Islam, Nationalism and Democracy: A Political Biography of Mohammad Natsir

Chapter 3. Entering the Political Arena, 1942-50

Entering the Political Arena, 1942‒50 37 3 Entering the Political Arena, 1942–50 The Japanese Occupation In mid-February 1942 the first Japanese troops parachuted into South Sumatra and on March 1 they landed in Java. Within eight days Lt. Gen. Ter Poorten, the Dutch commander on Java, surrendered to the invading forces. The Japanese invasion marked a decisive turning point in the history of Indonesia, revealing the weakness of the Dutch and providing leaders of the Indonesian nationalist movement with the means for eventually achieving the independence of their country from their colonial overlord. From the beginning of their occupation, the Japanese authorities were conscious of the important role Islam played in the lives of most Indonesians and they considered religion to be “one of the most effective means to penetrate into the spiritual recesses of Indonesian life and to infuse the influence of their own ideas and ideals at the bottom of the society.”1 They also realized that a smooth-running administrative organization in Java required cooperation from Islamic leaders, and so, as Harry Benda has written, Indonesian Muslims for the first time were faced with colonial rulers who were “actively interested in winning their support.”2 Their widespread influence in Indonesian society thus gave Muslim leaders a certain amount of bargaining power with the occupying authorities. 1 M.A. Aziz, Japan’s Colonialism and Indonesia (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1955), p. 200. 2 Harry J. Benda, The Crescent and the Rising Sun: Indonesian Islam under the Japanese Occupation 1942‒1945 (The Hague and Bandung: Van Heuve, 1958), p. 107. 37 38 Islam, Nationalism and Democracy In an effort to court Muslim allegiance, the Japanese allowed the MIAI (Majelis Islam A’la Indonesia), the federation of Islamic groups formed in 1937, to be re-established on July 13, 1942.3 They were, however, always uneasy with the organization, whose leadership was largely made up of “radical” PSII personnel. As the federation had initially been founded with the aim of opposing a marriage law the Dutch were attempting to introduce, the Japanese feared that this basic anti-Dutch stance might change to a more general “antiforeign ” orientation.4 Eventually, in October 1943, the Japanese authorities again dissolved the MIAI. A month earlier, they had granted recognition to the more moderate and less political organizations Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), and it was the leadership of these two bodies that formed the core of the Japanese-sponsored Masjumi, which was founded in late November 1943 as a non-political coordinating religious body “with the almost sole aim of supporting the Japanese war effort.”5 At the same time, religious leaders were accorded prominent roles in the administration. The Department of Religious Affairs was placed under Indonesian leadership in November 1943 and a bureau of religious affairs was set up in every Residency (shu), giving religious leaders an accepted place within the bureaucracy. As M.A. Aziz has written: Islam obtained a privileged position in the political system in which, next to the secular administration, a religious apparatus had been created. The Japanese thus brought about a fundamental change in the traditional method of governing, by the increase of power for Islam.6 This was not, however, true in all fields. The Japanese were particularly keen to gain the loyalty and enthusiastic support of young people in the lands they occupied; so they were determined not to let either religious or nationalist teachers guide the education of Indonesian youth. Thus, while Islamic leaders were granted a greater role in the quasi-political organizations sponsored by the Japanese, they were restricted in running their own schools. The Japanese authorities retained the Guru Ordinance introduced by the Dutch in 1925, which limited the freedom of private schools, and they reinstated priyayi administrators in their supervisory roles over local religious schools.7 3 It had been briefly banned after the invasion. Aziz, Japan’s Colonialism, pp. 204‒5. 4 Ibid., p. 205. 5 Benda, Crescent and the Rising Sun, p. 151. See also Deliar Noer, Partai Islam di Pentas Nasional (Jakarta: Grafiti, 1987), p. 26. It should be noted that the Masjumi was only established in Java, not on the other islands. 6 Aziz, Japanese Colonialism, p. 206. 7 Benda, Crescent and the Rising Sun, pp.128‒9. Entering the Political Arena, 1942‒50 39 In Bandung, as elsewhere in the Netherlands East Indies, many of the local people...