jakarta on 22 August. Dr A. K. Gani was
appointed to lead it in Sumatra. Nine days later the state party was
suspended as impracticable by the central government, and its represen¬

tational functions were transferred to a system of Komite Nasional In¬
donesia (KNI) in each locality. This change appears not to have been
understood in Sumatra. Gani continued to act in the name of the PNI
State Party, appointing Xarim M. S. as its deputy-leader for Sumatra.
When Jacub Siregar and Saleh Oemar reached Palembang on their
flight from Medan they were also directed into the PNI, in contrast
to former gerindo members in Java who tended to follow Amir
Sjarifuddin into the Socialist Party. Saleh Oemar returned to Medan
and began to inject some life into the PNI as head of its East Sumatra
branch from early November.
The PNI was therefore off to an early but ambiguous start. Its vision
of itself as a ‘state party’ faded only very gradually and reluctantly.
As late as the end of November Sukarno was being claimed as ‘Great
Leader of the party, and his 23 August speech in support of it was
used as though it still applied.81 Moreover the greatest single asset of
the ‘state party’ in East Sumatra was Xarim M. S., who decided to
launch a separate communist party (PKI) in mid-November. His defec¬
tion threw the PNI into some confusion, and it was only on 14 December
that a PNI meeting demanded he choose between the PNI and PKI.82
Not until January was the PNI able to recover fully from this blow
and realize the potential it had as heir to the PNI/partindo/gerindo
mainstream of pre-war nationalism in the area.
On 18 November ‘some former PKI members’ met in Medan to elect
an executive for the communist party in Sumatra. They must have
been influenced by the announcement on 6 November that the party
had already been re-formed in Java two weeks before the Hatta proc¬
lamation. There is no evidence, however, that they were in contact
with the radical group who first led the PKI in Java, or shared the
latter’s interest in peasant soviets and the nationalization of land. The
Medan communists were pre-eminently Xarim’s men, carrying on the
opportunistically revolutionary traditions of the pre-1926 PKI. Xarim
M. S. himself became chairman of the Sumatra party, and Mr Luat
Siregar, apparently converted to Marxism by his wartime association
with Xarim, was elected vice-chairman. Nathar Zainuddin appropri¬
ately became an ‘assistant’ on the executive with unspecified duties.
A Medan executive was elected at the same time and later declared to
represent East Sumatra.83 Its chairman was M. Joenoes Nasution,84
a little-known politician influenced in his youth by Tan Malaka.
It was scarcely an orthodox group of Stalinists. None of the leading
PKI figures remained in the party long after the revolution. Some, like
Nathar and Joenoes, considered themselves good Muslims, and most
were sympathetic to Tan Malaka. The great advantage they had was
a theory, a tradition, and a vocabulary of revolution in no way derived

from the now discredited Japanese. The pemuda demanded action
against the enemies of Indonesian freedom, and in late 1945 it seemed to
be only the communist leaders who were ready to respond to that de¬
mand. When Xarim launched a party weekly, Pandoe Merah (Red Guide)
in December, the first three issues were quickly sold out even though
the printing number was raised from 10,000 to 30,000. Despite pemuda
receptiveness to its revolutionary ideas and to the influence of its leaders,
however, the PKI lacked the broad constituency which other parties
had established in the Dutch and Japanese periods. Most of the 11,000
members enrolled in the East Sumatran party by February were in the
towns. Of the twenty branches established eight were in Medan city.85
Similarly the Barisan Merah (Red Front), the party’s armed force under
Xarim’s tx-Heiho protege, A. Razak Nasution, was never very large.
The strength of the PKI leaders, as they fully realized, lay in their
ability to guide and inspire the whole spectrum of revolutionary youth
through such means as Nathar’s Markas Agutig. The gradual consolida¬
tion of other political parties could only work to limit their early in¬
fluence.
The potentially broader base of the PNI became manifest in January,
as interest moved away from the urban politics of Medan, and some
Japanese-trained leaders recovered from their initial demoralization.
Xarim and Nathar did not bring into the PKI all the pasukan over which
they had some influence. A number of those affiliated with Nationale
Controle had supported the idea of a PNI state party when Xarim was
leading it, and continued to think of themselves as PNI people. The
name of the party, its early association with Sukarno and Hatta, and
the emergence of Saleh Oemar as its leader in East Sumatra, all strength¬
ened the sense that this was the party of the radical mainstream of
pre-war local politics: PNI/partindo/gerindo, as well as their PNI-
barn and parpindo off-shoots. Among Nationale Controle leaders, D.
Egon and Marzuki Lubis declared for Saleh Oemar’s PNI in December.
Selamat Ginting, who left the Medan ‘front’ to lead the PRI/pesindo
youth movement in Karoland, equally felt himself to be a ‘PNI man’.
He left pesindo when it declared itself a political party in February
and took his followers into the PNI.
Still more numerous than these anti-Japanese elements were those
who had received some degree of training at Inoue’s talapeta
school. The initial demoralization of the Kenkokutai leadership encour¬
aged the scattering of these cadres into a variety of new organizations.
In November Saleh Oemar had urged talapeta graduates to join
the TKR.86 A much larger number, however, joined PRI/pesindo
or remained in small pasukan without higher affiliation. The first sub-
stantial organization to emerge from Kenkokutai ranks was the Serikat

Nelayan Merdeka (Free Fishermen’s Association) through which Nulung
Sirait retained most of the following he had had in his talapeta-
trained coastal defence organization. The emblem of the latter organiza¬
tion, the Naga Terbang (Flying Dragon), was however adopted by Timur
Pane who must have had some talapeta connexion. Like the other
semi-criminal leader, Mattheus Sihombing, Timur Pane declared his
band to be part of the PNI in January.
Jacub Siregar appears to have returned to East Sumatra in January
1946, about the same time that Dr A. K. Gani instructed all PNI branches
in Sumatra to form a pemuda fighting force called napindo. Siregar
re-established his curious partnership with Inoue, though it was now
the Japanese who depended on the protection of the Indonesian. They
made their headquarters in Karoland, and quickly rebuilt their wartime
Barisan Harimau Liar (BHL) into the strongest single section of nap¬
indo. As an ethnic outsider, however, Jacub Siregar’s following in
the rural areas depended on two loyal supporters—Pajungbangun8^
in Karoland, and Saragih Ras88 in Simalungun. Each represented a
family overlooked for chiefly office, and each had been appointed leader
of a local Kenkokutai unit by Inoue. This provided ready-made rural
support in the power struggles of the early revolution. Pajungbangun,
younger and Dutch-educated, was the more ambitious. He thrust him¬
self into the forefront of Karo politics in October, becoming first leader
of the local PRI. The wakil pemerintah NRI in Karoland, Ngeradjai
Meliala, engineered an orderly meeting to overthrow him in December
and the assembled pemuda chose Selamat Ginting as their new leader.
Pajungbangun left PRI/pesindo in disgust. His followers became
the Karo wing of napindo/BHL. Jacub Siregar was accepted as
overall commander of the movement, leaving Saleh Oemar in the PNI
political leadership in Medan. The BHL continued to be a disruptive
element in Karo politics, particularly through the fierce vendetta in
which they felt themselves engaged with the ‘establishment’ group led
by Ngeradjai Meliala and his ex-communist assistant, Nerus Ginting
Suka.89
In contrast with the PKI, the PNI in East Sumatra was extremely
diffuse. The political leadership represented by Saleh Oemar and Adnan
Nur Lubis had less influence over many of thtpasukan nominally within
it than did Xarim and Nathar. Real strength was in the pasukan, not
in the party. Yet it could be said of the whole PNI that it represented
a radical, action-oriented position of confrontation towards the Dutch
and the Indonesian traditional elite. There was no place within it for
moderate intellectuals like the pre-war parindra element which formed
its backbone in other parts of Indonesia. There was little scope for
politicians like Sugondo and Dr Pirngadi in the early revolution except

through the Komite Nasional Indonesia. Pirngadi’s house was plundered
by eight armed men on 2 February, two weeks after he had made an
appeal to pemuda to listen to the voice of experience and balance.90
The spectrum of radical political parties was eventually completed
by pesindo itself and by the Labour Party PBI (Partai Bunth In¬
donesia). Oesman Effendi led his local labour organization into the Java-
centred PBI on 14 January. Although a force only in Medan, its daily
newspaper Berdjoeang (Struggle) was the most militant voice in the city.
Because the revolutionary situation inhibited the formation of mod¬
erate or rightist parties, the official representatives of the Republic
were without real political support. It was the communist Xarim on
whose conditional support the conservative Governor had to rely in
the early revolution. The large potential of the Muslim constituency
was slow to become effectively organized.
The first initiative to mobilize Muslims for the anti-Dutch struggle
was taken by the leader of the Muhammadiah youth organization, Bach-
tiar Joenoes. The Acehnese connexions he had formed as a pre-war Mus¬
lim student activist in West Sumatra helped to provide him with about
sixty firearms—giving his pasukan a strong position in the street fighting
of October. On this base Bachtiar formed in November the first Islamic
party in East Sumatra, parmusi (Partai Muslimin Indonesia). His
pasukan shed the PRI label to call itself Hizbullah, the fighting force
of the new party. Yunan Nasution, who had replaced the discredited
Hamka as Muhammadiah Consul, became publicity chief for par¬
musi. With this strong Muhammadiah backing and the support of
many Acehnese in Medan, parmusi was able to attract 2,500 people
to a rally on 2 December. The armed strength of the Islamic movement
rested on Bachtiar’s untypically radical Hizbullah, which he represented
in Nathar Zainuddin’s Markas Agung.91
The more established Muslim leaders did not become politically
active until early December, when a conference of the MIT (Majlis Islam
Tinggi—High Islamic Council) was held in Bukittinggi. Established
by the Japanese in West Sumatra, this had been encouraged to extend
to the whole of Sumatra only at the end of the war. H. A. R. Sjihab
(of Wasliyah) and Tengku Jafizham (of the Serdang sultanate) were
appointed to represent MIT in East Sumatra, and on 6 December
they attended its first and only all-Sumatra conference. The delegates
repeated the stand of Acehnese ulama that the holy war against the
Dutch was Fardlu ‘ain, an obligation for each believer. The MIT would
become the Islamic political party for all Sumatra, and its fighting arm
would carry the name Sabilillah.92
Bachtiar Joenoes loyally merged his parmusi into the new MIT,
and changed the name of his Hizbullah to Sabilillah. Various branches

of MIT were opened, the strongest in Langkat. An officer training
course was even opened for Sabilillah on 10 February. Yet until it was
transformed into masjumi in March the MIT scarcely became a
coherent party. It was essentially an alliance at the top between Muham-
madiah and Jamiatul Wasliyah, with Tengku Jafizham and Mr Tengku
Bahrioen attempting to apply the brakes on behalf of the kerajaan. The
fighting pemuda of Bachtiar Joenoes provided most of its muscle.93
With the partial exception of the PKI, none of these parties was an
effective force in itself. At best they offered a loose framework within
which some pre-war politicians could coexist with those armed pasukan
with which they had most in common. Power continued to lie with
youthful pasukan leaders, some of whom had become strong enough
to construct larger bansan like BHL and pesindo, with units in many
areas.
By the end of 1945 it was clear to all that the British and Dutch lacked
the power or the will to extend their authority outside Medan city. The
Japanese were purely passive and defensive. The revolution would
therefore continue. The Republican Government itself controlled none
of the instruments of force. Its chief asset was the universal recognition
it now enjoyed, enabling it to assume the role of a referee between the
real forces in society—the traditional ruling class and the armed pemuda.
1. Aneka Minggu (Medan), 16 June 1970. A series of articles devoted to the

military side of the independence struggle in the Medan area appeared twice-
weekly in this newspaper between 12 May and 25 September 1970.
2- K-S-S, 22 and 24-viii-2605. Aneka Minggu, 12 May 1970. Interviews.
3. Dr Amir’s notes, 14 June 1946, RvO, I.C. 005967. Hamka, Kenang-

kenangan hidup (Kuala Lumpur, 1966), p. 272.
4. Republik Indonesia. Propinsi Sumatera Utara (n.p., 1953), p. 22. ‘Kisah Ta-
hun Pertama Proklamasi dikota Medan’ (unpublished prima typescript,
Medan, n.d.), pp. 12-14. Iman Marah typescript, 1947, pp. 1-2, CMI-Doc.
5331, ARA ArchiefProcureur-Generaal, no. 627. Edisaputra, Gelora Kemerde-
kaan Sepandjang Bukit Barisan, I (Medan, 1972), pp. 20-1. Interviews.
5. Hamka, Kenang-kenangan hidup, pp. 292-7. Mohamad Said, Empat Belas

Boelan Pendoedoekan Inggeris di Indonesia (Medan, 1946), p. 30. Inoue, Bapa
Djanggut, pp. 97-102. Interviews.
6. Enquetecommissie Regeringsbeleid 1940-1945. Verslag Houdende de Uitkomsten

van het Onderzoek, vol. VIII (A & B), Militair beleid 1940-45. Terugkeer
naar Nederlandsch-Indie (The Hague, 1956), pp. 585. G. F. Jacobs, Prelude
to the Monsoon (Cape Town, Purnell, 1965), pp. 10-74.
7. Brondgeest in Enquetecommissie VIII, Appendix, p. 128.

8. Enquetecommissie VIII, pp. 588-94. Conrad E. L. Helfrich, Memoires (Am¬

sterdam, Elsevier, 1950), II, pp. 237-8. Raymond Westerling, Challenge to
Terror (London, 1952), pp. 38-50. While Helfrich states and Westerling
implies a strength below 200 men for the police force, Brondgeest claimed
that the 800 British soldiers landed by 12 October were ‘fewer than I now
had at my own disposal’. (Enquetecommissie, p. 588).
9. Helfrich (II, 269) claimed that the force ‘completely controlled Medan and
its immediate environs. There was peace and order.’ Another Dutch com¬
mando, Major M. Knottenbelt, who spent four days in Medan on his way to
Aceh at the beginning of October, reported: ‘The situation there was tense,
but was controlled by a very able police commandant—Raymond Wester¬
ling.’ ‘Contact met Atjeh’, Vrij Nederland, 19 January 1946.
10. Republik Indonesia. Propinsi Sumatera Utara (Jakarta, 1954?), p. 39.
11. Enquetecommissie VIII, 585-6. Willem Brandt, De Gele Terreur (The Hague,
1946), pp. 215-19. OvS Instituut, Kroniek, 1941-1946 (Amsterdam, 1948),
pp. 45-6 and 52.
12. Enquetecommissie VIII, Appendix, p. 127.
13. Aneka Minggu, 19 May 1970. Other sources attribute this telegram to Adi-
negoro in Bukittinggi, through whom it may have been forwarded. Cf.
M. Sjarif Lubis, ‘Mengenang Perlawanan Rakjat di Tanah Karo pada
Permulaan Revolusi Pisik’ (Unpublished typescript, n.d.), p. 5. For the role
of Dr Gani and Adinegoro in establishing the Republic in Sumatra see Reid,
‘The Birth of the Republic in Sumatra’, Indonesia, 12 (1971), pp. 31-40.
14. T. M. Hasan, in Amanat Satoe Tahoen Merdeka (Padang Panjang, 1946),

pp. 60-1. ‘Kisah Tahun Pertama’, pp. 10-23. ‘Arsip Sedjarah’, typescript
compiled by prima [Pejuang Republic Indonesia Medan Area], (Medan,
1972?), pp. 48-51.
15. Edisaputra, ‘Peristiwa Sedjarah’, Gema Bukit Barisan, I (June 1970), pp.
37-8. Interviews.
16. Aneka Minggu, 15 May 1970. ‘Arsip Sedjarah’, pp. 31-7.
17. Aneka Minggu, 19 May 1970. ‘Arsip Sedjarah’, pp. 51-4.
18. Ahmad Tahir appears to have been born in 1922 from a local Malay mother
and a Javanese father employed in the Deli Railway Company. His educa¬
tion was in Dutch to mulo level and in Japanese at the Medan Seinen Ren-
seisho (Youth training centre). He was among the first to join the Giyugun
in October 1943 and reached the rank of First Lieutenant in May 1945.
By 1969 he had become a Lt.-General and commander of the Sumatra
Defence Command.
19. Edisaputra, pp. 38-42. ‘Kisah Tahun Pertama’, pp. 38-9. Cf. Aneka Ming¬
gu, 22 May 1970, which puts the date of this meeting at 21 September,
more likely the date for which the original invitations were issued.
20. Sjarif Lubis, p. 5. Interview.
21. Aneka Minggu, 23 June 1970. Interview.
22. Recorded interview with Marzuki Lubis, February 1970, by Nip Xarim.
‘Kisah Tahun Pertama’, p. 27 and 40. Aneka Minggu, 22 May 1970. Inter¬
views.
23. Aneka Minggu, 23 June 1970. Interviews.

24. Aneka Minggu, 22 May 1970. ‘Kisah Tahun Pertama’, pp. 38-40 M K
,DjUS“’r Selajang Pandang Kenang Kenangan Repolus. dikota Medan:
PP.Trpt’ n-d')’pp-3_8-Edisapmra'pp-38-42- ,Arsi»

25. Djusni, p. 10. Propinsi Sumatera Utara, pp. 29-30
Mohammad Said in
Dobrak (Medan), 25 August 1970. Interviews.
26. Dr M. Amir, Melawat ke Djazva (Medan 1946), p. 32, explained Sukarno’s

appeal by commenting ‘Anyone who has heard our Bung Xarim M. S. speak
must understand the meaning of this contact between leader and people
as if there was a “magnetic fluid” between them.’
27. Sjanf Lubis, pp. 6-9. Djusni, pp. 9-15. Aneka Minggu, 26 and 29 May 1970
Arsip Sedjarah’, pp. 60-4.
28. On the ‘recognition’ issue see N.I.B., I, pp. 233-5 and 300-17, and for
lts influence in Medan, Hamka, Kenang-kenangan hidup, p. 292.
29. Soeloeh Merdeka, no.l, 4 October 1945. ‘Kisah Tahun Pertama’, pp 48-50
50 Tahun Kotapradja Medan (Medan, 1959), pp. 80-1 and 106. Interviews.
30. Pezvarta Deli, 6 and 8 October 1945. Jacobs, pp. 143-8. Interview. The
old sultan had died a few days earlier.
31. Aneka Minggu, 2 June 1970.
32. Brandt, pp. 218-19.
33. N.I.B., I, p. 465.
34. Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 1-15 January 1946, p. 3, post-war N.I. archive

in Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken, The Hague [Bi.Z.] 22/1.
35. F. S. V. Donnison, British Military Administration in the Far East 1943-

1946 (London), 415-18.
36. Soeloeh Merdeka, 4 October 1945.
37. Ibid., reprinted in Osman Raliby, Documenta Historica (Djakarta 1953),

p. 50.
38. Aminuddin Nazir at 23 September meeting, cited Djusni, p. 5, and ‘Arsip

Sedjarah’, p. 55.
39. 13 October is the date commemorated in the monument later erected on

the spot, and in Mohamad Said, Pendoedoekan Inggeris, p. 69. Later In¬
donesian writing, however, usually gives 14 October as the date. This con¬
fusion may arise from the account in Pezvarta Deli, 15 October 1945, which
refers to events ‘yesterday’. The final paragraph of this newspaper account,
however, does confirm that 13 October was the date of the incident.
40. Pezvarta Deli, 15 October 1945. Djabatan Penerangan R.I., Propinsi Ta-
panuli/Sumatera Timur, Perdjuangan Rakjat (Medan, 1950), pp. 97-8.
Mengenangkan Hari Proklamasi (Medan, 1956), pp. 86-7. Westerling, pp.
42-3. ‘Arsip Sedjarah’, pp. 75-6.
41. Enquetecommissie VIII, p. 592 and Appendix, p. 130. WIS 12, 8 January
1946, App. A, WO 172/9893. Interrogation of General Tanabe, RvO, I.C.
059351. Propinsi Sumatera Utara, p. 42. Mohamad Said, p. 70. Interviews.
The deaths of a ‘neutral’ Swiss in both Jalan Bali and Siantar Hotel incidents
may have been simply a result of their accessibility to a vengeful crowd.
However the suspicions of many Republicans had been aroused by Swiss

prominence in the Hulpactie organized to assist Allied prisoners-of-war
after the surrender, and in liaison functions for the Allies. Mohamad Said,
p. 30. Enquetecommissie VIII, pp. 591-2. OvS Instituut, Kroniek 1941-
1946, pp. 43-4.
42. Enquetecommissie VIII, p. 592.
43. Pezcarta Deli, 18 October 1945. Also ibid., 15 and 17 October 1945. Verslag
Noord-Sumatra, 1-15 January 1946, p. 7, Bi.Z. 22/1.
44. Enquetecommissie VIII, p. 588.
45. Pezcarta Deli, 19 October 1945.
46. Pezcarta Deli, 18 and 19 October 1945. Mohamad Said, p. 70. Raliby, p-
59. Situation Report, 17 October 1945, of ALF Sumatra, WO 203/2508.
47. Enquetecommissie VIII, pp. 592-3. Helfrich II, 269. Verslag Noord-Sumatra,
1-15 January 1946, p. 7, Bi.Z. 22/1.
48. Enquetecommissie VIII, pp. 589 and 593. Westerling, p. 60.
49. Aneka Minggu, 9, 12, 16, and 18 June 1970. ‘Arsip Sedjarah’, pp. 89-101.
Mahruzar, in a 1972 interview, mentioned that most of his proteges of the
1945 TKR had found their way back to prison by 1950.
50. Aneka Minggu, 29 June 1970.
51. Aneka Minggu, 22 May and 26 June 1970. ‘Arsip Sedjarah’, pp. 98-101
and 118-20. Interviews.
52. Aneka Minggu, 26 May and 16 June 1970. ‘Kisah Tahun Pertama’, p. 40.
Perdjuangan Rakjat, p. 98.
53. Iman Marah typescript, 1947, p. 20.
54. Djusni, pp. 18-19. Interviews.
55. Westerling, pp. 49-50.
56. WIS 11, 1 January 1946, WO 172/9893. Also Djusni, pp. 18-19. ‘Arsip
Sedjarah’, pp. 118-20. Interviews.
57. Notes captured in raid on pesindo Sector 5, Appendix D in WIS 11,

1 January 1946, WO 172/9893.
58. Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 1-15 January 1946, Bi.Z. 22/1. N.I.B. II, pp.
516-18 & 523-4. Interviews.
59. Tengku Luckman Sinar, ‘Revolusi Sosial di Deli’ (typescript), p. 14. Inter¬
views.
60. Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 1-15 January 1946, p. 8, Bi.Z. 22/1. WIS 12, 8
January 1946, WO 172/9893. CMI Document 5590, 25 June 1948, in ARA
Archief Algemene Secretarie, No.368. Inoue, Bapa Djanggut, pp. 102 ff.
61. Aneka Minggu, 28 and 29 June 1970. ‘Arsip Sedjarah’, pp. 131-5.
62. Aneka Minggu, 29 June and 3 July 1970. ‘Arsip Sedjarah’, pp. 135-7.
Interviews. WIS 21, 9 March 1946, WO 172/9893, p. 1 and appendix,
reported a peak of fifteen desertions of Indian soldiers in the week 2-9
March.
63. Rajendra Singh, Post-zvar Occupation Forces: Japan and South-east Asia
(Kanpur, 1958). Official History of the Indian Armed Forces in the Second
World War 1939—1945, p. 241. Sjarif Lubis, pp. 15—18. Mohamad Said,
pp. 100-1.
64. Raliby,, p. 130. Mohamad Said, pp. 98-9. ‘Pembunuhan Masai di Tebing
Tinggi’ (Unpublished prima typescript, Medan, n.d.), pp. 1-5.
65. Aneka Minggu, 21 July 1970. Propinsi Sumatera Utara, pp. 46-7. Cables
26 Indian Division, 11, 14 and 16 December 1945, WO 203/2512. WIS
12, 8 January 1946, WO 172/9893.
66. For Westerling’s operations against Sarwono’s Gagak Hitam and the Ban-
teng Hitam (Black Buffalo), see Arthur Mathers in the Daily Telegraph
(London), 7 February 1946, and Westerling, pp. 61-74. Brondgeest, though
full of praise for Westerling s work in Medan, conceded that his methods
could perhaps sometimes not be called exactly humane’; Enquetecommissie
VIII, p. 589.
67. Aneka Minggu, 24 July 1970.
68. Hamka, Kenang-kenangan hidup, pp. 270-1.
69. Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 1-15 January 1946, Bi.Z. 22/1. ‘Pembunuhan

Masai’, pp. 28-42. Aneka Minggu, 3, 7 and 10 July 1970. ‘Arsip Sedjarah’,
pp. 139-45. Propinsi Sumatera Utara, p. 51. New York Times, 22 December
1945, quoting Aneta. Interviews.
70. WIS 11, 1 January 1946, WO 172/9893. Also Verslag Noord-Sumatra,

1-15 January 1946, pp. 7-8, Bi.Z. 22/1. Raliby, pp. 158-9 and 168.
71. Mas Tahir had been transferred from the Department of Finance in Batavia
in 1938 to become hoofdcommies (chief clerk) at the Medan office set up
to plan and establish the new province of Sumatra. Mr Hasan was an official
in the same office. During the Japanese occupation both Tahir and Hasan
worked in the office of the military administration in Medan. In Java before
his transfer Tahir had been an executive member of Taman Siswa and a
member of gerindo. He was transferred back to Java in March 1947
as a scapegoat for pemuda attacks on bureaucratic attitudes.
72. Raliby, p. 81.
73. Semangat Merdeka, 10 November 1945. Rokyoto and D. A. R. Kelana Pu-

tera, Penemuan pusara pudjangga Amir Hamzah (Medan, ‘Prakarsa’, n.d.),
p. 11. Interviews. For details of Republican appointments see Appendix.
74. Madja Poerba (born 1909), of the ruling family of Purba, Simalungun,
graduated from the Bukittinggi mosvia (school for officials) in 1932.
Thereafter he was employed in a variety of government offices in Pematang
Siantar, finally becoming secretary of the Gunseibu there in 1944 and
fuku-bunshucho the following year.
75. Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 1-15 December 1946, Bi.Z. 22/1.
76. 50 Tahun Kotapradja Medan (Medan, 1959), p. 82. H. Basrie, ‘Tentang

pimpinan dan struktur pemerintahan’ (typescript), p. 1. Both these sources
suggest the Markas Agung was formed in November 1945, but cf. Propinsi
Sumatera Utara, p. 77 for a later date.
77. Iman Marah typescript, 1947, p. 4.
78. Brondgeest report, 26 December 1945, in N.I.B. Ill, pp. 12-14.

79. Cables 26th Indian Division, 3, 4, and 7 December 1945, WO 203/2512.

WIS 11, 1 January 1946, WO 172/9893. Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 1-15
January 1946, Bi.Z. 21/1. Verslag over Sumatra tot 31 dec. 1945, N.I.B,
II, p. 521.
80. Kementerian Penerangan Republik Indonesia, Kepartaian di Indonesia
(Jakarta, 1951), p. 7.
81. Semangat Merdeka, 6, 10, 17, 20, and 29 November 1945.
82. Captured minutes of PNI meeting, 14-15 December 1945, Appendix B

to WIS 13, 14 January 1946, WO 172/9893.
83. Translation of PKI weekly Pandoe Merah, 1 December 1945, Appendix

B to WIS 12, 8 January 1946, WO 172/9893. Raliby, p. 105, gives Luat
Siregar and Nathar both as ‘assistants’, suggesting that Luat’s promotion
may have come after the initial meeting.
84. Mohammad Joenoes Nasution (c. 1905-69) had lived near Tan Malaka
in Tanjung Morawa in 1920-1 and was influenced by his ideas. His first
political experience however appears to have been in PNI, partindo, and
gerindo, without holding any significant position in these parties. He
worked as a clerk in a soft-drink firm (Fraser & Neave) and as an occasional
journalist. He was not a member of bompa or other Japanese-promoted
organizations, and his rapid rise in 1945 appears to be attributable almost
entirely to the backing of Xarim and Nathar. When he fell from grace
with the PKI, however, he was rescued from prison by napindo leaders
Marzuki Lubis and Bedjo.
85. Appendix B to WIS 12, 8 January 1946; WIS 19, 23 February 1946; WO
172/9893. Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 1-15 January 1946, pp. 4 and 10, Bi.Z.
22/1.
86. Cable 26th Indian Division, 23 November 1945, WO 203/2512.
87. Pajungbangun’s family had some claim to the wealthiest and most disputed
raja urung-ship in Karoland, the irrigated urung of Batu Karang. He grad¬
uated from mulo in 1940 and took a job in the BPM oil refinery in
Palembang. He returned to Karoland after the aron, in which his brother
Koda Bangun had taken the leading role in Batu Karang. Before the Japa¬
nese surrender he had been trained at talapeta and was appointed
Dai Tai Cho of the Harimau Liar section of Kenkokutai in Karoland.
Pajungbangun spent some time in prison from 1949 for his role in the revo¬
lution, and again in 1965-72 as a pre-1965 leader of the leftist partindo.
88. Saragih Ras (c.1905-55) was the son of the perbapaan of Tiga Ras, in Pane,
and it was therefore natural he would obtain a little education and become
an apprentice clerk in the Pane kerajaan office. He resigned from this in
1923 and joined the semi-criminal underworld for a few years before obtain¬
ing a job as a taxidriver (1927—30). In 1931 he succeeded his father as head
of the village, but the raja evidently refused him the title of perbapaan.
He became further alienated, and was one of the few Simalungun to join
gerindo in 1938 and the F-kikan in 1942. He was therefore a natural
leader of the Kenkokutai in Simalungun, and of its successor the BHL.
His pasukan appears to have been of relatively minor significance, however,
until it acquired wealth through the ‘social revolution’. Saragih Ras spent
most of the years after 1949 in Republican prisons, although never brought
to court.
89. Interviews. Soeloeh Merdeka, 14 and 28 January 1946. Inoue, Bapa

Djanggut, p. 116. Iman Marah typescript, pp. 21-3 and 34. Republik Indo¬
nesia, Proptnsi Sumatera Utara (Jakarta, n.d.), pp. 126-7.
90. Soeloeh Merdeka, 17 January 1946. WIS 17, 9 February 1946, WO 172/
9893.
91. Semangat Merdeka, 6 and 8 December 1946. Interviews Bachtiar Joenoes

and Yunan Nasution.
92. Anthony Reid, ‘The Birth of the Republic in Sumatra’, Indonesia, 12 (1971),
pp. 28-9. Raliby, pp. 136-7. $ Abad Al-Djamijatul Washlijah (Medan’
1955), pp. 133-5. Interviews.
93. Soeloeh Merdeka, 5 and 21 January, and 11 February 1946. Interviews.

Seulimeum!
VII
ECLIPSE OF THE ULEEBALANG
‘ The wheel of the universe turns .giving rise to events both horrifying
and joyful. Once his time has come, no man can escape his fate.
Even so with the aristocracy of North Aceh, whose time for living
tyrannously had truly run out. Willing or unwilling, they had to
bow before the law of life and the will of the times, bringing their
destiny towards its ruin.’
Abdullah Arif, 19461
EXPECTATIONS
If there was one part of Indonesia where outsiders expected special

difficulties to follow the Japanese surrender, it was Aceh. The militant
anti-Dutch tradition of the Acehnese and their successful 1942 uprising
were guarantees that at least there the pre-war order could not readily
be reimposed. A number of Japanese sought to take advantage of this
Acehnese tradition. Four days after he must have heard the Imperial
broadcast announcing surrender Masubuchi gave one of his fieriest
speeches appealing for resistance to the Allies as if the war was still on.2
The readiness of the Acehnese to continue the war which Japan had
lost seemed still more certain in faraway Singapore, especially to the
intelligence section of the 7th Area Army. Known as the Ibaragi kikan,
this section continued some of the intelligence and 5th column work
of the earlier Fujiwara kikan. Its commander, Major T. Ishizima, and
his two principal assistants were all from the Nakano intelligence school,
whose graduates were explicitly prepared to remain behind as guerrilla
organizers in the event of a Japanese retreat or surrender. The two assist¬
ants had both worked in Sumatra until transferred to Singapore in April
1944. Captain Adachi Takashi had built his intelligence network pri¬
marily in Aceh and Captain Kondo Tsugio in Medan, establishing what
contacts they could among radical nationalists. The three men decided
that Aceh was the place in which they should hold out while awaiting
the second great battle for Asia which would surely come. Aoki Eigoro,
the hero of pusa’s takeover of the judiciary, was invited to join the three
to ensure their warm reception by the Acehnese.
Having incautiously mentioned this plan to the unemployed pilots

they had been retraining for guerrilla work, the Nakano men were over¬
whelmed by the pilots’ enthusiasm to join it. Two small ships had to
be commandeered to take 150 Japanese and a large quantity of arms,
ammunition, and saleable cloth to Sumatra on the night of 19 August.
One ship appears to have landed in Siak, and its leaders were arrested
on their way through East Sumatra on the authority of General Itagaki.3
The other succeeded in reaching Langsa, but even in Aceh the response
of the Japanese military hierarchy was disappointing. Most Japanese
were aware of rising Acehnese resentment and wanted only to get out
of the region safely. Despite their attempts to buy favour with handouts
of cloth, arms, and even gold, Ishizima’s men also found an increasingly
hostile reception from Acehnese.4 By the end of September most of
them were back in Japanese barracks. Although Aceh was probably more
favoured by Japanese deserters than any other Indonesian region, most
of those who remained were obliged to become Muslims and seek an
influential Acehnese protector.
The Japanese surrender had been announced by the Atjeh Sinbun on
22 August, though a few Acehnese had been kept informed from the
beginning. The day before the public announcement Giyugun and Heiho
soldiers had been disarmed and dispersed to their villages, most of them
too astonished to protest.5 The typical reaction to the surrender was
shock and confusion, coupled with relief in some quarters that the night¬
mare was over.
For the mass of people in this region it was an inevitable fact that the Japa¬
nese surrender meant the return of the Dutch. ... It did not flash through
their minds that, with the Japanese capitulation, possibilities also arose for
a change in the constitutional basis of the country.6
Some Chinese in the towns enjoyed a moment of jubilation as rumours

spread that the armies of Chiang Kai Shek would enter Indonesia with
the Allies.7 A number of uleebalang were visibly gratified at the prospect
of their enemies being punished and their former authority fully restored.
Some hastened to make contact with Dutch friends and officials in the
Pematang Siantar camp, and to mend fences with the most pro-Dutch
of their colleagues, T. Chik Peusangan.8
Aceh was much better prepared than East Sumatra to manage its own
affairs, with T. Njak Arif already entrenched as undisputed leader. He
appears to have received an appointment as Republican Resident directly
from Jakarta in late August, perhaps because of fears there for the ex¬
plosive situation in Aceh.9 Far from organizing resistance to the Allies
however, the Japanese-appointed leadership appeared to be infected
by the complete demoralization from which most Japanese officials suf-
ECLIPSE OF THE ULEEBALANG 187
fered. ‘If we had already been panicky for some time’, wrote Panglima
Polim, ‘now we were in even more of a panic.’10 Njak Arif was made
of sterner stuff than most, but he limited his activities during the first
month to cautious negotiations to try to form a KNI and keep an adminis¬
tration running.
Even in Aceh the Allies were not slow to make an appearance. The
British Navy occupied the island and port of Sabang without resistance
on 7 September and established there one of the first nica administra¬
tions. On 5 October a.small Allied party was sent from Medan to Kutaraja
under a Dutch commando, Major Knottenbelt, and was placed by the
Japanese in a comfortable villa flying the Union Jack. Its functions were
to observe and report, and to try to keep the Japanese up to their obliga¬
tions to maintain order and retain control of arms. Njak Arif co-operated
cordially with Knottenbelt, and even signed a petition to the British
command that the Dutchman’s presence was ‘at this moment... in¬
dispensable to the maintenance of law and order’.11 With Masubuchi,
whom the Dutch regarded as the most dangerous Japanese propagandist,
Knottenbelt had a number of angry exchanges. When his arrest was
authorized from Medan on 21 October, Masubuchi chose instead the
honourable path of suicide.12
A REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT
1 hroughout Indonesia it was educated youth who provided the im¬

petus for both resistance to the Allies and a new sense of Indonesian
unity. Before the war such an element was hard to identify in Aceh, but
the Japanese had changed all that. Whatever their position on the pusa-
uleebalang question, the educated pemuda grouped around the Japanese
propaganda agencies and the Japanese-trained Giyugun officers saw
themselves in the first place as Indonesian nationalists in 1945. It was
they who responded most fully to Japanese patriotic ideals, and who
now responded first to reports of an independence proclamation in Ja¬
karta. Late in August a group of such youth began to meet in Kutaraja
under the chairmanship of Ali Hasjmy, editor of the Atjeh Sinbun. Under
the same sort of pressures as their counterparts in Medan, they declared
themselves the Ikatan Pemuda Indonesia (Union of Indonesian Youth)
or IPI during September and began to extend their contacts.13
This was still a relatively small group in comparison to the established
social forces still preoccupied by the internal Acehnese power balance.
The pemuda movement only became really active in the wake of events
in Medan. The wave of activity naturally began in the east, in the form
of a big independence rally and procession in Langsa on 1 October.14
After that red-and-white flags began to sprout everywhere. The IPI
group adopted the name of the Medan BPI on 6 October.

The distinction between the military and ‘civilian’ sections of the
youth movement emerged earlier in Aceh than in East Sumatra because
of the active role of T. Njak Arif. Already in September he had gathered
some of the leading ex-Giyugun officers and suggested they retain some
organization as a potential army. He suggested that the leader of the
anti-Japanese mutiny, T. A. Hamid Azwar, take the initiative, but the
latter deferred to his old Taman Siswa teacher, Sjammaun Gaharu.15
The officers had their hands very full trying to reassemble and organize
the large number of Giyugun, Heiho, and Tokobetsu Keisatsutai officers
and men in Aceh. By October 12 they were in a position to announce
an Aceh-wide structure for what they called API (Angkatan Pemuda
Indonesia, though with the potential to be changed to Angkatan Perang
Indonesia—Indonesian armed forces—as soon as conditions permitted).
Markas Daerah (regional headquarters) were established for each afdeling
and Wakil Markas Daerah for each district, above thtpasukan commands
already familiar from Japanese times.16 Later events were to underline
the dangers inherent in this early distinction between military and non¬
military youth leaders with initially similar outlooks.
The Japanese had made no objection to the raising of the Indonesian
flag over police stations and various other Indonesian-manned govern¬
ment offices during September. Only at the office of the chokan and of
each bunshucho did the Japanese maintain a government presence and
continue to fly the Hinomaru. Knottenbelt’s arrival required the Japanese
to make some gesture to restrain the formation of the quasi-military API
and the spreading of pamphlets, and on 6 October lino gave the leading
Acehnese a lecture on the legal situation following the surrender. Sjam¬
maun Gaharu hit a responsive chord when he protested that in view
of ‘the will to struggle which has been taught the Indonesian people
by the Japanese Army... the chokan has no right to order the dissolution
of API’.17
Some of the senior Japanese were delighted when their Acehnese
proteges showed the courage to defy their token resistance. The bunshucho
of Langsa bitterly attacked his Indonesian police chief, Abdullah Hus¬
sain, for raising the merah-putih over the government offices in early
October. When Abdullah stood his ground his mood suddenly changed
to praise: ‘If there were a thousand young men like this Abdullah, I
believe Indonesian independence could not be taken away by anyone.
I am happy to see you are a brave patriot. Now, what can I do to help
you ?’18
It was only a matter of time before this rising pemuda enthusiasm
provided the degree of counter-bluff Njak Arif needed to take over the
Aceh government completely. Kutaraja was a small, predominantly
official town, and it was not until 14 October that the BPI was strong
enough to organize a public rally at the local cinema. The Japanese
allowed only T. Njak Arif to speak, but this was enough for him to dem¬
onstrate that there was substance to the independence movement.
It was probably the same day that Njak Arif sent the tactful Panglima
Polim to arrange with the Japanese that the transfer of authority would
run smoothly. The Japanese could not openly approve, but Polim avoided
embarrassment by explaining that the Indonesians would simply seize
power. That evening lino sent 100,000 rupiahs to Polim as his gift for
the new Republican government.19
On the morning of the 15th Njak Arif gathered the senior government
officials to warn them that if they did not now take control of their offices
from the Japanese, he and the pemuda would do it for them. Soon after
the remaining Japanese officials were called to a conference with lino,
allowing the changeover of flags and responsibilities to be conducted
painlessly. Despite the Allied presence the assumption of complete Re¬
publican control had been carried out with remarkable smoothness. To
set a seal on the achievement a Republican newspaper, Semangat Mer-
deka, was inaugurated by Ali Hasjmy and his existing Atjeh Sinbun
staff on 18 October.20
The co-operation between the Acehnese government leaders and the
Japanese in this period no doubt owed something to their common fear
of the consequences of a militant Islamic movement. Njak Arif did
nothing to foster a popular movement, preferring to use the Japanese-
appointed government structure and API (which declared itself the
Republican army, the TKR, on 1 November) to lever power and later
arms from the Japanese. In practice, moreover, the majority of Giyugun
and therefore of TKR officers were from uleebalang families. At least
in polarized Pidie they were inevitably perceived as agents of the ulee¬
balang establishment.21 It was left to the BPI group to co-ordinate a
popular movement and tap the leadership potential of the pusa ulama.
The desire of the pemuda leaders for unity was emphasized in a joint
letter which Hasjmy and Sjammaun Gaharu sent to the chairman of
the KNI, Tuanku Mahmud: ‘Pemuda emphatically want to hear no
more of divisions and differences within our society, whether among
pemuda or among your excellencies who are like fathers to us.’22 Yet
the more the two groups extended their activities into rural Aceh, the
more they were drawn into different paths.
The BPI made itself an Aceh-wide movement at a meeting in Kutaraja
on 12 October, undoubtedly stimulated by Hoesain Almujahid and
Nathar Zainuddin, who had travelled up from Idi in the same train.
Their presence helped to ensure that the branch leaders chosen to in¬
augurate the BPI in the districts were all Pemuda pusa members.23
The influential older ulama were brought into the struggle two days later,
immediately following the rally addressed by Njak Arif. The pemuda
moved on from the cinema to the mosque, where Daud Beureu’eh urged
them to fight for their legitimate rights as prescribed by scripture. They
reportedly heard him ‘like our parents heard the sermon of the great
mujahid Teungku Chik di Tiro in the last holy war—moved and ready
for struggle’.24
A formal declaration that the conditions for holy war (jihad) had been
met required a consensus of ulama, not pusa alone. Following the
BPI rally Daud Beureu’eh was able to obtain the signatures of two fa¬
mous traditionalist teachers, Teungku Haji Hasan Krueng Kali and
Teungku Djafar Sidik, as well as one of his pusa colleagues, for a
statement that ‘this struggle is a sacred struggle which is called a HOLY
WAR,... [and] is like a continuation of the former struggle in Aceh which
was led by the late Teungku Chik di Tiro and other national heroes’.25
Although signed on 15 October, this declaration was not published
until a much fuller mobilization of ulama had taken place over the ensuing
month. Six hundred Pidie ulama gathered at Tiro on 16 November,
to be followed a week later by the ulama of Aceh Besar. Each gathering
confirmed that the appropriate conditions for a jihad (holy war) now
applied. Not content with the nationalistic basis of BPI/PRI, each meet¬
ing established an Islamic army to pursue the holy war, called Mujahidin
in Pidie and Hizbullah in Aceh Besar.26
Pusa influence was dominant in these Islamic armies, and strong
too in BPI (which declared itself PRI on October 17, ‘on instructions
from Java’).27 The former however sought to continue the traditional
leadership of rural ulama, where the latter was led by urban pemuda
with Japanese or modernist Islamic education and a primarily nationalist
orientation.
While this populist/Islamic movement was mobilizing, T. Njak Arif
worked quietly to make the Japanese administration operate without
the Japanese. Those appointed fuku-bunshucho of the five divisions of
Aceh before the surrender were confirmed in office as Assistant-Res¬
idents, and the Japanese-appointed guncho reverted to the Dutch title
of controleur,28 The Republican territorial administration was therefore
exclusively staffed by prominent uleebalang. Below this hierarchy the
uleebalang were also accepted as part of the Republican administration.
Even the PRI went out of its way to declare the loyalty of every member
to all Republican officials, including ‘Resident, Uleebalang, Imeum,
Keucik, Waki, Teungku Meunasah, etc. ... as long as they love the
Republic of Indonesia and do not betray national independence’.29 On
the highly sensitive question whether the new courts established in 1944
would continue, however, Njak Arif appears to have given no sufficiently
clear lead. Some uleebalang in Pidie unilaterally resumed their pre-war
judicial powers during their period of euphoria immediately following
news of the surrender. The question who controlled the judicial process
gave the revolution a dramatic local focus understood by all rural Aceh-
nese.
Njak Arif s major emphasis during October and November appears to
have been on ensuring a high standard of discipline in the name of the
Republic. One of his early announcements forbade gambling, distilling
arak, and even pasar tnalam (night markets) unless with official permis¬
sion. His speeches insisted that gambling, robbery, and self-indulgence
must be eliminated.30 The Resident also took pains to win to his side
the ex-KNiL detainees, mainly Ambonese and Menadonese, released
by the Japanese on 26 September, and to include their representatives
on Republican platforms to avert hostility frompemuda. Njak Arif placed
a dangerous strain on the loyalty of the young nationalists, however,
when in November he formed 200 of these ex-KNiL soldiers into an
elite ‘special police’ responsible directly to himself. He acquired 600
rifles from the Japanese in Kutaraja, some of which were used to equip
this ‘special police’ and the remainder the TKR.31
This first transfer of Japanese arms to the ‘official’ Republic may
even have been tacitly approved by the Allied mission headed by Knot-
tenbelt. Njak Arif appeared at one point to be seeking Allied support
for a policy of concentrating arms in the hands of the TKR and ‘special
police . His decree of 8 November forbade anyone to carry firearms
unless licensed by the Resident, and added ‘if the Allies find firearms
on people they will be sentenced to death’.32
The growing popular enthusiasm for independence would sooner
or later make Knottenbelt’s continued presence in Aceh impossible.
Some pemuda went to great efforts to spy on him and soon discovered
that he was a Dutch national, responsible to nica as well as to the
British. Demonstrations were held in front of his house and the Japanese
continually urged him to withdraw while it was safe to do so. When
on 10 November Knottenbelt and his staff finally retreated to Medan
by car, Njak Arif offered to accompany him in order to ensure his safety.
This the Dutch rejected presumably for fear it might seem to imply
recognition of the Republic. But Sjammaun Gaharu and a PRI leader
travelled with Knottenbelt, while Njak Arif went ahead to smooth poten¬
tial difficulties along the way.33
Njak Arif had other reasons to visit Medan, both to discuss British
intentions directly with Brigadier Kelly and to seek medical treatment
for his diabetes. When Kelly requested permission for a British peace¬
keeping force to enter Aceh, the Resident was so alarmed that he forgot
his diabetes and decided to return at once to help defend Aceh. Never-
theless this visit and its association with Knottenbelt gave rise to some
pemuda suspicion of Njak Arif. Doubts were increased by the activity
of Goh Moh Wan, a rashly ambitious Kutaraja Chinese who had been
translator for the Kenpeitai during the war. After the surrender he acted
as adviser and translator for Njak Arif as well as cultivating Knottenbelt.
When the Allied representative left Kutaraja he named Goh Moh Wan
as Allied liaison officer, and Njak Arif gave Goh a letter of recognition
in this capacity. Goh visited Medan a few days after Njak Arif and
Knottenbelt and was much seen with Allied officials. When leaving he
was arrested and killed by pesindo youths. They found on him Njak
Arif’s letter, which was duly passed to Sarwono and to some of the
latter’s contacts in Aceh, who included Hoesain Almujahid. By threads
of association of this sort, distrust of Njak Arif and Sjammaun spread
in Pemuda pusa and PRI circles.34
STRUGGLE FOR ARMS
Knottenbelt had appealed against the Allied decision to withdraw

him: ‘with an Allied representative on the spot the Japanese know that
their activities are observed, and the Indonesians know that they can
exercise no influence on the Japanese’.35 The transfer of arms from
Japanese to Acehnese hands did escalate rapidly after his departure,
though as we know from East Sumatra he could have done nothing
to prevent it. The old Acehnese fighting spirit was beginning to be
aroused.
The earliest trickle of arms was arranged diplomatically. Non-inven-
toried weapons, such as obsolete models or those captured from Allied
troops, were often handed over fairly readily to satisfy pemuda requests.
In other cases arms were given to the uleebalang Republican officials
to enable them to contain the growing unrest in their districts. Besides
the 600 rifles given to Njak Arif, over 100 weapons were given to the
guncho of Seulimeum and a substantial number to the guncho of Lam-
meulo, T. Mohd. Daud Cumbok.36 But by late November more deter¬
mination was required on one or both sides, for the Allies had an in¬
ventory of arms and insisted on accounting for every loss.
Where there was determined leadership the rising tide of popular
bitterness towards the Japanese was not difficult to tap. Thousands of
rural Acehnese would answer the call to battle, bringing spears, parang
and klewang to join in the holy struggle. ‘They themselves were not
exactly sure what they were coming to do.’37 The first major battle
occurred at Cunda, near Lhokseumawe, when a train carrying a whole
Japanese battalion was cut off on 15 November. The Japanese were
eventually allowed to proceed after many casualties and the surrender
of sixty rifles. A week later a Japanese company attempting to reach

Bireuen from Lhokseumawe was stopped by a crowd which one Japanese
estimated at over 50,000. After a two-day battle and many deaths the
company surrendered all its weapons. These were entrusted to the
guncho of Bireuen, T. Idris, though subsequently taken from him by
Daud Beureu’eh’s son Hasballah.38
In other cases the initiative came from Japanese officers seeking to
make a last contribution to the cause of independence. There was ad¬
miration as well as fear for the fighting spirit of the Acehnese, and the
emotional bond of obligation was probably stronger than anywhere
else in Indonesia. One Japanese lieutenant who had trained most of
the Giyugun officers in Idi undertook a personal crusade to persuade the
two Japanese battalions in Lhokseumawe to give all their arms away at
whatever cost. Lt. Maeda reminded his colleagues of Japanese promises
and Japanese aims:
The Japanese bravely opened a front against the white race. In Asia for
so long white men have made Asians into cheap slaves and exploited the labour
and the rich resources of Asia to develop the white countries. . . . Never mind
if Japan is defeated in the war, so long as the peoples of Asia arise to claim
their freedom. . . .
The Allies have returned our weapons to us ... in the hope that we will
fight fiercely among ourselves, Japanese against Indonesians, so that Indone¬
sians will continue to hate Japanese in future generations. With that, the
Dutch and their allies will applaud, for without having to interfere they
will have achieved their aim—division between the Asian races, who have
been firmly united since the world war.39
These ideas had their effect, for at least 600 weapons from the 2,000-
strong garrison were surrendered peacefully in early December.40 A
much more senior officer, Major Okamura, had already explained to
Governor Hasan in October that the Japanese had no heart for carrying
out Allied instructions and would quickly hand over their arms if the
Acehnese mounted realistic-looking attacks. Hasan sent Xarim M. S.
to northern Aceh with this message in early November, with results
which were evident in the clashes around Lhokseumawe.41
While in North Aceh it had been the TKR and the uleebalang officials
who had instigated the clashes and benefited from them, in Aceh Besar
it was the PRI. Pressure focused at the end of November on the airport
and garrison of Lhoknga, one of the three centres in the district where
Japanese had concentrated. The PRI brought such big names as Daud
Beureu’eh, Ismail Jakoeb, T. M. Amin, and Ali Hasjmy to Lhoknga
on 21 November to arouse a great mass rally.42 Within a few days
popular pressure had produced an influx of villagers who surrounded
the Japanese camp. As many as 10,000 Acehnese were involved by the
end of the month, and bloody clashes developed around the Japanese
perimeter.
At about noon on 1 December the Japanese appealed for negotiation
to avert a really major blood-letting. Njak Arif sent 1 uanku Mahmud
who now had the rank of Assistant-Resident, and acceptable terms were
arranged. The Japanese troops were to leave Lhoknga on foot and con¬
centrate all their troops at the Blang Bintang airport just south of Kuta-
raja. They would take with them only such arms as they could carry,
and the remainder would be left with the Acehnese besiegers. The other
agreement, broken by uncontrollable pemuda within two weeks, was
that there would be no further harassment of the Japanese provided
they kept to themselves at Blang Bintang.43
One of the important consequences of this battle was the formation
of a separate armed force by PRI/pesindo. The PRI’s original as¬
piration to represent all Acehnese youth had already proved incompat¬
ible with its desire to be part of a pan-Indonesian youth body. On 10
December it declared itself pesindo, long after its East Sumatran
equivalent had done so and obviously with some reluctance. This step
increased the distinction between the urban and educated youth within
it and the rural supporters of the Mujahidin. At about the same time
the Divisi Rencong took definite shape as pesindo’s fighting force.
It was based at the Lhoknga camp vacated by the Japanese and took
over most of the vast armoury the Japanese left there. Njak Neh, one
of the first Pemuda pusa youths to have received Giyugun officer train¬
ing, left the TKR to lead Divisi Rencong. The unit specialized in heavy
artillery and anti-aircraft weaponry, and trained many Acehnese in the
use of arms. Japanese expertise was particularly valuable in such matters,
and about fifteen Japanese defectors concentrated at the Lhoknga base
to serve with pesindo. Their leader was the once-feared head of the
Tokobetsu Keisatsutai in Aceh, Kuroiwa. As a later Republican investi¬
gator remarked:
It is very strange that after the Japanese capitulation his cruelties were
forgotten by the people, and he was quickly able to influence people and gain
their full confidence in Lhoknga . . . where the power centre of pesindo
is. He became the strong man of pesindo, handled with respect by pesindo
leaders of our own nationality.44
The new Japanese concentration at Blang Bintang was soon under

siege in a manner which threatened to repeat the Lhoknga battle. By
early December it was obvious that the Japanese in most parts of Aceh
could serve no function useful to the Allies and would have great diffi¬
culty even defending themselves. All were evacuated from Aceh in the
second half of December. The powerful garrison at Blang Bintang
195
mounted a formidable dawn operation on 15 December to clear a path
to the coastal embarkation point, seizing the top TKR officers as hostages
for their safe escape. The Japanese were taken by ship from West Aceh
on 18 December, from Aceh Besar on the 19th and from Pidie on the
20th. They left behind a large proportion of their arms and over 100
of their colleagues who had decided to fight on in another caused
POLARIZATION IN PIDIE
Throughout Indonesia there were conflicts between waverers and

Republican enthusiasts, between those who stood to gain or to lose by
a Dutch restoration. In the Pidie region of Aceh, however, the peculiarly
bitter heritage of rivalry between uleebalang and a PUSA-led populist
movement gave a unique intensity to the conflict, which quickly assumed
the character of a small-scale civil war. A major factor in this polarization
was the activity of one headstrong man, Teuku Mohammad Daud of
Cumbok.46
Mohammad Daud, guncho of Lammeulo throughout the Japanese and
early Republican period, was a man of considerable personal courage,
not to say recklessness. He made no secret of his unpopular opinions
even to staunch Republicans. He preferred action to diplomacy. He
wished to be unquestioned master in his own house, and this included
an arrogant disregard even for those ulama who might have tried to
keep him on the straight and narrow path. As an indication, he organized
a pasar malam in Lammeulo during November in defiance of the Resi¬
dent s ban, at which a good deal of gambling and drinking took place.
He invited all the prominent local ulama to attend a feast. Reportedly
he went out of his way to scandalize the few who attended by trying to
get them all drunk, saying, ‘I will end like you coming to God in a good
sheet, but only after this pasar malam, and after enjoying the good things
of this world.’4' And enjoy them he did, with a hearty appetite. He was
one of tlhose strong-minded Acehnese able to inspire great loyalty among
his folowers, and a respectful hatred on the part of his enemies.
Daud was the first uleebalang to send an envoy to the Dutch officials
interned in Rantau Prapat, on 15 September, to express hope for their
speedy return to Aceh.48 As the popular movement for merdeka got
under way in October, he was one of the few to show not just caution
but open hostility towards it. When pemuda first raised the merah-putih
in front of his office in September he had it pulled down at once rather
than leave the task to the Japanese like most of his colleagues. Similarly
he had his men pull down pro-Republican posters put up by the PRI,
and made no secret of his conviction that Indonesia was incapable of
independence. This attitude led quickly to clashes between his own
rakan (traditional followers) and the PRI. The conflict reached the point
on 3 November that some PRI leaders were arrested and beaten. Finally
on 8 November, three days after the PRI had managed to stage an in¬
dependence rally and procession, PRI headquarters in Lammeulo were
seized by Daud Cumbok’s men and the PRI leaders forbidden to enter
the town.49 A clear challenge had been thrown at the whole Republican
movement.
Cumbok was in every way an extreme figure. None of the other ulee¬
balang of Pidie desired any premature open challenge to the Republic.
Some of them genuinely supported independence. What they did want
was the restoration of their pre-war powers and the punishment of
those who had most openly attacked them under the Japanese. As the
assumption that they would achieve their goals through a restored Dutch
regime began to weaken, some positive action was required. On 22 Oc¬
tober, all but one of the uleebalang of the Pidie region met at a kenduri
at the house of the wealthy T. Oemar Keumangan in Beureunun. Teuku
Oemar expressed the view that the uleebalang had no quarrel with in¬
dependence as such, but needed an assurance that their powers would
be recognized by the new regime. No more definite decision appears
to have resulted.50 It was probably shortly after this meeting that the
Pidie uleebalang sent a telegram to Sukarno pledging support for the
Republic provided their positions were guaranteed.51
Nevertheless Daud Cumbok played an increasingly important role
in Pidie developments, partly because he took such a bold position and
partly because he put together the strongest military force in the region.
He used former knil personnel and one or two Japanese to train his
supporters in the use of weapons. To help recruit men for this force
he reportedly spread word that he was authorized by the Allies to or¬
ganize a peace-keeping unit in Pidie. Already in October his son T. M.
Hassan claimed that the Cumbok force possessed over 100 weapons,
including cannon and mortar. Ultimately Daud Cumbok cornered the
lion’s share of the Japanese arms and supplies in the Lammeulo
district.52 This strength was the main basis of Daud’s appeal, both to
his more hesitant fellow-uleebalang and his potential supporters.
Although the PRI in Sigli and the uleebalang-dominated ‘official’
government of Assistant-Resident, guncho, and TKR both acted in the
name of Indonesia merdeka, there was from the beginning no trust be¬
tween them. The 1940-2 polarization in Pidie, exacerbated by the 1944
conflict over the judiciary, had left no neutral leaders with the respect
of both sides. The PRI branch which formed in Sigli was headed by
Hasan Aly53 and T. A. Hasan, who both had long-standing quarrels
with some of the Pidie uleebalang. Both were from small-trade back¬
grounds in the kampungs of Aree and Garut, slightly up-river from
Sigli, traditional centres both of commerce and of anti-uleebalang leader¬

ship. The first PRI rally was held in Aree on 24 October, followed
by enthusiastic meetings throughout Pidie during the ensuing week.54
The leading speakers were uniformly pusa or Pemuda pusa men, with
Daud Beureu’eh prominent among them, while the new element of
young modern-educated nationalists was much weaker than in Kuta-
raja.
Although the earliest PRI rallies appear to have followed the urban
pemuda pattern of flag-raising and nationalist enthusiasm, the distinctly
Islamic character of the Pidie popular movement was quickly apparent.
Daud Beureu’eh, in touch with the secular leaders as a result of the
Japanese experience, appears to have been the first of the recognized
ulama to come out strongly for the Republic. As we have seen he ad¬
dressed the October rally in Kutaraja and persuaded three other ulama
to join him in declaring a holy war. Daud Beureu’eh also addressed
the first large gathering of ulama to support the resistance at the mosque
of Tiro, spiritual centre of resistance during the last phase of the Aceh
war. The 600 Pidie ulama who met there on 16 November could hardly
have done more to stress the continuity of the holy war tradition. Teung-
ku Oemar Tiro, grandson of the greatest Islamic hero of the Aceh
war, was chosen as patron of the Mujahidin force which they launched.55
What this holy wrar might imply for the recalcitrant uleebalang was made
clear in a declaration by the subsequent ulama meeting in Aceh Besar:
1. The law for the holy war was now Fardlu ‘ain5G (obligatory on every
Muslim);
2. War expenses would come from Baitalmaal (religious treasury);
Zakat (the religious tax on agriculture); and support from the wealthy.
3. The law for a traitor was the same as that for a kafirM
As the rival forces in Pidie became more sharply polarized, the ques¬
tion became more urgent who would obtain the greater share of the
remaining Japanese arms. On Allied instructions only one Japanese
company, the Sakata-taz, had remained in Pidie when the pressure began
to rise in October. Its function was ostensibly to keep order as well as
to safeguard arms and vital Dutch installations, but after an incident
at Meureudu on 3 November it withdrew to a purely defensive stance
at its barracks in Pineueng, near Sigli.58 It appears to have been a dem¬
onstration at the beginning of November under PRI auspices which
produced the first transfer of weapons, although the moral authority
of T. Njak Arif and the ‘official’ Republic was at that stage sufficient
to have them handed over to the TKR in Sigli.59
The PUSA-oriented PRI group did not continue this co-operative
approach to the TKR. Husein Sab,60 a pre-war medicine-seller and

pusa leader, used to good effect the Japanese contacts he had made
through the F-kikan. During November he collected about thirty fire¬
arms from various individual Japanese, and used them to form the armed
pasukan of the Sigli PRI.61
Only one civilian Japanese administrator remained at his post in
November, lino’s trusted trouble-shooter Muramoto.62 The chokan
sent him back to Pidie with explicit instructions ‘to intensify the conflict
between uleebalang and ulama’ so as to remove Acehnese pressure on
the Japanese troop concentrations in Aceh Besar.63 Muramoto calculated
that it was important to retain a ‘balance of power’ between the two
basic forces in Pidie, and that the uleebalang were becoming the weaker
party by the end of November. He therefore gave a dozen rifles secretly
to the guncho of Sigli, T. Cut Hasan, knowing they would be used by
the uleebalang party.64
As the transfer of arms on a large scale began to occur elsewhere,
the TKR in Kutaraja sent envoys to Sigli to promote the standard tactics
there. Muramoto had no intention of allowing such a surrender in Pidie,
but he kept tension high by promising that the bulk of the weapons
would be handed over only on 4 December. The PRI, TKR, and the
uleebalang were separately advised of this, and preparations began for
a massive influx to the city to ensure that the Japanese kept their word.
In the last week of November about 200 armed supporters of the
Pidie uleebalang entered the town at night, and established themselves
in the houses of T. Cut Hasan and the uleebalang of Pidie. As 4 December
approached they blocked the major road entry to Sigli and detained
anyone whom they thought might be coming to the town to help the
PRI obtain the Japanese weapons. Several PRI leaders, including Osman
Raliby and Hasballah Daud, were briefly but roughly detained by them
and further embittered. The PRI unit in Sigli, also hoping to obtain
the Japanese weapons but less well-armed than the uleebalang, evacuated
to the east, leaving the town in their hands. The PRI leaders Hasan
Aly and Husein Sab now mobilized their respective followers in Garut
and Gigieng against the uleebalang in the town. By nightfall on 3 De¬
cember it was the uleebalang group which was surrounded. The PRI had
some firearms including two machine guns operated by Japanese. Their
strength however lay in the thousands of villagers they had now mobil¬
ized, dressed in the black clothing of martyrdom and armed only with
parang and spears. The march of their long columns towards the ulee¬
balang stronghold took on inevitably the character of a holy war, with
many reciting prayers and passages from the Hikayat Perang Sabil as
they marched. Some thought they were going to fight the uleebalang,
some the Japanese, others still the Dutch.65
At this tense stage the Kutaraja leadership intervened. Sjammaun
Gaharu led a small TKR party to Sigli, which apparently believed its
role was to supervise a mock battle resulting in the transfer of arms to
the TKR. Shortly behind this party came Panglima Polim representing
the Aceh Government, while Teuku Djohan Meuraxa arrived from
Medan as the envoy of the Sumatran Governor. A conference with the
Japanese in the morning of 4 December proceeded smoothly, Muramoto
agreeing to transfer a large quantity of arms to the TKR.
At about 3 p.m. Sjammaun Gaharu met the leaders of the PRI force
outside the town, and attempted to persuade them to disperse since
their objectives had already been realized. While he was negotiating,
the rising panic among the outnumbered men in the house of the
uleebalang of Pidie apparently spilled over. Three shots were suddenly
fired from the house into the crowd of demonstrators. Chaos immediately
broke out. The bulk of the crowd tried to flee, while the better-armed
PRI groups returned the fire. About fifty people were killed in the melee,
including Sjammaun Gaharu’s adjutant. Most of the dead were among
the PRI-led crowd. They included T. Rizad, a TKR officer in Sigli
who had joined the PRI-led demonstration, and T. Banta Sjam, a PRI
and pusa leader from Padang Tiji. Sjammaun Gaharu fled towards
Kutaraja but attempted to return the following day. He was captured
and nearly killed in the PRI stronghold at Garut, because the demonstra¬
tors believed he had encouraged the TKR unit to fire on them. Mean¬
while battle lines were drawn up around the few hundred armed
uleebalang supporters. Fighting continued for two days and nights and
the Japanese reported hundreds killed. The TKR force in Sigli was
helpless to interfere. Some of its members, led by the brother of the
uleebalang of Keumangan, had joined the uleebalang group, while the
remainder were suspect because of their action during the initial clash.
T. Njak Arif sent a TKR detachment from Kutaraja to make peace,
but this was disarmed and sent back to Kutaraja by an angry mob which
gathered in Seulimeum. The Resident then sent a stronger force of his
ex-KNiL ‘special police’ together with the TKR Chief of Staff, T. Hamid
Azwar. Convinced that things had now got seriously out of hand, Mura¬
moto was also tireless in his efforts to arrange a peace. Although there
were many on the PRI side who demanded a showdown to crush the
few hundred uleebalang followers in Sigli, these authorities succeeded
on 6 December in negotiating a ceasefire between Hasan Aly and the
uleebalang leaders. It was agreed that everybody would return home, Sigli
would revert to the control of Republican officials, and any Japanese
arms would be taken to Kutaraja for the TKR.66
THE CUMBOK WAR
The consequences of the confused panic of 4 December were momen¬

tous. The breach between uleebalang and their enemies in Pidie was
now too wide for any Republican diplomacy to bridge. The death of
many villagers confirmed the popular picture of Pidie uleebalang as
monsters of cruelty, and the leadership of those who had long-standing
grievances against the traditional elite. Uleebalang fears were also inten¬
sified about the bleak future they would face in a ‘democratic’ Aceh.
For all his faults, Teuku Daud Cumbok appeared the only man now
likely to be able to save them.
After the conclusion of the Sigli fighting no uleebalang felt safe in
Sigli. The uleebalang of Pidie fled to Lueng Putu (Njong), and the
Assistant-Resident, T. Cut Hasan, to Meureudu. Further envoys were
urgently sent to beg help from the Dutch in Medan, but most of them
appear to have been seized by pemuda on the way.67 On or before 10
December, most of the Pidie uleebalang met again at Lueng Putu. This
time they appear to have accepted the necessity for Daud Cumbok’s
strong-arm methods. It was agreed that his armed unit would become
the kernel of an uleebalang peace-keeping force (BPK), and other ulee¬
balang would send their men to Lammeulo for training. Besides the
main stronghold at Lammeulo, lesser fortifications would be built at
Meureudu and Lueng Putu. Some others also tried to strengthen their
own houses, particularly T. Oemar Keumangan, who refused to have
any truck with Daud Cumbok because of an ancient feud between the
two families.68
Almost immediately after this uleebalang meeting the Sumatran Gov¬
ernor arrived in Sigli by car, having been urged by the Japanese to
curb the increasing pressure on Japanese troops there. His attempts
to bridge the rift were ineffective. Daud Cumbok declined to meet him,
but sent his younger brother who complained it was the pusa people
who surrounded Lammeulo. The only positive result of his visit was
to remove T. Cut Hasan, now useless as a neutral mediator, as Assistant-
Resident. He summoned from Kutaraja T. Chik Mohamad Said
(Cunda), the famous Sarekat Islam leader of 1918-20, who was initially
acceptable to both sides.69 But as with Mr Hasan himself, Mohamad
Said’s attempts to preach reconciliation and legality were ignored by the
uleebalang, and regarded as evidence of treachery by the other side.
Teuku Daud Cumbok himself was more than ever convinced by the
Sigli events that safety lay in cowing his enemies with a confident show
of force. Far from making concessions to popular feeling, he appears
to have believed that defiance was the best means of demonstrating his
strength and retaining his following. At a time when religious feeling
was being mobilized against him he went out of his way to alienate
those few ulama who were tempted to remain loyal to him.70
Following the Lueng Putu meeting, Daud Cumbok took the initiative
in punishing all those within his reach who were prominent pusa or
PRI figures and potential leaders of resistance. On the nights of 10
and 11 December his men raided the homes of four of the most prominent
leaders of the Lammeulo PRI, though the men themselves had fled. A
considerable amount of clothing and valuables was seized. His men
acted roughly towards their opponents, and exaggerated stories quickly
began to spread about Cumbok’s barbarities and the special Cap Sauh
(‘Anchor’) and Cap Tombak (‘Spear’) units whose tasks were allegedly
to plunder, kidnap, and kill indiscriminately.71
Presumably also as a result of the Lueng Putu meeting and Daud
Cumbok’s urging, early on 11 December Teuku Ma’ali of Samaindra
launched an attack on the PUSA-group’s headquarters at Garut, which
lay within his territory. But unlike Cumbok he was a cautious, indecisive
leader, and his attack came to nothing. T. Chik Mohamad Said was
able to come from Sigli and persuade him to withdraw, pending a settle¬
ment under Republican auspices of all grievances.72
Soon after Teuku Daud turned his attention to Me Tareuem, a village
7 km. from Lammeulo which possessed the principal Islamic school
in the district. It had become the centre of operations for many of the
ulama and PRI and pusa activists who had fled from Lammeulo.
Teuku Daud’s strategy appears again to have been to frighten his op¬
ponents away by a show of strength. On 16 December he lobbed some
mortar shells into the village from a nearby hill, causing considerable
damage though few casualties. The result was the reverse of what he
had intended. News of the attack spread quickly, people in a much wider
area than Lammeulo district were outraged, and Daud Beureu’eh began
to demand action from the KNI in Kutaraja. The new Assistant-
Resident hurried from Sigli to Me Tareuem and then Lammeulo. After
talking to T. Daud Cumbok, he returned to try to soothe the militants
of Me Tareuem by telling them that Cumbok was not attacking them
but just on ‘a training exercise’. There was perhaps little more that he
could have done to avert the coming crisis, but this episode ended his
credibility to the pusa people who henceforth classed him with the
uleebalang.13
The antagonism in Pidie was rapidly assuming the shape of a civil
war, with the official Republican presence no longer capable of attracting
non-partisan loyalty. Determined to get Japanese weapons into their
own hands, anti-uleebalang leaders took the initiative in the areas east
of Pidie well endowed with Japanese arms. After his involvement in the
4 December incident, Hasballah Daud led a raid on the house of the
guncho of Bireuen, Teuku Idris, and by threatening him with a pistol

took possession of the armoury which had been taken from the Japanese
in November. The withdrawal by rail of the last Japanese presence in
Lhokseumawe and Bireuen on 20 December provided another oppor¬
tunity for the transfer of arms on a large scale, most of them ending
in anti-uleebalang hands.74
In Pidie itself Hasan Aly attempted to co-ordinate the activities of
the various armed pemuda groups through the establishment in Garut
on 22 December of a Pusat Markas Barisan Rakyat (Central HQ of the
People’s Forces). This had only a limited success in co-ordinating the
activities of the best-equipped pasukan, like Husein Sab’s in Gigieng
and Hasballah Daud’s which now made its base at Gle Gapui (Me Ta-
reuem mukim). It was more successful politically, propagating a picture
of Daud Cumbok as a diabolical evildoer and enemy of religion and
maintaining pressure on the government in Kutaraja, primarily through
Daud Beureu’eh, to intervene against Cumbok.
The first attack on the Lammeulo stronghold inspired by the Pusat
Markas took place on Christmas eve, because of reports that Daud Cum¬
bok was planning a major offensive on the 25th. It was easily repulsed,
but drew a characteristically forceful response from the uleebalang leader.
On 30 December he launched a full-scale offensive against pusa/PRI
centres in the Me Tareuem district. His force advanced along the road
to Garut and Sigli, easily overcoming the light resistance offered by
the pemuda in Me Tareuem. It destroyed or burned the buildings erected
for the controversial hoin in 1944, such centres of pemuda activity as
PRI offices and religious schools, and the homes of people suspected
of involvement in the attack on Lammeulo. At Titeue a religious school,
the centre of local pusa/PRI activities, was burned down.75
In his own district Daud Cumbok had ensured that there was nobody
who could resist such a show of strength. Indeed in the whole of the
Pidie region the uleebalang forces were probably stronger than their
opponents in organization and armament, if not in numbers. As long
as Daud Cumbok exploited a reputation for power by his aggressive
showing, he could rely on a mystique of supernatural strength which
it would be folly to resist. Daud himself, and the much-disliked T.
Laksamana Oemar (Njong), were popularly believed invulnerable to
bullets. Daud’s bravado was well illustrated by the challenge he threw
out to his attackers on 1 January:
... if you . . . have not yet been brought to your senses by the losses of
the last few days, and still want to fight with us as men . . . build your strong¬
holds outside the villages, in places you consider strong enough. When your
defences are complete, check once more whether those defences are strong
enough. . . . Then inform us so that we may come to attack.76
Daud Cumbok was checked, however, by forces from outside Pidie

proper, brought into the arena by his very excesses. His advance towards
Garut was halted in the first days of January primarily by two well-
armed units brought to Pidie by the growing propaganda against him.
These were the Bansan Mali from Tangse and a group from Peudaya
(Padang Tiji district) under Djuned Effendi.
Large numbers of ill-organized Mujahidin flocked to Sigli and Garut
at the beginning of January to take part in the struggle, but it was only
the better-equipped and organized pasukan which were a serious danger
to the fortified uleebalang centres. The most formidably armed group
came from the Bireuen area w'here so many Japanese arms had been
seized. The lack of leadership for these Mujahidin was made good with
the arrival in Bireuen of Tgk. Abdul Wahab (Seulimeum), on his way
back from the Mil Islamic Conference in Bukittinggi which had elected
him leader of the Mujahidin throughout Sumatra. He quickly mobilized
the reformist ulama of the area, and brought in Hasballah Trienggading,
a former Giyugun lieutenant, to train and lead the fighting force. About
100 well-armed men with more than ten bren-guns began their advance
towards Lammeulo in late December.
The first uleebalang to go under were those who had been holding
out at Meureudu against a small PRI unit. Hasballah’s men quickly
took the uleebalang stockade and killed or captured all its occupants.
They moved on to Lueng Putu, where the uleebalang of Njong, Pidie,
and some smaller states put up a stronger resistance. After a pitched
battle the fortified house of the ruler of Njong was taken, and the ulee¬
balang again killed. Growing ever larger and more confident, Hasballah’s
force advanced on Beureunun, where the Keumangan family was over¬
come and killed despite some assistance from Lammeulo. The invading
force from the east, now with about 5,000 followers and many captured
arms, finally arrived in triumph to join the local forces preparing for
the final attack on Lammeulo itself.77
The semi-legendary strength of Daud Cumbok gave pause even to
the massive attacking force assembled against him at the beginning of
January. To provide both additional strength and legitimation for
the final battle, the Pusat Markas in Garut was anxious to involve the
Republic and the TKR officially. Daud Beureu’eh brought the matter
up repeatedly in the Aceh KNI. Even though pusa sympathizers formed
about half of the new 72-member KNI formed on 25 December,78
the influence of moderates anxious to avoid a showdowm at all costs
was evident in the hesitation of the Committee. Finally, at the eleventh
hour, the initiative w7as taken by the Markas Besar Rakyat Umum, a
body embracing leaders of the TKR, parties, and armed barisan in
Kutaraja. At a meeting on 8 January it formulated two statements issued

over the signatures of the Deputy Resident for the Government, and
Sjammaun Gaharu for the Markas Besar. The first declared ‘that the
group which is established at Cumbok (Lammeulo) and other places,
who are armed and are resisting the people, are traitors and enemies
of the Republic’. The second issued an ultimatum to the Cumbok
group to surrender by midday on 10 January, or be crushed by force.
A detachment of ‘special police’ and TKR was immediately dispatched
to back up these demands and to participate in the final struggle.79
The official army nevertheless played little more than a token part
in the battle of Lammeulo. More substantial help came from Seulimeum
in the form of a heavily-armed Mujahidin unit. Approximately a hundred
armed defenders of Lammeulo were now faced with five times that
number of besiegers armed with machineguns and mortars as well as
rifles. Behind them were thousands of unarmed villagers wanting to
join the fight. After the arrival of these last reinforcements, the final
attack was launched on 12 January. Heavy fighting continued through¬
out the day. By nightfall the outcome could no longer be in doubt, but
the attackers relaxed sufficiently to allow Daud Cumbok and over ninety
followers to flee into the jungle. They headed for the range of hills
between Pidie and Aceh Besar, evidently hoping to work their way along
the ridge to a point where they could commandeer boats and escape
to Sabang. With thousands of men pursuing them, however, they were
soon surrounded on the slopes of Mount Seulawah. Again there was
a pitched battle, but on 16 January the survivors surrendered. They
were taken in triumph into Sigli on the train, and then to the head¬
quarters of the Pusat Markas in Garut, where they were each made
to stand on a table and shout merdeka before a huge crowd. Semangat
Merdeka issued a special red and white number to celebrate the victory.80
The Cumbok war was over, and Lammeulo was no more. It was renamed
Kota Bakti—City of Devoted Service—in honour of those who died.
THE DESTRUCTION OF ULfiEBALANG AUTHORITY
The leadership of ulama and the Muslim-educated in mobilizing

the anti-Cumbok forces provided a degree of direction and discipline
not found in other populist and peasant movements in Indonesia. Before
the final assault the Pusat Markas issued this appeal to the warriors:
Brother Muslims!
Our present struggle is to wipe out all crime and treachery to the Fatherland.
For that reason we hope that such crime will not arise on our side.
1. Do not burn houses, whoever they belong to.
2. Do not take private property, even if it is of no value.
3. All those taken prisoner must be treated well.
4. Refrain absolutely from striking a wounded enemy, for God will not
help those who are cruel, and will not receive their prayers.81
Nobody could stop the people of Keumangan burning to the ground
the magnificent house of T. Oemar Keumangan, the most wealthy and
the most hated of the Pidie uleebalang. His assets to an estimated value
of 12 million rupiahs were confiscated by the Aceh government.82 The
religious character of the struggle however ruled out the large-scale
appropriation of plundered property for private purposes which was
to occur later in East Sumatra.
Killing was another matter. The KNI met in Kutaraja immediately
after the fighting and accepted a proposal from the head of the Aceh
justice department, Mr S. M. Amin, that all the prisoners be brought
to Kutaraja for trial, with Hasan Aly to act as prosecuting attorney.
But neither the instructions of the KNI and the Acting Resident, nor
even the personal appeal of Daud Beureu’eh to his normally devoted
followers, could prevent a large-scale massacre. The most prominent
uleebalang were usually taken out and shot by their captors after being
exhibited for a few days as trophies of war. Daud Cumbok himself
died with characteristic courage, respected even by his opponents in
battle. He is said to have chosen the manner of his death, lying down
in the grave prepared for him, repeating the Muslim shahadat (confes¬
sion) and then crying ‘Fire!’83
All the leading uleebalaiig in Pidie were killed, including the successive
Assistant-Residents, T. Cut Hasan and T. Chik Mohamad Said—out¬
siders and nationalists who were sucked into the bitter conflict despite
themselves. The Assistant-Resident of Aceh Besar, T. Ahmad Jeunieb,
was kidnapped from his home in Kutaraja at the same time and killed,
evidently because of his connexions with the Pidie uleebalang. Only two
of the twenty-five rulers in Pidie are known to have survived the killing—
the uleebalang of Pineueng, who was Governor Hasan’s father, and the
uleebalang of Trienggading, who was protected by Hasballah Trieng-
gading. Politically unimportant members of uleebalang families were often
killed by villagers rather than by the victorious armed pasukan. Some
families were virtually wiped out, like those of Njong and Meureudu.
Several hundred must have perished altogether.84 As Teungku Abdul
Wahab later explained, ‘in a time of such cruel and fierce warfare’, it
was not easy to distinguish innocent people from Cumbok followers.85
The destruction of the Pidie uleebalang had a profound effect on the
nature of Republican government throughout Aceh. At a huge pes-
indo Conference in Kutaraja a motion expressed in strong terms the
lessons of the Cumbok war. It had taken place because of the failings
of government in ignoring the views of the people and allowing authority
to be monopolized by a few individuals appointed from above. Not

only had the Cumbok group been allowed to go unchecked for too long,
but government in general in Aceh ‘is virtually not operating in any
meaningful sense’. It would only function effectively if officials were
trusted by the people, and those who were not must immediately be
replaced in conformity with the principle of popular sovereignty.86
The first district to give effect to this principle was Meulaboh (West
Aceh), where a KNI comprising uleebalang, kadhi, and pergerakan lead¬
ers had voted on 8 January to replace the Assistant Resident of West
Aceh by a local man, the chairman of the Meulaboh court, Ibnu Saadan.
As konteler (controleur) of Meulaboh it chose the uleebalang of Seuneu’-
am, Tuanku Abdullah. ‘The people of West Aceh’, they announced,
‘would accept no others.’87 In Pidie the will of the people was expressed
in a meeting of about 200 leaders of the victorious forces. Teungku
Abdul Wahab, the fighting ulama from Seulimeum who had presided
over the last stages of the battle, was elected as Assistant Resident,
with Hasan Aly to assist him. pusa leaders were also appointed as
controleurs of Sigli, Lammeulo, and Meureudu,—in the last case the
kadhi being simply moved up to secular office.88
At every level the hierarchy of government began to be questioned,
with mounting calls for elections for every office from keucik (village
head) to Resident. The position of T. Njak Arif was seriously shaken
by the Cumbok affair. Already in mid-December Governor Hasan had
granted him two months sick leave in response to the Resident’s own
request and numerous complaints over his handling of the Pidie ulee¬
balang and the Allied representatives. T. Chik Daudsjah89 was named
as his temporary replacement, probably on the recommendation of
Xarim M. S. and Hoesain Almujahid who had found him sympathetic
to the pergerakan as an official in East Aceh. Not until after the Cumbok
affair, however, on 21 January, did Daudsjah come to Kutaraja and
relieve Njak Arif of his responsibilities. T. Daudsjah was more of a
modern bureaucrat than the forceful political uleebalang who had hith¬
erto dominated the Aceh government, and had few enemies in any
quarter.
The concern which the Pidie purges aroused among the traditional
elite was evident from a meeting convened by Panglima Polim on 14
February. Polim persuaded his colleagues to pass a motion ‘that the
hereditary system by which uleebalang have customarily ruled their
statelets for centuries is no longer in conformity with the times’. The
uleebalang of the XXII Mukim therefore asked the Government for
permission to resign to make way for elections of new heads.90 Their
weaker economic and administrative position in directly-ruled Aceh
Besar under the Dutch, and the co-operation of Polim with the ulama
in the 1942 uprising, had made this area especially resistant to the polar¬
izing process which occurred in Pidie. There were nevertheless other
areas, in West Aceh particularly, which might have followed Polim’s
example and provided uleebalang with a new type of quasi-democratic
leadership in their statelets. Such moves were overtaken by an irruption
of social revolutionary enthusiasm from the eastern corner of Aceh, in
Langsa.
With the withdrawal of Japanese troops everywhere else in Aceh,
the Langsa area became the ‘front’ for continuing small-scale warfare.
The Allied command was determined to use the Japanese as a ‘protective
screen to prevent fanatic and well-armed Acehnese from descending
on the Medan area.91 Langsa itself proved too hot to hold, however.
Pressure mounted rapidly after the withdrawal of the other garrisons,
and thousands of armed and unarmed Acehnese laid virtual siege to
the Japanese post. Captain Adachi, having apparently lost all his en¬
thusiasm for Acehnese resistance to the Allies, now took on the role of
masterminding a Japanese strategic retreat. On 22 December he nego¬
tiated the withdrawal of the besieged garrison in return for the loss of
most of its arms. Two days later a reinforced Japanese battalion launched
a lull-scale attack on the town. The TKR and a Mujahidin unit lost
heavily in a stubborn defence at the outskirts of Langsa, giving the
officials and youth leaders time to evacuate the town. Two days of savage
Japanese reprisals followed, with many killed and captured and a few
arms regained. From all over northern Aceh units began to advance
to try to retake Langsa, but the Japanese themselves retired on the
27th to a more defensible position to the south. Mr Hasan and Xarim
M. S. were brought in to conduct lengthy and often bitter negotiations
for a cease-fire. By the end of the month it was agreed that the new
front for the Japanese ‘screen’ would be in Kuala Simpang, close to the
border with East Sumatra.92
The cease-fire arrangement was far from popular among fighting
pemuda, who demanded that the Japanese be driven right out of Aceh
and beyond. Some of the TKR units in the area between Bireuen and
Langsa joined a new body called Tentara Pemberontakan Rakyat (Peo¬
ple’s Insurgent Force) saying there was too much keamanan (peace¬
keeping) in the Tentara Keamanan Rakyat.93 The bitter fighting in
Pidie for a time distracted attention from the Langsa front, one of the
reasons why many nationalists had tried to avoid a showdown with
Cumbok. Once the uleebalang resistance there was broken, however,
a number of battle-hardened pasukan answered the call to go and renew
the confrontation with the Japanese in Kuala Simpang. Among them
was the tough unit of Mujahidin which Hasballah Daud had commanded
in the Cumbok fighting, now entrusted to the leadership of Hoesain
Almujahid. In early February there were estimated to be between eight

and fourteen thousand armed pemuda concentrated in Langsa.94
It was an ideal opportunity for a more radical leadership to take the
initiative. Nathar Zainuddin was once again on the spot, and it appears
to have been he and his old friend Hoesain Almujahid who planned
the coup against the Langsa establishment on the night of 12 February.
The authority of the Assistant-Resident who had replaced T. Daudsjah,
T. Radja Pidie, the controleur of Langsa, T. Ali Basjah, and a number
of other uleebalang and police, had been gravely compromised by their
negotiations with the Japanese. The purge was directed primarily against
them, though it involved disarming and arresting the whole Langsa
police force. T. Radja Pidie escaped to the Japanese in Kuala Simpang,
though he was later returned by them. T. Ali Basjah and other uleebalang
and officials were arrested after a brief skirmish. For several days there
was confusion in Langsa, as the uleebalang were able to call upon some
powerful support among pemuda pasukan. The most significant force
ranged against Hoesain Almujahid’s takeover was the 500 men com¬
manded by T. Ibrahim Cunda, a nephew of the slain Assistant-Resident
T. Chik Mohamad Said. Although his force was a part of the TKR
and then of the more radical TPR it had attempted to even a few scores
from the killings in Pidie, and now sought to prevent Almujahid gaining
the upper hand in East Aceh. The Mujahidin brought east by Hoesain
after the Cumbok fighting were able to surround and capture Teuku
Ibrahim in the mosque of Idi on 16 February. Teuku Ibrahim was one
of those who had earned a reputation for magical invulnerability, and
few wanted to tackle him in open battle. According to popular belief
the Mujahidin were unable to execute him until he showed them the
single point of vulnerability inside his mouth.95
This victory left Almujahid master of East Aceh. A meeting of all
government and popular leaders was quickly arranged, and the victori¬
ous Pemuda pusa group announced that Abdullah Hussain, the former
Langsa police chief fortunate enough to have been absent during the
Japanese troubles, would be the new Assistant-Resident. When he pro¬
tested one of them stuck a gun in his chest and shouted, ‘If he doesn’t
want to be Assistant Resident we will make him controleur, and if he
doesn’t want that either we will give it to him with this!’ Abdullah swiftly
accepted the lower office and T. Daudsjah’s younger brother Ali was
drafted as Assistant-Resident.96
With East Aceh temporarily settled, Hoesain Almujahid led a few
hundred men in trucks in a sweep along the north coast of Aceh. He
called his force TPR like the group which had first become disillusioned
with army leadership, but the meaning of the initials was at some point
changed to Tentera Perjuangan Rakyat (Army of the People’s Struggle)
209
in an attempt to obtain the widest possible support. Its first objective was
to act against the allies of Teuku Ibrahim in the Lhokseumawe area. A few
were killed, and all uleebalang taken captive along with their more im¬
portant relatives. About 200 members of their families were interned
in the Lhokseumawe prison. Almujahid’s TPR, gathering additional
support all the time, then moved westward towards Sigli and Kutaraja.
Its motives appear to have been as mixed as the elements which attached
themselves to it. Nathar Zainuddin’s influence was apparent in one of
their slogans, to ‘destroy the feudal elements which still remain’.97 They
also demanded a change m the leadership of both the government and
the army, since Njak Arif and Sjammaun Gaharu had ‘given ample
opportunity to traitors to carry on their affairs, as was apparent in the
slaughter of people in Sigli, Cumbok, Cunda, and Langsa, where the
TKR stood on the sidelines’.9» Finally there was undoubtedly a large
element of personal opportunism on the part of Hoesain Almujahid,
ivho demanded that he be given the highest military rank in Aceh, re¬
placing T. Njak Arif as honorary Major-General.
This bravado aroused great resentment among the battle-hardened
leaders of Pidie and Aceh Besar. When Hoesain Almujahid reached
Seulimeum at the end of February, with about 1,000 men and fifty trucks
now in support, he wisely halted his advance for negotiations. Some of
the TKR (now renamed TRI) were preparing to put up a fight, but the
principal pusa leaders as well as Njak Neh of pesindo’s Divisi Rencong
supported Almujahid’s demands—and added some of their own. Teuku
Ajak Arif himself, too ill to return to active work and anxious to avoid
further civil war, decided the issue by agreeing to his own arrest. On
1 March the two highest TRI officers, Sjammaun Gaharu and T. Abdul
Hamid Azwar, stepped down in favour of Hoesin Joesoef. The TPR
force moved in to occupy Kutaraja in an atmosphere of superficial har¬
mony. More demands were however forthcoming, for the removal of
all officials who had opposed pusa in the past or who were thought
to represent a continuation of the uleebalang style of government. On
6 March twenty-four prominent people were summoned by T. Daud-
sjah for a briefing and then detained, including a number of uleebalang
prominent in government, the Muhammadiah theologian Hasbi As-
Siddiqy, and even a number of close supporters of Said Abu Bakar."
The TPR resembled an unpredictable gun pointed at the Acehnese
ruling elite. The sacrifice of uleebalang rule seemed a price worth paying
to prevent it going off and precipitating another trauma like that in
Pidie. All the ruling uleebalang of Aceh Besar were interned, while a
section of the TPR accompanied by Njak Neh toured the west coast
as far south as Singkil arresting others there. All the detainees were
eventually brought together in the highland resort of Takengon in April,
where T. Njak Arif’s diabetes finally killed him two months later.
Hoesain Almujahid was granted his title of Major-General, but his
extraordinary power was short-lived. Daud Beureu’eh himself soon
demanded that his massive force leave Aceh Besar where its impositions
were becoming intolerable to the populace.
An honourable farewell was arranged at the great mosque on 9 March,
and the TPR returned home. On Almujahid’s next visit to Kutaraja
later in the month the growing number of his enemies caught up with
him. He was kidnapped at the Aceh Hotel and taken off ‘trussed like
a pig’ to be dealt with by Husein Sab, whose brother Sab Cut he was
alleged to have murdered in Lhokseumawe. He escaped through the
intervention of another pasukan, but was not again able to interfere
with politics at the residency level.100
Whatever his motives and his methods, the revolution he had helped
to produce in Aceh society was undoubtedly a popular one. The Indo¬
nesian nationalism of the urban pemuda, the reformist idealism of the
pusa ulama, and the peasant demand for land and for justice appeared
to have fused in a remarkable unity of purpose. The most influential
figure in Aceh was now without question Daud Beureu’eh, who had
remained sufficiently far above the heat of battle to be credited with
the noble aims of the anti-uleebalang revolution rather than with its
execution. Although he was accorded initially a rank only of Assistant-
Resident, he was able to appeal in terms of a familiar religious idealism
to everybody of influence in the new government. In each afdeling it
was now a PUSA-oriented ulama who occupied the most prominent
position, with non-Acehnese officials and pemuda nationalists seemingly
able to work well with them.
The new government established a commission to investigate the
property of the uleebalang who had been killed as ‘traitors’, primarily
in Pidie. A total of about 100 million rupiahs was thought to have been
taken by the conquerors, and some of it remained with them as a return
for their services or a compensation for losses suffered at uleebalang
hands. Most of it was however surrendered to government control,
and provided one of the resources from which official and military
salaries could be more regularly paid than in other residencies.101 Much
of the vast land-holding of the Pidie uleebalang was given back to peas¬
ants who believed themselves unjustly robbed of it in the past. Some
was retained by government and some returned to surviving members
of the uleebalang families.
The arrests also provided an opportunity for renewal at the village
level. Each uleebalang was replaced by a five-man commission for an
interim period of a few months, before a new head of each statelet could
be elected.102 Many unpopular keucik were also replaced, especially
in Pidie and the north coast. Everywhere it was the religious teacher,
the ulama, to whom villagers turned for guidance in this new and re¬
markable period. The long-term results of the upheaval were complex,
particularly as they became enmeshed with wider Indonesian politics]
but the immediate consequence was undoubtedly an invigoration and
democratization of Acehnese society as a whole. ‘Everything which had
been a thorn in the side of the village people under the regime of the
uleebalang was eliminated. Agriculture, estates, cattle-raising and so
forth were all promoted energetically by the people.,]°3
1. Abdullah Arif, Disekitar Peristiua Pengchianat Tjoembok (Kutaraja, 1946),

p. 26. This source will henceforth be cited from my English translation
‘The affair of the Tjoembok traitors’, in RIM A 4/5 (1970/1), pp. 36-57.
2. Taisya, in Sinar Darussalam, 11 (1969), p. 79.
3. Statements of Major Ishizima Tadakazu, November 1946; Captain Adachi

Takashi, 31 October 1946; and General Shimura Fumie, 13 June 1946;
RvO I.C. 059300, 059301, and 009406, respectively. Interviews Adachi
Takashi and Aoki Eigoro, August 1973.
4. Abdullah Hussain, Peristiwa (Kuala Lumpur, Pustaka Antara, 1965), pp.

93—^4. In an interview Adachi 1 akashi gave as a reason for not defying
Itagaki s order to abandon the plan of the Nakano group their sense of
responsibility for the inexperienced pilots who had come with them. Gen¬
eral Shimura, on the other hand, adduced their hostile reception by Aceh¬
nese.
5. Nja Adam Kamil, in Modal Revolusi ’45 (Kutaraja?, 1960), pp. 64-5.
6. Insider (pseud. S. M. Amin], Atjeh Sepintas Lalu (Jakarta, 1950), p. 5.
7. Sjammaun Gaharu, in Modal Revolusi, p. 27. Abdullah Hussain, Peristiwa,

pp. 22-6. T. A. Taisya, ‘Tentera Kuomintang mau mendarat di Atjeh’,
Sinar Darussalam, 27 (1970), pp. 56-9.
8. A. J. Piekaar, Atjeh en de oorlog met Japan, p. 247.
9. ‘Atjeh-verslag tot 15 Januari 1946’, Bi.Z. 21/1, states that Hasan and Amir
persuaded Sukarno to appoint Njak Arif Resident when they were in Jakarta
in August. For telegrams from Jakarta addressed to Njak Arif as Resident
see Modal Revolusi, pp. 41-2, and Sinar Darussalam, 13, p. 70.
10. Panglima Polim, Memoir, p. 9. See also Abdullah Hussain, Peristiwa, pp.
6-7; Modal Revolusi, pp. 53-4.
11. Daily Sitrep, 12 November 1945, WO 203/2511.
12. Piekaar, pp. 248-9. Diary of Major Knottenbelt, Document 3490-A21 in

ARA. Interviews.
13. Ali Hasjmy, in Modal Revolusi, pp. 54-6. Taisya in Sinar Darussalam, 10,
pp. 83-5; and 11, pp. 79-80. Interviews.
14. Abdullah Hussain, Peristiwa, pp. 41-55.

15. Sjammaun Gaharu was born in Pidie in 1916, and graduated from the
Malay-medium teachers’ college in Pematang Siantar in 1932. He t en
taught at the newly-opened Taman Siswa school in Kutaraja, learning
Dutch at the same time from other teachers. He was able to study further
in 1938-40 at a school for agricultural teachers in Bogor. He was one of
the first group of Acehnese to enter the Giyugun and was commissioned
First Lieutenant in May 1945. Later in his career Sjammaun again became
military commander of the Aceh region (1957-60), before being pensioned
in 1966 as a Brigadier-General. Nazaruddin Sjamsuddin, ‘The Indonesian
National Revolution in Aceh’ (unpublished M.A. Thesis, MonashLni-
versity, 1974), p. 245. Interview.
16. Sjammaun Gaharu, in Modal Revolusi, pp. 30—3.
17. Sjammaun Gaharu, in Modal Revolusi, pp. 33-4. Also Taisya, in Sinar
Darussalam, 16, pp. 76-7.
18. Abdullah Hussain, Peristizva, p. 71.
19. Panglima Polim, p. 12.
20. Semangat Merdeka, no. 1, 18 October 1945. Republik Indonesia. Propinsi

Sumatera Utara, pp. 31—2. Abdullah Hussain, Peristizva, pp. 81—4.
21. Nazaruddin Sjamsuddin, pp. 86-92 and 131.
22. Letter of 18 October, reproduced in Modal Revolusi, p. 57.
23. Abdullah Hussain, Peristizva, pp. 81-4. Nazaruddin Sjamsuddin, p. 96.
24. Semangat Merdeka, 18 October 1945.
25. ‘Makloemat Oelama Seloeroeh Atjeh’, 15 October 1945, in Semangat Mer¬

deka, 29 November 1945, and Modal Revolusi, p. 61. The statement was
‘approved’ by Tuanku Mahmud but only ‘seen’ by T. Njak Arif.
26. Sematigat Merdeka, 20 and 27 November, 1 and 3 December 1945.
27. Ibid., 18 October 1945.
28. See appendix for the holders of these offices.
29. Ma’loemat P.R.I., no. 3, 31 October 1945 in Seznangat Merdeka, 3 No¬

vember 1945.
30. Semangat Merdeka, 10 and 22 November 1945.
31. Sjammaun Gaharu, in Modal Revolusi, p. 37. Atjeh-verslag tot 15 Januari

1946, Bi.Z. 21/1. Interview.
32. Ma’loemat Residen Atjeh, no. 5, 8 November 1945, Semangat Merdeka,

10 November 1945.
33. Piekaar, p. 249. Interviews. The Allied party was lucky to reach Medan.
The commander of the Japanese escort wrote later that he had agreed with
his men that in the event of an attack from Acehnese the Japanese would
kill Knottenbelt first and then join the Indonesian resistance. Memoir
Maeda Chui, (typescript, n.d.), p. 10.
34. Interview.
35. Knottenbelt telegraphic final report, quoted Piekaar, p. 249.
36. Verslag van de Gebeurtenissen in Pidie, 18 April 1946, Bi.Z. 21/9. Hoesin
Joesoef and Sjammaun Gaharu, in Modal Revolusi, pp. 44 and 37 re¬
spectively.
37. Sjammaun Gaharu, in Modal Revolusi, p. 37.
38. Raliby, p. 122. Memoir Maeda Chui, pp. 19-35. Raliby claims dozens of
Japanese killed, but Maeda only two. As a result of these and other clashes
T. Idris had received twenty-five machine-guns and 227 rifles by the end
of November; Verslag van de Gebeurtenissen in Pidie, 18 April 1946, Bi.Z.
21/9.
39. Memoir Maeda Chui, pp. 41-2.
40. Sjammaun Gaharu, in Modal Revolusi, p. 37. Taisya, in Sinar Darussalam,

10, p. 86. Memoir Maeda Chui, pp. 36-53, gives the impression that all
the arms were surrendered, though the other sources mention only 600.
41. Interview Mr T. M. Hasan.
42. Semangat Merdeka, 29 November 1945.
43. Hoesin Joesoef, in Modal Revolusi, p. 44. Interviews. Piekaar, p. 249, cites
reports of hundreds killed in this fighting.
44. Report by Mahmud on Japanese in Sumatra, 25 June 1948, CM I Document

5590, ARA Archief Algemene Secretarie, 368.
45. Imamura to Flag Officer, Malaya & Forward Area, 16 December 1945,
WO 203/2552. Atjeh-verslag tot 15 Januari 1946, Bi.Z. 21/1. Propinsi
Sumatera Utara, p. 51. Hoesin Joesoef in Modal Revolusi, p. 45. Interviews.
46. Teuku Mohammad Daud (1910-46) was educated in the European school
in Sigli and was more westernized than most uleebalang. In 1931 he became
uleebalang of Cumbok, the dominant statelet of the Lammeulo onderafde¬
ling, on the death of his father. He was very stout, and ‘a forceful and ener¬
getic personality, uncompromising and domineering’ (Piekaar, p. 129).
He was one of the wealthy uleebalang most active in opening coffee estates
in the Tangse region in the 1930s. Through his strong and pro-Dutch
influence Lammeulo had been the only district in Aceh to provide a viable
landwacht of ethnic Acehnese in 1941-2. When the Dutch withdrew before
the Japanese they had entrusted the whole onderaf deling to him, and he
was able to retain that position under the Japanese.
47. Verslag van de Gebeurtenissen in Pidie, pp. 11-12, Bi.Z. 21/9. Abdullah
Arif, ‘The affair of the Tjoembok traitors’, p. 44.
48. Verslag van de Gebeurtenissen, p. 2.
49. Ibid., pp. 5-6. Abdullah Arif, pp. 38-9. Semangat Merdeka, 10 November
1945. Revolusi Desember ’45, pp. 18-19 (identical with Propinsi Sumatera
Utara, pp. 65-6).
50. Revolusi Desember ’45, p. 16 (Propinsi Sumatera Utara, p. 64), claims that
at this meeting the uleebalang organized an anti-republican force, the Barisan
Penjaga Keamanan (BPK). This however is in conflict with the evidence
given by Djauh Ahmad, who attended the meeting and was the presumed
source for anti-Cumbok accounts: Ismail Jakoeb’s notes on interrogation
of Djauh Ahmad, 16 January 1946 (for which I am indebted to Jim Siegel).
A captured document reproduced in Abdullah Arif, p. 42, suggests there
was a local Cumbok force already organized in November, but the BPK
appears to have been formed monly in December (see p. 200).
51. Interview. Semangat Merdeka, ironically printed on 14 January 1946, at

the height of the Pidie fighting, a report from Radio Bandung that telegrams
pledging support for the Republic had been received from the uleebalang
of Aceh.
52. Abdullah Arif, p. 39.
53. Hasan Aly (b. 1916) was educated at the Sigli H.I.S. and was active in the
late 1930s as a small trader, an agent in legal cases, and a youth leader.
According to one Dutch report his father was murdered by an uleebalang.
From 1937-40 he was a correspondent of various Medan papers, and wrote
several articles critical of the uleebalang. In 1940 he was acquitted on a
flimsy uleebalang charge of conspiring against the government, though his
colleagues Peutua Husain and Djohan Ahmad were convicted and impris¬
oned. During the Japanese occupation he joined the judiciary, becoming
Simpangkan (judge) in Kutaraja in 1944. In October 1945 he was appointed
head of the Sigli branch of BPI (later PRI) and in this capacity was the
principal co-ordinator of the ensuing struggle against the uleebalang.
54. Semangat Merdeka, 6 November 1945.
55. Semangat Merdeka, 20 November 1945. A telegram of support from Tgk

Oemar Tiro to Sukarno had been much publicized two weeks earlier;
Semangat Merdeka, 3 November 1945; Raliby, p. 79.
56. Traditional Muslim teaching about the jihad (holy war) is that it is not
Fardlu ‘ain, but only Fard’ala ‘l kifaya, i.e. obligatory on the Muslim
community as a whole but not necessarily on each individual. Shorter
Encyclopedia of Islam, p. 89.
57. Semangat Merdeka, 27 November 1945. Atjeh-verslag to 15 January 1946,

in Bi.Z. 21/1.
58. Ushiyama Mitsuo, Hokubu Sumatora Shusen Noki (Record of ending the
war in northern Sumatra), pp. 38-55. No place or date of publication is
given, though the writer notes that he originally recorded these memoirs
as an Allied prisoner in August 1946. Ushiyama was an officer of the Sakata-
tai.
59. Knottenbelt report 9 November 1946, OPS 4, Sitrep 10 November 1945,

WO 203/2511. Njak Arif’s decree of 8 November forbidding unlicensed
arms (above, p. 191) may have been a response to this situation.
60. Husein Sab was a younger brother of Hasan Sab (c. 1900-46), the F-kkian
administrator of Lhokseumawe in 1942. They and a third brother, Sab
Cut, of part Indian descent, grew up in a commercial environment in Gigi-
eng, outside Sigli. All became traders and opponents of uleebalang rule.
Husein Sab had a toko ubat (medicine shop) in Sigli before the war. He
was active in pusa and the F-kikan, and was appointed to head the hoin
of Gigieng in the Aoki reforms of 1944. Husein was the principal Acehnese
contact of Kondo Tsugio, the intelligence expert, while his brother Hasan
was heavily involved in the recruitment and training of Giyugun for which
he received a Japanese citation in November 1944.
61. Siegel interview with Husein Sab, May 1964, for which I am indebted
to James Siegel.
62. Muramoto (in later life Nakata Eishu), as a political science graduate of
Tokyo University, was much more highly qualified than most administra¬
tors in Indonesia. After a year as a correspondent in China (1939-40) he
had returned to join the strategic ‘think-tank’ established by Iwakuro, the
founder of the Nakano-gakko. He was posted as a civil administrator to
Bukittinggi in February 1943 and Aceh the following May, where he was
asked by lino to develop the policy of working with the uleebalang. In
1944-5 however it became necessary for him to develop contacts also among
the pusa group, especially in troubled Pidie. Muramoto had a family in
Aceh and spoke Indonesian well.
63. Interview Nakata Eishu, August 1973. Very similar words are used by
Ushiyama, p. 59, who adds ‘Muramoto perhaps went too far’. See also
S. M. Amin, Atjeh Sepintas Lalu, p. 10, and Abdullah Arif, p. 40.
64. Ushiyama, pp. 57-8. Interviews Nakata Eishu and Ushiyama Mitsuo.
65. Interviews. Atjeh Sepintas Lalu, pp. 10—11. The PRI procession is de¬
scribed in Ushiyama, pp. 61-2.
66. These events were very confused, and no two accounts agree on the details.
The above reconstruction is distilled from the accounts in Ushiyama, pp.
58-71; Propinsi Sumatera Utara, pp. 66-7; Abdullah Arif, pp. 40-1 ;Pang-
lima Polim, pp. 16—20. Atjeh Sepintas Lalu, pp. 10—11; Verslag van de
Gebeurtenissen in Pidie, 18 April 1946, pp. 7-8, Bi.Z. 21/9; my interviews
with Nakata Eishu, Ushiyama Mitsuo, Hasan Aly, Sjammaun Gaharu,
T. P. P. Mohd. Ali, and Osman Raliby; and Siegel’s interviews with Husein
Sab and Hasballah Daud. Japanese reports to the British in Medan gave
an initial figure of forty dead in this fighting, and a later one of 500: Cables
10 and 12 December 1945 in WO 203/2512.
67. Propinsi Sumatera Utara, p. 68.
68. Abdullah Arif, p. 43. Interview.
69. Verslag van de Gebeurtenissen in Pidie, p. 9. Interview.
70. Abdullah Arif, pp. 44-5.
71. Ibid., pp. 41-2. The earliest reference in Semangat Merdeka, 17 January
1946, already described the Cap Bintang (led by the ex-KNIL soldier
Putih) as the ‘fighting unit’; the Cap Sauh as the ‘plundering unit’; and
the Cap Totnbak as the ‘unit to hunt for women and girls to be raped’.
72. Abdullah Arif, p. 46. Verslag van de Gebeurtenissen, p. 13.
73. Abdullah Arif, p. 47. Verslag van de Gebeurtenissen, pp. 13-14. Interview.
74. Siegel interviews with Hasballah Daud and Husein Sab.
75. Abdullah Arif, pp. 48-9. Interviews. Revolusi Desember ’45, p. 25, less
probably dates the burning of the Titeue religious school as 20 December.
76. Abdullah Arif, p. 50.
77. Abdullah Arif, pp. 52-3. Verslag van de Gebeurtenissen, pp. 19-20. Se¬
mangat Merdeka, 10 January 1946. Interviews.
78. Semangat Merdeka, 26 December 1945.
79. Abdullah Arif, p. 52. Verslag van de Gebeurtenissen, p. 18. Revolusi De¬
sember ’45, p. 27 (Propinsi Sumatera Utara, p. 70). Nazaruddin Sjamsuddin,
pp. 141-3. Panglima Polim, p. 22. This decision does not appear to have
been immediately publicized, since Semangat Merdeka of 11 January was
still complaining about the Government’s silence on the issue.
80. Semangat Merdeka, 14, 15, and 17 January 1946. Abdullah Arif, pp. 54—5.
Revolusi Desember ’45, pp. 26-31. Verslag van de Gebeurtenissen, pp.
19-22. Interviews.
81. Cited in Abdullah Arif, p. 51.
82. Nazaruddin Sjamsuddin, p. 175. Siegel interview with Husein Sab.
83. Interviews. Also Panglima Polim, p. 24.
84. An appendix to‘Verslag van de Gebeurtenissen’, 18 April 1946, lists forty-

nine names of those known to have been killed in twelve statelets, two of
them ‘with all their male relatives’. The report adds (p. 22) that reliable
sources put the total killed at at least two or three times this number.
85. ‘Sekitar pembasmian pengchianat bangsa di Tjoembok’, Soeloeh Merdeka,

1 February 1946.
86. Semangat Merdeka, 18 January 1946.
87. Ibid., 11 January 1946.
89. Teuku Chik Mohammad Daudsjah (c. 1905-c. 1964) was among the best-
educated uleebalang, having studied at the Bestmirsschool in Batavia. He
married the daughter of a Sundanese Regent. In 1927 he was installed
as uleebalang of Idi Rayeu, the home of Xarim M. S., Nathar Zainuddin,
and Hoesain Almujahid. A skilful, cautious ruler, Daudsjah appears to
have been able to avoid taking action against these pergerakan leaders.
He was host to Pemuda pusa in 1941-2, and to the Giyugun training
centre in 1943-4, receiving a Japanese citation for his helpfulness to the
Giyugun. He rose rapidly under the Japanese to be guncho of Idi (1942—4)
and Langsa (1944-5), and represented Aceh at the Bukittinggi celebrations
for Koiso’s independence promise. In August 1945 he was named fuku-
bunshucho of East Aceh, and was confirmed as Assistant-Resident in Octo¬
ber. He continued to be a successful administrator throughout his working
life.
90. Panglima Polim, pp. 28-9.
91. Rajendra Singh, Post-war Occupation Forces: Japan and Southeast Asia,
pp. 256-7.
92. Statement of Captain Adachi, 31 October 1946, RvO, I.C. 059301. Abdul¬
lah Hussain, Peristizua, pp. 166-9. WIS 12, 8 January 1946, pp. 1 and
4, WO 172/9893. Hoesin Joesoef and Sjammaun Gaharu, in Modal Re¬
volusi, pp. 45-6 and 39—40 respectively. Interviews.
93. Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 1-15 February 1946, Bi.Z. 21/1.
94. Ibid. Interviews.
95. Abdullah Hussain, Peristiwa, pp. 172-83. Soeloeh Merdeka, 27 February

1946. WIS 20, 2 March 1946, WO 172/9893. Verslag Noord-Sumatra,
15 February 1946 and 16—31 February 1946, Bi.Z. 21/1. Interviews.
96. Abdullah Hussain, Peristiwa, p. 183.
97. ‘Insider’, Atjeh Sepintas Lalu, p. 22.
98. Cited in Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 1-15 March 1946, p. 11, Bi.Z. 21/1.
99. Ibid., pp. 10-12. Atjeh Sepintas Lain, pp. 20-22. Panglima Polim on.
27-30. Interviews.
100. Panglima Polim, pp. 31-2. Atjeh Sepintas Lain, pp. 25-6. Interviews.
101. Nazaruddin Sjamsuddin, pp. 173—5. Atjeh Sepintas Lain, pp. 37-8. Inter¬
views.
102. Soeyatno, ‘Sejarah sosial masyarakat Sibreh Aceh Besar’ (typescript PL-
PIS Banda Aceh, 1974), p. 15. Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 16-30 April 1946
Bi.Z. 21/1. Interviews.
103. Atjeh Sepintas Lain, p. 23.

VIII
‘SOCIAL REVOLUTION’
‘A revolution is easy to begin. It is difficult however to find a

leader at the right moment who can lead it in the right direction. ’
Dr A. K. Gani, May 19461
THE COLLAPSE OF TRADITIONAL GOVERNMENT
The dichotomy between pemuda fighting bands and the conservative

kerajaan of East Sumatra grew steadily more acute. The pemuda held
physical power but were so disunited that any attempt to use it internally
raised a spectre of anarchy. The kerajaan maintained the fiction of gov¬
erning, but were steadily more isolated from its substance. The effective
influence of the Malay and Simalungun rulers was now restricted to
their own ethnic following in rural areas.
The capacity of Mr Hasan and his Deputy Governor (since De¬
cember), Dr Amir, to mediate between these tw7o elements was never
great. Both men frequently found themselves being dictated to by pemuda
at the point of a gun. Dr Amir did not strengthen his position by
accepting an Allied offer, while Mr Hasan was absent in Aceh in mid-
December, to fly to Java together with Mr Luat Siregar and two West
Sumatrans—Adinegoro and Dr Djamil. The British aim was to expose
the Sumatran leaders to the ‘moderate’, pragmatic influence of Sjahrir
and Amir Sjarifuddin. On their return on 3 January, however, Dr Amir
aroused pemuda suspicions by declaring that ‘the government of the
Republic in Java considers Sumatra as being politically and economi¬
cally independent of Java, and at liberty to take any action which does
not run counter to the interests of the Republic’.2 Some radical pemuda
attempted to kidnap Amir as a result, and Mr Hasan was obliged to
make an emphatic statement that the Sumatran government had ‘no
policy independent or different from the policy followed by the high
government in Java’.3
As a weapon to strengthen the government and bridge the dangerous
gulf throughout the Republic between pemuda and officials, Sjahrir’s
Socialist government had decreed on 23 November a system of KNI
‘social revolution’ 219
Daei'ah (regional Indonesian National Committees). KNIs had already

arisen in many places on the basis of hokokai or shii sangi kai member¬
ship, but they were now to be reconstituted as representative bodies
reflecting the new power balance and able to share government with
the appointed officials. A new KNI for East Sumatra was formed in
early December with Luat Siregar as its chairman. Similar bodies fol¬
lowed in each district and major town during January. The selection
process for the Medan city KNI was a model of orderly, if indirect,
election. The representation system agreed between Mr Mohd. Joesoef
and a representative of the East Sumatran KNI was in terms of a roughly
equal division of the fifty seats among three blocks. The first represented
revolutionary and Marxist groups, including three each from the PKI,
PNI, and pesindo; the second, religious and social groups, including
three from MIT and two from Sabilillah; and the third, sectors of the
city and non-Indonesian minorities.4 The two months required to im¬
plement this selection process is an indication that cruder methods must
have been adopted elsewhere.
The establishment of these revitalized KNIs immediately gave new
strength and legitimacy to the more established and moderate political
figures. It also raised the question whether it was the KNI or the kera¬
jaan, or some combination of the two, which should be the focus of
government outside the cities. As chairman of the East Sumatra KNI
Luat Siregar was particularly determined that the rulers accept the
democratic spirit of the times or else step aside. He and Dr Amir had
both been impressed with the harmonious co-operation between the
Republic and Yogyakarta royalty on their Java tour. Soon after their
return, on 12 January, they arranged for Dr Amir’s former employer,
the Sultan of Langkat, to host a conference on the kerajaan question
in Tanjung Pura.
The fact that the two literary giants of East Sumatra, Tengku Amir
Hamzah (wakil pemermtah NRI for Langkat) and Dr Amir, provided
a bridge between the Langkat sultanate and the Republic, was probably
the reason Langkat co-operated so fully in this enterprise. Serdang,
the only sultanate whose loyalty the Dutch had doubted from the begin¬
ning, sent to the conference its crown prince and effective administrator,
Tengku Anwar. Two datuks of Deli were present, but no-one from
Asahan ‘because of communication difficulties’. Dr Amir explained to
the gathering how the Javanese rulers had become good Republicans
and democrats, and Luat Siregar demanded that ‘people’s sovereignty,
or democracy also be made effective as quickly as possible in the kerajaan
of East Sumatra’. The meeting agreed that representative assemblies
be established as soon as possible in each area, and that in the interim
the sultans and their officials should ‘govern in the closest possible co-
operation’ with the local KNIs.5

Both in the degree of kerajaan representation and the decisions taken
this conference was a woefully limited step forward. No specific under¬
takings were reported, nor the establishment of any machinery to im¬
plement the ‘co-operation’. In the sultans’ eyes the Republic had little
to offer them except words, and they responded in kind. The change
in mood before the second conference less than a month later was a
striking indication of the radicalization of the revolution.
The effective truce at the end of December had left Medan physically
dominated by the Allies and Republican police, and the fightingpasukan
had gradually moved their headquarters outside the city. With the Jap¬
anese now concentrated in a few large encampments, there was no
further opportunity to obtain arms from them. A new sphere of pemuda
action was opening in the rubber, oil palm, and tobacco estates through¬
out the Residency. The Japanese estate managers had departed by De¬
cember, leaving nominal control in the hands of their Indonesian clerks
responsible to a Republican Dewan Perkebunan (Plantation Board) in
Medan. The enormous stocks of rubber, sisal, and oil palm accumulated
during the war were too valuable as an asset to remain unprotected,
and effective control quickly fell into the hands of one pasukan or
another.
One of the first to turn the rubber stocks to account was Sjahrir’s
brother Mahruzar, acting on behalf of the TKR with the approval of
Governor Hasan. In December 1945 he negotiated the sale of 6,000
tons of rubber in Singapore, and imported in exchange some weapons
from Thailand and military drill from Singapore. The East Sumatran
TKR, he claimed, obtained ‘the best uniforms in Indonesia’.6 The
example was swiftly followed by others, not always using the correct
Republican channels. Export was generally arranged through Tanjung
Balai, where pesindo seized control of the port from the ‘official’
kerajaan government of Tengku Musa in January. The Dutch estimated
that 30,000 tons of rubber worth 10.7 million Straits dollars were ‘smug¬
gled’ from Sumatra to Singapore in the period February-April 1946
alone. In the first ten months of 1946 a total of 129 million dollars worth
of Sumatran goods arrived in Singapore, most of it produce and equip¬
ment from the estates of East Sumatra. Thanks to the profits of the
Chinese who organized the dangerous traffic and the inexperience and
corruption of the Indonesian sellers, the arms, cloth, and consumer
goods which flowed back to Sumatra had less than a quarter the value.7
Even so the trade was an enormous resource for the pasukan, politicians,
and entrepreneurs engaged in it, whether used for the revolutionary
struggle or for private purposes.
Control of the estates, of internal and external trade, and of security
and defence matters were becoming too important to the TKR, pes-
indo, BHL, and Sabilillah to be left to government—at least to con¬

servative kerajaan government. The original Republican appointments
made with an eye to wooing the kerajaan had less and less relevance
to the real power situation. Only politicians with influence over the
fighting pemuda could hope to retain a degree of Republican government
control. Although Governor Hasan declined requests to replace his
original appointees, local KNIs in many areas advanced their own men
who in practice represented what there was of Republican authority.
At the residency level Tengku Hafas had virtually ceased to act by
the end of January. Decrees were signed in his name by Joenoes Nasu-
tion, chairman of the East Sumatran PKI. His title was first given as
‘high official attached to the Resident’, and later as ‘Deputy Resident’.8
In Langkat Tengku Amir Hamzah quietly withdrew from his Repub¬
lican position during February, under heavy pressure from the Sultan
and his pro-Dutch secretary Datuk Djamil on the one hand and pemuda
militants on the other. The prominent PNI and ex-GERiNDO politician
Adnan Nur Lubis took over his government functions with the approval
of the Langkat KNI.9 The Serdang KNI appointed Tengku Nizam
to represent the Republic there, while in Tebing Tinggi Moenar S.
Hamidjoyo was reported at the end of January to be ‘acting as wakil
pemenntah NRI’. Tengku Musa in Asahan stubbornly refused to bow
before pemuda pressures, with the result that the chairman of the KNI
there, Abdullah Eteng, became a rival authority exercising many gov¬
ernmental functions.10
On 25 January, as the kerajaan were growing rapidly more isolated,
the Sultan of Siak arrived in Medan. One of the most troublesome rulers
for the Dutch colonial regime, Sultan Sjarif Kasim had also been more
active than most in the Japanese period as chairman of the Riau equi¬
valent of the hokokai. If he shared his fellow sultans’ early hopes of
succour from the returning Dutch he was too isolated in the Riau
residency to see any evidence of it. Under considerable pemuda pressure
himself he undertook the role of a model ‘Republican sultan’. On 1
November he had publicly pledged his solidarity with the people in
support of the Republic, donated 20,000 rupiahs for the struggle, and
promised to sell all his belongings for the Republican cause if so re¬
quired.11 These dramatic gestures apparently did little to strengthen
his weak position in Siak, for he did not return to the Riau residency
after leaving it in January.
However pathetic a figure in the eyes of his fellow rajas, Sultan Sjarif
Kasim provided an excellent opportunity to demonstrate Governor
Hasan’s policy of ‘assisting the kerajaan to modify their administration
in accordance with the times’.12 The Governor arranged an official
reception for the sultan in Medan, and the report of the event ended
with the words: ‘May this action by His Highness become a valuable
model and a guide for the rajas of East Sumatra and other parts of this
island.’13 In the ensuing week Soeloeh Merdeka reporters followed the
sultan to publicize his pro-Republican statements at a number of small
meetings with moderate leaders. In Tanjung Pura he wTas apparently
not received in the Langkat palace with which he had had bad relations
ever since 1930, but he told members of the local KNI that ‘the prin¬
ciple of popular sovereignty . . . truly increases the greatness of the
sultanates, rather than reducing it as assumed in some quarters. During
the colonialism of the Dutch and bondage of the Japanese the position
of the sultans and rajas was like that of a niai [concubine] in a household,
rather than of the lady of the house.’14 The contempt with which the
more revolutionary organizations viewed this Republican wooing of
royalty must have spoken more powerfully to the rajas than did the
words of the sultan. Berdjoeang commented of the royal visit: ‘We want
no return of feudalism. We want to know nothing of the government
of His Highness. We want only the sovereignty of the people.’15
The fate of the uleebalang of Pidie was by now well-known in East
Sumatra. The rajas could no longer afford to ignore the threats to their
own safety or to spurn whatever protection was available from the mod¬
erate leaders of the ‘official’ Republic. They therefore took very seri¬
ously a second meeting with Republican leaders on 3 February. All
the five sultans of East Sumatra were present except the ailing Sultan
of Serdang. So too were all but one of the seven Simalungun rajas,
the Korte Verklaring rulers of Bilah and Panai, and most of the Karo
sibayak. The Sultan of Siak was prominent even though his statelet was
no longer part of the residency. The rajas had a prior closed meeting
among themselves and again appointed the Sultan of Langkat as spokes¬
man in the first session which was open to the press. His courteous
reply to the Governor’s speech for the first time made the support of
the rajas for the Republic unequivocal:16
We sultans and rajas have together decided to express once more our com¬
mon determination to stand firmly behind the President and Government
of the Republic, and to join in maintaining and strengthening our Republic.
We are also fully aware that the structure of the daerali istimewa [special
districts] must be in accordance with the basis of the Republic, that is the
governmental system of popular sovereignty.
The sultan ended his speech with the Republican slogan: merdeka.
The meeting gave Mr Hasan his prime opportunity to woo the rajas
into accepting a new democratic role. The Governor pointed out that the
Republic fully recognized all existing statelets, and that ‘there is as yet no
intention to eliminate or remove the kerajaan’. Dutch colonialism had

in reality given the rajas no freedom, while it had distorted the original
democratic spirit of Sumatran institutions into a peculiarly artificial
form of autocracy in East Sumatra.
The rajas were played off against the people, against the popular pergerakan,
against the intellectuals, and the rajas were alienated from the people them¬
selves.
Is it surprising that the bonds linking the people to the rajas became slack ?
In former independent times the rajas were popular chiefs, heads and leaders
of the people. With the Dutch the rajas became tools of Dutch capitalism,
agents of a foreign power. Now the time has come for the rajas to become
once more leaders of their people.
The reason the rajas were still wavering and over-anxious about their
treaty relations with the Dutch, he suggested, was that they did not
realize the full strength of the Republic’s position.
In case the assembled rulers did not sense the iron fist that lay beneath
these mdd words, Luat Siregar was there to remind them that they
would have to reckon with the masses:
... in reality a political, social and economic revolution is in progress.

The government supports the revolution which is arising from the people,
and this is only proper in terms of democratic beliefs. The government is
simply a body which carries out the will of the people, and the government
can only exist with the people’s support. . . .
Every old-fashioned attitude with a feudal smell must be done away with.
Every structure and action which is not in accordance with the people’s de¬
mands at this time must be changed. . . .
The people at the moment are restless and expectant that democratic
methods are practised as soon as possible in the daerah istimezva. The people
want to see a People’s Representative Body in those regions. The will of the
people is like a flood that cannot be stopped,17
The role envisaged by Republican leaders for the rajas was as ex¬
ecutive heads of their regions, subordinate to the higher authority of
Resident and Governor on one hand, and to the legislative competence
of representative councils within their statelets on the other. Luat Sire-
gar in particular insisted on a division of legislative, judicial, and ex¬
ecutive powers, with only the last in the hands of the rajas. This was
a long way from the negotiating position taken up by the rajas, who
sought a position comparable to the Javanese principalities—outside
the administrative hierarchy of Governor and Resident and tied to the
Republic only through a special High Commissioner from the President
to the East Sumatran kerajaan. This would leave them free to arrange
their own style of democratization internally. Hasan countered the anal-
ogy with Java by claiming that ‘the High Commissioner for the daerah
istimewa was established there as a mark of appreciation for the services
(jasa) of the rulers there. In Sumatra the question of a High Com¬
missioner can also be considered when there is evidence of co-operation
between the Republic and the rulers.’18 Despite the distance in their
negotiating positions, both sides appear to have considered the meeting
a success. Mr Hasan and Dr Amir left after drinks for a meeting with
the British commander General Chambers, authorizing Tengku Hafas
to finalize details of proposed reforms with the rulers. A kerajaan com¬
mission was set up to implement the introduction of representative
councils, and to co-ordinate discussions in each statelet between the
ruler and the KNI. The exclusively kerajaan composition of this
commission, however, suggests the rulers still failed to realize the
seriousness of their position. The anxiety of some of them not to destroy
the contractual basis of their claims on Dutch protection reduced them
to a cautious legalism of approach which could never meet the pemuda.
If the commission produced concrete results in the month available to
it, these were never announced.19
The 3 February Conference brought the question of democratizing
the kerajaan to the forefront of pemuda consciousness. Almost every
speaker mentioned it during the rallies held to mark six months of in¬
dependence on 17 February. The pesindo theoretician Joesoef Abdullah,
for example, pointedly asked what would happen to ‘our pressure
for democratization of the rajas, for exchanging daulat rakyat for the
old daulat tuanku' under the Dutch scheme to retain various powers
with a Dutch Governor-General, presumably including treaty relations.20
In practice, however, the rulers had already lost all administra¬
tive authority. ‘Not only were people no longer willing to come to the
rulers’ offices because of the drastic change in the atmosphere, but often
the rulers’ officials themselves did not show up any more.’21 Effective
authority was wielded by the pemuda pasukan, in whose eyes any Re¬
publican compromise with the kerajaan could only mean giving a new
and artificial lease of life to the latter. The most important practical
consequence of the 3 February conference may have been to increase
the revolutionaries’ sense of urgency to sweep the anachronistic mon¬
archies aside before it became more difficult to do so.
Three days after the Conference, Mr Hasan left Medan for a month¬
long tour of Sumatra, already conscious of mounting pressures for a
coup against the rajas.22 In the large official party was Xarim M. S.,
the most influential mediator between the Republican leadership and
the pemuda. Dr Amir, again appointed acting Governor of Sumatra,
could not begin to match the authority of these men. A brilliant psy¬
chiatrist with a thoroughly western life-style, Amir stood outside the
main currents of Indonesian life. Hasan had a degree of protection

against pemuda demands in his Acehnese bodyguard and the possibility
t at Acehnese as a whole would rally to his defence in a crisis. Amir
ad no personal following at all. Though not without personal courage
e had little ability to manipulate pemuda leaders by appealing to their
own values. Ever since the traumatic Japanese period Amir appears to
have reacted to the psychological pressure by acting a series of parts
in a consciously jocular fashion. He enjoyed referring to the Governor
as Mangkubumi or ‘Your Excellency’, and likening Tengku Musa to
Richelieu, Sarwono to Robespierre.23 Since none of the parts he played
were himself, Amir was always in danger of overacting and confusing
fantasy with reality. With each swing of the political pendulum he was
a little more out of balance, until the pendulum threw him off altogether.
Amir appears to have found it particularly hard to deal with Joenoes
Nasution, effectively Resident of East Sumatra for most of his Acting
Governorship., Amir greatly exaggerated Joenoes’s power as ‘father of
the extremists’ and appeared to believe it was essential to retain his
support. Although he later identified Joenoes as his principal enemy
and the villain of the piece, Joenoes’ brief authority was largely of his
own making.24
PERSATUAN PERJUANGAN AND POLARIZATION
The launching by Tan Malaka of the Persatuan Perjuangan (struggle

union) had a similar effect in Sumatra as in Java of providing unity
and legitimacy to widespread pemuda demands for more revolutionary
change. Muhammad Yamin’s December articles extolling Tan Malaka
as ‘Father of the Indonesian Republic’ were reproduced in Soeloeh
Merdeka in mid-January,25 about the same time as the ideals and slogans
of the Persatuan Perjuangan were becoming known in Medan. ‘Tan
Malaka’s idea was immediately well-received in Medan.’26 For one
thing Tan Malaka was better known than most government leaders,
partly as a result of his two-year period in East Sumatra. PKI stalwarts
Xarim M. S., Nathar Zainuddin, and Joenoes Nasution were close to
him both personally and ideologically, and shared his view that the
communist cause must not stand in the way of the broadest possible
revolutionary front. This was undoubtedly the reason that they sternly
forbade the use of the hammer and sickle emblem in place of the merah-
Putih,27 When Xarim heard of Tan Malaka’s arrest by the Republican
government in March, he reportedly commented that he ought to re¬
taliate by arresting the Republican government in Sumatra.28 Tan Ma¬
laka’s arrest was initially widely disbelieved in Medan, and Dr Amir
issued a special warning that the report ‘may be an enemy provocation
to disturb the people. The NRI Government does not forbid the ex¬
istence of a communist party, and continues to respect the efforts and
the value of Tan Malaka.’29
Moreover the Persatuan Perjuangan’s Minimum Programme appealed
very well to the pemuda mood. The brilliantly simple slogan of negotia¬
tions only on the basis of ‘100% Merdeka’ was taken up by one meeting
and organization after another during February. 1 he demand for a
people’s army and a people’s government, and for the confiscation of
Dutch plantations and other property, gave clarity and legitimacy to
the direction the revolution was already taking in East Sumatra. There
was in addition a special need in East Sumatra for bodies to fill the
vacuum created by the collapse of traditional government. The Markas
Agung had filled this role temporarily and partially in late 1945, at least
in co-ordinating street-fighting in Medan. The KNIs had given
moderate elements a chance to provide cohesion in early 1946. The
Persatuan Perjuangan was somewhere between the two—a federation
of fighting bodies on a broader basis than the Markas Agung, represent¬
ing a more powerful radical alternative to the KNIs.
It comes as no surprise that the PKI and pesindo, which in Java
supported Sjahrir’s government and therefore became opponents of the
Persatuan Perjuangan, were the principal promoters of the new move¬
ment in Sumatra. It was precisely the sort of front which Xarim, Nathar,
and Luat had been consistently striving to create. The Persatuan Per¬
juangan in Sumatra, however, never saw itself as an ‘anti-government’
movement except in relation to the kerajaan, because the Republican
government had no capacity to oppose it as in Java.
Negotiations to form a Sumatran Persatuan Perjuangan were begun
by Xarim and Luat Siregar in late January, but bore fruit only on 11
February after the Governor’s party had left. About twenty organiza¬
tions reportedly attended the foundation meeting chaired by Luat Sire-
gar, which produced both an all-Sumatra executive headed by Sarwono
S. Soetardjo and a less significant East Sumatran body under Riphat
Senikentara. Because it excluded conservative officials and moderate
intellectuals this proved an effective revolutionary weapon. Both the
central executive and the branches which quickly sprang up in each
district were dominated by pesindo, PKI, and PNI, with the TKR
and MIT generally playing a subordinate part. In Langkat Usman
Parinduri (PKI and ex-Kenkokutai) was the leader, in Karoland Tama
Ginting (PNI), in Asahan Haris Fadhilah (pesindo and ex-Kenko-
kutai).30
Because it was the leadership of the Sumatran Persatuan Perjuangan
which co-ordinated the eventual action against the rajas of East Sumatra,
it is important to know its composition, which appears never to have
been published. Leadership was theoretically vested in a Pucuk Pimpinan

(Central Board) with representatives from all major armed groups. This
appears to have met no more than once during February, however, and
it was in practice a small group of key members who took the vital
decisions. It was probably because this group was very similar to the
radical caucus comprising Nathar Zainuddin’s Markas Agung that many
sources attribute the March decision for action to the Markas Agung.31
The central people involved were undoubtedly Sarwono S. Soetardjo
(PESINDO) as chairman, Saleh Oemar (PNI), and a PKI representative.
The TRI representative, Ahmad Tahir, was less frequently consulted,
while Bachtiar Joenoes of MIT/Sabihllah ivas fortuitously absent in
the Governor’s party.
The progress of the radical forces was also evident in the economic
field, where rival schemes contended to bring a degree of order and
government control. A communist group inspired by Joenoes Nasution
had formed bapper (Badan Pusat Perekonomian Rakyat Sumatera—
Sumatran People s Central Economic Body) on 11 December. It shared
w ith many other such bodies the aim of directing economic activity
towards the purposes of the anti-Dutch struggle, though it had a larger
dose than most of vaguely Marxist rhetoric. Little was heard of
BAPPER until 5 February when it changed its name to erri (Ekonomi
Rakyat Republik Indonesia). Its working leadership, Amir Joesoef
and Bustami,32 came to Governor Hasan on the eve of his Sumatran
tour to ask that erri be authorized to act as the economic arm of the
go\ ernment, taking responsibility for all plantations and enterprises
in Sumatra. Sensing that whatever powder the organization had was
unlikely to serve the interests of the Government, Hasan refused the
request. Nevertheless erri became very active, organizing hawkers,
cloth-merchants, medicine-sellers, and the like into a series of associ¬
ations wfith a co-operative basis. Luat Siregar’s announcement on 12
February that the KNIs no longer had an economic branch was un¬
doubtedly connected with a shift of left-wing support to erri.33
Although armed clashes with the British, Dutch, and Japanese re¬
mained at a low level during February, there was a rapid rise in revolu¬
tionary temperature. At the 17 February commemoration of six months’
independence pemuda spokesmen rose to new heights of enthusiasm.
They wêre engaged not only in a struggle for 100 per cent independence
but a revolution with its own urgent logic. ‘History has never experienced
a revolution as intense as this Indonesian revolution.’34 Luat Siregar
took up the words of Sukarno that both a national and a social revolution
were taking place. ‘What is most important now, particularly for govern¬
ment leaders, is that they reconcile their position and their attitude with
this social revolution. For w?e can sometimes see in government circles
that independence has only the character of “changing the guard”, with
Dutch big-shots replaced by Japanese, and Japanese by Indonesian.’35
More specific criticism was soon forthcoming from Berdjoeang, com¬
plaining that the Medan mayor Mr Joesoef was far too co-operative
with the British.36 As rallies called by the Persatuan Perjuangan grew
ever larger and more enthusiastic,37 the Republican officials began to
be seen as an obstacle to the ongoing revolution.
The absence of any party explicitly committed to the Republican
government and its desire for stability has already been noted. Sjahrir’s
government desperately wanted to demonstrate to the Allies that it pre¬
sided over an orderly functioning government whose will was obeyed.
Its tenuous position in Sumatra was used by the Dutch as an argument
for denying de facto Republican authority over that island. Yet the Marx¬
ist parties which formed the kernel of government support in Java
were in Sumatra either unrepresented or more sympathetic to Tan
Malaka’s radical line than Sjahrir’s moderate one.
Not until early February did the main government support in Java,
the Socialist Party, send a propagandist to northern Sumatra. It was
Sjahrir’s elder brother Noer Alamsjah, a pre-war leader of parindra
in northern Sumatra, who represented the most moderate wing of the
party. He made no attempt, as one of Amir Sjarifuddin’s pro-Moscow
colleagues might have done, to convince the PKI that international
conditions demanded the firmest support for the Sjahrir/Amir govern¬
ment. Instead Noer Alamsjah appears to have concentrated his attention
on the moderate nationalist intellectuals who were alarmed by the
uncontrolled mass movement and sought a return to elite political
management. By mid-February his activity had produced two rival
committees for what was still called parsi (Partai Sosialis Indonesia—the
title of Amir’s party before it fused with Sjahrir’s). One was composed
entirely of moderate intellectuals, and the other was based on elements
of Sjahrir’s pre-war PNI-baru which were not happy with the PNI.
Although the leadership of parsi remained confused during the following
month, it was quickly apparent that it had only two real sources of
strength. One was its closeness to Republican officials and to the central
government; the other was the Pasukan V of Dr F. J. Nainggolan, one
of the first to declare for the Socialists.38
Although little had been heard of Pasukan V in the Republican Press,
it had reacted to the radicalization of the other pasukan by strengthening
its alliance with the Malay youth groups sworn to defend the kerajaan.
Although most of its claimed 50,000 members (10,000 in East Sumatra)
were Toba, it now had a strongly armed Malay branch in Sunggal as
well as some supporters in Karoland, both representing the establish¬
ment forces which had been under attack by the aron and its Kenkokutai
successors. Pasukan V had again clashed with pesindo in February,
and its leaders had been taken captive to a pesindo meeting to be
accused of aiding nica and the Republican police. Pasukan V held a
conference at Kisaran on 23 February to make absolute its break with
pesindo and its fusion with the Socialists.39 The new socialist party
must have contributed to the impression among revolutionaries that
Republican officials, the kerajaan, and possibly the Dutch were attempt¬
ing some form of conservative reaction.
In other areas too the battle lines were being drawn. The Republican
representative in Karoland, Ngeradjai Meliala, used a TKR unit loyal
to him to arrest Pajungbangun and other Harimau Liar leaders, on the
ground that they were responsible for many murders. Harimau Liar
and other PNI units were looking for revenge against him. In Asahan
relations grew more tense between the official wakil pemerintah, Tengku
Musa, and the pasukan predominately led by talapeta graduates.
The police and the small TKR unit under a local Malay, Lt. Karim
Saleh, had attempted to maintain the authority of Tengku Musa, with
the result that they became bitterly isolated from the remainder of the
pemuda movement.40 With pressure mounting for action against the
rajas, Dr Amir was persuaded to take a special train on 27 February
to tour the most serious trouble spots—Pematang Siantar,t he head¬
quarters of the Persatuan Perjuangan, and Asahan. Dr Amir may have
seen this as an attempt to calm pemuda passions and negotiate an orderly
change. For the PKI and pesindo representatives who shared the
platform with Amir and Joenoes Nasution at every stop, however, it
was an opportunity to demonstrate the strength of the people’s will.
On the outward journey the train was met by thousands in Tebing
Tinggi and in Kisaran, and speakers demanded that ‘the enemies and
obstacles to independence’ be crushed. In Tanjung Balai the Sultan of
Asahan entertained the visiting party cordially. The following day he
appealed to a rally for co-operation in the cause of independence. But
the crowd of 20,000 demanded action. At a private meeting of Persatuan
Perjuangan leaders the evidence was presented of royal links with the
Dutch. At Pematang Siantar on the return journey, walls were daubed
with slogans like ‘the rajas suck the people’s blood’ and ‘the people
will judge’. Thq pemuda slogans merdeka (freedom) and darah (blood),
shouted with clenched fist on high, mingled with cries for the blood
of the rajas.41
The official train returned to Medan on 2 March, with Dr Amir ap¬
parently believing he had persuaded the party leaders to postpone action
against the rajas at least until Governor Hasan returned to Medan. The
following day, however, the signal was given to begin the ‘social rev¬
olution’.
‘A NIGHT OF BLOOD’
The planning of the coup was, as we have seen, the work of a radical
caucus within the Persatuan Perjuangan embracing the leadership of
pesindo, PNI, and PKI.42 Of their three motives for eliminating
the rajas, the ‘social revolution’ of the Marxist intellectuals was in prac¬
tice the least important. Most of the leaders had no plans for a more
democratic or socialist government structure. The reason most commonly
advanced for the move was the sympathy the rajas had for the Dutch
and the danger they represented to independence. At Persatuan Per¬
juangan meetings in Brastagi, Pematang Siantar, and Tanjung Balai,
the case against the rulers had been presented in terms of their contacts
with Dutch representatives, the Comite van Ontvangst, the armed guards
formed in several statelets, and the Dutch propaganda material alleg¬
edly stored in the palaces. A third motive of party and pasukan leaders
was to gain control of the legendary wealth of the rajas. Both the Per¬
satuan Perjuangan Minimum Programme and the Bukittinggi MIT
meeting, it was argued, had provided the theoretical justification for
using the property of enemies and traitors to sustain the national struggle.
The essence of the action launched on 3 March was firstly to seize
the rajas and their principal supporters, and secondly to ransack their
palaces for the treasure and the pro-Dutch propaganda expected to be
found there.43 The revolution had already provided many precedents
for asserting the people’s sovereignty in this way.
Wherever the radical core of the Persatuan Perjuangan had no serious
competitors the rajas were dealt with on the night of 3 March. Karoland
witnessed a model operation. Sarwono telephoned instructions to the
Persatuan Perjuangan leader there, Tama Ginting, who immediately
obtained the support of the leader with the strongest armed force, Se-
lamat Ginting. They hastily convened a Persatuan Perjuangan ‘meeting’
in Brastagi on 3 March and ensured that the sibayak and raja urung
attended. The majority of them, seventeen in all, were arrested and
interned in Central Aceh. Also arrested were the wakil pemerintah NRI
and the brothers Nerus and Nolong Ginting Suka who had been his
political strongmen. The aristocrats lost much of the irrigated land
which had been a source of conflict since the 1930s, but their houses
and families were undisturbed. No bloodshed took place.44
The factors which made this orderly operation possible in Karoland
were not repeated elsewhere. The Karo ‘aristocracy’ had been nearer
to a Dutch-created bureaucracy, not far removed socially or economi¬
cally from their fellow Karo. The pemuda leaders were all ethnic Karo
with family links with sibayak and raja urung. Finally, the most bitterly
alienated element, Inoue’s proteges of the BHL, had been imprisoned
by Meliala. Karoland was to experience its time of blood only in 1947,

after Pajungbangun and his colleagues had been released.45
Most of the important pasukan in Simalungun were Toba Batak in
composition and based in the city of Pematang Siantar or the estates.
The official army, the TKR (renamed TRI since January), had also
recently shifted its headquarters to Siantar where it was relatively strong.
Colonel Tahir had agreed by telephone to the imprisoning of the rajas
by the Persatuan Perjuangan.46 The only radical force of predominantly
Simalungun composition was the Harimau Liar under Saragih Ras,
which had inherited its rural base from the Kenkokutai. When Saleh
Oemar gave instructions for the arrest of rajas to pesindo, napindo
(BHL) and PKI leaders in Siantar, therefore, it was agreed that the
key role should be taken by BHL to avoid ethnic recriminations, par¬
ticularly in traditional upper Simalungun. Paradoxically this worked
to the rajas’ disadvantage. In upper Simalungun there was no coherent
pergerakan opposition to traditional rule, and the Harimau Liar rep¬
resented a few leaders with personal grudges and a handful of uneducated
followers.
The Raja of Pane, against whom Saragih Ras had such a grievance,
was seized by BHL on the night of 3 March with all his family, and
their treasure and a collection of cloth wras taken from his house. The
Raja and a few followers w'ere taken to a BHL celebration feast at one
of their nearby strongholds and killed. The following day the Harimau
Liar tracked down the ruler of neighbouring Raya, who was taken to
a bridge on the main road and killed. His house too was plundered for
gold and other treasure. A third ruler of upper Simalungun, the Raja
of Purba, was fortunate to be forcibly taken out of BHL hands by a
TRI unit. A fourth, Silimakota, was absent in Siantar when his palace
was attacked and burned. Along with the other rajas of Simalungun
these two eventually reached the relative security of detention at army
hands in Siantar, though many of their kinsmen did not.47
In the sprawling Asahan afdeling in the south of the residency the
violence begun on 3 March was at its worst. There was no effective
moderate force between the armed pemuda on one side, and on the
other a stubborn group of kerajaan administrators led by Tengku Musa
who still represented the ‘official’ Republic. The only TKR/TRI unit
in the whole afdeling was the small one in Tanjung Balai which tended
to support the kerajaan. The leaders of the most powerful fighting
groups—pesindo, napindo, and Sabilillah—were all inexperienced
politicians whose basic training had been at Inoue’s talapeta. Even
Abdullah Eteng, leader of the Kenkokutai in Asahan and later of the
KNI, was under effective house arrest by pemuda during the ‘social
revolution’.
On 3 March thousands of armed men assembled in Tanjung Balai

in response to rumours that the Dutch were about to attempt a landing.
They were directed to surround the palace. There was a confused skir¬
mish in which the TRI and police appear to have attempted to protect
the palace. The TRI was obliged to surrender and the palace was in¬
vaded, but the athletic young sultan had already fled. After a dramatic
chase in which he hid in mangrove swamps and three times swam across
the river, he eventually reached the safety of the residual Japanese post
seventeen days later.
The pemuda meanwhile had sought other targets. Tengku Musa was
first on the list. He was seized with his Dutch wife and all his household
on the night of 3 March. All were quickly killed. The following day
all the male Malay aristocrats in the town were seized and similarly
killed. About 140 appear to have died in the town within a few days,
including some penghulu and Dutch-educated officials as well as the
whole ‘Tengku’ class. The wives and children of most of the dead were
interned, and their houses plundered for treasure by the pemuda pasukan.
The palace became the ‘hall of the people’ (gedung rakyat), a luxurious
headquarters for pesindo.48
In the five statelets of the Labuhan Batu onderajdeling, further south,
the action was even more severe. According to a later Persatuan Per-
juangan report the reason was that in this area there had been ‘no limit
to the oppression of the people and the pergerakan’ by the rajas.49 The
first wave of 3 March only affected the district capital of Rantau Prapat
and the seat of the Sultan of Kualuh. At Rantau Prapat the wakil pe-
merintah NRI, Tengku Hasnan, and three of his assistants were seized in
the night and taken to the river for execution. Hasnan and Tengku Long
were beheaded, but the other two managed to jump in the river and
escape. At the same time the palace of Kualuh in Tanjung Pasir was
surrounded and the male inhabitants seized. The aged and unbending
Sultan and one of his sons were found in a Chinese graveyard the next
day, dying of multiple spear-wounds. Some pemuda took them off to
‘hospital’ but they were never seen again. The other key people in the
kerajaan government were similarly killed and their families interned.50
The Persatuan Perjuangan faced tougher opposition in the big sul¬
tanates of Deli, Serdang, and Langkat. The most effectively protected
sultan was Serdang, not only by his relatively anti-Dutch record but
also by a TRI unit in Perbaungan under Captain Tengku Noerdin.
Noerdin was a young Serdang aristocrat trained in the Giyugun, and
a nephew of the KNI chairman in Serdang, Tengku Nizam. He obtained
approval from Colonel Tahir to take power into his own hands. On 4
March a transfer of authority was swiftly negotiated and the kerajaan
officials and aristocrats were comfortably interned in the palace.51
The palace of the Sultan of Deli was only a stone’s throw from the
Allied ‘Medan fortress’ and came under British protection as soon as
the ‘social revolution’ began. Elsewhere in Deli the poorly-armed Malay
youths of padi were prepared to defend their datuks in alliance with
the better-armed Pasukan V. The palace of Langkat was defended by
a royal guard called P.I.L. (Penjaga Istana Langkat) which had been
provided with about forty firearms by the Allies in January. This unit
too was stiffened by its alliance with the Pasukan V. The first task of
the revolutionaries was to defeat or eliminate these military forces.
The heaviest fighting took place in Sunggal (Serbanyanam), where
the bitter polarization of 1942 had never been overcome and the
Datuk was well armed, pesindo attacked the Pasukan V headquarters
on the night of 3 March but was beaten off with eight reported killed.
Most of the aristocrats in the area fled to the Sultan’s Maimun palace
in Medan on the 4th, pesindo succeeding in capturing and killing
only Datuk Abbas. The armed Malay unit in Sunggal continued to
resist until the 6th, when the defeat of Pasukan V and padi on every
front made their position hopeless. Its leader, Datuk Itam, transferred
authority to the political leaders, surrendered his arms and fled to Medan.
The British reported twenty deaths in the Sunggal fighting. There were
more two days later when five Malays returned to Sunggal to die hon¬
ourably in a vengeful amok of their enemies.52
In Labuhan Deli also there were minor scuffles ending with the arrest
of about forty Malays—leaders of padi and penghulu. The Pasukan
V was defeated everywhere. Its leader, Dr Nainggolan, was seized and
trussed in a gunny-sack to be killed. Although rescued at the eleventh
hour he was permanently embittered by the subsequent killing of his
wife and daughter.53
The Langkat palace in Tanjung Pura was too strong for the pemuda
to attack in the first onslaught. As pressure mounted around him the
Sultan reportedly declined to give a prearranged signal for rescue by
the Allied or Japanese troops nearby. Knowing the dangers for the whole
aristocratic-Malay cause if he took such a drastic step, he preferred
to trust the assurances of Mr Hasan and Dr Amir, his former personal
physician. Meanwhile in Binjai pesindo began to seize Malay kerajaan
officials and Dutch-educated Bataks of the Pasukan V from 4 March.
Among the first to be taken from his house was Tengku Amir Hamzah,
officially still the wakil pemerintah NRI,54
REVOLUTION OR PUTSCH
The violence of 3 March destroyed what remained of Republican

government in East Sumatra. Officials who had escaped arrest barricaded
themselves in their houses. This was the moment for revolutionaries

to act. But as one Persatuan Perjuangan leader admitted, its leaders
‘did not think much beyond abolishing the rajas’.55 The PKI leaders
in the government, Luat Siregar and Joenoes Nasution, were now in
the key position, with Dr Amir as an ideal legitimation for w'hatever
change they could bring about. They now had the role of moderates,
however, to a large extent sharing the view of Amir and the British
that ‘the merits or demerits of the revolution . . . will depend on the
speed and efficiency with which a new civil administration to replace
one of long standing can be organized’. Their policy was to complete
the elimination of rajas and replace them as speedily as possible with
officials ‘based on the principle of popular sovereignty’.56
As acting Governor Dr Amir showed enormous energy and no little
courage, presiding over one meeting after another and issuing a stream
of communiques. He had found a new role to play—the ardent revolu¬
tionary. He convinced the British that he was a convert to communism,
and tried to preach to pesindo in the language of revolution—‘In
the name of God, feudalism is being, has been, and must be abolished
now.’57 But he had no defence against those who commanded men and
guns.
Amir’s first official move was to put himself and the government
firmly behind what he definitively called the ‘social revolution’.
The people throughout East Sumatra have suddenly acted to maintain

justice and fight tyranny in their respective districts. This movement has
the form of a tremendous social revolution.
I accept the people’s action to purge all enemies of the Republic within
the state with a feeling of gratitude to God (syukur), provided every action
is taken with consideration for the gains and costs ... so that the victims
of the social revolution are as few as possible. . . .
In this critical situation extraordinary measures are required, to change
the structure of government and the style of government in a radical way,
in accordance with the will of the people (popular sovereignty).58
The language was close to that of Luat Siregar, in association with

whom the proclamation was issued. It went on to name Joenoes Nasu¬
tion as responsible for the government of East Sumatra, and Luat him¬
self as ‘pacifier’ with plenary powers. Local KNIs were urged to co¬
operate with Luat as he toured each district in East Sumatra.
The position of the TRI was confused. Amir’s proclamation merely
called for co-ordination between the new government, the Persatuan
Perjuangan, the KNI, TRI, and police. In the same issue of the Soeloeh
Merdeka was an announcement by Colonel Ahmad Tahir that the TRI
had taken over all government in East Sumatra from midday on the
5th, with the exception (in deference to the Allies) of Medan city.59
Tahir and some of his key advisers were anxious to prevent what they
saw as a descent into anarchy, but they held the upper hand only in
Pematang Siantar and Serdang.
While Luat Siregar set off on his tour of the southern districts, Dr
Amir and Joenoes Nasution presided over a series of tense meetings
near Medan. On 6 March Dr Amir attempted to calm the pesindo_
Pasukan V hostility by confirming that the latter was dissolved into
the Socialist Party while pesindo nominally accepted an advisory
council of the same moderate intellectuals who made up that party.
The following day a turbulent meeting in Medan attempted to resolve
the kerajaan issue. While the KNI, expanded by representatives of all
the parties and pemuda groups, tried to discuss the issue, thousands
crowded outside the building and the shouting ‘came like thunder’ to
abolish the kerajaan. After a few minutes Joenoes Nasution appeared
to tell the crowd that the sultanate was duly abolished and power trans¬
ferred to the working committee of the KNI of Deli. Several kerajaan
figures were seized as they left the meeting, including the sultan’s former
secretary Mr Tengku Mahadi. On 11 March there was another attempt
to give the revolution a more constitutional face, at a meeting in which
the Datuk of Serbanyaman (Sunggal), having already surrendered au¬
thority in his own urung, now surrendered the whole of the Deli sultanate
into the hands of the KNI.60 Sultan Osman himself, protected by British
guns, made no concessions.
In Langkat the disunity of pemuda barisan stood in the way of a swift
restoration of authority. Joenoes Nasution attended a meeting in Binjai
on 5 March which was disrupted by mass demonstrations in the same
way as at Medan. The kerajaan was declared abolished at 5 p.m., though
without any clear authority in its place. Later that same evening a meeting
of the KNI of Tanjung Pura decided to arrange an orderly transfer
of authority from the kerajaan, which took place the following day.
Tengku Saidi Husny, a pre-war police official, was confirmed as wakil
pemerintah NRI there.61 The revolution was not to be cheated, however,
and these steps in Langkat proved to be the beginning rather than the end.
Joenoes Nasution had a simpler task in Karoland, where he attended
a ceremony to abolish the kerajaan on 8 March. The principal pemuda
leaders had decided to put forward Rakuta Sembiring as the new Re¬
publican authority. The local TRI commander, Major Kasim Nasution,
for a time claimed himself to be the head of government in the area
on the strength of Tahir’s decree, but he lacked the power to upset the
decision for Sembiring.62
Meanwhile Luat’s tour as ‘pacifier’ had taken him first to Pematang
Siantar on 5 March, accompanied by Sarwono and Saleh Oemar. He
explained to a crowded meeting that the government had terminated

the authority of the rajas earlier that day, because of their proven con¬
tacts with the Dutch. An ‘extremely democratic’ election was organized
for a new head of government in Simalungun, with each of thirty-three
organizations represented having one vote. In the final ballot the PKI’s
Urbanus Pardede prevailed by one vote over the incumbent aristocratic
administrator, Madja Poerba, who was therefore declared Urbanus’s
assistant.63
The following day Luat’s party reached Tanjung Balai, where they
arranged for Abdullah Eteng to be brought from his virtual house arrest
to a meeting which declared him new government representative. The
Batubara region just west of Tanjung Balai had not been affected by
the ‘social revolution’, and Luat’s party supervised the arrest of the
five rajas there ‘gently and quickly’ on the night of 7 March. Oemar
Pane of pesindo was elected head of the region. The rajas and their
families were taken captive to Siantar, and their houses were plundered.64
Finally Luat Siregar and Sarwono travelled to Rantau Prapat, capital
of the most remote Labuhan Batu region. At a mass meeting in the
cinema they explained that the ‘social revolution’ had the support of
government and should be completed. Sarwono reportedly inspired the
pemuda to ‘arrest all those who are suspected and all those who are
an obstacle to independence’.65 The Medan leaders did not stay to see
the result of their intervention. Pasukan were quickly organized to attack
each of the palaces which had not yet been affected. The rulers of Bilah
and Kota Pinang were seized on 8-9 March, and killed a few days later
at Wingfoot estate with five of their male relatives. A rich booty was
seized at Kota Pinang. Not until 13 March did the revolution reach
Labuhan Bilik, the capital of Panai, when three leading tengkus were
killed including the kerajaan administrator, Tengku Hamlet.66 Although
Luat’s party appeared to have left Rantau Prapat with the impression
that a certain Abdul Rachman had become Republican representative,
when a Persatuan Perjuangan party revisited the district three weeks
later ‘there were no government officials to be met and the situation
of the parties and the volksfront [P.P.] had to be improved’.67 In this
southernmost corner of the residency, persistently neglected by the
Republican government, the breakdown of authority was virtually com¬
plete.
For a week following 3 March revolutionary enthusiasm was at its
height and few dared stand in its way. Even the Islamic movement
was quick to align itself with the current, giving more prominence
within its ranks to the younger anti-kerajaan activists of Muhammadiah.
Tengku Jafizham was seized by Islamic pemuda at the Medan railway
station on 4 March, as he was returning from an MIT rally in Langkat.
The major obstacle to a more radical course within MIT, he was dis¬
missed from its executive on 6 March. The following day the local MIT
declared itself the North Sumatra branch of the Java-centred mas-
jumi. H. A. R. Sjihab (Wasliyah), Yunan Nasution (Muhammadiah),
and Bachtiar Joenoes (Muhammadiah and Sabilillah) became first,
second, and third chairmen.68 Friday 8 March was designated a day
when the weekly chutbah (sermon) should be devoted to explaining the
‘social revolution’. In the great mosque of Medan, adjacent to the Sultan’s
palace, Yunan Nasution explained how the rajas had kept Islam back¬
ward and conservative. In the Binjai mosque another Muhammadiah
ulama went to the pulpit with a drawn sword, ‘as was done by the pro¬
phet Muhammad’.69
The following day Dr Amir authorized the new masjumi leadership
to take over the administration of religion in East Sumatra and to
replace the kadhi of the kerajaan. Sjihab immediately sought a mandate
for this religious revolution from a gathering of eleven prominent local
ulama. Not all of them could accept the explicitly reformist manifesto
with which masjumi itself sought to welcome the ‘social revolution’,
as a source of ‘new ideas and progress in the Islamic religion’ and an
opportunity to extend ‘the spirit of Islamic reformism’. The ulama
simply accepted that President Sukarno was the legitimate head of state
in whom the shaukah of religious authority was vested. Since he had
now delegated this authority at the local level to masjumi, Sjihab could
proceed to dismiss the old kadhi and appoint new ones.70
New, reformist kadhi were appointed on 18 March, with authority
to appoint their own local naib kadhi. Immediately masjumi had to
answer the charge that these appointments violated the principle of
popular sovereignty. Why had the people not elected their own kadhi?
In religious matters, masjumi explained, God was sovereign, not the
people.71
Of the attempts to give a permanent revolutionary direction to the
Republic during this fluid and chaotic period, the most ambitious was
erri. When its leaders came to Dr Amir on 6 March with the demand
which Hasan had refused, they received all the official recognition they
wanted, erri was given ‘full authority to organize the structure of
the economy in every sector for the whole of Sumatra’.72 Here was a
mandate to extend its activities to a total control of the Sumatran econ¬
omy. With remarkable energy it appointed ‘inspectors’ for every sector
and set about assuming all the revenue functions of government. All
estate production was to be surrendered to erri, and all foreign trade
handled by it. Its agents effectively blockaded the Allied-occupied sector
of Medan, seizing all foodstuffs entering the city and appropriating
stocks in the Chinese and Indian shops against a nominal payment.
There was an attempt to take over all transport facilities both on land
and sea. In Aceh erri levied duties on goods exported from Sigli and
Meulaboh, and declared that a French-owned gold mine would be oper¬
ated by the people.73 Just before the end of its short but remarkable
career erri attempted to launch a comprehensive medical scheme for
the whole of East Sumatra, in which all doctors would be enrolled and
medicines would be supplied by erri.74
It is difficult to establish how coherent a Marxist strategy lay behind
this extraordinary body. Its apologists claimed that it marked a historic
advance towards ‘the dialectic of a people’s society’,75 and that its system
of requisitioning goods was based on a theory of sarna rata sama rasa
(equality and brotherhood).76 The most important political influence
upon it appeared to be Joenoes Nasution, whose Marxist credentials
were dubious, although Nathar Zainuddin was a force in the background.
Even assuming the best intentions so ambitious a programme was bound
to be abused and to be criticized.
Three major criticisms were brought against erri when it fell at the
end of April. The argument of the Marxists in the Republican Cab¬
inet that it represented a ‘state within a state’ is hard to deny. Its
aim was to take over all revenues so that it could finance the political
parties, the fighting pemuda, and the government. It was also alleged
that its leading figures had embezzled millions for themselves, and in
the climate of the time it would be surprising if there were not at least
a little truth behind the charge. The third allegation, impossible to
substantiate, is that in imitating Japanese practice of forcibly requisi¬
tioning foodstuff’s from farmers, it brought only misery to the little
people of the residency.77 Whatever the truth of these charges, there
is no doubt that erri’s aims brought it into inevitable conflict with
all manner of existing economic interests, both of the government and
the pemuda bodies.
REACTION
As Crane Brinton forcibly reminds us, a Thermidorean reaction is

to be expected in every revolution, with its attendant ‘moral let-down’
and ‘revulsion against the men who had made the terror’.78 Yet such
reactions do not resolve themselves into a Napoleon overnight, and it
is often a considerable time before one can ascertain whether, and where,
the revolution has come to rest; what it has achieved.
In East Sumatra the reaction began a mere ten days after the begin¬
ning of the ‘social revolution’, in direct response to news of the killings.
Since most of the early bloodshed occurred in the remoter southern
part of the residency it was some time before its full extent was realized
in Medan.79 The fall of the glittering court of Langkat, on the other
hand, had an immediate shock effect on the whole political elite.
After negotiating with the sultan for the withdrawal of his armed
guard (P.I.L.) away from Tanjung Pura to avoid a confrontation, pemuda
of PKI and pesindo led by former Kenkokutai cadres surrounded
the palace on 8 March. On the night of the 9th the lights were cut off
and the palace suddenly invaded. All the occupants were seized and
searched, and two days later the seven most politically prominent tengkus
were taken out and beheaded.80 Much more shocking to pemuda opinion
was the rape of two of the sultan’s daughters the same night by the
pasukan leaders. The offenders paid for this excess a month later when
Islamic pemuda ‘tried’ and executed them.81 The sultan himself and
various female relatives were taken away captive and after some weeks
handed over to Republican authorities in Brastagi. Less fortunate were
the group of aristocrats and Pasukan V leaders who had been seized
in Binjai in the first days of the ‘social revolution’. Eighteen of them
were executed on pesindo orders on 19-20 March, including the gentle
poet Tengku Amir Hamzah. Altogether thirty-eight members of the
Langkat nobility were estimated to have died in this period.82
The Langkat excesses convinced many waverers that the ‘social rev¬
olution’ had gone far enough. A different kind of pressure was now
brought to bear on Dr Amir, principally by Dr Gindo Siregar, a cousin
of Amir Sjarifuddin and by now the dominant figure in the pro-Sjahrir
Socialist Party, and Mutalib Moro, the tough jaksa (government pros¬
ecutor) of Asahan, who had survived the violence through his ability
to talk the language of the pemuda and, he believed, the aid of a magical
djin. Dr Amir announced a meeting of the KNI and Persatuan Perju-
angan on the 13th with the hope ‘that this social revolution of ours will
not consist only of extermination and destruction but will also result
in a new life for the people’.83 The meeting politely withdrew the man¬
date of Joenoes as Resident and Luat as ‘pacifier’, electing a five-man
‘ruling council’ for the residency in which the radicals (Joenoes and
Saleh Oemar) were outnumbered by three who sought an end to the
violence. The latter were therefore able to elect Gindo Siregar as chair¬
man of the council and effective Resident, and Mutalib Moro as deputy.
A commission was immediately dispatched to attempt to arrange an
orderly imprisonment and trial for the aristocratic captives who remained
alive.84
Joenoes Nasution did not go without a fight. The day after the meeting
a group of pemuda intimidated the hapless acting Governor in his house.
Amir was almost ready to give up. He told the British commander ‘that
if only Allied troops would teach them [“extremist youths”] a lesson,
his position would become much easier’.85 He called another meeting
of political leaders and offered to resign in conformity with the ‘people’s

will’, but the meeting preferred to hold to the arrangements of 13 March.
Its only new decision was to confirm the will of the people of Langkat
by appointing Adnan Nur Lubis (PNI) as head of government there.86
When Governor Hasan finally returned to Medan on 21 March, it
was apparent that relations between different pemuda barisan were at a
very tense point. ‘Only a great measure of wisdom can prevent the
outbreak of heavy fighting,’ it was announced. ‘May everyone keep a
cool head.’87 The many rumours of a coup against Mr Hasan himself
appear to have convinced him he was safer in Siantar, the only centre
where the TRI appeared strong enough to protect him. Hasan stayed in
Medan only long enough for a meeting with key political leaders, at
which it was decided that he should remain as Governor at least until
a forthcoming meeting of an all-Sumatra KNI in Bukittinggi. The
meeting also accepted a demand from Colonel Tahir that the TRI’s
seizure of government authority be now accepted.88 Anything seemed
worth a trial.
Although Tahir had endorsed the action against the rajas, he was
predictably the first pemuda leader publicly to insist that ‘the sovereignty
of the people must not and cannot be used to follow our own passions
(hawa nafsu)’.89 Tahir had personal connexions with the Serdang court
and an uncle of his wife had been a victim of the Asahan killings. As
the most disciplined force behind the Republican government the TRI
had also attracted aristocratic and conservative nationalists under its
umbrella. The apparent anarchy of Langkat and Asahan was anathema
to it. Both in Siantar and in Langkat TRI units were willing to fight
their fellow pemuda in an attempt to have the aristocratic captives sur¬
rendered to Republican authority.90
Colonel Tahir’s choice to head the military government was the man
who had organized the finance and equipment of the TRI, Sjahrir’s
brother Mahruzar. The five-man ‘ruling council’ was now declared
an advisory body to Mahruzar.91 In reality Mahruzar was as little in
control of the situation as Gindo Siregar or Joenoes Nasution before
him. The only effect of the proclamation was to align the TRI more
clearly on the side of halting the ‘social revolution’, and allegedly to
make it easier for TRI units and leaders to enrich themselves.92 Within
a week the pathetic cluster of Republican leaders in Medan began to
waver in their commitment to the TRI, perhaps primarily because Xa-
rim M. S. returned to the city on 26 March, a few days later than the
remainder of the Governor’s party. Appalled at Hasan’s apparent flight
from the responsibilities of government in Medan, Xarim reportedly
ordered him back to the city for a meeting on 30 March, which decided
among other things that it was time for the TRI to return to ‘normal
duties ,93 The real question, however, was how much pressure the TRI
could bring to bear on Mr Hasan or Dr Amir at any given time, as
against the radical barisan. On his next visit to Medan, to meet Amir
Sjarifuddin on 9 April, Hasan was ordered by Sarwono, in the name
of the Persatuan Perjuangan, to sign a decree ending military rule and
installing Luat Siregar as Resident. The same decree gave the Gov¬
ernor s first official confirmation of the ‘social revolution’ with the words:
‘The heads of districts who have been chosen by the people in their
respective districts are confirmed as heads of districts (heads of govern¬
ment) . . . from the date of their election.’94 Tahir was furious with this
decree, acknowledging it only ten days later.95
The belated return of Xarim M. S. brought a new opportunity to
impose some clear direction on the ‘social revolution’. He was still the
only leader with direct influence over all the most prominent pemuda
leaders, especially those of pesindo and the TRI.96 Members of his
PKI held key positions in government (Joenoes, followed by Luat), in
erri, in the press (Jahja Jakoeb), and in the Persatuan Perjuangan
(Soeffron, with Nathar in the background). The PKI itself had been
strengthened by the revolutionary tide, as indicated by the 10,000 who
attended its conference in Siantar on 8-9 April and the 40,000 members
it now claimed in East Sumatra. Yet Xarim appears to have failed to
impose a clear strategy for the ‘social revolution’ even on his own party.
The public resolutions of the PKI Conference had nothing to say about
it.97 Xarim’s talents were as a charismatic leader rather than a revolu¬
tionary strategist, but there were other reasons for his inability to capi¬
talize on the situation after his Sumatran tour. Like the most prominent
Marxists in Java he was more concerned with the national struggle
and with the contest for Republican leadership than with social revolu¬
tion, but he lacked the western education and polish which had made
Amir Sjarifuddin and others acceptable to the national elite and the
Allies. The fact that he was being increasingly suggested by pemuda
as a replacement for Governor Hasan probably contributed to his cau¬
tion. Finally, the East Sumatran revolution was part of a much larger
whole, and the intervention of the central government at this point
undoubtedly worked against the interests of the Left.
Although the British in Sumatra were very slow to understand the
significance and extent of the ‘social revolution’ they experienced some
of its consequences directly. Violence increased markedly in March,
and the British encountered the most determined resistance since their
advent in an assault on Tanjung Morawa on 9-10 March.98 A British
raid on local TRI headquarters on 18 March was answered by an angry
ultimatum from ‘the revolutionary movement’s leaders’ that all British
establishments would be destroyed and all Dutchmen taken prisoner if
the people seized were not released. Still more serious was the success
of erri and pemuda groups in depriving the Allied camp of both labour
and supplies." For these reasons rather than the ‘social revolution’
itself the British saw the situation in East Sumatra getting out of hand,
and encouraged the moderate leaders with whom they dealt in Java
to intervene. The author-turned-soldier, Laurens van der Post, brought
three central government ministers and a dozen politicians and officials
to Medan in a British plane on 9 April.
To Sjahrir, Amir Sjarifuddin, and their Socialist Party colleagues,
the East Sumatran ‘social revolution’ appeared to be a major threat
to the Republic’s standing both at home and abroad. The popularity
among the social revolutionaries of Tan Malaka, whose arrest Amir
Sjarifuddin was constantly called upon to explain, removed any re¬
maining chance of the visitors’ taking a positive view of the turbulence
which greeted them in Medan. The three ministers (Amir Sjarifuddin,
Natsir, and Rasjidi) gave the same message to all the rowdy meetings
they addressed in Medan—revolutionary enthusiasm was all very well,
but what was needed now was loyal support for the government. ‘Our
slogan must be: whichever of our countrymen become the government,
we must all support and follow them 100 per cent. All efforts should
be directed to building one strong government and one strong army.’100
The Yogyakarta delegation was well supplied with Marxists, Amir
Sjarifuddin and Abdulmadjid Djojoadiningrat representing what was
to become the pro-Moscow wing of the Socialist Party, and Soebadio
Sastrosatomo the Sjahrir wing. Both in public rallies and private meet¬
ings they tried to convince the PKI and pesindo leaders that this
was the stage for national, not social, revolution and that the Kremlin’s
‘Dmitrov doctrine’ still demanded a common front against fascism and
imperialism. Xarim M. S. and Luat Siregar, who remained unconvinced,
struck the visiting Marxists as romantic ‘infantile’ leftists, indulging
far too freely both in popular adulation and more mundane pleasures.
Amir Sjarifuddin confided to Van der Post that ‘there was no real leader¬
ship among the Indonesians in Sumatra [and] that the civilian adminis¬
tration was breaking down’.101 Amir’s three days in Medan apparently
convinced him that the central government would have to support Mr
Hasan as Governor, despite his weakness and his old-fashioned con¬
servatism, because he was the only card they had against the revolutiona¬
ries in East Sumatra. During the first meeting of an all-Sumatra KNI,
in Bukittinggi (17-18 April), the ministers swung their influence behind
retaining Hasan as Governor, Amir Sjarifuddin’s cousin Dr Gindo
Siregar becoming his deputy in the working committee of the Sumatra
KNI.102
Never had the leaders from Java encountered such wild scenes of
enthusiasm. Crowds of pemuda were constantly surrounding them

shouting their revolutionary slogzns-darah (blood) and berontak (revolt)
—with clenched fist on high. Vast rallies in Medan and Siantar resounded
to the strains of the pesindo song—Darah rakyat (the blood of the peo¬
ple). Practically the. whole population of Medan thronged the Medan
rally on 11 April, with dozens collapsing from the heat. Not all of this
enthusiasm was in support of the central government’s position. Amir
Sjarifuddin was jeered by some of the crowd when he spoke of the
need for discipline.100 • Yet there were many within pemuda ranks who
heeded Amir’s warnings. His visit marked a turning point in the
direction of the revolution in East Sumatra.
1 he all-Sumatra leadership of the Persatuan Perjuangan had initiated
the social revolution’, and already the reputations of many of them were
tainted by the use they had made of it. The less prominent East Sumatra
branch leadership of the P.P. now took the initiative, summoning to
Siantar just after Amir Sjarifuddin’s departure the leaders of the eight
principal bansan in each district. Marnicus Hoetasoit, vice-chairman
of the P.P., harangued delegates to the effect thatinju stice could not
be combated with more injustice. After a stormy debate the gathering
aligned the P.P. firmly behind the government. The key resolution read:
Seizures, arrests, and raids against people, and trials of them, may only
be carried out by the government, supported by the Persatuan Perju¬
angan. 104 More specifically the meeting adopted a controversial motion
that all female captives of the social revolution’ should be handed over
to the TRI, that male captives should be concentrated at one camp
in Karoland, and that revolutionary leaders who had enriched themselves
with royal treasure should be brought to justice.105 As the Republican
information service in Medan later put it:
... at an opportune moment concerned elements happened to arise from

within the Persatuan Perjuangan and adopt a single aim—Support the Re¬
public in every field! . . . But for this arbitrary actions and excessively radical
social upheavals would certainly have continued to run riot.
There were now three types of authority in East Sumatra, the analysis
continued: the government; the Persatuan Perjuangan; and ‘wild shad¬
owy barisan'. The first two had resolved to work together, while the
third persisted in weakening unity by coups and provocations.106
Such statements represented an aspiration rather than a reality, but
they showed that the tide was turning against any continuation of un¬
controlled revolutionary action. The more radical revolutionaries sensed
this shift and attempted to consolidate their position before it was too
late. The absence of the major government leaders between 13 and 27
April in connexion with the Bukittinggi KNI meetings gave them
another opportunity. Dr Amir was appointed to his last and most pathetic
term as acting Governor, and Joenoes Nasution wasted no time in again
terrorizing him into supporting more radical measures.107 Amir however
was a broken reed, with no more influence to distribute. By 20 April
he was planning an escape from the ‘shooting and looting’ which he
saw all around him in his house near the Central Market in Medan.
He now sought protection not with republicans but with a guard sup¬
plied by the British. On 25 April he defected finally to the safety of the
British camp, whence he issued a despairing statement. ‘I see no chance
of achieving anything amidst this bandit band. . .. The country is sliding
towards chaos. There is not the least unity in Sumatra. The TRI is of
no account. There is not one instrument of authority.’108
More specifically, Dr Amir asserted that what he called a ‘hyper¬
extremist’ and ‘super-communist’ group led by Joenoes Nasution had
tried to lure him to Siantar and involve him in a coup against Mr Hasan.
It is not difficult to understand the alarm Dr Amir felt at any attempt
to remove him from his British escape route. The allegation that a coup
was being planned against Mr Hasan is however confirmed by other
sources. Joenoes and the leaders of erri had concentrated their activi¬
ties in Siantar following the strong verbal attack on erri by Amir
Sjarifuddin’s delegation. Only in Siantar could they count on the
support of their own pasukan, the Cap Rante, led by Logam (Waldemar
Marpaoeng) and largely composed of Toba Batak toughs. There
Joenoes Nasution and Nathar Zainuddin formed a five-man ‘National
Council’, evidently as a new revolutionary alternative to the Persatuan
Perjuangan leadership. There were rumours that this group planned
to kidnap Mr Hasan on his return from Bukittinggi.109
Hasan reached Siantar on 27 April, accompanied by the secretary
of the Republican Interior Ministry, Mr Hermani, who had remained
to help reorganize the Sumatra government after the ministers had
returned to Java. The two men were entertained to lunch by the senior
Republican official in Siantar, Urbanus Pardede, a close colleague of
Joenoes Nasution and the erri group. Instead of a meal Urbanus offered
his guests only a meagre rice patty, ‘to show how the masses were suf¬
fering’. At first he prevented them leaving, but after a period of con¬
fusion they were allowed to proceed to Medan without explanation.110
Apparently the plans for a coup had collapsed. Mutalib Moro had
been among those invited to join the move and had used his influence
with the Persatuan Perjuangan to avert it.111 Joenoes Nasution and six
of his supporters had been captured in Binjai on the night of 25 April.
The TRI and other pasukan had apparently been alerted to the plans
in Siantar in time to neutralize the Cap Rante. There was fighting be¬
tween the TRI and Cap Rante during the next few days, at the end
of which Col. Ahmad Tahir ‘arrested’ Urbanus Pardede for his role in
the affair. Madja Poerba was restored to office in Siantar, becoming the
only wakil pemerintah NRI to outlast the ‘social revolution’.112
Although all the leading actors in this bungled coup were communists,
it was scarcely a communist coup. Joenoes Nasution, his reputation
already damaged by too close an identification with the ‘social revolu¬
tion’, was expelled from the PKI ten days after his arrest.113 Some
reports suggest that Xarim M. S. was the candidate to replace Hasan
and that he and Luat. Siregar had been consulted earlier about the move,
while others assert that these two ‘moderate’ PKI leaders were to be
seized along with Hasan. The truth appears to be that there was acute
disunity and uncertainty within the PKI and even within its ‘extreme’
Joenoes/Nathar wing. The failure of the PKI leadership to impose a
clear strategy either of supporting the existing government or of over¬
throwing it ensured that the party lost ground steadily in the following
months.
The thrust of the ‘social revolution’ was now decisively over. In a
series of stinging articles in the Soeloeh Merdeka114 Arif Lubis denounced
erri—first in Abdulmadjid’s Marxist jargon as anarchosyndicalism and
a state within a state, then as corruption on a grand scale, and finally
as a Dutch provocation. Luat Siregar as Resident announced on 4 May
that erri was no longer an official body, and that licences and passes
would henceforth be issued directly by the government and its Economic
Board. At a more realistic level, the Persatuan Perjuangan asked its
branches a week later to liquidate all erri operations and take its economic
activities provisionally into their own hands.115 Arif Lubis’s fierce de¬
nunciations of corruption brought into the open suspicions about radical
leaders which had been growing since the ‘social revolution’ began.
Pseudo-leaders, he alleged, had come to power at the beginning of the
revolution when people could not tell them from the true variety. Now
you could see them by their luxurious cars and villas. Thousands of
yards of cloth, hundreds of tons of estate rubber, and even the vegetables
and rice of poor farmers had been seized without any return to estate
labourers, farmers, or the government. The attack was aimed primarily
at the ERRI group, but it hit a wider target. Mutual suspicions and
accusations of corruption would henceforth embitter the relations be¬
tween barisan and their leaders of every political colour.
1. Telegram from Dr A. K. Gani to Mr T. Hasan, Mr Luat Siregar, and Col.

A. Tahir, 13 May 1946, cited in Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 1-15 May 1946,
Bi.Z. 21/1. A slightly different wording is cited in N.I.B. IV, p. 392.
2. WIS 13, 14 January 1946, WO 172/9893. Dr Amir’s impressions of his
visit to Java were serialized in Soeloeh Merdeka and later published as Me-
lawat ke Djawa (Medan, 1946).
3. Soeloeh Merdeka, 18 January 1946, as translated in Appendix A of WIS

15, 28 January 1946, WO 172/9893. Dr Amir’s notes, 14 June 1946, RvO
I.C. 005968.
4. Soeloeh Merdeka, 16 January 1946; 22 and 25 February 1946; 2 March 1946.

Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 16-28 February, Bi.Z. 21/1.
5. Soeloeh Merdeka, 14 January 1946. H. Basrie, ‘Tentang pimpinan dan struk-

tur pemerintahan di Sumatera-Timur pada awal tahun 1946’ (typescript).
Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 1-15 January 1946, Bi.Z. 21/1. Interviews. Dr
Amir’s impressions of the Javanese rulers are in Melazvat keDjazua, pp. 23-9.
6. Interview Mahruzar, July 1972.
7. ANP Aneta I.D.D. 30 July 1946, p. 163. ‘Illegal export’, in The Economic
Review of Indonesia, I, no. 3 (March 1947), p. 37. Interviews.
8. Soeloeh Merdeka, 29 January and 2 March 1946.
9. Interview T. A. B. Husny. Tengku Amir Hamzah’s status as an active Re¬

publican has become an emotive issue because of the controversial decision
to declare him a ‘National Hero’ in 1975. His eminence lies outside politics,
but even in that sphere his memory is more than adequately served by the
truth.
10. Soeloeh Merdeka, 29 January 1946. Interviews.
11. Raliby, p. 73. Semangat Merdeka, 17 November 1945. Atjeh Sinbun, 17—v-
2605. The Dutch dismissed the Sultan of Siak as ‘an extremely weak figure’,
and claimed that he privately admitted having been effectively forced to
flee by the pemuda: Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 1-15 January and 16-31
January, 1946, Bi.Z. 21/1.
12. From Hasan’s policy statement in Soeloeh Merdeka, 23 January 1946.
14. Ibid., 2 February 1946.
15. Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 16-31 January 1946, p. 7, Bi.Z. 21/1.
16. Soeloeh Merdeka, 4 February 1946. Also Raliby, p. 578.
17. Soeloeh Merdeka, 4 February 1946. A rough English translation appears

in Appendix C to WIS 17, 9 February 1946, WO 172/9893.
18. Ibid.
19. Speeches of Tengku Hafas and Mr T. Mahadi in Soeloeh Merdeka, 17

February 1946. Interviews.
20. Soeloeh Merdeka, 17 February 1946. Danlat (or kedaulatan) rakyat means
the sovereignty of the people, while daulat Tuanku were the customary
Malay words of obeisance to royalty.
21. Mohammad Said, ‘What was the “Social Revolution of 1946” in East
Sumatra’, trans. B. Anderson and T. Siagian, Indonesia, 15 (1973), p. 170.
22. Interview Mr T. Hasan.
23. Mohammad Said, op. cit., pp. 172-3. Hamka, Kenang-kenangan hidup,
p. 243. Interviews.
24. Shortly before Amir’s defection to the Allied camp, his son wrote that
Joenoes ‘is the most influential man in the underworld, the father of the
extremists. Thus far he has listened to Father. How much longer?’ NEFIS
Document 1207 in ARA Archief Algemene Secretarie, Kist II, dossier 51.
While Amir was extremely bitter about Joenoes after his defection, Joenoes
was the only Indonesian interviewed by the writer who defended Amir’s
role in the revolution enthusiastically.
25. Soeloeh Merdeka, 17 and 18 January 1946.
26. Hasan Basrie, ‘Tentang Pimpinan’, p. 2.
27. Soeloeh Merdeka, 28 February 1946.
28. WIS 24, 30 March 1946, WO 172/9893; also N.I.B. IV, p. 20.
29. Soeloeh Merdeka, 26 March 1946.
30. Soeloeh Merdeka, 12, 16, 19, 23, 25, and 28 February 1946. WIS 18, p. 2,
and 19, p. 2; 16 and 23 February 1946, WO 172/9893. Verslag Noord-
Sumatra, 1-15 and 16-28 February 1946; Bi.Z. 21/1. Interviews.
31. Notably Mohammad Said, op. cit., p. 184 (Indonesian original in Merdeka 1
March 1972); interviews Mahruzar and Wahab Siregar. Most other sources
however simply attribute the action to the Persatuan Perjuangan leadership,
and assume as I have that the Markas Agung was dissolved in its favour.
The membership of the key group appears to be so similar to the Markas
Agung, apart from the natural addition of Saleh Oemar, that it makes little
difference what it was called. Two members of the inner group, Marzuki
Lubis (PNI) and Bachtiar Joenoes (MIT/Sabilillah), as well as its
influential adviser Xarim M. S., were absent with the Governor’s party
from 6 March. All three of them had been involved in discussions about
a possible coup against the rajas before they left. Interview Bachtiar Joe¬
noes; Nip Xarim’s recorded interview with Marzuki Lubis.
32. Both men were PKI members, though Bustami was the more politically
oriented. Amir Joesoef, ‘General chairman’ of bapper and erri, had like
Mahruzar established a metal workshop during the Japanese occupation,
and established a good relationship with pemuda by providing them with
parang and knives during the October fighting. Interview Mahruzar.
33. Soeloeh Merdeka, 5, 12, 18, 22, 26, and 28 February 1946. A lengthy but
vague account of bapper/erri is given in ibid., 19-21 March 1946, where
its basic principles are attributed to ‘our bapak Joenoes Nasution’.
34. Malik Munir (East Sumatra pesindo chairman) in Soeloeh Merdeka, 17

February 1946.
35. Luat Siregar in ibid. An example of Sukarno’s ill-defined emphasis on

‘national revolution and social revolution’ in January is in Raliby, pp. 176-8.
36. Berdjoeang, 25 February 1946, cited in Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 16-28

February 1946, Bi.Z. 21/1.
37. In addition to the Tanjung Balai and Siantar rallies noted below, 8,000
reportedly attended a Persatuan Perjuangan rally in Brastagi in early March,
opposing negotiations with the Dutch. Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 1-15
March 1946, Bi.Z. 21/1.
38. Soeloeh Merdeka, 22 February 1946. Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 16-28 Feb¬

ruary 1946, Bi.Z. 21/1. Interviews.
39. Soeloeh Merdeka, 27 February 1946. WIS 19, 23 February 1946, p. 5;

and WIS 20, 2 March 1946, p. 4; WO 172/9893. Tengku Luckman Sinar,
‘Revolusi Sosial’. Interviews.
40. Interviews.
41. Soeloeh Merdeka, 2, 5, and 6 March 1946. Interviews.
42. When challenged by masjumi representatives at a subsequent full meeting

of the Persatuan Perjuangan Sarwono replied, ‘Even though we tried to
keep it secret it leaked out; how much more if we had put it to a meeting.’
Interview Arsjad Thalif Lubis.
43. In a 1972 interview with Nip Xarim (taped), the late Marzuki Lubis (of
Markas Agung and Persatuan Perjuangan) specified the three motives in
the order suggested here, i.e. (1) to weaken potential support for the Dutch;
(2) to provide funds; (3) to increase popular support.
44. Interviews. Tk. Joesoef Aziddin, Revolutie antie Sociaal (Tanjung Balai,
1948), pp. 74-5.
45. Anthony Reid, The Indonesian National Revolution, 1945-1950 (Clayton,

Longman Australia, 1974), pp. 115-16.
46. Interviews.
47. Mohammad Said, ‘What was the “Social Revolution of 1946” pp. 183—6.
Information about the property seized is in an unpublished section of this
article, retained by its author. Joesoef Aziddin, pp. 72—4. WIS 21, 9 March
1946, p. 4, WO 172/9893. Interviews. The impression of Liddle that four
Simalungun rajas were killed on 3 March must originate from the fact that
two imprisoned rajas, Purba and Silimakota, were killed during the Dutch
offensive in 1947. William Liddle, Ethnicity, Party, and National Integra¬
tion : An Indonesian case study (New Haven, 1970), p. 54; and ‘Suku Sima¬
lungun: An ethnic group in search of representation’, Indonesia 3 (1967),
p. 11.
48. Joesoef Aziddin, pp. 61-3. Tengku Luckman Sinar, ‘Revolusi Sosial’. Hans
Post Politionele Actie, pp. 123—4. Soeloeh Merdeka, 13, 14, and 15 March
1946. Interviews. The 140 estimate is that of Aziddin, while Tengku Luck¬
man lists twenty-five names. A Dutch document of August 1947 stated
that Dr Mansur of Asahan lost 127 relatives in the ‘social revolution’, Bi.Z.
22/6. Some private estimates of killings in Asahan run as high as 1,200.
49. Soeloeh Merdeka, 10 APril 1946.
50. Ibid. Joesoef Aziddin, pp. 6-12. Interviews. A lurid account of the Sultan
of Kualuh’s death, apparently not far from the truth, appeared in the Lon¬
don News Chronicle, 4 May 1946. A Dutch report, ‘ De “ Sociale revolutie” ter
S.O.K.’, 16 March 1946, Bi.Z. 22/6, is poorly informed on all these events.
51. Tengku Luckman Sinar, ‘Revolusi Sosial’ and ‘Suatu Tengah Malam’
(typescripts).
52. Ibid. WIS 21, 9 March 1946, p. 3, WO 172/9893. Soeloeh Merdeka, 1

March 1946. Interviews.
53. A thinly fictionalized account of Dr Nainggolan’s personal tragedy makes

a poignant short story by Beb Vuyk—‘De laatste waardigheid’. Dr Nambela
[Nainggolan] hates the Dutch to whom he later offered his services in the
NST federal state; still more does he hate the Republicans who killed his
wife and daughter. Perhaps he hates himself. In an attempt at justification

he compulsively shows everyone a gruesome photograph of his murdered
family. Rob Nieuwenhuys (ed.), Orn nooit te vergeten: Nederlandse letter-
kunde over Indonesie van 1935 tot heden (Amsterdam, Querido 1974) DD
11-27. ’
54. Tengku Luckman Sinar, ‘Revolusi Sosial’ and ‘Suatu Tengah Malam’.
Rokyoto and D. A. R. Klana Putera, Penemuan pusara Pudjangga Amir
Hamzah, pp. 12-13. Interviews.
55. Interview Marnicus Hoetasoit (Deputy Chairman of East Sumatra Per-

satuan Perjuangan), 1969.
56. WIS 21, 9 March 1946, p. 8, WO 172/9893.
57. Ibid., and Soeloeh Merdeka, 1 March 1946.
58. Soeloeh Merdeka, 5 March 1946. Also reprinted in Raliby, p. 598. Two
days later Amir explained more fully the need for a ‘social revolution’ in
terms of the distortion which Dutch-supported feudalism in East Sumatra
had wrought on a society which was basically democratic elsewhere in the
island. Soeloeh Merdeka, 7 March 1946, partially reprinted in Raliby, p. 270.
59. Soeloeh Merdeka, 5 March 1946. Also Raliby, pp. 268-9.
60. Soeloeh Merdeka, 1, 8, and 20 March 1946. ‘De “Sociale Revolutie” ter
SOK’, 16 March 1946, in Bi.Z. 22/6.
61. Soeloeh Merdeka, 6 and 12 March 1946. Saidy-Hoesny, Kenangan Masa

(Medan, 1969), pp. 42-5. Interviews.
62. Soeloeh Merdeka, 9 and 21 March 1946. Interviews.
63. Soeloeh Merdeka, 13 March 1946. Penerangan no. 1 of Saranan Penerangan

TRI, Simalungun district, in 346/AGSU/geheim, ARA Archief Algemene
Secretarie, Kist II, dossier 51. Interviews.
64. Soeloeh Merdeka, 13 March 1946. Joesoef Aziddin, pp. 65—6. Interviews.
65. Joesoef Aziddin, p. 14; also p. 81.
66. Ibid., pp. 17-23. Typescript Tengku Luckman.
67. Soeloeh Merdeka, 13 March and 10 April 1946. As in other places a moder¬
ate intellectual, Dr Hidajat, had been named on 8 March as assistant to
Abdul Rahman. This Dr Hidajat apparently had no influence whatever,
and later complained bitterly to the Dutch at the orgy of plunder, of ‘bestial’
murder and so forth which the TALAPETA-based pesindo had carried out
in Labuhan Batu during the social revolution. ‘Relaas van Dr Hidajat over
de situatie in Zuid SOK’, Bi.Z. 22/6.
68. Soeloeh Merdeka, 5, 7, and 8 March 1946. Interviews.
69. Soeloeh Merdeka, 7 and 9 March 1946.
70. Soeloeh Merdeka, 12 and 13 March 1946. The masjumi statement is

reprinted in Raliby, pp. 274-5; and (in English) in Feith and Castles,
Indonesian Political Thinking, 1945-65 (Ithaca, 1970), pp. 56-7.
72. Soeloeh Merdeka, 1 March 1946. Interviews.
73. Soeloeh Merdeka, 12, 19, 20, and 21 March 1946, and 27 April 1946. WIS
23 and 24, 23 and 30 March 1946 respectively, WO 172/9893. Merdeka

(Jakarta), 1 June 1946. Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 1-15 April 1946, pp. 13-14;
16-30 April 1946, p. 9; Bi.Z. 21/1. Nathar Zainuddin had introduced errj
to Aceh on 10 March: Semangat Merdeka, 13 March 1946.
74. Soeloeh Merdeka, 26 April 1946.
76. Iman Marah 1947 typescript, p. 7.
77. The fullest indictments are ibid.; Mr Hermani in Merdeka, 1 June 1946;
and Arif Lubis in Soeloeh Merdeka, 29 April 1946.
78. Crane Brinton, The Anatomy of Revolution {London, Jonathan Cape, 1953),
p. 262.
79. The British, usually in close touch with Dr Amir and other leaders, com¬
mented on 9 March: ‘Considering the far-reaching changes which have taken
place . . . the scale of disturbances is surprisingly small, and the number
of persons murdered or killed ... a correspondingly small proportion.’
WIS 21, 9 March 1946, WO 172/9893. Dr Amir’s communiques had re¬
ported only two deaths at that point.
80. Tengku Luckman’s typescripts give seven names, including Datuk Djamil,
the Sultan’s powerful secretary; his brother; the jaksa (prosecutor); and
the P.I.L. commander. A letter from Dr Amir’s son, 20 April 1946, confirms
an impression from interviews that Amir insisted on the safety of his patron
the Sultan, but not of Datuk Djamil and the others whom he considered
had plotted to kill him (Amir) in September 1945. NEFIS Document
1207, ARA Archief Algemene Secretarie, Kist II, dossier 51.
81. The rape was sufficiently public to be known to the British two days later;
report appended to ‘De “Sociale Revolutie” ter SOK’, Bi.Z. 22/6. Tengku
Luckman, ‘Suatu Tengah Malam’, states that the women consented in
return for their father’s life. Also Inoue, Bapa Djanggut, p. 140. Interviews.
82. Tengku Luckman ‘Revolusi Sosial’. Rokyoto and D. A. R. Klana Putera,

pp. 12-14 and 22-8. Soeloeh Merdeka, 12 March 1945. Interviews.
84. Ibid., 14 March 1946. Interviews.
85. WIS 22, 16 March 1946, WO 172/9893. A number of informants stated

that they learned later (in April or May) that Joenoes Nasution had sent
groups of pemuda to intimidate Dr Amir by throwing stones on his roof,
climbing into a nearby tree wearing scary masks, and so on.
86. Soeloeh Merdeka, 15 and 16 March 1946. WIS 22, 16 March 1946, WO
172/9893.
87. Communique cited in Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 16-31 March 1946, Bi.Z.

21/1.
88. WIS 23, 23 March 1946, WO 172/9893.
90. Interviews.
92. Iman Marah typescript, p. 7.

-^3. WIS 24, 30 March 1946, and 25, 6 April 1946; Cable 26 Indian Div. to
ALFSEA 30 March 1946; all WO 172/9893.
94. Soeloeh Merdeka, 9 April 1946. Interview Mr T. M. Hasan.
95. Soeloeh Merdeka, 20 April 1946. Interviews.
96. The British believed Xarim s return to Medan was responsible for a
sudden halt to anti-British violence at the end of March WIS 24 30
March 1946, WO 172/9893.
97. Soeloeh Merdeka, 15 April 1946 listed resolutions to extend organizations

among workers and peasants; to intensify the training of cadres and the
Barisan Merah; to ‘deepen political consciousness among the people, to
participate in representative councils from the village to the city’; and to
make PKI branches conform to governmental administrative divisions.
Also Soeloeh Merdeka, 12 April 1946.
98. Soeloeh Merdeka, 14 March 1946. Manchester Guardian and The Times,
12 March 1946. Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 1-15 March 1946, Bi.Z. 21/1.
99. WIS 23, 23 March 1946, WO 172/9893. Verslag Noord-Sumatra 16-31

March 1946, Bi.Z. 21/1.
100. 10 April speech cited Rahby, p. 287. Also Soeloeh Merdeka, 10-12 April
1946.
101. \ an der Post to V an Bylandt, 24 April 1946, in Bi.Z. 22/6. Interviews.
102. N.I.B. IV, pp. 206—8. Republik Indonesia. Propinsi Sumatera Utara, pp.
103—7. Interviews.
103. Soeloeh Merdeka, 11 April 1946. Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 1-15 April

1946, Bi.Z. 21/1. Interviews.
104. Soeloeh Merdeka, 15 April 1946. Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 1-15 April

1946, Bi.Z. 21/1. The barisan represented were pesindo, Barisan Merah,
Sabilillah, napindo, Harimau Liar, Sarikat Nelayan, Partai Sosialis, and
parki (the Christian body, represented by Hoetasoit).
105. Interview Marnicus Hoetasoit, July 1972.
106. Soeloeh Merdeka, 3 May 1946. Also N.I.B. IV, p. 210.
107. Iman Marah typescript 1947, pp. 7-8. Interviews.
108. Dr Amir statement of 25 April 1946, in Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 16-30

April 1946, Bi.Z. 21/1. Also N.I.B. IV, pp. 177 and 209. On 20 April
Dutch intelligence had seized a letter from Amir’s son to a Dutch resident
of the Allied zone, apparently aimed at preparing the Dutch for Amir’s
defection: ‘if things go badly, then in 2 days we will be on the boat to
Europe’. NEFIS Document 1207 in ARA.
109. WIS 28, 27 April 1946, WO 172/9893. Iman Marah typescript 1947,
pp. 8-9; N.I.B. IV, p. 209.
110. Interview Mr T.M. Hasan, October 1970. Soeloeh Merdeka, 29 April 1946.
111. Interview Arsjad Thalif Lubis, 1969.
112. Iman Marah typescript 1947, p. 9. Interviews. N.I.B. IV, p. 209.
113. Interview M. Joenoes Nasution, 1969.
114. Soeloeh Merdeka, 29 and 30 April, 2, 4, and 7 May 1946. Arif Lubis’s pen
name was ‘Bang Djoko’.
115. Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 1—15 May 1946, Bi.Z. 21/1.

IX
PRINCES, POLITICIANS, AND

PEASANTS
The Sumatran revolution struck its participants as an autonomous force

with its own life and will, ‘heedless of us who created it’.1 Once it was
in full flight the individual had to ride it or be trampled under foot.
Only when it paused, astonished at its own force, did it appear possible
to direct it into some defined new path.
Even at the point when new and constructive possibilities appeared
to be open, neither the established nationalists from above nor the com¬
munists from below were strong or imaginative enough to turn them to
account. If we compare the north Sumatran case with Asian revolutions
which have been considered more successful, this is the most striking
distinction. In Vietnam and China communist parties had already devel¬
oped a recognized national leadership, a cadre system, and even a work¬
ing relationship with sections of the peasantry by the time their great
opportunity came in 1945. Even in Hyderabad, whose abortive revolution
of 1946-8 bears a superficial resemblance to the East Sumatran ex¬
perience, the communist party had been able to work among the peasants
of rural Telengana since 1940.2 Dutch and then Japanese repression had
given Sumatran communists no comparable opportunity to develop
party structure and discipline before they were suddenly confronted
with revolutionary opportunities of extraordinary scope. Individual
communists demonstrated remarkable imagination and leadership, but
the party they formed was almost as spontaneous and opportunistic
as the revolution of which it was part. The ability of the PKI to embody
a revolution from below was particularly damaged by the vulnerability
of its leaders to charges of corruption and soft living.
In other parts of Asia decolonization had been taken far enough by
the Japanese or the western colonial powers to arm a non-revolutionary
nationalist leadership with legitimacy, visibility, and a degree of control
over the bureaucracy and the military. Such advantages enabled Sukarno
and Hatta to stay on top of the revolutionary process in Java, riding
it in the direction of national rather than social revolution. They proved
ultimately too strong for the ill-organized communists in Java trying
PRINCES, POLITICIANS, AND PEASANTS 253
to ride in a different direction, as did the Indian Congress government

in Hyderabad and Aung San in relation to the Burmese communists.
The Japanese had not allowed a nationalist leadership of comparable
strength to develop in Sumatra.
1 he absence of a leadership to define the Sumatran revolution in
its own terms gave it an especially spontaneous character. In seeking
for explanations and analogies, Sumatrans themselves turned to the
french revolution rather than the Russian or Chinese. A small book
on the French revolution was produced by an Acehnese journalist in
March 1946, and the example was widely quoted to explain both reg¬
icide and the terror.3 The nemesis of Louis XVI was rendered into
traditional Acehnese verse form so that it could be read aloud in village
prayer-halls.4
There is more in the analogy than spontaneity and regicide. As Brinton
has pointed out,5 when the balance sheet is made for a revolution like
the French, one of the clearest consequences is likely to be the sweeping
away of anachronisms and local particularities. Among the incontrovert¬
ible consequences of 1789 were a metric system, a centralized pattern
of administration and education, a potent set of national myths and
symbols. The revolution in northern Sumatra made a similarly sharp
break with the diverse and fragmented past. The array of uleebalang,
imeum, sibayak, sultans, rajas, datuks, and raja urung was finally swept
away, along with the judicial system through which they had continued
to administer the customary adat of their diverse peoples.
Traditional and local claims to authority had to yield before the urgent
imperatives of nationalism. The enthusiasm of pemuda for the ideal of
national unity was intense, unsullied by practical experience of control
from Java. The more chaotic the situation in Sumatra became and the
more it was used in Dutch propaganda as evidence for lack of Republican
authority, the greater was the pemuda determination to support a national
identity. In June 1946 it was announced that Sumatra would adopt
the Javanese system of administrative grades, as ‘an indication that in
every respect Sumatra does not want to be separated from Java’.6 The
parallel hierarchies of the kerajaan on one side and the Dutch/Republican
Assistant-Residents and controleurs on the other now gave way to a
uniform administration of Resident, bupati, and camat. The reality of
a centralized administration was still many years in the future, but its
form was made possible by the ‘social revolutions’. The pergerakan had
finally triumphed over its old adversary, completing the process of
secularization begun by the Dutch and the Japanese.
This work of destruction, opening the way to a new Indonesian iden¬
tity and structure, can be considered characteristic of the revolution in
northern Sumatra and to some extent throughout Indonesia. The pro-
cess did not necessarily require peasant involvement. In many areas

the revolution was in fact carried through by urban or semi-militarized
youth, without opening any positive new horizons for the poor rural
majority.
For at least two peoples with whom we have dealt, the Acehnese
and the Karo Batak, we must however recognize a true social revolution
in which peasants were enthusiastically involved. For both these peoples
colonialism had been experienced as defeat and disaster, creating an
urgently felt need for a ‘non-western’ route to the modern world. In
each case the revolution offered peasants more than the remote ideals
of nationalism, socialism, or independence. These abstractions were
successfully married to older ideologies through which they could be
understood, and to a concrete peasant demand for land.
In the case of Aceh the ideology was Islam, which had always been
at the heart of Acehnese patriotism and since the 1930s also a route
to modernization. Once the ulama declared that defence of the Indo¬
nesian Republic was a holy war and a continuation of the righteous strug¬
gle of Teungku Chik di Tiro, there could be no doubt that popular
sympathy would be behind it. The uleebalang fell in the first instance
because a few of them had brazenly defied this popular mood. At least
in Pidie the anti-uleebalang cause offered the further promise of re¬
gaining land unjustly seized from peasant families and bringing the
ulama-led struggle against uleebalang oppression to a victorious con¬
clusion.
Famous reformist ulama had provided both inspiration and direct
leadership for this popular movement against the colonial order. Most
of those who rose to military and political authority in the revolution
had been part of the reformist enthusiasm of the 1930s, and they re¬
garded Daud Beureu’eh as a beloved father figure. ‘Those who strove
in the various parties, pesindo, PNI, Mujahidin, etc. were all linked to
pusa discipline. Therefore pusa herself did not need to act, she could
merely be proud.’7
Even Dutch reports conceded the orderliness and sense of purpose
in Aceh after its ‘social revolution’, which contrasted so sharply with
East Sumatra.8 This was the only Republican Residency which appeared
to offer no basis of support whatever for the Dutch-promoted counter¬
revolution, and it was given a wide berth in both the 1947 and 1949-50
Dutch offensives. Muhammad Radjab, the able Republican journalist
who toured Sumatra just before the first Dutch offensive, declared Aceh
by far the most orderly, well-administered Residency in Java and Su¬
matra. Only Malang in East Java could rival the cleanliness of Acehnese
towns. Once Acehnese got over their distrust of outsiders, he believed,
they would leave other Indonesians behind in the race for modernization.9
Such an opportunity did not arise. The dynamic of the local Acehnese
social revolution appeared incompatible with the drive to unity which
proved to be at the heart of the Indonesian national revolution as a
whole. The new class which had come to power in Aceh, Islamic-edu-
cated theologians and reformers, was too far removed in spirit from
the Dutch-educated urban professionals who led the nationalist move¬
ment elsewhere. Problems with the central government began to arise
in 1949, and by 1953 a full-scale rebellion had broken out with Daud
Beureu’eh at its head.
The Karo Batak had also been alienated from the colonial order, as
they showed in their aversion to Dutch-supported education and their
resentment of land alienation to western estates in the name of the
upstart Malay sultans. As we have seen, the aron movement in the Deli
and Langkat dusun where the land issue had been concentrated rep¬
resented a true peasant rebellion. Defeated in 1942, the Karos of the
dusun obtained their objectives in full through the ‘social revolution’
four years later. Malay kerajaan authority in the area was eliminated,
and with it the threat that land occupied by Karos would return to
the control of the estates or the sultans. As if to confirm this victory,
the frontier of Karo political authority was officially extended in June
1946, the dusun district of Pancur Batu being transferred for a time
from Deli-Serdang to Karoland kabupaten.10 The social stigma attached
to Karo identity was removed, and many who once preferred to pass
as Malays began proudly to declare themselves Karo.
On the Karo plateau itself the revolution was also welcomed enthusi¬
astically, from the moment the Karos provided the first setback for
British troops in November 1945. Destruction of the artificial authority
of sibayak and raja urung in the ‘social revolution’ was evidently a popu¬
lar move, linked as it was to a redistribution of the extensive new sawah
holdings some of them had acquired from their position. When the
Dutch launched their military offensive against East Sumatra in July
1947 they encountered the most sustained guerrilla resistance in Karo¬
land, where the civilian population had initially fled the coming of Dutch
troops. One Dutch war correspondent described Karoland as ‘practically
deserted’ on the troops’ arrival.11
The revolution had removed the artificial restraints which colonialism
had imposed on the modernization of Karo society. If the Karo had
rejected modern education in the Christian-colonial form in which it
had first been presented to them, they now hungered for it in its new
national colours:
When a schoolteacher in Lau Balang was considered lazy, although he

taught morning and evening and also anti-illiteracy classes in the afternoon,
because there was such a shortage of teachers, this teacher was taken into
the jungle by the villagers and tied to a tree, for three days according to their
intention although the wedana fortunately heard about it and released him.
Since then the teacher had to work very hard. . . . The Karo people pleaded
for more teachers to be sent.12
The Karo continued their remarkable economic drive as Indonesia’s

most successful commercial farmers, while the revolution for the first
time thrust them also into the forefront of the race to enter the new
educated elite.13
This popular enthusiasm did not solve the leadership problem, which
eventually gave as much anguish to Karoland as to the remainder of
East Sumatra. In July 1947 the Harimau Liar was able to conduct an
orgy of killing on a scale which exceeded the ‘social revolution’ itself. The
victims were now fellow Republicans fleeing the Dutch military action,
sometimes carrying loot from the palaces of the rajas which excited the
indignation or envy of less favoured pasukan. About 2,000 are thought
to have died in grisly massacres in Karoland and others in Simalungun
and Tapanuli.14 Yet even the terrorism of the Harimau Liar did not
alienate Karoland from the revolution. The Karo continued to give
their overwhelming support to the PNI, which embodied for them the
revolutionary cause, and they spearheaded the Republican move to
dissolve the Dutch-backed NST in early 1950.15
The revolution brought no comparable liberating or energizing in¬
fluence to the other peasant cultivators of East Sumatra. Javanese and
Toba Batak migrants cultivating former plantation land were no doubt
grateful to the revolution for preventing more than a very partial post¬
war restoration of plantation claims on land. Long-established Malay
and Simalungun cultivators were more likely to regard the radical move¬
ment culminating in the ‘social revolution’ as a time of anarchy and
humiliation. We have seen the ineffective attempts of Malays in Sunggal,
Langkat, and Labuhan Deli to defend their rajas. The Dutch were
later able to turn Malay and Simalungun resentment into support for
their own federalist policies, while the revolutionary parties—PNI and
PKI—never struck significant roots in these communities.16
Some of the negative effects of the East Sumatran ‘social revolution’
emerge more clearly in neighbouring North Tapanuli, uncomplicated
by the allegations of pro-Dutch treachery brought against the rajas of
East Sumatra or of ethnic prejudice brought against their pergerakan
opponents. At the level of the village (hula) Toba Batak adat had deter¬
mined which marga and even which family would be dominant. Dutch
colonial rule had as usual made the village headship (raja huta) into
an inflexible hereditary office, while also imposing an artificial adminis¬
trative unit, the negeri, above it.
The East Sumatran ‘social revolution’ spilled immediately into nearby

amosir island in Lake Toba, carried by some revolutionary pemuda
rom Karoland. 1 he negeri and village heads were arrested on 7 March,
but soon released after promising to bow to a more formal expression of
the people’s will.1? The political elite in the Tapanuli government and
NI responded by speeding arrangements for elections of headmen,
insisting that their social revolution was being conducted ‘in an orderly
fashion’.18 Unsatisfied, the Tapanuli pesindo staged a coup against
this elite on 23 April, arresting forty-four officials and party leaders
including the KNI chairman. The imprisoned officials were released
by the army two weeks later and it w'as the turn of the pesindo leader
to be arrested on 13 May, marking the defeat of the ‘social revolution’
in Tapanuli.19
Meanwhile the East Sumatran revolution had again spilled into parts
of Tapanuli. On 29 April four truckloads of armed Karo and Acehnese
pemuda descended on the remote Sidikalang area, where Karo, Acehnese,
and Toba settlers had long jostled each other and the original Dairi-
Batak population. The pemuda appear to have been sent by Persatuan
Perjuangan leaders in Medan to overthrow some wealthy or autocratic
officials. Their revolutionary motives were perceived as a challenge to
Toba official control of Sidikalang, however, and a small civil war devel¬
oped in May. The Toba settlers initially fled from the troubled area
en masse, but the intervention of the Tapanuli TRI division tipped the
scales against the Karo. When peace was finally restored on 14 June at
a ceremony attended by Governor Hasan and two Residents, 700 Karo
captives were released. The toll of dead was put at 300.20
Despite the apparent defeat of ‘social revolution’ in Tapanuli, the
turmoil had been sufficient to undermine the attractiveness of official
position in the countryside particularly in Samosir which experienced
a second ‘invasion’ of East Sumatran revolutionaries in May. The village
and negeri heads resigned in early May and many refused to be re¬
elected under any circumstances.21 Elections were eventually organized
to fill the gap, but it was widely recognized that the post-revolutionary
office-holders lacked the status of their predecessors, since they appeared
to draw their authority from electoral whim rather than immutable
adat,22
The Tapanuli establishment had more success than its East Sumatran
counterpart in portraying the social revolution’ as externally-inspired
and artificial. The dangers of spontaneous revolution in a multi-ethnic
rural society therefore emerge in clearer profile—both in the bitter ethnic
clashes of Sidikalang and the undermining of the self-regulating au¬
tonomy of the traditional village. The complexity of East Sumatra makes
a balance much more difficult to draw. For one thing, village and re-
gional autonomy had already been so undermined by the estates and

the money economy that the revolution may simply have represented
an overdue acknowledgement of control from above. The lack of direc¬
tion in East Sumatra following the ‘social revolution’ did however pro¬
vide ample opportunity for social disintegration and for clashes of an
increasingly ethnic character.
When the revolutionary tide had turned in April 1946, it had left
a very tangled pile of driftwood on the beach. The central government
appeared to have made its choice to retain a weak but conservative
governor. The major figures of both the government and the revolu¬
tionary parties had been compromised and discredited. Power tended
to devolve to younger men in immediate control of armed pasukan,
who could bring pressure to bear on government when required. The
PKI was not well prepared to compete in this field. A non-political
outsider was named in July 1946 to replace the corrupt communist
Resident of East Sumatra, Luat Siregar, reportedly after a Muslim
pasukan-leader had waved his pistol in front of Governor Hasan. The
rising influence of the PNI’s Saleh Oemar, one of the few political leaders
to retain an austere ‘revolutionary’ life-style, was marked by his appoint¬
ment as deputy Resident.23
The enormous booty of the ‘social revolution’ had wrought havoc
with many revolutionary reputations and sown suspicion among rival
pasukan and barisan. The political and military leaders who now enjoyed
the houses and cars of the overthrown rulers, and in some cases amassed
large bank accounts in Singapore, became contemptuously known as
the ‘new rich’ or the ‘new feudals’. Membership of many pasukan began
to be seen as a short cut to the good life rather than an act of patriotic
heroism.24 By contrast the living conditions of the bulk of plantation
labourers and peasants deteriorated steadily after the momentary im¬
provement of late 1945, accentuating their bitterness and cynicism to¬
wards leadership of any kind. In an unusually frank attack of February
1947, Saleh Oemar somewhat unfairly laid the blame at the door of
Governor Hasan:
How much rice has never been paid for in cloth or money ?... Ask the pea¬
sants themselves. How many government promises have not been fulfilled ?...
Shall we draw up a balance sheet. Whose children are offering their lives,
spilling their blood, offering sacrifices on every front? Enough, Governor;
Enough!25
This mood of hostility towards leadership old or new brought about

a diffusion of power among pasukan leaders—pemuda in their twenties
or early thirties. They had been able to fight the Dutch come-back
with remarkable unity of purpose in 1945, but there was insufficient
action to retain it through 1946 and 1947. Clashes frequently arose out
of personal rivalries, injured pride, and the contest for vital resources.
The more serious skirmishes developed into wider feuds, pitting pes-
indo against the TRI (in Binjai and Serdang in August 1946); napindo
against the TRI (Serdang in early 1947); napindo against pesindo
(Asahan and Serdang, early 1947), or Toba Batak units against the
rest.26
The most disturbing incident was the so-called ‘Logam affair’ of
March 1947 in Pematang Siantar, the seat of the Sumatran government.
Evidence of corruption against nine Sumatran military and civilian
leaders, including TRI Colonels Tahir and Soetjipto, was the pretext
for a virtual Toba Batak takeover of the city. Batak units from the
former Pasukan V and from Logam’s Cap Rante, at opposite ideological
extremes in early 1946, now acted in concert. The nine accused were
arrested, judged guilty, but then again released after the arrival of an
Acehnese battalion gave Governor Hasan greater leverage, at the cost
of continued ethnic mistrust.27
Revolutionary East Sumatra had become almost ungovernable. With
feuding young warlords everywhere and ‘deterioration in every field’28
it was hardly an advertisement for the Republic. All forces could unite
behind the ideal of complete independence and the remote Republican
government in Yogyakarta, but not behind its local representatives.
The ideals were rescued from the realities by the Dutch attack of 21
July 1947.
Hemmed inside their economically untenable urban enclaves, and
frustrated at the inconclusiveness of negotiations, Dutch policy-makers
had fallen victim to the illusion that the Republic would collapse
under the first military blows. East Sumatra was a prime target for
what they euphemistically called a ‘police action’, since it offered both
economic support from the estates and political support from the victims
of the ‘social revolution’. Before a cease-fire was accepted on 4 August
Dutch troops had occupied all the major towns from Tanjung Pura
in the north to 1 anjung Balai in the south. The Republican forces
presented little open resistance, directing their attention to preparing
a guerrilla struggle and to so-called ‘scorched-earth’ tactics which in¬
volved the destruction of the Chinese quarter of one town after another.
The Dutch action restored the unity of purpose of Republicans in
East Sumatra. The most irresponsible units fled to Tapanuli and South
Asahan where their internecine feuds continued on different soil. Within
the occupied area the real enemy had returned and with it the cause
of liberation. The Dutch faced tougher guerrilla opposition in the month
after the cease-fire than before it, and dozens of prominent collaborators
were killed in the same period.29 Very few leading Republicans ac-
cepted Dutch invitations to co-operate. The Dutch-backed counter¬

revolution had to rely on the conservative aristocrats against whom the
‘social revolution’ had been directed.
It was the great moment for the westernized Malay elite who had
formed the Persatuan Sumatera Timur in 1938 and inspired various
subsequent attempts to resist the advances of the pergerakan. Embittered
by the ‘social revolution’, they were now determined to reassert Malay
and Simalungun ethnic interests through Dutch support. A committee
was immediately formed to demand autonomy for East Sumatra, outside
the Republic, and this gradually expanded to become the provisional
council of the Dutch-supported State of East Sumatra (NST). Twelve of
the original committee members were Malay or Simalungun aristocrats
who had lost many relatives in the ‘social revolution’. The thirteenth
was the pre-‘social revolution’ administrator of Karoland, Ngeradjai
Meliala. The committee’s manifesto denounced the way in which after
the ‘social revolution’, ‘All representatives of the autochthonous popu¬
lation were systematically removed from leading positions. In the Malay
part of this province there was not one important government official
of Malay origin.’30
The situation was reversed in the state of East Sumatra, with Dr
Tengku Mansur as head of state. The NST survived longer than most of
the Dutch-supported federal states, from January 1948 to August 1950.
Its only substantial popular backing came however from the minority
Malay and Simalungun communities, despite constant Dutch pressure
to include ‘moderate’ Javanese and Toba Bataks, or even Karos, in its
leadership. It was the educated Malay aristocrats of NST themselves
who turned their backs on any attempt to legitimize their regime at
the polls.31
Despite the propaganda value of denouncing the ‘social revolution’,
the NST showed remarkably little interest in restoring the overthrown
monarchs of East Sumatra. A decision on the status of the rajas was
officially postponed until the people had expressed themselves in an
election. The election was never held, and the NST council continued
to exercise all former kerajaan powers.32 Death and defection had made
it easier for the Dutch to repudiate their treaty obligations, and the
Malay elite their celebrated loyalty. The old sultans of Deli, Serdang,
and Langkat had all died in the period 1945-8, while the Sultan of
Kualuh had been killed and Siak had become the ‘revolutionary sultan’.
The young and easy-going Sultan of Asahan was the only Long Contract
ruler to survive from his pre-war time of splendour. It fell to the out¬
spokenly pro-Dutch Sultan Osman of Deli, enthroned in 1945, to lead
the demand for royal rights. He took his case to Batavia, to Malaya,
and finally to Queen Juliana in Holland, yet it fell on deaf ears. Dutch
federal strategy had made generous provision for the petty kingdoms
of Borneo and eastern Indonesia, but there was to be no place for the
once opulent sultans of Sumatra.
We have seen how impatient Dutch officials were already growing
in the 1930s of the indulgent Malay autocracy on which they had once
relied. Even before the war the kerajaan had ceased to be credible as a
system of government for such an important and complex part of the
empire, and was valued primarily as a counterweight to nationalism.
Japanese and revolutionary assaults had severely damaged the rulers’
remaining mystique. Dutch calculations in 1947 were that the rajas were
a liability in the quest for a progressive, popular image for the NST.
Dr Mansur’s educated Malay colleagues of the PST/NST were in
a still more ambiguous position, analogous to that being faced by Dato
Onn at the same period in Malaya. The sultans had proved unworthy.
Their outrageous pretensions and arbitrary behaviour were difficult
for these Dutch-educated aristocrats either to appreciate or to defend.
They seemed now to be saying what they had been unable to say in
1938, that Malay interests would be better served by a modern leadership
defined by education rather than by birth alone.
The NST leaders resolved this dilemma in a different way from their
Malayan counterparts, by cautiously jettisoning the sultans. They there¬
by revealed the nakedness of their own position. In a contest for electoral
following, charismatic gifts, or even modern education, Dr Mansur
and his colleagues could not match their Republican rivals. Their Malay
and Simalungun supporters were heavily outnumbered by groups to
whom they had minimal appeal. Some NST leaders would have liked
to solve this problem, as they had in the PST of 1938, by an electoral
procedure which excluded ‘non-autochthonous’ ethnic groups. This
was anathema to the Dutch, playing for higher Indonesia-wide stakes,
as it was for the Republic. The Dutch had hoped the NST would
present an orderly, progressive, and perhaps even democratic alternative
to the Republic; their East Sumatran allies saw it above all as a bulwark
for their own ethnic interests.
In post-wrar Malaya there had also been western-educated aristocrats
who believed their sultans had so outrageously betrayed Malay interests
that they must be removed. More adept politicians had however been
able to devise a means to mobilize the charisma of the sultans while
transferring effective power to more modern men. In this way Dato
Onn bin Ja’afar had been able not only to defeat British schemes for
Malayan Union, but also to fashion in umno one of South-East Asia’s
most effective political parties, linking westernized aristocratic leader¬
ship with mass peasant support.33
The obstacles to Dr Mansur’s following a similar course were ad-
mittedly overwhelming. The Indonesian pergerakan, with its strong

Islamic modernist component, was a more formidable opponent than the
divided, predominantly Chinese, Malayan Left. Moreover the Malayan
sultans had been better prepared for a role as constitutional monarchs
by the British Resident system; their prestige had not been sapped by
such flamboyant excesses in the 1930s nor by such humiliation at the
hands of the revolution. These differences made it virtually certain that a
modern Indonesia of any colour would find no place for Malay monarchy.
Nevertheless, at the ending of the Muslim fast in 1948 the Sultan
of Deli received crowds of well-wishers, while the head of the NST,
Dr Mansur, received very few. Even such staunch Republicans as Adi-
negoro expressed the view that a restoration of the kerajaan would have
been preferable to the NST.34 For all their faults, the sultans represented
continuity, charisma, and a symbolic device which could have been
used (though it seldom was) to transcend ethnic and factional politics.
The rulers had competed on the same symbolic and mystical level oc¬
cupied by the new Republic itself—and they had lost. The defeat of
the rajas in 1946 proved to be a permanent break with the East Sumatran
past.
Local Republican leaders had proved unable to govern East Sumatra
effectively. So did the NST, which began to disintegrate as soon as
the promise of Dutch military support was withdrawn. The divided
allegiances of this complex region could achieve no balance except within
a broader context. East Sumatra had been one of the crucibles of In¬
donesian nationalism, and Indonesian nationalism had eventually to
reclaim it. In 1950 it was merged with Tapanuli in a larger province
of North Sumatra, where it has remained.
Aceh too was thrust unwillingly into the larger province, but did
not stay there long. Once again diplomacy failed to bridge the gap be¬
tween Jakarta and Aceh. Once again Aceh had to be conquered by
force, its revolutionary dynamic counted as a millstone rather than a
motor to modernization. Troops of the Indonesian Republic ensured
the eventual reintegration of Aceh as a ‘special region’ of Indonesia
in 1959, though on a less enthusiastic popular basis than in 1945.
This study has outlined the path of a number of Sumatran societies
into the modern world through a major revolutionary upheaval. Rev¬
olution affected each society differently, though its overall effect may
be dimly discerned by analogy with non-revolutionary Malaya/Malaysia.
Any such comparison must be intensely cautious, bearing in mind that
we are too close to the revolution to understand its fundamental social
significance. As a reading of Barrington Moore’s Social Origins of Dicta¬
torship and Democracy quickly shows, what appears to be gain in one
period may seem a loss in the next; an opportunity seized by one genera-
tion may loom as an obstacle to its successor.
Our Sumatran societies all broke more sharply with their past than
did Malaya. Traditional restraint and enforced respect gave way before
the astonishing new confidence of youth. Ancient, privileged dynasties
were torn down, regional particularities glossed over, old loyalties swept
away. The way to the future was sought through heroic myths of unity
and struggle rather than through the channelling of traditional group
loyalties. Many of the new forces unleashed by the revolution were diffi¬
cult for a large new multi-ethnic state to absorb. Sumatra became harder
to govern than Malaya, with more frequent resort to force at the local
level, until direction passed altogether to the military whose specializa¬
tion it was. Revolutionary idealism turned sour or was exchanged for a
safer path of accommodation. One ideal remains formidable—that of
an independent, united Indonesia, master of its own destiny.
1. Mochtar Lubis, A Road with no End, trans. A. H. Johns (London, 1968),

p. 97.
2. Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and

Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (London, Penguin, 1973), pp.
380-2. C. M. Elliott, ‘Decline of a Patrimonial Regime: The Telengana
Rebellion in India, 1946—51’, JAS, 34, Part 1 (November 1974), pp. 27-47.
3. Osman Raliby, Repoloesi Perantjis, advertised in Soeloeh Merdeka, 15 March

1946. See also Revolusi Desember ’45 di Atjeh, and Mohammad Said/ What
was the “Social Revolution of 1946” ’, Indonesia, 15, p. 174.
4. Abdullah Arif, Seumangat Atjeh, 5 (Kutaraja, n.d.).
5. Crane Brinton, The Anatomy of Revolution, pp. 265-7.
6. Mr Hermani, on his return from touring Sumatra, in Merdeka, 1 June 1946.
7. Mutyara in Semangat Merdeka, 21 September 1947, cited in Overzicht

Noord-Sumatra, 16 September-15 October 1947, Bi.Z. 21/2.
8. Overzicht Noord-Sumatra, 1-15 September 1946, pp. 8-9 and 1-15 May
1947, p. 10; Bi.Z. 21/2 and 21/3 respectively.
9. Muhammad Radjab, Tjatatan di Sumatera (Jakarta, 1949), pp. 47-50.
10. Overzicht Noord-Sumatra, 1-15 July 1946, pp. 2-3, Bi.Z. 21/2.
11. Hans Post, Bandjir over Noord-Sumatra, Deel III: Bedwongen Bandjir
(Medan, 1948), p. 41. See also Masri Singarimbun, Kinship, Descent, and
Alliance among the Karo Batak (Berkeley, California, 1975), pp. 28-9.
12. Muhammad Radjab, Tjatatan, p. 24.
13. Masri Singarimbun, pp. 11-12. D. H. Penny and Masri Singarimbun,

‘Economic Activity among the Karo Batak of Indonesia’, Bulletin of In¬
donesian Economic Studies, 6 (1967), pp. 31-65.
14. Security Council Records 1947, Special Supplement 4, Report of the Con-
sular Commission, 22 October 1947, p. 58. Machmud report on Japanese

in Sumatra, 1948, p. 12, CMI Document 5590 in ARA Archief Algemene
Secretarie 368. Rapport Recomba Noord-Sumatra, 1-15 September 1947,
pp. 1-6, Bi.Z. 21/4. Interviews.
15. Republik Indonesia. Propinsi Sumatera Utara, pp. 344-5. Masri Singarim-
bun, pp. 28-9.
16. Interviews. R. W. Liddle, Ethnicity, Party, and National Integration, pp.

78-92, 98-120 and 190-9.
17. Soeloeh Merdeka, 8 March 1946. Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 1-15 March

1946, pp. 14-15, Bi.Z. 21/1.
18. Soeloeh Merdeka, 14 March 1946. Also Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 16-31

March 1946, pp. 16 and 18, Bi.Z. 21/1.
19. Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 16-30 April 1946, pp. 12-14, and 1-15 May 1946,
p. 12 and appendix, Bi.Z. 21/1. M. Kadiran, Perdjuangan Corps Mobil
Brigade (typescript, n.d.), pp. 12-13.
20. Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 1-15 and 16-31 May 1946, pp. 11 and 11-14
respectively, Bi.Z. 21/1. Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 1-15 and 16-30 June,
pp. 10-11 and 14-15 respectively, Bi.Z. 21/2. M. Kadiran, pp. 11-12. N.I.B.
IV, p. 398. Interviews.
21. Verslag Noord-Sumatra, 16-31 May 1946, p. 14 and 1-15 June 1946, pp.
12-13; Bi.Z. 21/1 and 21/2 respectively.
22. Edward M. Bruner, in Local, Ethnic and National Loyalties in Village In¬
donesia, ed. G. W. Skinner (New Haven, 1959), p. 60. Lance Castles, ‘In¬
ternecine Conflict in Tapanuli’, RIMA, 8, no. 1 (January-June 1974), pp.
75-6.
23. Overzicht Noord-Sumatra, 1-15 July, pp. 7-8; 16-31 July, p. 3; and 16
September-15 October 1946, pp. 2-3; Bi.Z. 21/2. N.I.B. IV, p. 397. In¬
terviews. Republican investigations in Singapore in 1947 had shown Luat
Siregar and Juned Ali to have a balance of Straits $1,761,000 with the Bank
of India in Singapore; ‘Korte levensbeschrijving van Mr Luat Siregar’, in
ARA Archief Procureur-Generaal, no. 627.
24. See especially Muhammad Radjab, Tjatatan, pp. 18-35; Iman Marah 1947
typescript, pp. 7-9; Dr A. K. Gani to Mr Utoyo, 7 October 1947, CMI
Document 5504 in ARA Archief Algemene Secretarie no. 365-7.
25. Cited from Soeara Oemoem, 7-12 February 1947, in Iman Marah, p. 14.
26. Iman Marah, pp. 9-20, describes these incidents in some detail.
27. Ibid., pp. 15-17. Overzicht Noord-Sumatra, 1-15 and 16-31 March 1947,
pp. 3 and 3-5 respectively; 1-15 and 16-31 May 1947, pp. 1-3 and 2-3
respectively: Bi.Z. 21/3.
28. Muhammad Radjab, Tjatatan, p. 30.
29. Hans Post, Bedwongen Bandjir, pp. 20-46 and 106-11. Rapport Recomba
Noord-Sumatra (Van de Velde), August 1947 and 1st half September 1947,
Bi.Z. 21/4. For the transfer of East Sumatran feuds to Tapanuli see Castles,
‘Internecine conflict’, pp. 76-80.
30. Address by Committee for a Daerah Istimewa Sumatera Timur, 17 August

1947, in ANP Aneta, I.D.D. 1947, 18 August 1947, pp. 364-5. Also Negara
Soematera Timoer Sepintas Laloe (Medan, 1948), p. 4.
31. Dutch alarm at this defensive trend is evident in Van de Velde to Van
Mook, 27 February 1948, Bi.Z. 22/6.
32. N.S.T. Sepintas Laloe, p. 13.
33. See especially James de V. Allen, The Malayan Union (New Haven, Yale
S.E. Asia monograph, 1967), pp. 33-6, 41-2, and 66-9.
34. Van de Velde to Beel, 18 December 1948, Bi.Z. 22/6.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
A NOTE ON SOURCES
Any study which attempts to do justice to the ‘three periods’ of modern

Indonesian history must be prepared to shop widely for sources. For
the Dutch colonial period there are admirable archives and good collec¬
tions of Indonesian newspapers. Dutch and British archives also provide
intelligence reports for the Japanese and revolutionary periods, but
they are disappointingly blind to the most vital revolutionary develop¬
ments. Few Japanese documents of substance have yet come to light in
the archives of the Self-Defence Agency in Tokyo beyond those already
published (below under Benda and Reid). For these periods one must
rely mainly on such newspaper collections as exist (often in private
hands) and on the written or verbal recollections of participants. For¬
tunately an increasing number of Indonesian and Japanese participants
in these events have written memoirs or histories, most of them available
only in stencil or typescript. My own interviews ranged more widely
but seldom as deeply. A list of those interviewed is included with the
acknowledgements at the beginning of this book, where it belongs.
ARCHIVAL SOURCES
1. Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken (Bi.Z.), The Hague.

The colonial archive of the Ministry of Internal Affairs now houses
most of the twentieth-century Netherlands Indian despatches sent
to Holland. The holdings fall into two basic categories:
A: Pre-war Despatches (mailrapporten) from Batavia to The Hague,
enclosing a great variety of local reports and correspondence.
The two most important single categories for this study were
i) the Memories van Overgave (MvO) written by each Governor
(after 1938 Resident) of Aceh and East Sumatra at the end of
his term; and ii) the periodic police reports (Politiek Verslag)
on political developments in each of these provinces.
B: Post-war reportage on Indonesian political developments. The
file consulted (22/1 to 22/6) was primarily in the form of half¬
monthly intelligence reports on northern Sumatra, drawn up
in Medan. It covered the period December 1945-December
1948.
270 BIBLIOGRAPHY
2. Rijksinstituut voor de Tropen, Amsterdam.

The library of this Institute houses many Memories van Overgave
of Dutch Assistant-Residents and Controleurs in typescript. Unfor¬
tunately those sections dealing with ‘politics’, including any negative
comments on the rajas, have been cut out.
3. Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie (RvO), Amsterdam.

The Indisch Collectie (I.C.) of this Institute possesses numerous
documents on the Japanese occupation, the most valuable being
interrogations of Japanese officers after the war.
4. Algemeen Rijksarchief (ARA), The Hague.

In 1949 some records of the Algemene Secretarie and the Procureur-
Generaal’s Department in Batavia, for the period 1946-9, were
shipped to Holland and are housed separately from the Despatches
originally destined for The Hague (see above).
5. Public Record Office, London.

The records of the British War Office (WO) include material on
both Allied planning for Sumatra during the war, and the Allied
Military Administration of Sumatra in 1945-6.
INDONESIAN NEWSPAPERS AND JOURNALS
The best collection is in the Library of the Museum, Jakarta, though

even this is patchy before 1941 and wholly inadequate thereafter. Some
Dutch libraries have spasmodic runs, and there are various private
collections. The dates given below are those for which the periodical
was consulted.
Aneka Minggu (2x week, Medan), 1970.
Asia Raya (daily, Jakarta), 2602-3 [1942-3].
Atjeh Sinbun (2x, later 3x or 5x week, Kutaraja), 2603-5 [1943-5].
Benih Merdeka (daily, Medan), 1918-19.
Gema Bukit Barisan (monthly, Medan), 1970-1.
Hindia Sepakat (Sibolga), 1920-1.
Kita-Sumatora-Sinbun [K-S-S] (daily, Medan), 2603-5 [1943-5].
Merdeka (daily, Jakarta), 1946 and 1972.
Overzicht van de Inlandsche en Maleisch-Chineesche Pers (monthly, Ja¬
karta), 1930-41.
Pandji Islam (weekly, Medan), 1939-42.
Penjedar (weekly, Medan), 1938-41.
Penjoeloeh (monthly, Bireuen/Medan), 1940-1.
Pewarta Deli (daily, Medan), 1945.
Semangat Merdeka (daily, Kutaraja), 1945-6.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 271
Seruan Kita (weekly, Medan), 1939-40.
Sinar (weekly, Medan), 1940.
Sinar Darrussalam (monthly, Kutaraja), 1968-74.
Soeara Atjeh (monthly, Sigli), 1930.
Soeloeh Merdeka (daily, Medan), 1945-6.
Soematera-Timoer (Medan), 1939.
Sumatra Sinbun (daily, Medan) 2602-3 [1942-3],
TYPESCRIPT AND STENCILLED RECOLLECTIONS
Aoki Eigoro, Achie no Minzoku-undo. Mimeograph (Kyoto?), 1955.

A typescript English summary is also held by the Wason collection
of Cornell University.
Basrie, Hasan, Tentang pimpinan dan struktur pemerintahan di Su-
matera-Timur pada awal tahun 1946. prima typescript, Medan,
n.d.
Djamil, Joenoes, Riwajat Barisan ‘F* (Fudjiwara Kikan) di Atjeh.
Stencil issued by plpis, Banda Aceh, 1975, from 1943 original.
Djusni, M. K., Selajang pandang kenang-kenangan repolusi di Kota
Medan, prima typescript, Medan, n.d.
General Agricultural Condition of Simeloengoen, The. Pematang
Siantar, stencil issued by Gunseibu-Kezaibu, 2602 [1942].
Kadiran, M., Perdjuangan Corps Mobile Brigade. Typescript, n.d.
Lubis, M. Sjarif, Mengenang perlawanan rakjat di Tanah Karo pada
permulaan revolusi pisik. prima typescript, Medan, n.d.
Maeda, Memoir Maeda Chui. Typescript, n.d.
Marah, iman, Untitled typescript describing internecine conflict in
East Sumatra, ‘probably’ by PESiNDO-leader Iman Marah. Bukit-
tinggi, December 1947. Held as CMI document 5331 in ARA Archief
Procureur-Generaal, no. 627.
Polim, T. M. A. panglima, Memoir (Tjatatan). Stencil, Kutaraja, 1972.
prima [Pejuang Republik Indonesia Medan Area], Arsip Sedjarah.
2 vols., Medan, 1972.
-Kisah tahun pertama di Kota Medan, n.d.
- Pembunuhan massal di Tebing Tinggi, n.d.
Siegel, James, Typescript notes of interviews with Husein Sab, Has-
ballah Daud, and Ismail Jakoeb.
Sinar, Tengku Luckman, Revolusi Sosial di Deli. Typescript, Medan
[1972?].
- Suatu Tengah Malam Berdarah, dimana dinasti2 berguguran.
Typescript, Medan [1973].
Soeyatno, Sejarah sosial masyarakat Sibreh Aceh Besar. plpis type¬
script, Banda Aceh, 1974.
272 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ushiyama Mitsuo, Hokubu Sumatora Shusen Noki. Mimeograph, n.d.
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■
INDEX
References in bold type are to more extensive biographical data.
Abbas, Mr Abdul, 139, 141 68, 82n.l07, 102n.35, 109, 123,

Abu Bakar, Said, xii, 85, 86-8, 89, 136, 140-1, 144-5n.46, 148, 152-3,
90, 94, 95, lOOn.lO, 101n.21, 102n. 159, 160, 21 In.9; as Acting Gov¬
42, 113, 118, 127-8, 129-30, 134, ernor of Sumatra, 218-19, 244-6,
146n.69, 209 229,233-5, 237, 239-40, 244, 245-
Aceh, 4-5, 7-37, 85, 87-90, 94-6, 6n.2, 246n.5, 247n.24, 249n.58,
106-30, 134-9, 141, 185-211, 254- 250n.79,80&85, 251n.l08
5 Aoki Eigoro, xiii, 127-30, 185, 214n.
Aceh Besar (Aceh Proper), 7, 25, 60
29, 34n.45, 37n.84, 87-8, 90, API, 188, 189
100n.l5, 137, 205, 206-7, 209-10 Arif, Teuku Njak, 19, 34n.45, 37n.84,
Aceh-Dutch War (1873-1913), 4-5, 88-9, 90, 109-10, 114, 121, 135,
7-10, 31n.4, 98n.l5, 109, 190 138, 139, 141, 186-7, 188-92,
Acehnese, in East Sumatra, 43, 176, 194, 197, 199, 206, 209-10, 211n.9,
225, 257, 259; in Malaya, 9, 85-7 212n.25, 214n.59, 266
Adachi Takashi, Captain, xiii, 127, Aristocracy: Acehnese, see Ulee-
185-6, 207, 21 In.4 balang\ Malay, 45-6, 51-3, 68-70,
Adinegoro, Djamaluddin, 59, 67, 5n.l8&20, 76n.38, 122, 232-3,
79n.68, 93, 108, 109, 114, 135, 260-1; Simalungun, 53-4, 69, 260
139-40, 144n.46, 178n.l3, 218, Arms and ammunition, 153, 154-5,
262 165-9, 192-5, 196, 197-9, 201-4,
Ahmad, Djohan, 28, 214n.53 213n.38, 220, 247n.32
Ahmadiah Movement, 23, 64 Arnhemia (Pancur Batu), 66, 72-3,
Aken, A. Ph. van, Governor of Aceh, 81n.96, 97-8
1932-1936: quoted, 8, 13, 14, 18 Aron movement (1942), 73, 83n.l20,
Alamsjah, Sultan Noer, 66, 228 96-8, 107, 109, 123, 131, 164-5,
Allied Forces, 115-16, 132-3, 135, 228; see also setia
149-52, 187-8, 191-2; pro-Allied Asahan, 2-3, 5n.3, 49-50, 51, 62,
activity, 127, 132, 154-5, 196; 69, 115, 117, 123, 133, 156, 170,
see also British 219, 221, 226, 229, 231-2, 239,
Almujahid, Teungku Amir Hoesain, 240, 248n.48, 259; Sultan of
xii, 26, 35n.67, 35n.69, 85, 95, (Saiboen), 50, 69, 76n.34, 82n.l07,
111, 134, 189, 192, 206, 207-10, 107, 172, 229, 232, 260
216n.89 As-Siddiqy, Teungku Mohammad
Aly, Hasan, xii, 26, 28, 37n.83, Hasbi, xiii, 26, 113, 114, 130, 139,
196, 198-9, 202, 205, 206, 214n.53 209
Ambonese, 151, 159-60, 191 Atjeh-moord (Acehnese murder), 11,
Amelz, xiii, 37n.87, 108-9 124
Americans, 41-2, 116, 119, 134-5; Atjeh Sinbun, 108, 127, 136, 137, 186,
in Sumatra, 38 187, 189; quoted, 128, 129, 130,
Amin, Mr S. M., xiii, 205; quoted, 135
186, 211 Azis, Tuanku Abdul, 110, 113,
Amin, T. M., xii, 25, 89, 95, 113, 138-9
134, 193
Amir, Dr Mohammad, 75n.20, 79n. Bahrioen, Mr Tengku, 69, 177
280 INDEX
Bakongan Revolt (1924-1927), 10, 20 Chinese, 4, 35n.67, 124, 159, 220;

Bambi (statelet in Pidie), 35n.60; in East Sumatra, 38, 40-3, 47,
Uleebalang of (T. Muda Dalam), 58, 62-3, 72, 75n.l6, 91, 101n.30,
32-3n.26, 35n.59 162-3, 237, 259; in Aceh, 4, 6n.7,
Bangun, Koda, 97, 123, 182n.87 35n.63, 126, 186, 192; guerrillas
Barisan Harimau Liar, 133, 175, in Malaya, 116, 132, 154-5
177, 182n.87-8, 221, 229-31,251n. Christianity, 50, 54-7, 68, 78n.60,
104, 256 131, 251n.l04; see also Toba Batak
Barisan Naga Terbang, 133, 175 Christison, Gen. Sir Philip, 156,
Batubara, 49, 50, 236 158, 167
Batu Karang, 58, 97, 182n.87 Chud Sangi In, xvii, 139-40
Bedagai, 76n.36, 144n.42 Churchill, Sir Winston, 116
Bedjo, 182n.84 Comite Indonesia, in 1942, 91-2, 120
Belawan, 60, 124, 151, 158, 167, 168 Comite van Ontvangst, 150, 152, 230
Berdjoeang, 176, 222, 228 Corruption, 13-14, 27-8, 33n.26,
Beureu’eh, Teungku Mohammad 45-6, 52, 73, 75n.l8, 125, 220,
Daud, xii, 23-4, 25, 26, 30, 37n.88, 238, 243, 245, 252, 258.9, 264n.23
89, 95, 101n.23, 113-14, 127, Corvee labour ([herendienst): under
130, 135, 138, 139, 190, 193, 197, Dutch, 9-10, 31n.7, 47, 53, 54,
201-2, 203, 205, 210, 254-5; his 72, 87; under Japanese, 117, 120,
son, see Daud, Hasballah 125-6, 137
Bilah, statelet in Labuhan Batu, Cumbok: Uleebalang of (T. Moham¬
50, 142n.3, 222, 236 mad Daud), 192, 195-6, 200-4,
Binjai, 58, 66, 81n.96&98, 111, 205, 213n.46; ‘Cumbok war’,
158, 233, 235, 237, 239, 244, 259 200-5, 216n.84
Bireuen, 21, 25, 27, 36n.69, 36n.71, Cunda, Teuku Ibrahim, 208; Ulee¬
137, 193, 201-3 balang of Cunda, see Said
Boedjang, Teuku Rhi, 17-19, 33n.39
bompa, xiv, 122-4, 150, 152, 153-4, Daud, Hasballah, 193, 198, 201-2,
155, 156 207
BPI (Badan Pemuda Indonesia), Daudsjah, Teuku Chik Mohammad,
155-6, 163-5; in Aceh, 187-8, 135, 206, 208, 216n.89, 266, 267
189-90, 214n.53; see also PRI Deli, 3-4, 32n.l8, 38-40, 43-8, 60,
Brastagi, 158, 161-2, 167, 230, 239, 69, 70-3, 76n.36, 78n.66, 82n.ll2,
247n.37 97-8, 131, 144n.42, 171-2, 219,
British, 38, 119; wartime strategy, 233, 235; Sultan of (Osman I),
115-16, 151; Military Adminis¬ 144n.42; (Amaloedin), 45-6, 49,
tration of Sumatra, 151, 156-7, 72, 75n.l7, 123, 142n.47, 151, 157,
158-61, 164, 167-70, 172, 177, 179n.30; (Osman II), see Otteman
187, 191-2, 207, 224, 241-2, 244, Democratization, 12, 28, 60, 206,
250n.79&81; clashes with Indo¬ 210-11, 218-19, 25In.97; of the
nesians, 166-8, 241-2, 251n.96 kerajaan, 53, 219-20, 221-4, 230,
Brondgeest, Lt. C. A. M., 151-2, 235-6
157, 160-1, 178n.8, 181n.66 Dewantoro, Ki Hadjar, 77n.45
Bukittinggi: education in, 21, 34n. Digul, Boven, exile in, 60-1, 66,
45&50, 181n.74; as 25th Army 80n.74, 81n.93, 111, 139n.8
HQ, 104-5, 115, 118, 127-8, Djalil, Teungku Abdul, 112-13
135-7, 138-41; MIT Conference, Djamil, Datuk (Secretary to Sultan
176, 203, 230; Sumatra KNI of Langkat), 158, 221,239, 250n.80
meeting, 240, 242, 243-4 Djamil, Teungku Joenoes, 101n.21,
Bustami, 154, 171, 227, 247n.32 113, 127-8, 130,145n.59; quoted,
86, 95
H. M., Allied
Chambers, Maj. Gen. Djojoadiningrat, Abdulmadjid, 242
Commander in Sumatra, 160, 169, Djoni, Mohammad, 61, 66—8, 72,
224 73, 81n.93
INDEX 281
Dusun of Deli and Langkat, 3-4, Ginting, Selamat, xii, 154-5, 162,
48-9, 72-3, 92, 96-8, 225 171, 174-5, 230
Dutch: in Sumatra, 9, 10, 38-40, Ginting, Tama, 154, 226, 230
42-3, 150-2, 159-61, 191; policy Ginting Suka, Nerus, 61, 91, 123,
(pre-war), 3-5, 7-9, 11-13, 15-16, 175, 230
18-22, 26-31, 32n.l8, 40-8, 50-8, Ginting Suka, Nolong, 61, 230
60-3, 67-8, 70-2, 126, 253; (post¬ Gintings, Djamin, 157
war), 151-2, 177, 187, 259-62 Giyugun, 118-20, 122, 123, 133,
138, 140, 178n.l8, 186, 193, 214n.
Economic conditions, 2-3, 13-15, 60, 216n.89; ex-Giyngun in revolu¬
31n.7, 41, 46, 51, 56, 71-3, 106, tion, 153-4, 161, 187-8, 194, 203,
124-6, 136-8, 244-5, 258 232
Economic policy: Dutch, 13-14, Goedhart, O. M., Governor of Aceh,
40-2, 45-7, 51-2, 56, 70-2; Jap¬ 1925-1929, 12, 26; quoted, 7, 12,
anese, 124-6; Indonesian, 152, 25, 27
210-11, 220-1, 227, 230, 237-8, Goh Moh Wan, 192
245
Education, 21-4, 34n.55, 63-4, 68, Hafas, Tengku, 110, 122, 142n.3,
74n.6, 255-6; Dutch-colonial, 17, 144n.42, 170-1, 221, 224, 266
21-2, 56—7, 63; Japanese-spon¬ Hamid Azwar, Teuku Abdul (Sa-
sored, 1 16, 1 17-19, 131-2,146n.78, malanga), 119, 188, 199, 209
153-4; see also Taman Siswa, Mu- Hamidjoyo, Moenar S., 221, 268
hammadiah Hamka (Haji Abdul Malik Karim
Egon, D., 154, 171, 174 Amrullah), 30, 93, 109, 110, 113,
erri (Ekonomi Rakyat Republik 114-15, 121, 130, 136, 142n.l2,
Indonesia), 227, 237-8, 241, 242, 150-1; quoted, 30-1, 59, 91, 92,
244-5, 247n.32-3, 250n.73 112, 113, 121, 136-7
Eteng, Abdullah, xii, 221, 236, 268 Hamzah, Tengku Amir, 142n.3,
Ethnic conflict, 16, 50, 54-5, 68-9, 170-1, 219, 221, 233, 239, 246n.9,
159-60, 163, 165, 231, 244,256-7, 268
259, 260-1 Harimau Liar, see Barisan Harimau
Ezerman, H. E. K., Governor of Liar
East Sumatra, 1930-1933, 52-3 Hasan, T. A., 196
Hasan, Teuku Cut, 20, 30-1, 33n.51,
F-kikan, 85-90, 91-2, 94, 96-8, 94, 198, 200, 205, 267
107, 112, 118, 123, 134, 185, 198, Hasan, Mr Teuku Mohammad, xiii,
214n.60 65, 87, 110, 122, 140-1, 144n.43;
Flag, Indonesian (merah-putih), 93, as Governor of Sumatra, 148, 152—
136, 156-7, 172, 187-9, 195, 225 3, 156-7, 159, 160, 162, 165, 169-
French, 6n.7, 38, 238; French Rev¬ 72, 193, 198, 200, 206-7, 211n.9,
olution, 225, 238, 253 218, 220, 221-5, 227, 229, 233,
Fujiwara Iwaichi, Major, xiii, 85-7, 240-1, 242, 257, 258-9
90, 94, 100n.l0, 111, 127; quoted, Hasan, Teuku Mohammad, Ulee-
86, 87, 100n.l0; see also ¥-kikan balang of Glumpang Payung, 20,
29, 33n.50, 94, 95-6, 113, 121,
Gaharu, Sjammaun, xii, 188, 189, 126-7, 129, 145n.55
191-2, 199, 204, 209, 212n.l5; Hasbi, see As-Siddiqy
quoted, 187 Hashim, Tuanku, xii, 130
Gani, Dr A. K., 139-40, 152, 153, Hasjim, Mohammad, xiii, 142n.5
172-3, 175, 178n.l3, 218 Hasjmy, Ali, xii, 25, 3In.9, 108-9,
Garut, 27, 35n.60, 196, 198-9, 202, 187, 189, 193
203-4 Hasnan, Tengku, of Bilah, 142n.3,
gerindo, 66-8, 69, 72-3, 8In.93-6, 232
83n.l 16, 85, 91-2, 96, 98, 122-3, Hatta, Mohammad, 61, 80n.83, 85,
132-4, 139, 173-4, 182n.84&88 148, 172, 174, 252
282 INDEX
Hayasaki (J apanese consul in Medan), hammadiah, pusa, Wasliyah, Jihad

85, 93, 96, 102n.36, 108, 156 Itam, Datuk (of Sunggal), 165, 233
Heiho, 117, 122, 138, 140, 153, 161, Iwakuro, Maj. Gen., 127
174, 186, 188
Helfrich, Admiral C. E. L., 151, Jacobs, Major G. F., 151
178n.8-9 Jacoeb, Teuku Muhamad (guncho
Herendienst, see Corvee labour Bireuen, 1943-1945), 137
Hidajat, Dr, 249n.67 Jafizham, Tengku (of Serdang), xii,
Hikayat Perang Sabil, 10, 3In.7, 114, 176-7, 236-7
31-2n.9, 111, 137, 198 Jakarta, Independence preparation
Hoetasoit, Marnicus, xiii, 243, 25In. in, 140-1; Independence proc¬
104 lamation, 148, 150, 152, 153, 186
Hokokai, xv, 219, 221; in Aceh, Jakoeb, Jahja (editor of Soeloeh Mer-
138- 9; Sumatra Hokokai, 140 deka), 241
Husain, Peutua, 28, 214n.53 Jakoeb, Teungku Ismail, 25, 36n.
Hussain, Abdullah, xv, 188, 208; 69-70, 37n.87, 109, 142n.9, 193,
quoted, 100n.l0, 107, 119 213n.50
Jalan Bali affair, 148, 159-60, 161,
Ibaragi kikan, 134, 185-6 162-3, 179n.39
Ibrahim, Teungku Sjech, 23 Jaluran, 47-8, 70-2
Idi, 23, 26, 27, 35n.67, 36n.69, Jamiatul Diniyah, 23-4, 35n.58,
36n.71, 79n.74, 85, 87, 100n.5, 35n.67, 36n.75
111, 193, 208, 216n.89 Japanese: in Sumatra (pre-war),
Idris, Teuku Muhamad (guncho 49, 53, 77n.45, 93, 101n.26, 102n.
Bireuen, 1945), 193, 201-2, 213n. 36; (post-war), 156-8, 167-9,
38 185-6, 188-95, 197-9, 207, 21ln.4,
Ie Leubeue, 24, 34n.60, 145n.56 212n.33, 213n.38, 232; conquest,
lino Shazaburo (Chokan Aceh), 84-6, 89-92; policy, 85-7, 92-9,
109-10, 113, 124, 127, 128, 130, 104-41, 148-51, 156, 185-6, 188,
134, 188-9, 198; quoted, 132 193, 198, 252-3; surrender, 141,
Independence: Japanese policy to¬ 148-51, 157, 185-7
wards, 93, 104, 120, 134-5, 138, Java, 16-17, 39, 42, 139, 142n.l2;
139- 41; proclamation of, 148-50, education in, 21-3, 34n.45, 50&55,
152-7, 186-9 63, 142n.7&8, 144n.43&46; Dutch
Indians: in Sumatra, 35n.63, 40, policy for, 12; Japanese policy
43, 162-3, 214n.60, 237; British for, 104-5, 112, 118, 120, 124,
Indian soldiers, 167, 180n.62 130, 135,140-1; Republican move¬
Indonesian (Malay) language, 50, ment in, 148, 153, 156, 160, 164,
59, 65, 101n.26, 109, 152 166, 172-3, 190, 218-19, 225-6,
Inoue Tetsuro, 98, 111, 123, 131-4, 228, 242, 252-3
143n.l6, 150, 155, 166, 174-5, Javanese: in Aceh, 20, 22; in East
230-1; quoted, 131-2, 134 Sumatra, 38, 40-3, 47, 54, 60,
Intellectuals, 46, 62, 64-5, 65-6, 63, 72, 75n.l6, 256, 260; Javanese
68-70, 109, 140-1, 175-6, 228, principalities, 219, 223-4
230, 235 Jeunieb (Samalanga, Aceh), 137;
Ishizima Tadakazu, 185-6 Uleebalang-cut of (Teuku Ahmad
Islam, 7-11,22-7, 54, 86, 95, 112-15, Jeunieb), 99n.4, 205, 267
121, 128-31, 133-4, 146n.67-70, Jihad (holy war), 5, 7-11, 176, 190,
176-7, 190, 197, 203-4, 236-7, 197-8, 203-4, 214n.56, 254; sec
254; Islamic schools, 17, 21-4, also Hikayat Perang Sabil
27, 29-30, 63-5, 201-2; Islamic Joenoes, Bachtiar, xii, 176-7, 227,
reformism, 20, 23-7, 63-5, 237, 237, 247n.31
254; Islamic law, 13, 128-30, Joesoef, Amir, 227, 247n.32
146n.69; Islamization, 2, 49-50, Joesoef, Mr Mohammad, 93, 108,
55; see also masjumi, MIT, Mu- 122, 142n.7, 150, 159, 169, 170-1,
INDEX 283
219, 228 50, 51, 52, 53, 56, 170
Jusuf, Abdullah, xii, 133 Kualuh, 50, 232, 260
Kuroiwa, 117, 194
Kabanjahe, 56, 66, 97, 106, 161-2
Kadhi, 64, 129, 146n.67, 206, 237 Labour,38-43, 54, 60-1, 74n.6,
Kaijo jfikeidan, xvi, 132
75n.l4&16, 79-80n.74, 124,125-6,
Karoland (Tanah Karo), 46, 48, 242, 245, 251n.97, 258; Labour
55-8, 60-1, 70, 78n.55-64, 79n.72, Party, 176; see also Corvee labour
91-2, 97, 123, 154, 156, 164-5, Labuhan Batu, sub-district, 50,
167, 170, 174-5, 182n.87, 226, 142n.3, 232, 236, 249n.67
228-31, 235, 255-6; Karo Batak, Lammeulo (Kota Bakti), 33n.32,
1-4, 5n.3, 38, 43, 46, 48-9, 55-8, 192, 195-6, 200-4, 206, 213n.46
60, 66, 68-70, 72-3, 96-8, 116, Land and land-holding, 3-4, 13-15,
131, 133, 230, 255-6, 257, 260 28, 33n.29, 42-3, 45-8, 53-4,
Kartoprodjo, Sugondo, xii, 63, 66, 56-8, 70-3, 78n.64, 82-3, 83n.
80n.83-4, 91-2, 102n.35, 155-6, 116, 90, 92, 96-8, 107, 125, 210,
163 254
Kelly, Brig. Gen. T. E. D., 158, Langkat, 3, 35n.67, 43-8, 51-3, 61-2,
160-1, 168, 169, 191 70-1, 82n.l 12, 142n.3, 144n.42,
Kempen, C. J. van, Governor of 156, 157-8, 170, 177, 219, 221-2,
East Sumatra, 1924-1928, 60-1, 62 226, 233, 235, 239, 240,250n.80-l,
Kenkokutai shintai, xvi, 133-4, 150, 256; Sultan of (Abdul Aziz),
153, 165, 182n.87-8, 228-9; ex- 35n.67, 75n.20; (Machmoed),
Kenkokutai cadres in revolution, 45-6, 49-52, 75n.20, 76n.29&36,
174-5, 226, 231, 239 103n.63, 144-5n.46, 150-1, 219,
Kenpeitai, xvi, 91, 92, 95, 96, 111, 222, 233, 239, 260
121, 126, 132, 154, 192 Langsa, 20, 35n.67, 79n.74, 186,
Kerajaan, xvi, 3-4, 32n.l8, 43-8, 187, 188, 207-8, 216n.89
51-3, 62-5, 92-4, 97-9, 106-7, Latif, Teuku Abdul, Uleebalang
114-15, 121-4, 134, 141, 150, of Geudong, 17, 18, 267
157-8, 170-2, 219-20, 221-4, Law-courts, 14, 28, 107, 110, 128-30,
228-33, 235-7 190-1, 214n.53&60
Keumala, Tuanku Raja, 24 Lhoknga, battle of, 193-4, 213n.43
Keumangan (statelet in Pidie), 23, Lhokseumawe, 17-20, 24, 79n.74,
24, 27, 33n.30, 199, 203, 205; 91n.2, 112, 192-3, 202, 209, 210;
see also Oemar, Teuku Uleebalang of (T. Maharajah),
Kisaran, 66, 229 18
Kita-Sumatora-Sinbun, 108-9, 139, Lhoksukon, 18, 34n.43, 85
156; quoted, 117, 122-3 Lhong, 11, 137
KNI, see Komite Nasional Indonesia Literature, 37n.87, 59, 74n.5, 81n.95,
Knottenbelt, Major M. J., 178n.9, 109, 123, 142n.9, 144n.46, 219,
187, 188, 191-2, 212n.33 253
Koiso statement (7 September 1944), Local Government, 12-15, 32n.l8,
104, 134-5, 216n.89 45-6, 48-51, 89-90, 93-5, 106-7,
Komite Nasional Indonesia (KNI), 141, 142n.3, 169-71, 190-1,206-7,
173, 176, 218-20, 221, 226, 227, 218-21, 235-6, 253, 254-5, 257
234—5; KNI East Sumatra, 152, Loebis, Abdoel Hamid, 61, 66, 81n.93
157, 176, 219, 239; KNI Medan, Logam, 244, 259; ‘Logam affair’,
219; KNI Aceh, 187, 189, 201, 259
203, 205; KNI Deli, 235; KNI Lubis, Adnan Nur, 66, 67, 122, 175,
Meulaboh, 206; KNI Sumatra, 221, 240, 268
240, 242-4; KNI Tapanuli, 257 Lubis, Marzuki, 154-5, 162, 171,
Kondo Tsugio, xiii, 100-1, 132, 174, 182n.84, 247n.31, 248n.43
134, 185-6, 214n.60
Korte Verklaring, 32n.l8, 46, 49, Maeda, Lieutenant, 193, 212n.33,
284 INDEX
213n.38&40 203, 219, 227, 230, 236-7

Mahadi, Mr Tengku, xii, 109, 123, Monarchy, see Kerajaan, Sultans
235 Moro, Mutalib, xiii, 239, 244
Mahmud, Tuanku, 28-9, 36—7n.80, Mountbatten, Admiral Lord Louis,
87, 110, 127, 138-9, 189, 194, 115, 151, 158
212n.25 Muhammadiah, 20, 22-3, 26, 30-1,
Mahruzar, xii, 162, 180n.49, 220, 34n.51, 106; in Aceh, 20, 22, 26,
240, 247n.32, 266 37n.84, 95, 113; in East Sumatra,
MAIBKATRA, 113-14, 122, 127, 130, 63-5, 110, 176-7, 236-7
138 Mujahidin, 190, 197, 203-4, 207-8,
Malaya, 1, 2, 9, 84, 85-7, 104, 107, 254
114-16, 151, 154; compared with Mulamanik, Raja, 85, 93
Sumatra, 69, 261-2, 263 Munir, Abdul Malik, 155, 164;
Malays, 5, 38, 44-53, 60, 62, 65, quoted, 227
68-70, 94, 97-8, 109, 122, 134, Muramoto (Nakata Eishu), xiii,
165, 228, 233, 256, 260-2; popu¬ 198-9, 214-5n.62, 215n.63
lation, 43, 46, 49; Malay culture, Musa, Tengku (of Asahan), 76n.34,
1-3, 59, 63-4, 255; see also Sultans 122, 123, 158, 170-1, 220, 221,
Manap, Abdul, 33n.37&39 225, 229, 231-2, 268
Mandailings, 36n.69, 139; in East
Sumatra, 43, 55, 59, 61, 64, 78n.66 Nainggolan,Dr F. J., 165, 228-9,
Mansur, Dr Tengku, 69-70, 76n.34, 233, 248-9n.53
82n.l07, 109, 122, 144n.46, 150, Nakano-Gakko intelligence school,
158, 248n.48, 260-2 85, 110-11, 185-6, 206n,4, 210n.62
Markas Agung (Medan), 171-2, 174, Nakashima, Gen., 94,96, 98,103n.61,
181n.76, 226-7, 247n.31 110, 113, 114, 124, 125, 130, 131,
Marxism, 10, 60-1, 66, 79n.71&74, 133, 134, 149-50, 156
173-4, 219, 228, 230, 234, 237-8, napindo, 175, 231, 251n,104, 259
241-2, 244-5, 252-4; see also PKI Nasution, Abdul Razak, 117, 122,
masjumi, 237, 248n.42, 249n.70 153, 155, 174
Masubuchi Sahei, 87, 90, 92-3, Nasution, Mohammad Joenoes, xiii,
101n.26, 108, 113, 118, 120, 127, 79n,71, 154, 171, 173, 182n.84,
134, 185, 187 221, 225, 227, 229, 234-5, 238-41,
Medan, 39, 58-9, 66, 77-8n.66, 91-2, 244-5, 247n.24&33, 250n,85, 266
125; city government, 79n.68, 93, Nasution, Mohd. Yunan, xiii, 237
108, 156, 160, 169-71, 219, 228; National Socialism, in Sumatra,
revolution in, 148-68, 173-4; Allies 40, 74n.9
in, 151-2, 158, 160, 169, 171-2, Nationalism, 16—20, 59-63, 65-8,
178n.8-9, 233, 237, 241-2, 244 93,104, 108-9, 111, 119-20,122-3,
Meliala, Ngeradjai, xii, 170, 175, 135-6, 139, 173-5, 187, 190-1,
229, 230-1, 260 197, 252-3, 258, 262-3
Merah-putih, see Flag, Indonesian Neh, Njak, 194, 209
Me Tareuem, 201-2 nica, 152, 158, 172, 187, 191, 229
Meulaboh, 90, 111, 206, 238 Nizam, Tengku (of Serdang), 221,
Meuraxa, Teuku Djohan, 113, 199 232
Meureudu, 142n.5, 197, 200, 203, Njong, 36n,75, 200, 205; Uleebalang
206 of (Teuku Laksamana Oemar),
Military, see Giyugun, Heiho, TKR, 202-3
TRI Noer el Ibrahimy, Teungku, 25, 30
Millenarianism, 57, 96 Noerdin, Tengku Mohammad, xiii,
Minangkabau, see West Sumatra 144n,35, 232
Minangkabaus, 34n.45, 87; in Aceh, NST (State of East Sumatra), xvii,
19-20, 22, 35-6n.69; in East 248n.53, 256, 260-2
Sumatra, 43, 49, 55, 59, 64, 78n.66
MIT (Majlis Islam Tinggi), 167-7, Oemar, Mohammad Saleh, xiii, 66,
INDEX
285
81n.95, 98, 109, 133, 150-1, 173, 235-6, 239-40, 242-3, 253, 258-9
174-5, 227, 235, 239, 247n.31,258 Pemuda pusa, 25, 85, 89, 90, 95,
Oemar, Teuku, Uleebalang of Ke- 100n.5, 111-12, 127, 189, 192^
umangan, 15, 23-4, 26, 27, 33n.30, 197, 208
196, 200, 205 Penang, 2, 84-6, 87, 99n.2; radio,
Oil, 13, 46, 52, 91, 115 84, 91
Onn bin Ja’afar, Dato, 261-2 Pengkalan Brandan, 46, 81n.95, 92,
Otteman, Tengku (from 1945 Sultan 115, 142n.3
Osman of Deli), 69, 73, 103n.61, Penjedar (Medan weekly), 27-8,
124, 145n.47, 157, 172, 235, 260, 33n.39, 36n.75, 37n.87
262 Pepper-growing, 2, 13, 14
peramiindo (Seulimeum), 25-6,
Paauw, J., Resident of Aceh, 1938- 35n.66
1942, 26, 27, 88 Persatuan Perjuangan, xviii, 225-9,
padi, xviii, 97, 165, 233 230-2, 234, 236, 239, 241, 243,
Pajungbangun, 123, 175, 182n.87, 247n.31&37, 248n.42-3, 257; of
229, 230-1 East Sumatra, 226, 243-4
Palembang, 77n.45, 139, 140, 152, Persatuan Sumatera Timur (PST),
173, 182n.87 68-70, 97, 109, 122, 260, 261
Panai, 50, 221, 236 pesindo (before 16 November 1945,
Pancur Batu, see Arnhemia see PRI), 164-5, 166, 167, 171-2,
‘Pandraih rebellion’ (May 1945), 174-5, 177, 192, 219-21, 224,
137 226-7, 229, 230-5, 236, 239, 241-3,
Pane, Simalungun statelet, 54, 182n. 249n.67, 251n.l04, 257, 259; in
88, 231 Aceh, 194, 205-6, 209, 254
Pane, Timur, 162, 171, 175 Peureulak, 12, 18, 87
Pardede, Urbanus, 60, 80n.74, 154, Peusangan, 23, 25, 30; Uleebalang
236, 244-5, 268 of (T. Chik), 23, 26, 30, 94, 186
parindra, 65-6, 72, 80n.81&83, 91-2, Pezvarta Deli (Medan daily), 39,
108, 118, 142n.7-8, 163, 175-6, 59, 79n.68-9, 155—6; cited, lOln.
228 21-2, 108
PARMUSI, 176-7 Pidie (region), 7, 11, 13, 14-15, 23-4,
parpindo, 67-8, 91, 154, 174 25, 27-8, 29, 33n.29, 34n.50,
partindo, 61-2, 65-6, 72, 80n.78, 36n.71, 85, 89, 95, 107, 128-30,
81n.93-4, 142n.7, 173, 174, 182n. 146n.67, 195-205, 206-7, 222;
84 Uleebalang of, 200, 203
Pasukan V, 164-5, 228-9, 233, 235, Piekaar, A. J., xiii, 26; quoted, 10,
239, 259 14, 88, 100n.45, 213n.46
Peasants, 14-15, 43, 46-8, 54-5, Pineueng, 24, 197; Uleebalang of
56-8, 66, 71-3, 125-6, 131-3, (T. Bintara), 35n.59, 144n.43,
137, 210, 245, 252, 258, 261; 205
peasant movements, 3-4, 57, 72-3, Pirngadi, Dr R. M., 66, 102n.35,
83n.l 13&120, 92,96-8,137,198-9, 109, 118, 122, 152
203-4, 210-11, 238, 254-6 PKI, xviii, 10, 60-1, 62, 79n.71-2,
Pematang Siantar, 54-5, 58, 60, 61, 79-80n.74,81n.93, 111, 117,173-4,
66, 68, 69, 72, 80n.78, 81n.91, 182n.83-4, 219, 221, 225-7, 229,
96&98, 117, 119, 132, 142n.8, 230, 231, 239, 241-2, 244-5,
150, 161-2, 167, 212n.l 5, 229-31, 251n.97, 252, 256
235-6, 240, 243; p.o.w. camp, 150, PNI,xviii, 173-5,219,226-7, 229-30,
186; Siantar hotel affair, 160, 256; ‘PNI State Party’, 172-4
179n.41; coup attempts, 244-5, PNI-Z>a/-», xx, 61, 80n.83, 154, 174,
259 228
Pemuda (youth), 119-20, 138, 147n. Poerba, Mr Djaidin, 69
94, 152-7, 159-69, 175-7, 187-92, Poerba, Madja, xviii, 69, 170, 18 In.
195-7, 218, 221, 224-7, 229-32, 74, 236, 245, 268
286 INDEX
Police: Dutch, 61-2, 65, 67, 72-3, Sab Cut, 89, 210, 214n.60
96-9, 103n.60; Indonesian, 107, Sab, Hasan, 95, 102n.43, 214n.60
111, 142n.5, 154, 156, 160, 169, Sab, Husein, 134, 198, 202, 210,
188, 208,232; Aceh ‘special police’, 214n.60
191, 199 Sabang, 163, 166, 187, 204
Polim, Teuku Panglima (Muhammad Sabi, Teuku (Lageuen), 30, 88
Ali), xii, 88, 90, 100n.l5, 109-10, Sabi, Teuku (Samalanga), 21
121, 125, 138, 187, 189, 199, 204, Sabilillah, 133-4, 176-7, 219, 220,
206; quoted, 126 231, 25In. 104
Popular Sovereignty, 206, 222-4, Said (Saidt), Haji Mohammad, xiii,
226, 229, 230, 234, 237, 240, 36n.75, 69, 109, 155-6; quoted,
246n.20 224, 248n.47
Population, 7, 32n.l8, 33n.39, 35n.60, Said, Teuku Chik Mohammad,
43, 49, 50, 54, 58, 74n.2, 78n.66 Uleebalang of Cunda, 17, 18,
Post, Laurens van der, 242 200-1, 205, 208, 267
Press, 27-8, 36n.75, 37n.87, 59-60, Salim, Djauhari, 64
61,65, 79n.68-9&74, 108-9, 155-6, Samaindra, Uleebalang of (T. Ma’
176, 189, 245 ali), 201
PRI, xviii, 160, 170; in Aceh: 190, Samalanga, 18, 21, 99n.4, 119, 137,
191-2, 193-4, 195-9, 201-3, 144n.35
215n.65-6; see also pesindo Samin bin Taib, Mohammad, 60,
PST, see Persatuan Sumatera Timur 84, 99n.2, 100n.5
Purba, Simalungun statelet, 181n.74, Saragih Ras, 175, 182n.88, 231
231, 248n.47 Sarekat Islam, 16, 99n.2; in Aceh,
pusa (Persatuan Ulama Seluruh 16-19, 22, 24, 33n.36-9, 200;
Aceh), 24-6, 29-31, 36n.69, 85-9, in East Sumatra, 60, 77n.45,
94-6, 101n.21&23, 102n.43, 107, 79n.71
108-9, 110, 111, 112, 113, 126, Sastrosatomo, Soebadio, xiii, 242
127-130, 134, 136, 138, 139, Sawamura, General, 169
144n.43, 190, 195, 197, 201, 203, Semangat Merdeka (Kutaraja daily),
209, 210, 254; see also Pemuda 189, 204, 215n.71&79; quoted,
PUSA 190
Sembiring, Rakuta, 154, 235, 268
Radjab, Muhammad, 254; quoted, Serdang, 3, 43-8, 51-3, 69, 70-1,
255-6 82n.l 12, 115, 219, 221, 232, 235,
Rahman, Teungku Abdul (Peu- 240, 259; Sultan of (Soeleiman),
sangan), 23, 25 36n.80, 45-6, 53, 76n.36, 77n.45,
Raliby, Osman, xiii, 198; cited, 172, 232, 260
213n.38 Seruan Kita (Medan weekly), 28,
Rantau Prapat, 151, 232, 236; p.o.w. 33n.39, 36n.75, 37n.83
camp, 152, 195 setia movement, 72-3, 83n.83, 96
Raya, Simalungun statelet, 55, 231 Seulimeum, 23, 25, 192, 199, 204;
Rebellion: against Dutch, 10-11, revolt, 87-90; see also Wahab,
30, 57, 73, 85, 87-90, 96, 127-8; Teungku Abdul
against Japanese, 112-13, 116, Shimura Fumie, Maj. Gen., 140;
119—20, 127, 137, 168; against quoted, 135, 139, 21 In.4
Republic, 255, 262; see also Aron Siak, 49, 52, 101n.26, 106, 186, 221;
Rice-growing: in Aceh, 13, 14-15, Sultan of (Sjarif Kasim), 36-7n.80,
211; in East Sumatra, 47-8, 54, 49, 52, 76n.29, 221-2, 246n.ll,
57-8, 70-2, 77n.51, 238, 245, 256, 260
258; under Japanese, 125, 131, Siantar, see Pematang Siantar
136-7, 211 Sidikalang, 257
Rubber: estates, 13, 14, 40, 48, 50, Sigli, 16, 20, 25, 27, 36n.71, 89, 94,
54, 101n.26,124, 220, 245; smaller- 196-7, 200-1, 204, 214n.53, 238;
holder, 49 4 December affair, 197-200
INDEX 287
Sihite, 165 Sukarno, President, 61, 148, 152,
Simalungun, 1, 5n.3, 39, 46, 53-5, 155, 172-3, 174, 179n.26, 196,
60, 77n.47-51, 117, 175, 182n.88, 21 In.9, 214n.55, 227, 237, 247n.35,
231, 235-6, 248n.47, 256; Sima¬ 252
lungun Bataks, 1-2, 5, 43, 56, Sultans: Acehnese, 4-5,28-9, 36n.80;
58, 60, 68, 78n.60, 218, 256, 260 Malay, 1-5, 45-53, 62-5, 69,
Singapore, 94, 104, 105, 107, 111, 76n.36, 93-4, 170-2, 221-4, 260-2;
115, 119, 127, 134, 148, 185-6, see also Asahan, Deli, Langkat,
258; Islamic conference, 114; Serdang, Siak
trade with Sumatra, 220, 264n.23 Sumantri, Iwa Kusuma, 19, 61,
Sirait, Nulung, 133, 175 80n.77, 108, 142n.7
Siregar, Dr Gindo, 239-40, 242, 266 Sumatera Thawalib, 20, 23, 80n.74
Siregar, Mr Luat, 66, 72, 93, 108, Sunggal (Serbanyaman), 4, 66, 72,
117, 122, 142n.8, 156, 160, 170-1, 76n.36, 83n.l 13&116, 97-8, 165,
173, 182n.83, 218-19, 223, 226-8, 228, 233, 235, 256
234-6, 239, 241, 242, 245, 258, Swart, Gen. H. N. A., Governor
264n.23, 266 of Aceh, 1908-1918, 12, 33n.36;
Siregar, Mohammad Jacub, 66-7, quoted, 21
72,81n.94,85,91-2,96,98,100n.5, Swiss, 38, 160, 169, 179-80n.41
111, 131, 132-3, 134, 143n.l6,
150-1, 173, 175; his wife, Cha- Tahir, Ahmad, xiii, 154, 155-6,
didjah, 81n.94, 111, 132 159, 161-2, 171, 178n.l8, 227,
Sitompoel, Hopman, 119-20, 161, 231, 232, 234-5, 240-1, 245, 259
171 Tahir, Mas, 169-70, 181n.71
Sjafei, Mohammad, 139-41 Takengon, 36n.71, 126, 209-10
Sjahrir, Sutan, 61, 154, 218, 228, talapeta, 131-2, 138, 146n.78, 154,
239, 242; his brothers, see Mahru- 166, 174-5
zar and Alamsjah Taman Siswa, 63, 163; in Aceh,
Sjarifuddin, Mr Amir, 164, 173 22, 188, 212n.l5; in East Sumatra,
218, 228, 241-2; his visit to Medan, 63, 66, 80n.83-4, 92, 155
241-4; his cousin, see Siregar, Tan Malaka, Ibrahim Gelar Datuk,
Gindo 39, 60, 74n.6, 79n.71, 99n.2, 173,
Sjihab, Haji Abdul Rahman, 64-5, 182n.84, 225-6, 228, 242; quoted,
115, 135, 142n.l2, 176-7, 237 38, 39, 74n.3
Soangkoepon, Maharadja, 32n.l3, Tanjung Balai, 58, 66, 81n.91, 87,
65, 81n.91, 83n.ll5, 110, 122, 115, 220, 229, 230-2, 236, 259
135, 164-5, 171 Tanjung Pura, 35n.67, 152, 219,
‘Social revolution’, 223,227-8,230-9, 222, 233, 235, 239, 259
241-2, 243, 245, 254, 256, 257, Tapaktuan, 20, 24, 89, 101n.20
260 Tapanuli, 50, 55, 64, 78n.53, 81n.91,
Socialist Party: in East Sumatra 256-7, 259, 262, 264n.29
(until March 1946, parsi), 228-9, Tarigan, S. M., 66, 117
235, 239, 25In. 104; in Java, 173, Taxation, 9, 13-14, 21, 47, 54-5,
242 57, 72, 87, 238; see also Corvee
Soeloeh Merdeka (Medan daily), labour
156-7, 222, 225, 234, 245; quoted, Tebing Tinggi, 58, 78n.66, 106,
159, 222-4 117, 221, 229; ‘Tebing Tinggi
Soetardjo, SarwonoS., 163-4, 171-2, affair’, 168-9
192, 225, 226-7, 230, 235-6, 241, Thajeb, Teuku Mohamad, 19, 34n.45
248n.42 Thamrin, Mohamad Husni, 19, 66,
Soetjipto, Col., 161, 259 77n.45, 103n.60
Suchtelin, Jhr. B. C. C. M. M., Gov¬ Tiro, 8, 190, 197; Teungku Chik
ernor of East Sumatra, 1933-1936, di Tiro, 30, 37n.87, 109, 190, 197,
69 254
Sugondo, see Kartoprodjo Tiro, Teungku Oemar, 197, 214n.55
288 INDEX
Tjokroaminoto, H. O. S., 18 167-9, 192-4, 199, 201-5, 208-10,

TKR (Republican Army), xix, 161-3, 231-3, 236, 239, 241-2, 248n.48,
166-8, 169, 171, 174, 180n.,46 249n.67, 256, 257, 259
189,191, 193-5, 196, 197-9,203-4, Volksraad, xx, 19, 28-9, 32n,13,
207, 209, 220, 221, 229, 231; 36n.80, 65, 79n.71, 81n.91, 83n.
after January 1946, see TRI 115, 110, 122
Toba Batak, 3, 43, 49-50, 54-5,
60, 66, 68, 78-9n.66, 87, 91, lOln. Wahab, Teungku Abdul (Seuli-
30, 133, 162, 164-5, 228, 233, meum), 23, 25, 87-8, 95, 203,
244, 256-7, 259, 260 204, 205, 267
Tobacco estates, 3-4, 38-48, 51, Wasliyah, A1 Jamiatul, 64-5, 106,
56, 70-2, 78n.53&58, 82n.ll2, 115, 176-7, 237
124, 220, 256 Wets Aceh, 13, 14, 20, 88-90, 111,
Tobo, Tengku Arifin, 97-8, 103n.60, 115, 206, 209
111 West Sumatra, 10, 20, 79n.68, 80n.74,
Tojo Hideki, 104, 120 86, 118, 139, 150, 176; Islamic
Tokobetsu keisatsutai, xx, 116-17, education in, 23, 25, 27, 176;
119, 138, 143n.30, 188, 194 see also Minangkabaus
TPR (Tentera Perjuangan Rakyat), Westerling, Lt. Raymond ‘Turk’,
207-10 151-2, 157, 159, 160-1, 163-4,
Traders and business, 2-4, 13, 25, 165, 178n.8-9, 181n.66
27-8, 35n.63, 36n.71, 47, 49, 58,
101n.30, 111, 125, 168, 196, Xarim M. S., 36n.75, 37n.87, 61,
204n.53&60, 220, 227 79-80n.74, 85, 93, 99n.2, 100n.5,
TRI (Republican Army from January 108, 111, 113, 117, 122-3, 136,
1946), 209, 227, 231-2, 234-5, 142n.8, 147n 94, 150, 153, 155-6,
240-1, 243, 244, 257, 259 162, 164, 170-1, 173-4, 176,
Trienggading, Hasballah, 203, 205 179n.26, 182n.84, 206-7, 216n.89,
224-6, 240-1, 245, 247n.31, 251n.
Ulama, 121, 176; in Aceh, 5, 7, 96
9-11, 14, 21, 23-6, 28, 31n.3, Xarim, Nip, xiii, 100n.5, 154-5, 162,
85, 87-90, 112-14, 127-9, 190, 166, 171
195, 197-8, 201, 203-4, 210-11;
in East Sumatra, 64-5, 114-15; Yamin, Mr Muhammad, 59, 67,
see also PUSA 79n.68, 225
Uleebalang, 4-5, 11-21, 27-31, Youth, see Pemuda
32n.l8, 34n.50, 88-90, 93-5, 106,
118,121,126-30,189-91, 195-211, Zahari, 68, 109
222, 254 Zainuddin, Haji Mohammad, xiii,
'Underground’, 111, 153-5 27
Zainuddin, Nathar, 61, 79-80n.74,
Vaderlandsche Club, 39-40, 74n.8 99n.2, 100n.5, 111, 154-5, 162,
Village Government, 48-9, 53, 55-6, 164, 171, 173-4, 182n.83-4, 189,
58, 73, 97-8, 137-8, 210-11, 256-7 208, 209, 216n.89, 225, 227, 238,
Violence, 4-5, 7-11, 16, 73, 83n.ll3, 241, 244-5, 250n.73
87-90,97-8, 113,127,137,159-64,
Date Due
MAR 2 3 < 994

MAH J
JAN 1 6 2012
DS646.15 .S8R44
Reid, Anthony J. S., 1939-
The blood of the people.
'ssum to $4^2
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DS 646.15 .S8 R44
Reid /Anthony. 1939- 010101 000
The blood of the people : revo
0 1163 0093234 4
TRENT UNIVERSITY
ETHNO- LINGUISTIC GROUPS
(boundaries approximately)
1 ACEH
2 SIMALUR/SIKHULE
3 GAY0
4 ALAS
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6 KARO BATAK (with Javanese immigration in lowlands )
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8 MALAY/MINANGKABAU
9 SIMALUNGUN (with Javanese and Toba immigration)
10 TOBA BATAK
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13 MINANGKABAU
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The Blood of The People - Revolution and The End of Traditional Rule in Northern Sumatra

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The Blood of The People - Revolution and The End of Traditional Rule in Northern Sumatra

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One dot represents 500 inhabitants (1930 Census),

excluding Chinese and Europeans

ETHNO- LINGUISTIC GROUPS

THOMAS J BATA LIBRARY

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

Printed in Malaysia by Sun U Book Co. Sdn. Bhd.

the blood of the people continues to flow. .

(a song of the revolution, 1946)

Tables and Maps ix

III THE ETHNIC WEB OF EAST SUMATRA 38

IV 1942: THE HANDS DECLARED 84

V THE JAPANESE EXPERIENCE 104

New Roles for the Pergerakan 108

VI THE AGENTS OF REVOLUTION

VII ECLIPSE OF THE ULfiEBALANG 185

VIII ‘SOCIAL REVOLUTION’ 218

IX PRINCES, POLITICIANS, AND PEASANTS 252

Appendix: Government Office-holders, 1945-1946 266

1 Contract Labour in East Sumatra, 1884-1929 40

Indonesian Population of Northern Sumatra endpapers

Between pages 124 and 125

1 The Dutch Conquest

In Aceh\ Teuku Panglima Polim Muhammad Ali; Hasan Aly; T. M.

In Medan (and environs): Prof. Ny. A. Abbas; Ustaz Abdulkadir;

Mohd. Joenoes Nasution+; Col. T. M. Noerdin; Mohd. Saleh Oemar

In Pematang Simitar: M. Eduard Damanik; A. S. Sibajang; Lt. Musa

In Jakarta and Yogyakarta: Amelz; Mr S. M. Amin; Teungku Mohd.

In Malaya: Mohd. Hasjim; T. A. B. Husny; Abdullah Hussain; Dr T.

In Japan: Adachi Takashi; Aoki Eigoro; Azuma Toru; Fujivvara Iwai-

In the Netherlands: Mevr. Amir-Fournier; Dr A. J. Piekaar.

Ac — Acehnese Ar = Arabic D = Dutch

adat (/) customary law

bunshu (J) District equivalent to afdeling (D) or kabupaten

IPI Ikatan Pemuda Indonesia (I), Union of Indon¬

madrasah (Ar) Islamic school

PAD I Persatuan Anak Deli Islam (/), Association of

penghulu (I) village head (in East Sumatra)

PUSA Persatuan Ulama Seluruh Aceh (I), All-Aceh

TBG Tijdschrift van het Bataviaasch Genootschap

I HE modern history of northern Sumatra has been dominated by three

country against themselves. They were never able to withdraw com¬

1. ‘Sejarah Melayu or “Malay Annals”: a translation of Raffles MS 18’, by

2. Tuhfat al-Nafis (Singapore, 1965, romanized edition), p. 62, as translated

4. John Anderson, Mission to the East Coast of Sumatra in 1823 (Reprint

5. C. A. Kroesen, ‘Geschiedenis van Asahan’, TBG, 31 (1886), pp. 111-36;

7. Chinese traders were a major factor in seventeenth-century Aceh, and it is

8. The Aceh-Dutch war is described in Reid, The Contest, pp. 91-283.

‘It is essential that we keep firmly in mind that our authority

1 Aceh: Administrative Divisions under the Dutch

• • • a fanatical love of freedom, reinforced by a powerful sense of race,

by a group of Acehnese, usually centred around a locally influential

These upheavals of 1925—7 rekindled whatever embers remained

BACKING THE ULfiEBALANG

made or broken as in Aceh, and every governor was dogmatic about

In the early years of this policy, under Governor Swart (1908-18), it

tion of the traditional supremacy of the uleebalang over his obedient

When in 1939 a spate of criticism of uleebalang oppression suddenly

PATTERNS OF ULEEBALANG RESISTANCE

Dutch reliance on the uleebalang after 1908 should not be taken to

Whoever enters S.I. has become kaum muslimin. Formerly we became

be, understood in the sense of solidarity against or in spite of them.

observed their religious duties.48 Although Islamic movements had more

still applied to obtain regular attendance.54 Fathers of non-attending