ISLAM AND THE MAKING OF THE NATION VERHANDELINGEN VAN HET KONINKLIJK INSTITUUT VOOR TAAL-, LAND- EN VOLKENKUNDE 282 chiara formichi ISLAM AND THE MAKING OF THE NATION Kartosuwiryo and political Islam in twentieth-century Indonesia KITLV Press Leiden 2012 Published by: KITLV Press Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies) P.O. Box 9515 2300 RA Leiden The Netherlands website: www.kitlv.nl e-mail: [email protected] KITLV is an institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) Cover: samgobin.nl ISBN 978 90 6718 386 4 © 2012 Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde KITLV Press applies the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCom mercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/) to selected books, published in or after January 2011. - Authors retain ownership of their copyright, but they permit any one unrestricted use and distribution within the terms of this license. - Printed editions manufactured in the Netherlands To my mother, and the loving memory of my father Contents acknowledgements xi note on spelling and transliteration xiii list of abbreviations xv preface: new perspectives on political islam in twentieth-century indonesia 1 Scholarly approaches to Islam and politics 3 Kartosuwiryo’s motives 6 About this book 8 Structure of the book 9 A note on the sources 12 1 planting the seeds: java, the nationalist movement and kartosuwiryo in the 1920s 15 From desa to kota: a nationalist leader in the making 15 Colonial perspectives 15 Surabaya 19 Batavia 25 Back to the desa: building local networks 29 West Java 29 Malangbong 32 Islam, authority and leadership in the Priangan 34 Developing an Islamic nationalist ideology 38 Concluding remarks 46 2 political islam in changing times: sarekat islam and masyumi under the dutch and japanese occupations (1930-1945) 47 Kartosuwiryo: a rising star? 48 Redefining Partai Sarekat Islam Indonesia’s priorities 50 Pan-Islamism and non-cooperation 50 The Islamic movement and secular nationalism 53 The consequences of non-cooperation 56 | Contents The Brosoer sikap hidjrah PSII and Daftar oesaha hidjrah 60 Reflecting on the ‘Middle East’ factor 64 Kartosuwiryo’s weakening support and withdrawal from politics 66 New regime, new approach: Dai Nippon and Islamic politics 70 The rise of secular nationalism 75 Concluding remarks 77 3 religious resistance and secular politics: laying the foundations of the indonesian state (1945-1947) 79 Shifting centres of power: Tokyo, Jakarta, London, The Hague 81 Masyumi’s islamization of the ideological struggle 85 Kartosuwiryo’s Haloean politik Islam 89 Troop polarization in West Java 92 Seeking a structure 92 The Linggadjati agreement and the Dutch invasion 96 Consequences for West Java 98 The Limbangan incident 100 West Java on the eve of the Renville agreement 102 Ideological radicalization: calling for holy war 103 Kartosuwiryo’s Perang sabil 103 Kartosuwiryo’s ‘holy war’ 105 Government reception of Masyumi’s and Kartosuwiryo’s calls for a jihad 106 Concluding remarks 107 4 building the islamic state: from ideal to reality (1947-1949) 109 Groundwork (November 1947-May 1948) 111 Imagining the Islamic state 111 Laying the foundations of the Islamic state 114 Early reactions 117 Initial expansion 120 A step closer to establishing the Islamic state (May-December 1948) 121 Institutional and territorial consolidation 121 Structuring the Islamic state 123 Reaching out: promoting the common goal 125 Growing apart (December 1948-August 1949) 127 Tentara Islam Indonesia and the Siliwangi in West Java: an uneasy cohabitation 127 …and an easy divorce 130 viii Contents | Opposing reactions: clashing military and political interests 131 Declaring an Islamic state in ‘occupied’ West Java 134 The proclamation of the Negara Islam Indonesia 135 The NII’s criminal code 136 The NII’s Islamic martial law 137 Initial attempts to reconciliation (August-October 1949) 139 Concluding remarks 142 5 the ‘war of the roses’: the islamic state and the pancasila republic (1949-1962) 145 Shifting approaches: between negotiation and condemnation (1949-1954) 146 The ‘Commission for the solution to the Darul Islam problem’ 146 ‘Silently resorting to great military force’ 150 The duty to restore peace 152 The unitary state: ‘a modern form of colonialism’ 153 A new round of negotiations 154 Soekiman’s ‘more resolute way’ 155 Soekarno’s Pancasila national state and its opponents 156 ‘Final operations’ against the enemies of the state 160 The demise of Masyumi and Darul Islam (1955-1962) 161 Political defeat 161 Darul Islam and the regional rebellions 165 Operation ‘annihilate’ 167 Concluding remarks 169 6 from rebellion to martyrdom? 171 Speculations and the rhetoric of betrayal (1948-1950) 172 Darul Islam and Communism 173 The DI: a scheme of ‘(D)utch (I)nfiltration’ 176 Missing ideological reactions to Kartosuwiryo’s NII 178 Building the image of a ‘sterile rebel’ 181 Condemnation: mysticism, violence and defeat 182 Reconciliation: keep your friends close, but your enemies closer 186 Glorification 190 Kartosuwiryo and contemporary visions of Islamic law in Indonesia 193 Comparing the codes: crimes and punishments 196 ix | Contents Beyond condemnation and glorification 199 Concluding remarks 201 conclusion: the development of political islam and the making of the indonesian state 203 appendix: articles and pamphlets authored by s.m. kartosuwiryo 207 glossary 213 bibliography 215 index 233 x Acknowledgements This book would never have materialized without the support of many individuals and institutions. Above all are my PhD supervisor William Gervase Clarence-Smith at the School of Oriental and Afri- can Studies (SOAS) at the University of London, my post-doctoral mentor Michael Feener at the Asia Research Institute (ARI), and the colleagues, family and friends who supported my decision to embark on a doctoral programme and have encouraged me to fur- ther expand the thesis into a monograph. I began this research in 2006 as the foundation for the PhD dissertation I defended in the History Department of SOAS, in September 2009. The research was conducted with the invariably resourceful administrative help of the Faculty of Arts and Humani- ties at SOAS. It had the financial support of this Faculty, the Univer- sity of London Central Research Fund, the Royal Historical Society and the Sir Richard Stapley Educational Trust. During the period of archival research in The Hague and Leiden, I was affiliated with the Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (KITLV), which proved to be a most valuable source of inspiration, informal mentoring and long-lasting friendships. That KITLV Press pub- lished the final product of this research is an honour to me. I am indebted to the ever helpful staff at the library, and to Rosemarijn Hofte who has been a committed editor. Fieldwork in Indonesia would have been impossible without Universitas Islam Negeri (UIN) Syarif Hidayatullah in Jakarta, the Fakultas Ilmu Budaya of the Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta and the staff members of the National Archives in Ampera and the National Library in Salemba. The Priangan would still be a mysteri- ous place had it not been for my assistant Dede Syarif, lecturer at the IAIN Bandung, and my friend Dede Rohati. Many have untiringly listened to my conference presentations, giving valuable feedback and insights. Some have gone through the burden of reading early drafts of the dissertation and chap- ters of this book. Amongst them, I wish to thank William Gervase Clarence-Smith, Michael Feener, Bob Elson, Martin van Bruines- sen, Michael Laffan, Henk Schulte-Nordholt, Gerry van Klinken, | Acknowledgements Annelieke Dirks and Juliana Finucane. Regardless, all mistakes remain mine. My utmost gratitude rests with my keluarga angkat in Yogyakarta, who took me in as a daughter and a sister and took care of me throughout the drafting of the dissertation. The Pujos’ affection and guidance is what ultimately made it possible for the results of this research to see the light, whilst keeping me sound in body, mind and heart. To Claudia, Andi and little Anna goes my affection for the many Sundays and evenings spent trying to get Kartosu- wiryo out of my mind. With them I was able to experience a glimpse of normal life at an otherwise very difficult time. The lengthy, and at times painful, process of rewriting the dis- sertation into this book was undertaken during a post-doctoral fel- lowship at the ‘Religion and Globalization’ research cluster of the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. I can’t express enough how important the administrative, intellectual and human support received at ARI has been to me, and a special dedi- cation goes to my colleague and dear friend Juliana Finucane. xii Note on spelling and transliteration Addressing the political manifestation of Islam in modern Indo- nesia carries the problems of transliteration from Arabic and pre-reform spelling. First, Arabic Islamic terminology has been, throughout the centuries, adapted to the local languages of the archipelago; secondly, bahasa Indonesia radically changed its spell- ing rules in the 1940s. In this book I have followed the conven- tion of modern Indonesian spelling as it appears in the Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia (2001 edition) for all terms still in use today, unless quoting directly from a source, in which case the original spelling has been retained. The ‘old’ Dutch-influenced