The Colonial Origins of Islamic Militancy in Indonesia

Alexandre Pelletier University of Toronto

Introduction

Colonialism and state formation led to major transformations of state-society relations in many parts of the world. States have tried to extend administrative and territorial control, while avoiding challenges to their rule. In the process, state builders have manipulated social and religious authorities in ways that had long-lasting consequences for political stability.1 What were the long-term effects of state formation on Islamic institutions and contemporary Islamic mobilization? In this paper, I argue that state formation had long-term consequences on the configuration of Islamic institutions and authorities in . The consequences were not uniform, however. I show that colonial state formation strategies varied geographically within Java and that local imperatives related to taxation and the mobilization of labour led to different sub-regional strategies of state formation. These strategies inadvertently

1 See for instance Robert, T. Blanton, David Mason, and Brian Athow. "Colonial Style and Post-Colonial Ethnic Conflict in Africa." Journal of Peace Research 38.4 (2001): 473-491; Daniel N. Posner, "The Colonial Origins of Ethnic Cleavages: The Case of Linguistic Divisions in Zambia." Comparative Politics (2003): 127-146 ; Shivaji Mukherjee, "Colonial Origins of Maoist Insurgency in India: Historical Institutions and Civil War." Journal of Conflict Resolution (2017): 0022002717727818. ; and Ajay Verghese and Emmanuel Teitelbaum. "Conquest and Conflict: The Colonial Roots of Maoist Violence in India." (2018).

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 1 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018 shaped local religious institutions and authorities in different ways. In turn, the configuration of the local state and the local religious authorities generated different political cleavages in the late colonial period, which forced local governments to maintain distinct state building strategies throughout the post-colonial period. The paper suggests that the configuration of religious institutions and authorities carried over from colonial and post-colonial regimes are the background to contemporary Islamic movements in Indonesia. In regions where religious institutions fail to produce strong religious authorities and, instead, induce a logic of religious competition, contemporary Islamic mobilization has been particularly strong and assertive. My point of departure is the noticeable cross-regional difference in how religious authority is mobilized and contested in post-transition Indonesia. A flurry of new Islamic militant groups has been created since the country’s democratic transition in 1998. Some of them have adopted increasingly aggressive strategies such as fighting against immorality, protesting blasphemy, or attacking “deviant” religious minorities. The rise of militant groups varies across regions, however. West Java is the province most affected by militant mobilization; it is the province with both the most militant groups and the region where they have been the most active (see Table 1).

Table 1. Militant mobilization and organizations in Java, 2008-2015 Incidents of Active militant militant mobilization organizations Banten 6 4

West Java 103 62

Central Java 23 25

East Java 14 18

Source: Author’s own data, from various sources, including monitoring report, Wahid Institute (2009; 2010; 2011; 2012; 2013; 2014; and 2015).

East Java is home to fewer militant groups and militant mobilization. To be sure, ’s pressure to ban or curtail religious minorities has also been intense and widespread since

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 2 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018 the democratic transition.2 The provincial, district governments, and the ulama have adopted numerous new regulations and fatwas targeting religious minorities such as Ahmadiyah and Syiah. Unsurprisingly, the region has consistently ranked among the top most intolerant province. Despite such intolerance, militant organizations have remained much calmer and much less common in East Java.

Table 2. Religious Titles of FPI leaders in Java, 2000-2015

Kyai Haji Ustadz

Banten* 33.3 33.3

West Java* 25.0 43.8

Central Java 0.0 25.0

East Java 18.7 12.5

* West Java and Banten exclude districts located in the greater Jakarta region, i.e. Bogor (West Java), Depok (West Java), Tangerang (Banten), and Bekasi (West Java). Source: Compiled by the author from various media sources.

A striking feature of contemporary Islamic movements in Java is the interaction between these new militant organizations and traditional Islamic leaders. In West Java, militant groups have found widespread support among kyai and ustadz (see Table 2).3 Headquarters of local branches of the Islamic Defenders’ Front (FPI), the largest militant organization, are often located in , i.e. Islamic boarding schools.4 In East Java, by contrast, the relation between kyai and militant groups has been much more fraught. Despite the sympathy of some kyai, militant groups have not been able to get a foothold in the pesantren system.5 Few kyai and ustadz have become FPI leaders in East Java as we see in Table 2. In sum, despite the fact that many kyai believe that religious freedom

2 See for instance: Anonymous, Sejumlah Ulama Sepuh Minta Ahmadiyah Dibubarkan, NU Online, 17 August 2005; Anonymous, NU Jember Dukung Pembubaran Ahmadiyah, NU Online, 13 Februari 2011 3 Interview chairman of FPI, Tasikmalaya, May 2014; Interview former chairman of FPI (c. 1998-2001), Tasikmalaya, April 2014. 4 Interview rank-and-file member of FPI, Bandung, January 2014. 5 Interview FPI, Petamburan, January 2014; Interview Gusdurian, Jombang, May 2014; Interview CMARS, Surabaya, May 2016.

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 3 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018 should be curtailed, they have not found militant organizations to be a desirable vehicle for them. The puzzling behaviour of Javanese religious leaders is linked to differences in the structure of religious authority in the two provinces. Religious institutions and what I call here “religious fields” provide a set of opportunities and constraints to religious entrepreneurs in their attempt to claim and secure religious authority. Where existing religious institutions fail to produce strong Islamic leaders, and induce intra-religious competition instead, clerics6 are more likely to form militant groups and radicalize. This paper has two main objectives. First, it identifies previously overlooked sub- regional differences in the architecture of religious institutions in contemporary Java. The analysis uses a newly compiled dataset about Java’s 15,000 religious schools and 30,000 ulama to systematically compare religious institutions and religious fields in Java’s 107 districts. Second, the paper seeks to explain these variations by studying the impact of colonial and post-colonial state formation on religious institutions. It shows that state formation strategies, in particular policies related to land ownership, labour mobilization, and taxation either empowered or weakened independent kyai. A crucial factor to contemporary developments was whether kyai had the right to collect the zakat, the Islamic tithe. Where independent kyai collected zakat, religious institutions are still strong and wealthy today; by contrast, where state officials collected zakat, religious institutions are still lagging behind. The paper then argues that sub-regional colonial state building strategies triggered political cleavages that had long-lasting consequences on religious institutions and religious fields in Java. Where independent kyai collected zakat, horizontal cleavage emerged, pitting social or religious competitors against each other (Traditionalist vs. Modernist vs. Communists). Where state officials collected zakat, however, vertical cleavages emerged, pitting independent clerics against the state and its representatives. These cleavages generated a response from the state, which strengthened religious institutions’ weakness or strength.

6 does not have clerics per se. I call “cleric” all of those who specialize in promoting religious ideas and participating in religious rituals. They give sermons, lead prayers, teach, and issue fatwas (Islamic legal rulings). They include ulama, ustadz, imam, and kyai (in Indonesia).

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 4 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018

Institutions and Religious Authority

Sunni Islam is a decentralized religion; it has no church and no priests. In the absence of a church, there is no strict boundaries between the “ordained” and the “laity”, and no professional has a complete monopoly over religious authority. Instead, the status of religious authority is fluid, prone to appropriation, and the path toward that status is open-ended and inherently competitive. Instead of being part of a (vertical) hierarchical structure, Islamic leaders compete in a horizontal space, a “religious field,” for the right to speak in the name of Islam.7 If Sunni Islam lacks a central institution, it is far from a religion without institutions. Building and running mosques, Islamic schools, or charities have always been inseparable from claiming religious authority in Islam. It is within these institutions – which tie leaders to communities of followers – that authority is produced and reproduced. Institutions, whether they are strong or weak, facilitate or hamper clerics’ capacity to recruit followers and to secure resources. Stronger institutions produce more stable religious authorities, while weaker institutions make authorities more precarious. The behaviour of clerics is influenced by the strength of their institutions and their relative position vis-à-vis other clerics. As Roger Brubaker puts it, “[religious] fields generate incentives for different kinds of position-taking for those in different positions”. High-status clerics, with strong institutions and a dominant position in a religious field, will not behave the same way as low-status clerics. A high-status cleric has more “theological independence” for example: he “preaches what he pleases, while a low-status cleric is constrained to the point [of becoming] a ‘prisoner of the mosque,’ required to cater his preaching to the whims of whichever audience is supporting him from day to

7 Dale F. Eickelman and James P. Piscatori. Muslim politics. (New York: Princeton University Press, 2004); Rogers Brubaker, "Religious dimensions of political conflict and violence." Sociological Theory 33.1 (2015): 1-19.

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 5 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018 day.”8 Richard A. Nielsen found that clerics most likely to adopt Jihadi ideology are those with weak educational networks and those who face blocked career ambitions as a result.9 The more people and institutions compete for a claim to authority, the more explosive is the situation: “in a cramped marketplace of clerics, each attempt to appeal to similar groups of lay Muslims, and each attempt to promote their own credentials.”10 Those with low status, who aspire to gain a space in a competitive religious field, are structurally more disposed toward radicalization through “strategies of outbidding, in which they claim to be more truly Islamic than others, and toward strategies of provocation, intended to gain visibility and recognition”11. A high-status cleric is less likely to feel threatened by minority groups and more likely to “tolerate”. Religious fields that are pluralistic and that have many low-status clerics and weak religious institutions are thus particularly prone to radicalization and violence.12 The terms on which clerics were incorporated in the modern state differed greatly across countries and, even, within a single country.13 A crucial and strategic dimension of that incorporation revolved around clerics’ autonomous sources of revenue. Historically, clerics drew most of their revenue and autonomy from waqf (charitable foundation) and zakat (Islamic tithe).14 In many cases, however, modernizing states seized, nationalized, or replaced Islamic charitable institutions with state-run substitutes and zakat was taken over by the state and integrated within the state broader taxation scheme.15 Through these

8 Sam Cherribi, In the house of war: Dutch Islam observed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010): 114-115, cited by Richard Alexander Nielsen. The Lonely Jihadist: Weak Networks and the Radicalization of Muslim Clerics. (Boston: Harvard University, 2013): 64 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid: 80 11 Brubaker, “Religious dimensions”: 8 12 This is a dynamic that I have explored elsewhere in another context. See Jacques Bertrand and Alexandre Pelletier. "Violent Monks in Myanmar: Scapegoating and the Contest for Power." Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 23.3 (2017): 257-279. 13 Catherine Boone makes that point in Political Topographies of the African state: Territorial Authority and Institutional Choice. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 14 Abd Al-Rahman Al-Salimi, "Zakāt, Citizenship and the State: The Evolution of Islamic Religious and Political Authority." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 25.1 (2015): 57-69.; Jennifer Bremer, “Islamic Philanthropy: Reviving Traditional Forms for Building Social Justice” Unpublished Conference Paper, CSID Fifth Annual Conference Defining and Establishing Justice in Muslim Societies, Washington, DC - May 28 – 29, 2004; 15 Tamir Moustafa, "Conflict and cooperation between the state and religious institutions in contemporary Egypt." International Journal of Middle East Studies 32.1 (2000): 3-22 ; Malika Zeghal, “État et marché des biens religieux. Les voies égyptienne et tunisienne” Critique Internationale, 5

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 6 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018 reforms, state builders sought to eliminate, co-opt, or bureaucratize Islamic leaders, often making them salaried employees of the state. Attacks on religious endowments were meant to strengthen the state’s power, avoid fiscal evasion, and destroy the autonomy and strength of Islamic leaders’ institutions. In other countries, state builders granted more autonomy to religious elites and left them almost untouched. Islamic leaders were sometime useful allies to state builders as they kept the population subservient, while collecting taxes and mobilizing labour.16 The model adopted left durable legacies on religious authorities and their institutions. Ulama that were too close to the state often lost legitimacy in the eyes of the ummah. Those who resisted integration, but were starved through policies of nationalization and bureaucratization often became powerless. Where it happened, the religious field was wide opened for new Islamic actors to fill the space. Those who successfully resisted and were empowered became key economic or political elites and subsequent regimes were often unable to undo what the previous regimes did. Vested interests, both among religious and secular leadership, often prevented states from altering state-Islam relations.

Institutional Differences to be Explained

This paper seeks to explain cross-regional differences in two key aspects of post-colonial religious institutions in Java: 1) variations in the strength of clerics’ educational institutions; and, 2) variations in the configuration of religious fields, i.e. whether clerics are fragmented or coalescent, and whether fields are competitive or not. This section measures religious institutional differences and shows important sub-regional differences: in West Java, a militant region, religious institutions are small, the religious field is crowded, and the kyai are fragmented; in East Java, a region less prone to militancy,

1999. 75-95; Arnold H. Green “A Comparative Historical Analysis of the Ulama and the State in Egypt and Tunisia”. Revue de l'Occident Musulman et de la Méditerranée, 29, 1980. pp. 31-54. 16 See Boone, Political Topographies…; and Robinson, D., & Triaud, J. L. (Eds.). (2012). Le Temps des Marabouts: itinéraires et stratégies islamiques en Afrique occidentale française. Karthala Editions. Robinson, D. (2000). Paths of accommodation: Muslim societies and French colonial authorities in Senegal and Mauritania, 1880-1920. (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2000).

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 7 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018 religious institutions are big, the religious field is less crowded, and kyai are more cohesive. In general, the more followers a kyai has, the stronger his authority. In this paper, I focus on ulama’s educational institution, the pesantren, as the basis of comparison. In Java, most ulama and kyai derive their authority from leading a pesantren. Pesantren are central to Islamic authority because they provide ulama with . A santri base is crucial for a kyai to be recognized as a religious authority and for the very survival of its institution. Former santri often contribute financially to their former kyai and are the backbone of an intellectual network that help kyai expand their influence across villages and districts. Kyai with very large pesantren are extremely influential and generally possess vast networks spanning multiple districts and provinces. Kyai without pesantren or with very small pesantren are generally less influential and their survival as religious authorities is more challenging.

Table 3. Religious Institutions and Religious Fields in Java

Santri per Santri per Pesantren per Kyai per Pesantren 10,000 pop. 10,000 pop. 10,000 pop.+

Banten 94.7 170.5 1.8 4.8

West Java** 111.5 211.9 1.9 3.3

… Priangan 102.1 297.4 2.9 –

Central Java 188.3 263.6 1.4 1.9

East Java 230.5 276.6 1.2 2.3

Java* 146.5 230.7 1.6 3.1

Notes: * Excludes ; ** Includes the Priangan Source: Author’s own database; original data from Kementerian Agama, Direktori Pondok Pesantren: Jumlah Santri dan Nama Kyai Tahun 2008–2009, (Kemenag: Jakarta, 2009). +Author’s own database; original data from Direktorat Jenderal Pendidikan Agama RI, Statistik Pendidikan Islam (Jakarta: Kementerian Agama RI), Year 2009–2010, 2010–2011, 2013–2014, and 2014–2015.

A systematic comparison of religious institutions across Java reveals important, yet previously unnoticed East-West differences. As shown in Table 3, religious institutions are

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 8 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018 generally smaller in the province of West Java than other provinces like Central and East Java. The average West Javanese pesantren is actually twice as small (111.5 santri) as the average pesantren in East Java (230.5) (see Table 3). In some West Javanese districts, such as Cianjur (70), Tasikmalaya (98), and Ciamis (101), pesantren have fewer than a hundred santri on average. In addition to being smaller, pesantren in West Java also have smaller land. As Table 4 shows, a majority of pesantren in East Java engage in agriculture; they grow fruits, vegetable and rice, or they raise livestock or farm fish. These businesses are central to the pesantren’s financial autonomy, but also reveal that they are endowed with land. In West Java, by contrast, pesantren are land-poor and only a fifth of the pesantren engage in agriculture. These differences do not seem to be related to whether the province is rural or urban.

Table 4 - Pesantren Engaged in Agriculture, by Province Percentage of Percentage of the pesantren engaged in province land used agribusiness* agriculture** Banten 9.0 36.9

West Java 19.0 41.6

Central Java 38.2 56.2

East Java 52.3 47.8

Notes: * Direktorat Jenderal Pendidikan Islam. Statistik Pendidikan Agama dan Keagamaan, Tahun Pelajara 2003-2004 and Ibid, 2006-2007. ** Includes both wetland and dry land agriculture, Kementerian Pertanian. 2014, Statistik Lahan Pertanian, Tahun 2009-2013, Jakarta: Pusat Data dan Informasi Pertanian, Kementerian Pertanian.

The religious field in West Java is more crowded than those of other provinces as more Islamic entrepreneurs compete for a smaller share of santri. As shown in Table 3, West Java has more pesantren and more kyai per capita (1.9) than Central and East Java (1.4 and 1.2 respectively). However, this greater ‘offer’ is not matched by a greater ‘demand’. The demand for pesantren is actually smaller in Banten and West Java (with only 171 and 212 santri per 10,000 Capita) and much greater in East Java (with 277

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 9 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018 santri per 10,000 Capita). Within West Java, the Priangan region has, by far, the most crowded religious field in all of Java. As the Table shows, despite a similar demand to East Java, the Priangan has nearly 3 times as many pesantren as East Java. In order to gauge whether religious fields are competitive or not, I computed a “concentration ratio” for each of Java’s 107 districts. A concentration ratio is a measure frequently used in economics to measure the share of an industry’s output produced by a given number of firms in an industry. The ratio is used to compare the extent to which the output is concentrated in a few firms or not, both across countries and industries. The closest a concentration ratio is to zero, the more a market is perfectly competitive; and, conversely, the closest it is to 100 percent, the more the market is purely monopolistic. I computed the concentration ratio of each of Java’s regency by calculating the percentage of the total number of santri attending the four biggest pesantren. Concentration ratios vary greatly across provinces in Java. In the West, religious markets approximate a situation of perfect competition. Figure 1 shows that the most levelled markets are located mostly in the western part of the island. In West Java and Banten, the average concentration ratio is close 10 percent, meaning that the four biggest schools have a mere 10 percent of all the santri in the province. In the Priangan, the southern portion of West Java, concentration ratios drop to about 7 percent, the lowest in all of Java. Regencies like Cianjur, Sukabumi, Majalengka, Garut, and the city of Tasikmalaya have concentration ratios below 5 percent. In the East, religious markets are oligopolistic and a handful of big pesantren control extensive shares of the religious field. In Central and East Java, religious markets have a concentration ratio of about 28 percent on average. Districts like Ponorogo, Situbondo, Jombang, and Kediri have concentration ratios of more than 40 percent. In other words, these regencies’ four biggest pesantren have more than 40 percent of all the santri in the region. There is thus very little competition among the schools in these regencies as a number of big players control most of the religious field.

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 10 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018 Figure 1. Summary Religious Fields and Institutions in Java

CENTRAL JAVA

BANTEN

WEST JAVA

Small schools

Levelled market

Small schools + Levelled market

A levelled religious market means that no pesantren are dominant. Kyai with pesantren that have more than 500 santri generally have province-level influence, while those with more than 2,000 santri may even have national-level influence. In West Java, only 7 pesantren have more than 2,000 santri and 114 have more than 500. By contrast, East Java has 37 pesantren with more than 2,000 santri and 319 pesantren with more 500. As a result, large pesantren (with 500 santri or more) have a meagre 16.8 percent of the total santri market in West Java, while they have 37.9 percent of that market in East Java. In return, West Java is the province with the largest proportion of marginal pesantren, those with fewer than 50 santri. A quarter of all the pesantren have fewer than 50 santri in West Java, while only a fifth do in East Java. Most kyai and pesantren in Central and East Java are tied to the , a traditionalist Sunni organization. As Table 5 shows, 82 to 84 percent of all the Islamic boarding schools of the region have cultural affiliation to the Nahdlatul Ulama.17 Few are independent or affiliated to other traditionalist organizations. The strength of the affiliation to the NU can be measured by looking at a proxy, in this case, the number of pesantren that are members of Rabithah Ma’ahid Islamiyah (RMI). RMI is the pesantren association attached to NU. Established in 1954, it seeks to improve the quality and the management of pesantren across Indonesia.18 Pesantren who are members of RMI are generally active participants in the Nahdlatul Ulama’s broader organization. As Table 5

17 Kementerian Agama RI, Statistik Pendidikan Islam, (Jakarta: Direktorat Jenderal Pendidikan Agama RI, 2002-2003). 18 Anonymous Interview with General Secretary of RMI, East Java, Surabaya, 11 June 2016.

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 11 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018 shows, almost one pesantren out of two in East and Central Java are active participants in NU.19 The hegemony of Nahdlatul Ulama in Central and East Java reveals Islamic leaders that are generally “coalescent”.

Table 5. Affiliation of Traditionalist Pesantren in Java

Nahdlatul Ulama Other Traditionalists

NU NU & RMI* Small Org. Independent

Banten 67.4 9.6 2.6 29.5

West Java 71.9 16.1 3.5 22.7

Central Java 82.0 43.0 3.5 12.2

East Java 84.0 42.8 2.3 12.7

Java 76.3 27.9 3.0 19.2

Note: Rows not add up to 100% because the table excludes modernist pesantren; * Participate in both NU and RMI; Source: Author’s own database. Original data from: Kementerian Agama RI, Statistik Pendidikan Islam, (Jakarta: Direktorat Jenderal Pendidikan Agama RI, 2002-2003).

In West Java, associational ties are weaker and religious networks are less cohesive and more fragmented. Associational patterns in West Java reveal religious leaders that are fragmented. As shown in Table 5, twice as many pesantren are independent in West Java than in Central and East Java. Like in the East, a majority of pesantren identifies with NU, but these affiliations are more tenuous. In West Java, 71 percent of the pesantren claim to be affiliated to NU, but only 16.1 percent is active members. “NU” pesantren in West Java seldom participate in the organization. As one NU activist puts it, “NU is culturally strong, but organizationally weak in West Java.”20 Although NU is weak, no other organization has filled the space or achieved a dominant position in the region. West Java is the province with the greatest associational

19 Unfortunately, the affiliation of pesantren has only been asked once in the pesantren survey of 2001-2002. 20 Interview with NU activist in Tasikmalaya, Tasikmalaya, West Java, 21 May 2016

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 12 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018 diversity in Java. Religious associations and kyai’s networks are generally fragmented, localized, and none are present across the province. For instance, Persatuan Umat Islam (PUI) is strong in Majalengka, owning up to 80 percent of all the district’s madrasas, and relatively strong in neighbouring Kuningan (20 percent), Indramayu (16 percent) and the city of Tasikmalaya (11 percent) but almost absent everywhere else in the province. GUPPI is strong only in Kuningan (16 percent) and Indramayu (8 percent), the same district in which PUI is strong.

Strong institutions

East Java

Fragmented Coalescent leaders leaders

West Java Weak institutions

At the risk of overstating the case, these comparisons and contrasts are represented in the figure above. Most West Javanese kyai have weak institutions: they have small pesantren and most do not have land. If pesantren were “firms” in a market, West Java would approximate a situation of perfect competition. Furthermore, leaders are fragmented: loose horizontal ties and fragmented associational networks characterize the province’s Islamic elite structure. By contrast, most East Javanese kyai have strong institutions: they have large pesantren and most have land. East Java is closer to a model of oligopoly than competition, since a handful of large pesantren controls extensive share of the santri market. Leaders are coalescent as strong horizontal ties and associational networks federate within the Nahdlatul Ulama.

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 13 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018 Explaining Institutional Variations

The institutional strength of pesantren and the configuration of religious fields are not related to population densities in Java.21 Instead, this section argues that the legacies of state formation explain such variations. The cultivation system (cultuurstelsel) (1830-c1870) was the early stage in the establishment of a modern state in the . A conventional wisdom holds that state formation followed a similar path throughout Indonesia, involving a steady and uniform process of bureaucratization and modernization. Yet a close look at state formation in Java reveals that the process of state formation and state building varied remarkably across regions. The crop produced in a region was the main determinant of local state-building strategies. State building strategies had unintended consequences on local religious authorities in Java.

Mobilizing Labour and Taxation

The Dutch government took over the territories controlled by the bankrupted Dutch East India Company in 1800 and was obsessed with bringing profitability back to the colony. In order to do so, it launched a vast administrative reform and a program of compulsory labour called the “Cultivation System” aimed at producing cash crops for export to Europe. The main challenge with that system was to mobilize labour without chipping away at the colony’s profits. Sugar cultivation in East Java required a substantial reorganization of the local economic and social life.22 Sugar cultivation was a massive enterprise. It took place in no less than 10,000 villages in Java. In order to improve cultivation and milling techniques, the Dutch invested important amount capital, set up hundreds of water-powered sugar

21 The institutional variations observed in the previous section are not related to variation in population density, except for the province of Banten. Correlation coefficient (Average pesantren size and population per km2): Banten (0,74), West Java (0,27), Central Java (0,16), and East Java (0,02) (statistically significant at 0.05). 22 Melissa Dell and Benjamin A. Olken. The Development Effects of the Extractive Colonial Economy: The Dutch Cultivation System in Java. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2017: 1

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 14 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018 factories, built roads, rail infrastructure, and seaports.23 With such investments, a strong state was needed. To modernize the state, the Dutch first transformed the native aristocracy into paid bureaucrats and removed most of their discretionary powers. Sugar plantations in Central and East Java were “scrupulously managed by colonial officials.”24 Second, they implemented a land-rent system and created the “village” administrative unit, headed by village councils and village headmen (lurah). These village institutions became the most important link between the peasants and the government under the cultivation system. Village headmen were responsible for renting the land from the Dutch government; parcelling it out to the peasants for cultivation; selling the crop at a fixed price to the government; paying back the land tax with that money; and, then, give back a small compensation to the peasants. The state thus grew stronger in the sugar districts and, according to Dell and Olken, the institutional legacies of the colonial period are still visible today.25 The cultivation system and local state-building strategies took a completely different form in West Java. In contrast to sugar, coffee plantations did not require the same type of administrative capacities. All the Dutch needed was labour. Coffee grows on swidden or wasteland, in gardens, or on hillsides, often many kilometres away from the villages. Labour is needed between harvest to clear, plow, weed, and fence new areas higher and higher up in the mountain and at harvest time, to pick, wash, shell, dry, and then return beans bag many kilometres away to the warehouses.26 Not willing to mobilize labour themselves, the Dutch empowered the West Javanese native aristocracy called menak to mobilize labour. Then, the Dutch exempted the region from most administrative reforms taking place in the rest of the island. First, they did not implement the land-rent system and did not create the “village” administrative unit as in Central and East Java. Second, the Dutch left the aristocracy (menak) powerful and did not transform it into a bureaucratic elite as rapidly as in East Java. As a result, the West Javanese aristocracy became the most powerful elite in the region and the district headmen (bupati), who were

23 Ulbe Bosma, The Sugar Plantation in India and Indonesia: Industrial Production, 1770-2010. Cambridge University Press, 2013: 108 24 Breman, Jan. Mobilizing labour for the global coffee market: profits from an unfree work regime in colonial Java. Amsterdam University Press, 2016: 244-5 25 Dell and Olken, The Development Effects: 4 26 Breman, Mobilizing labour: 65-6

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 15 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018 from the menak group, exercised extensive discretionary powers. West Java, and particularly the coffee districts in the Priangan, remained the fiefdom of the menak well into the 19th century. Mobilizing labour was not the only concern for the Dutch; paying native officials without affecting the profits made with export staples was another prime concern. In East Java, paying native officials was relatively easy: the Dutch exempted native officials from paying the land tax, and paid them through profit made from the peasants’ own land-tax payments. Native officials’ second most important source of revenue came from the yields of the land owned by the village institutions themselves, called tanah bengkok (village land).27 Table 5 presents data from a land survey conducted in 1870 and shows the extent of land owned by Central and East Javanese villages. Most villages in these two provinces were richly endowed with village land and almost a third of all the villages had substantial landholding (3.5 hectares or more, i.e. 35,000 m2). Therefore, native officials could be paid with imposing an extra-burden on the villagers.

Table 6 - Village with Office Land in Java, by Province, 1870 Village with large Villages with office land (+3.5 office land (%) ha) (%) Banten 21.4 18.2 West Java 32.7 0 … Priangan 5.7 0 … Cirebon 92.5 96.2 Central Java 79.7 63.7 East Java 67.0 27.1 Source: Horishi, Land Tenure System and the Desa Community in Nineteenth-Century Java, p. 23 (number of villages), p. 24 (size of land).

In West Java, paying native officials was much more difficult. As mentioned before, since no land tax was levied, native officials could not derive any salary from land tax. More crucially, since the village system was not implemented in the region, villages were not endowed with village land either. As Table 6 shows, only 5.7 percent of the

27 Ibid: 200

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 16 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018 villages surveyed in the Priangan (West Java) had “village land”. Without village land, native officials in the Priangan could not receive a salary from the profit generated by the village land. Since they did not receive a salary from the government or the village land, native officials were granted with their own alternative taxation power. The Dutch gave regents and lesser native officials “taxation powers”: i.e. a generous ‘cultivation percentage,’ tied to yields in coffee productions, and a one-tenth share of the peasants’ own harvest, called cuke.28 In addition, the Dutch gave regents the power to levy additional work called corvée services. In theory, corvée services were for building public infrastructure, but they ended up being used by native officials for personal projects or being paid in cash by the villagers. The outcome was a brutal system of exploitation and extortion. Since native officials’ salary was tied to the peasants’ labour, they had the incentives to make peasants work harder, which they did with incredible zeal.

Islamic Leaders in the Countryside

The unique state-building strategies in West Java also extended to religious leaders. In colonial Indonesia, there were two types of religious leaders: On the one hand, 1) “Government ulama” called penghulu were part of the colonial government’s religious bureaucracy. Like regents (bupati) and village headmen (lurah), they were state officials. They administered mosques, presided over Islamic courts, officiated marriages and divorce, and gave advice on Islamic law. On the other hand, 2) “independent ulama” were not tied to the state. Instead, they ran their own religious schools and provided religious services to villagers on a voluntary basis. In East Java, government ulama remained “marginal officers in the colonial bureaucracy,”29 while independent ulama commanded extensive loyalty and respect from the population. In West Java, however, it was the opposite: government ulama were an extremely powerful and influential group of actors, while independent ulama were marginalized. Colonial policies contributed to this situation: indeed, in addition to

28 Cornelis Fasseur, The Politics of Colonial Exploitation : Java, the Dutch, and the Cultivation System (Ithaca NY: Cornell University, 1992): 248 29 Clifford Geertz, The Religion of Java. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1960: 132

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 17 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018 religious duties, the Dutch gave penghulu the responsibility to supervise and control all aspects related to agricultural production, including its most vital one, irrigation. Government ulama were thus granted a key and strategic part “in imposing agrarian discipline on the population.”30 The Dutch experienced the same challenge of paying government ulama than other native officials. The strategy they adopted had important consequences for strengthening government ulama in West Java and strengthening independent ulama in East Java. In East Java, the Dutch used the profits made from village land to pay government ulama, just like they did with other native officials. They did not meddle with independent ulama’s collection of Islamic charity, such as zakat and fitrah31. In West Java, however, villages did not have office land (see Table 6, page 15) as mentioned previously. Government ulama could not be paid through office land. To remedy this problem, the Dutch gave the West Javanese government ulama exclusive control over the collection of “religious taxes” (i.e. zakat and fitrah). The government set the amount of zakat to be paid at 10 percent of the peasants’ harvest. This 10 percent added to the existing 10 percent owed to the regents (i.e. cuke), adding to the peasants’ burden. Because of their monopoly over zakat and fitrah, West Javanese government ulama became much “richer than rural leaders in other parts of Java.”32 It did not take long for government ulama to abuse their power: colonial reports described government ulama in West Java as an exploitative elite. Large groups of village priests came to exist and colonial reports described them as “parasitic plants.”33 The collection of zakat and fitrah allowed independent ulama in East Java to fund their Islamic schools and to redistribute money and rice to the needy, thus strengthening their ascendency and prestige in the village. Since West Javanese independent ulama did not collect zakat and fitrah, they could not use part of that money to fund their religious institution and redistribute to the villagers. Collection of zakat and fitrah thus had

30 Tania Murray Li, Alexandre Pelletier, and Arianto Sangadji. "Unfree Labour and Extractive Regimes in Colonial Java and Beyond." Development and Change 47.3 (2016): 598-611. 31 Zakat is the Islamic tithe, one of Islam’s five pillars. At the time, villagers generally paid zakat in rice. Fitrah is the deliveries in kind demanded at the end of the fasting month, also paid in rice at that time. 32 Antlöv, Hans. Exemplary centre, administrative periphery: rural leadership and the new order in Java. (Curzon Press Ltd, 1995): 21 33 Breman, Mobilizing Labour…: 112

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 18 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018 consequences on the strength of independent ulama’s institution in West Java. Government ulama were strong in West Java but, as their position was secured through the state, they did not bother building pesantren.

Reform Attempts in Late Colonial Era

From the 1860s on, the Dutch introduced agrarian reforms and started to dismantle the Cultivation System. The least profitable cultivation such as pepper, cloves, and nutmeg were abolished without any problems as early as 1860. It took longer, however, for the sugar cultivation to be abolished. The Sugar Law of 1870 decreed that the government would withdraw from sugar cultivation within 12 years, beginning in 1878. So, it is only by 1890 that sugar production was entirely privatized across Java. Unsurprisingly, coffee was the last forced cultivation to be abolished. The Priangan was under forced cultivation until around 1917, which delayed administrative reforms.34 A trigger for the reform is that the Dutch became increasingly worried that the abuse and misuse of the zakat funds by West Javanese government ulama could create unrest. However, controlling their doings would prove a more difficult task than expected. 35 Government ulama continued to enjoy a stronger position than their counterpart elsewhere in Java until the end of the colonial regime.36 The Dutch reformed the collection and management of zakat and fitrah through a number of regulations from 1858 to 1905, meant to limit and control the authority of religious officials and keep the payment of zakat voluntary.37 West Java was exempted from the application of this new regulation. In 1870, the government commissioner O. van Rees promised West Javanese native leaders and government ulama that the government would not attempt to interfere in their “religious income.” The government feared that the implementation of the regulation would

34 Merle Calvin Ricklefs, A History of Modern Indonesia since c. 1200. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008: 150 35 Thommy Svensson, “Peasants and Politics in Early Twentieth-Century West Java” in In Long Litt Woon, Thommy Svensson, and Per Sørensen. (eds) Indonesia and Malaysia: Scandinavian Studies in Contemporary Society. (London: Curzon, 1986): 24 36 Ibid: 24 37 see Fauzia, Amelia. Faith and the state: a history of Islamic philanthropy in Indonesia. (Brill, 2013): 112-3.

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 19 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018 provoke a strong reaction from the government ulama, since zakat and fitrah were an important part of their income given the absence of office land in the region. In contrast, for Central and East Javanese government ulama, these reforms had little to no impact on their salary, since they got most of it from office land.38 The exemption of the Priangan created two systems of zakat collection in Java. In Banten, Central and East Java, the reforms were strictly enforced and effectively prevented government ulama from taking part in zakat collection and distribution. In the early 1900s, independent ulama claimed the largest portion of zakat funds in regions outside West Java.39 In West Java, however, government ulama and their assistants continued to collect zakat from the people, often through intimidation and coercion, leaving independent ulama with almost nothing. Snouck Hurgronje observed that “with all the revenue flowing into the hand of the [government ulama], [they] grew into one of the most influential and prominent groups [in the region]”.40 As government ulama were given new responsibilities, such as leading the newly created Islamic courts, intimidation and violence in the collection of zakat increased at the turn of the 20th century. In response, the Dutch attempted once more to streamline the collection and distribution of zakat in the troublesome Priangan. In 1904, the government exempted government ulama from taxes in an attempt to lessen the incentives to extract zakat through compulsion. Yet zakat collection continued like before.41 The Dutch were able to impose a redistribution scheme to the government ulama only in 1910.42 Despite this new scheme, a large portion of zakat and fitrah still went to the government ulama and his office (about 40 percent). The amounts collected remained very important until the end of the colonial regime.43

Land Reforms

38 Muhamad Hisyam, Caught Between Three Fires: The Javanese Pangulu under the Dutch Colonial Administration, 1882-1942, INIS, 2001: 113-4 39 Salim, Arskal. The Shift in Zakat Practice in Indonesia: From Piety to an Islamic Socio-Political Economic System. (Silkworm books, 2008): 20 40 Snouck Hurgronje, Nasihat-Nasihat C. Snouck Hurgronje Semasa Kepegawaiannya Kepada Pemerintah Hindia Belanda, 1889-1936, 1936 (1992): 1331 41 Svensson, Thommy. State Bureaucracy and Capitalism in Rural West Java: Local Gentry versus Peasant Entrepreneurs in Priangan in the 19th and 20th Century. NIAS Press, 1991: 25 42 Fauzia, Faith and the State: 112-3 43 Svensson, “Peasants and Politics”: 116.

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 20 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018 Following the end of the cultivation system, the Dutch implemented a series of agrarian reforms in 1870. While the goal of the reforms had nothing to do with religion, they had unexpected consequences on religious life. Land reforms triggered a process of land dispossession and land concentration throughout Java. The impacts of this process were most severe in West Java. While independent ulama were already weak, given they did not collect zakat and fitrah, land reforms accelerated their marginalization. In 1870, the Dutch introduced the village institution and the land-tax system in West Java. The introduction of a taxation system meant that peasants were no longer forced to surrender a fifth share of their paddy harvest to the regents and to the government ulama. This should have been a good thing. However, an unexpected consequence of the reform was a sudden rise in the market value of land. Land became a profitable object of investment and those having capital at their disposition could quickly expand their holdings. During that time, many West Javanese residents lost their land to rich villagers and absentee landlords. The process of land dispossession was faster in West Java than anywhere else in Java. The Dutch’s Declining Welfare Inquiry report of 1905 revealed that 51 percent of all West Java’s 1.3 million households owned no land at all.44 In the Priangan, the situation was even worst: 61 percent of the population were believed to be landless by 1905.45 By contrast, less than half of the households were landless in East Java at that time. Landlessness pushed West Javanese peasants into coolie labour and out of their villages for seasonal work. Urban centers swelled at a much faster pace than those of Central and East Java.46 In contrast to other regions of Java, absentee landlordism was allowed in West Java. As Figure 2 shows, land in West Java was under an “individual” ownership regime, which meant that land could be sold, leased, pawned to other people including those outside the village. 47 By contrast, most land in Central and East Java was under

44 Cited in Ben White, “Agroindustry and Contract Farmers in Upland West Java”, The Journal of Peasant Studies 24.3 (1997): 108. 45 Svensson, “Peasants and Politics”: 112 46 ibid: 102 47 Private land can be occupied in perpetuity and can be sold, leased, pawned, or handed over to a heir. See Horishi, Land tenure system and the Desa community in nineteenth-century Java . No. 5. Institute of Developing Economies, 1977: p. 11

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 21 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018 “communal possession” at that time. An individual or a family could use land under communal possession, but the land remained the property of the village. While some villages granted individuals with more rights to transfer land to their family, in general, an individual was not authorized to dispose or hand over the land to his heir or to someone outside the village. In Besuki, Pasuruan and Madura, the easternmost districts of East Java, land was under individual holding like in the Priangan (see figure 2). However, village institutions were implemented in East Java long before West Java and were strong enough to prevent the free disposition of land to people outside the village. 48 Inadvertently, then, village institutions provided a sort of bulwark against a too rapid concentration of land and the commercialization of the countryside.49

Figure 2- Land Tenure Systems in Java, c. 1900

Individual holdings

Individual holdings with communal restrictions

Private European land with special rights

Communal control with individual rights

Communal control with periodical redistribution

Bureaucratic control with seigneurial rights

Note: The map displays contemporary district boundaries. Source: The map is from Svensson, “Peasants and Politics”: 79. Additional and missing data from Hiroshi Kanō, Land tenure system and the Desa community in nineteenth-century Java . No. 5. Institute of Developing Economies, 1977: 11

The land ownership regime and the weakness of the village institutions in West Java were disastrous for many kyai. Some of them lost their land to absentee landlords, just like other villagers, while others fragmented their land in the hope of making ends

48 Ibid: 12-3 49 Svensson, “Peasants and Politics”: 78

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 22 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018 meet.50 Land ownership, combined to the fact they could not collect zakat and fitrah, led to the emergence of a large group of poor kyai in West Java. The legacies are still visible today as few pesantren are big or engage in agriculture in West Java. Historically, the land owned by independent ulama was extremely important to strengthen their rural position. As observed by Weirthem, landless or land-poor peasants would often till the land of their “master”, their kyai. Without land, West Javanese kyai could not use agriculture as a means to strengthen their connection to poor villagers.51 A second, more subtle impact, was that landlessness pushed many peasants into coolie labour and out of their village for work. Mobility uprooted village life, and villages became much more heterogeneous as a result. As argued by Horikoshi, “the ulama status-quo is […] [always] affected by change in the local economic structure, landownership, and consequent population distribution”. In East Java, “the relative homogeneity of village life and social structure […] help[ed] the ulama’s effective practice of authority.” 52 Indeed, “ulama skilfully manoeuvred their chances by eliminating possible challenge to their authority both culturally, socially and economically”. In West Java, however, the heterogeneous landownership patterns made social control more difficult: as Horikoshi puts it “in towns and heterogeneous villages, […] many ulama have lost both religious and social influence.”53 Third, land concentration and the West Java bustling economy made it possible for a rising class of wealthy Indonesians to go on the pilgrimage to Mecca. In the 1880s, there were on average 4,125 pilgrims departing to Mecca per year in Indonesia. In the 1920s, this number reached an unprecedented high, with on average 27,669 pilgrims. From that total number, the largest portion came from West Java. From 1900 to 1950, there was an average of 41 pilgrims per 100,000 inhabitants in West Java and only 14 pilgrims in Central and East Java.

50 E. Ensering, "De traditionele en hedendaagse rol van lokale religieuze leiders in de Preanger, West-Java." Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land-en Volkenkunde 2/3de Afl (1987): 286 51 Willem Frederik Wertheim, "Indonesia before and after the Untung Coup." Pacific Affairs 39.1/2 (1966): 121. 52 Hiroko Horikoshi. A Traditional Leader in A Time of Change: The'Kijaji'and'Ulama'in West Java. Diss. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1976, 69 53 Ibid: 298.

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 23 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018 Figure 2. Number of Haji per 100,000 inhabitants in Java, 1900-1950

140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 1900 1902 1904 1910 1912 1914 1920 1922 1924 1930 1932 1934 1940 1942 1944 1950 1906 1908 1916 1918 1926 1928 1936 1938 1946 1948

West Java Central and East Java

Source: Author’s own figure, raw data from Jacob Vredenbregt, "The Haddj: Some of its features and functions in Indonesia." Bijdragen tot de taal-, land-en volkenkunde 1ste Afl (1962): 91-154.

The Islamic revival it triggered led to a phenomenal growth of Islamic schools (pesantren) as a number of Mecca-trained kyai returned to Java and founded their own pesantren. The large influx of haji in West Java led a more rapid pluralization of the religious field there than in Central and East Java. In 1942, as a result, the number of pesantren per 10,000 Capita in West Java was already 10 times that of East Java (1.9 for WJ, 0.2 for EJ). Like today, offer did not match demand, however. In West Java, there was 1,046 pesantren with an average of 66 santri per pesantren, while in East Java, there was only 307 pesantren with an average of 107 santri per pesantren.54 In other words, the pattern of religious field crowding and of small pesantren in West Java was well established by the end of the colonial regime.

CLEAVAGE STRUCTURE AND INSTITUTION BUILDING

Why did patterns initiated under the colonial era continue during the late colonial period and throughout the post-colonial period? This section shows that colonial styles of state

54 Data from Osamu Shudan Shireibu Zen Jawa Kaikyo Jokyo Chosasho (Survey on Islam in Java), Djakarta: Gunseikanbu, cited in Zamakhsyari Dhofier, The Pesantren Tradition, p. 20

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 24 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018 formation shaped subsequent political cleavages. In turn, these cleavages imposed unique challenges to state officials or clerics, who often had to deepen previous strategies.

Horizontal cleavage in East Java

In East Java, the state adopted a greater laissez-faire approach to Islamic authorities, as they were useless to the incipient state’s efforts to mobilize labour and collect taxation. State building strategies and the land ownership regime indirectly helped independent ulama become dominant landholders and well-institutionalized Islamic leaders in East Java. In late colonial and early post-colonial East Java, Kyai’s threat was on their side, not above their head. The political cleavage that took form was resolutely horizontal, opposing first kyai to modernist Muslims and then kyai to the Communists. In the late colonial period, the threat to the independent ulama in Central and East Java did not come from the state and its native officials (bupati, penghulu). Instead, it came from a new Islamic movement, the modernists and their organization, . Muhammadiyah was founded in Yogyakarta in 1912 and rapidly spread to East Java. The theological conflict between modernists and traditionalists was at first amicable, but soured rapidly when modernists started to oppose and criticize the quasi-aristocratic reverence reserved for the kyai. In the 1920s, modernists rapidly became an existential threat to the entire institution of kyai when they started to expand in rural towns and cities of Central and East Java and recruit wealthy Muslim traders and landowners, essential to kyai’s material and financial support.55 In response, the kyai founded Nahdlatul Ulama, a religious and social organization, in 1926. The name and the structure of the organization reserved a dominant position for ulama. NU was rapidly able to coordinate efforts and stop the progression of modernists in the Javanese countryside. The success of the organization was due to the mobilization of large pesantren in support of the foundation of NU. These large pesantren existed, in the first place, thanks to colonial policies, which did not meddle with kyai’s autonomous source of revenue (zakat and fitrah). Large pesantren such as those that gave birth to the NU were simply

55 Greg Fealy, Ulama and Politics in Indonesia: A History of Nahdlatul Ulama, 1952-67, Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Monash University: 25; Noer, Deliar. The modernist Muslim movement in Indonesia, 1900-1942. Oxford University Press, 1973: 226

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 25 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018 non-existent in West Java at that time. Given the size of these institutions, kyai had at their disposition extensive networks based on kinship (marriage between families of kyai) and alumni networks (former santri who became kyai) to build NU.56 These networks will remain crucial to patterns of religious competition throughout the 20th century. Indeed, a similar use of kyai’s networks took place when NU split from Masjumi in 1952.57 The secession forced kyai to make a crucial choice: either to join the newly formed Nahdlatul Ulama Party or to remain within the Masyumi. In East Java, a majority of ulama migrated from Masyumi to the newly created NU party. Influential kyai and strong networks nodes (i.e. large pesantren) were crucial for the success of that migration. In West Java, very few kyai migrated to the NU party. Horizontal cleavages in East Java subsisted long after the colonial regime and shaped religious institution building. The 1955 election is an example. The preparation for the elections was a period of rapid institution building for NU. The need to mobilize voters for party was useful for NU and its kyai, and vice versa. In only two years, by involving influential pesantren in the organization, NU went from 87 to 200 branches. In 1952, NU had only three autonomous divisions: Ansor for the youth, Muslimat-Fatayat for women, and Pertanu for farmers. In a short period of time, NU established new subdivisions to serve specific constituencies such as veterans, labourers and students, and started to publish newspapers and journals, and created a solid funding base and fostered new commercial activities within NU.58 After the elections, the ideological and physical confrontation with the Communist Party of Indonesia intensified. The communists represented for the ulama yet another vital threat to their existence. The PKI campaigned for land redistribution and thanks to colonial policies most kyai in East Java were landholders. For Fealy, the 1960s as a “second burst of organizational expansion.” During the first half of the 1960s, NU tried to match the rapid growth of the PKI in the countryside by mobilizing support in sections of the community where NU had previously been poorly organized. Like in 1955, NU created tertiary organizations, this time targeting the students, the artists, the fishermen,

56 See Dhofier. The modernist Muslim movement: 113 57 Masjumi was an Islamic political party, first created under the Japanese, in which Islamic groups from various background (e.g. traditionalists and modernists) were members. 58 Fealy, Islam and Politics: 107

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 26 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018 and the entrepreneurs. The new student and artist organizations were central to the new push made by NU in its attempt to “attract devout Muslims who previously had little or no connection with NU.”59 The confrontation with the PKI had positive implications for kyai’s land holdings. In the years surrounding the adoption of the land reform act, many landowners chose to transform their land into wakaf, instead of losing it to the peasants and the communist party who increasingly took upon themselves to seize and redistribute land. Wakaf land was used to build new mosques, new pesantren or madrasah, or expand the land of existing religious institutions. Thousands and thousands of square metres of land thus escaped land reform and bolstered the position of kyai in West Java.

1000 1 200 000 900

1 000 000 800

700 m2) 800 000 600 500 600 000 400 400 000

Number of Wakaf Wakaf of Number 300

200 ( surface land Total 200 000 100 0 0 1905 1910 1915 1920 1925 1930 1935 1940 1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980

Number of Wakaf Land Surface

Source: figure from author, data from Rachmat Djatnika, Les biens de mainmorte (Wakaf) à Java-Eest: étude diachronique, PhD Dissertation (Paris: École des Hautes Études et Sciences Sociales).

Vertical Cleavage in West Java

In West Java, the colonial style of state formation led to a completely different political cleavage. In this province there was no laissez faire, native officials were strong, rich, and affluent, and the colonial style was oppressive and predatory. The cleavage was vertical as

59 Fealy, Islam and Politics: 228

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 27 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018 a result and opposed disgruntled and marginalized kyai (among others) to state officials and later on, to the young republic. State officials had the resources and, more than anywhere else, the interest to respond harshly. That is what they did by increasingly using repression and co-optation as ways to cling to power. This response was a legacy of the colonial style in the region, which strengthened native officials, and tended accelerated the weakening of independent Islamic leaders in West Java. The rise of (SI) in the 1910s and 20s marked a radical departure from previous Islamic movements in the Dutch East Indies. SI was nationalist and served to express grievances against the representatives of the colonial regime, such as the native and Dutch colonial officials, and the commercial elites, such as the Chinese. In East Java, the political climate remained relatively calm despite the popularity of SI.60 In West Java, however, SI became more aggressively anti-colonial than elsewhere and its targets were naturally the state officials who empowered by the local colonial state: the regents (bupati), the aristocracy (menak), and the government officials (penghulu). SI contested the government ulama’s position, powers, and responsibilities in the province. It also turned against the government and its attempts to regulate religious life. It criticized and contested the regents’ claim to be the religious head of the community and the obligation to address a prayer to him on Friday prayer. Finally, SI opposed official ulama’s monopoly over the collection of zakat and fitrah as well as the fact these funds were used for their own benefit. Contesting “religious parasitism,” SI became much more than a bureau of complaints and local assistance; it became a sort of “free-church movement” in the region.61 Native officials in West Java felt fundamentally threatened by the rise of SI and other Islamic socio-religious organizations. In response, they sought to re-monopolize the Islamic religious field and keep a grip on independent ulama. This strategy in West Java remained in place even after independence. Regents and government ulama created a flurry of “Islamic” organizations to distribute patronage and secure the support of moderate kyai. For example, the bupati in Garut established the Djamiatul Mutiin, an association for devout Muslims, and Djamiatul Hassanah, a religious welfare association.

60 Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia, Sarekat Islam Lokal (Jakarta: Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia, 1975): 271–326 61 Svensson, “Peasants and Politics”: 113

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 28 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018 Similarly, the bupati in Tasikmalaya founded the “Sukalilah” (God lovers), an organization similar to Sarekat Islam but which thought highly of regents.62 The Regent- led counter-movement consolidated in the 1920s when the communists began to assume the role that the Sarekat Islam was now too weak to play. Regents continued to form organizations and religion was even more useful. All these groupings came to be associated with the most prominent of them: the Sarekat Hedjo (Green Union), organized by the regents of Sumedang. Sarekat Hedjo quickly spread to Bandung, Tasikmalaya, Ciamis, and Cianjur.63 The political cleavage unique to West Java increasingly opposed kyai close to the government, who were coined as “Kyai hedjo” (Green Kyai,) and the other kyai, who were coined “kyai merah” (red kyai).64 In the absence of strong institutions, patronage provided kyai with a means to survive. While NU and other Islamic organizations were growing unhindered elsewhere in Java, the political situation in West Java was far from conducive. There are evidence that native officials opposed the foundation of NU in Tasikmalaya and other regions. In Tasikmalaya, the Association of Religious Teachers (Perkumpulan Guru Ngaji), was one of the organizations created by the local regent with the help of the government ulama in June 1926. As part of the counteroffensive described earlier, ART mobilized kyai dubbed “kyai hedjo” or “kyai Idzhar” (pro-government) against the nascent Nahdlatul Ulama organization. The competition between NU and the “kyai Idzhar” led to violence on some occasions.65 By the end of Dutch rule, regents had convinced most religious leaders in Tasikmalaya to join ART rather than NU. In sum, the native officials’ harsh repression of Sarekat Islam in West Java led to a fragmented associational network and Islamic organizations that are generally weak. This vertical cleavage, combined to repression and co-optation, remained in place well after independence. The rebellion (1948-62), led by Kartosoewirjo, fought against the newly established republic and involved the participation of many kyai.

62 Cheong, Yong Mun. Conflicts within the Prijaji World of the Parahyangan in West Java, 1914- 1927, 1973:16 63 Ibid: 21 64 Iskandar, Mohammad. Para Pengemban Amanah: Pergulatan Pemikiran Kiai dan Ulama di Jawa Barat, 1900-1950. Jakarta: Matabangsa, 2001: 160 65 Romdhom, “Sejarah Berdirinya Nahdlatul Ulama di Tasikmalaya”, Bandung: Pengurus Wilayah Nahdlatul Ulama, 2000

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 29 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018 Like Sarekat Islam before, Darul Islam was an expression of tensions between elite groups with contradictory interest rather than a mass Islamist movement.66 Darul Islam was a loose alliance between pribumi entrepreneurs (haji) and poor kyai against state and national officials.67 The poor kyai, who were fragile and caught in a process of land dispossession, were probably attracted to the promises of an Islamic state. Predictably, repression was the one of the republic’s answer to the rebellion. The government banned Masjumi in 1960, suspected of supporting Darul Islam. Since NU and other Islamic organizations were weak in West Java, the banning of Masjumi destroyed kyai’s last collective institution. The banning of Masjumi helped further fragment their networks as a result. Repression of Darul Islam also had its toll on kyai and their institutions. Some families of ulama and kyai suffered greatly from the rebellion: sons of kyai were killed, families were displaced, and pesantren were abandoned or destroyed. When the situation stabilized in West Java, there was an “acute shortage of influential ulama” as “many of the older orthodox ulama had died and the young ulama were not yet ready to succeed the old generation.”68 In sum, while traditional Islamic leaders were consolidating their institutions in East Java, the fraught political situation in West Java accelerated the weakening of kyai’s traditional religious institutions. Co-optation was the other answer. In 1956, the government sponsored the creation of a ‘Consultative Body of Ulama’ (Badan Musyawarah Alim-Ulama, BMAU) in Tasikmalaya. The Consultative Body was a success and the following years, similar bodies were established in Banten (1957), Sumedang, Garut and Bandung (1958). This body became the Majelis Ulama West Java two years later, and almost twenty years before the Majelis Ulama we know today was created at the national level. In order to restore security, the government granted an important regulatory role to the Majelis Ulama. First, the government prohibited public gatherings in the region, but granted to the Majelis Ulama the power to emit permits for pengajian education, and dakwah.69 Second, the Majelis Ulama was also given the authority to manage Mosque Councils

66 Van Dijk, Cornelis. Rebellion Under the Banner of Islam: the Darul . (Seattle: University of Washington Press), 1981 67 Ibid: 231 68 Horikoshi, A Traditional Leader: 6 69 MUI Jawa Barat, MUI Dalam Dinamika Sejarah: BMAU ke MUI di Jawa Barat, Bandung: MUIJB, :16

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 30 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018 (Dewan Keluarga Masjid). In East Java, Mosque Councils were and remain until today entirely autonomous from state interference. Through this control over Mosque Councils, Majelis Ulama was granted de facto control over the collection and distribution of zakat, thus renewing a practice that was unique to West Java during the colonial period. This new practice again prevented the free collection of zakat and fitrah for most ulama in the 1960s. Through the Council, the government also institutionalized a formal patronage channel to reward loyal ulama. Like in the late colonial period, the distinction between pro- and anti-government kyai remained the main cleavage in West Java. In sum, as the government renewed the practice of co-opting pro-government ulama and repressing the others, kyai in West Java never had the incentive to strengthen their institution and their collective networks. State repression destroyed their autonomous networks and contributed to the fragmentation of their socio-religious associations. The colonial and post-colonial state building strategies thus left kyai weak and fragmented.

CONCLUSION

State formation had long-term consequences on the configuration of Islamic institutions in Java. In Java, regions in which militant groups have proliferated have weak Islamic institutions. When Islamic institutions fail to produce strong religious authorities, weak and marginal kyai have incentives to create new militant groups to increase their religious ascendency. The origins of these institutions were then traced back to the colonial and post-colonial state formation. In West Java, native leaders and government ulama were empowered by the colonial state, which had little appetite to develop a strong state given the crop produced in West Java. Yet, native leaders did not hesitate to exploit the local population and marginalize independent kyai who were prevented from collecting zakat and fitrah. Despite a clear effect on West Javanese religious field and institutions, none of the colonial era policies were motivated by a desire to affect religious authority per se. Most were motivated, instead, by pragmatic concerns related to land ownership, labor mobilization, and taxation. In the late colonial period, however, this power configuration led to a vertical cleavage in which Islam was mobilized as a tool for the emancipation of

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 31 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018 the local Muslim clerics. Local officials had often no choice but to respond harshly and repress or co-opt independent ulama, which further weakened their autonomous institutions. This paper makes a number of contributions to the study of state and Islam in Indonesia. First, it identifies local variations in state building strategies, variations that generally go unnoticed. Second, it identifies local variations in religious institutions. It shows that the experience of religious leaders is fundamentally different in different regions of Java. A kyai operating the “ecosystem” of West Java will behave in a fundamentally different way than one operating in East Java. The literature is only starting to delve into the consequences of colonialism on Islam and on the consequences of institutions on Islamic politics.70 Finally, this paper makes a contribution to our understanding of the interaction between taxation and institution building in Islam.

70 Nielsen, Thing on Muslim brotherhood, the new book.

Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group Workshop 32 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 31-2 June 2018