Parallel and Divergent
Aspects of British Rule in the Raj, French Rule in Indochina, Dutch Rule in the
Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia), and American Rule in the Philippines
by David
Steinberg
David.Steinberg@houseofdavid.ca
Home page http://www.houseofdavid.ca/
|
I dedicate this essay to the
memory of my dear friend, co-worker and fellow omnivorous intellect Y. C. Pan
(1935-2011). |
1. Similarity of General
Culture
1.1 European Cultural
Background of the Imperialists
1.2 Racism, Social Darwinism,
Orientalism
1.3 Marginality of Concern with Empire
1.3.1 British Raj
1.3.2 French Indochina
1.3.3 Dutch East Indies
1.3.4 The Philippines
B Land and People of the
Empires
2.1 British Raj
2.2 French Indochina
Box - The Malay Archipelago
2.4 The Philippines
C. Origin of the Asian Empires
3.1 British Raj
3.2 French Indochina
3.4 The Philippines
D. Defensibility of the
Empires
4.1 British Raj
4.2 French Indochina
4.4 The Philippines
F. Philosophies, Objectives
and Realities of Government
5. Official objectives and theory
5.1 British Raj
5.2 French Indochina
5.4 The Philippines
Box - The ‘Colons’ Factor
Box - Dealing with
Nationalists
6.1 British Raj
6.2 French Indochina
6.4 The Philippines
7. Policies Between the Wars
Including Reform Attempts
7.1 British Raj
7.2 French Indochina
7.4 The Philippines
F. Second World War and
Decolonization
8.1 British Raj
8.2 French Indochina
8.4 The Philippines
9.1 British Raj
9.2 French Indochina
9.4 The Philippines
G. Conclusions
Table
– Summary of Aspects of Colonial Rule
Table - Origin and Nature Military and Civil
Governance Origin and Impact
1. Similarity of
General Culture
1.1 European Cultural Background of the
Imperialists
I wrote this essay to better understand the
development of the British Raj
in
India which is my more central concern.
In that context, it is useful to consider the other European empires in
Asia and the American ruled Philippines. All of these great powers
largely shared the common European higher culture of their day as well as being
influenced by more particularistic national characteristics concerning the form
of, and attitude toward, government, national self-image, economic and military
challenges etc.
Like so many people in all times and places, the
decision makers, officials and propagandists of the major imperialist nations
in Asia (France, the Netherlands, the UK and the USA) tried to rationalize their actions in the context of their values. This
was a particularly strong challenge given that all of these countries trumpeted
their support for human rights. In
addition, all four of the major imperialist nations were fundamentally
democratic.
The one partial exception was France prior to 1871.
Metcalfe’s statement (below) could
apply equally to the Dutch, Americans or French -
“Of necessity, as they sought to come to terms
with the existence of their new dominion, the British drew upon a range of
ideas that had for a long time shaped their views of themselves and, more
generally, of the world outside their island home. As products at once of
Britain's own history of overseas expansion and its participation in the
larger intellectual currents of Europe, these ideas included settled expectations of how a 'proper' society
ought to be organized, and the values, above all those of the right to
property and the rule of law, that for the English defined a 'civilized'
people. As they extended their conquests to
India, the British had always to determine the extent to which that land was a fundamentally different,
'Oriental' society, and to what extent it possessed institutions similar
to those of Europe; how far its peoples ought
to be transformed in Europe's image, and how they should be expected to
live according to the standards of their own culture” Thomas R. Metcalfe, Ideologies of the Raj, (pp.
1-2)
1.2 Racism, Social Darwinism, Orientalism
The century from about 1850 until about 1950 saw
many technical triumphs, a huge increase in the belief in science and
technology as panaceas, a decline of religious belief and, a not unrelated,
increase in xenophobic nationalism often buttressed by social Darwinism, scientific racism, racial
anti-Semitism and unbridled capitalism embraced and supported by the state.
This racist perspective worked against according
oriental subject people equality as human beings. In India this is illustrated
by the replacement of the Utilitarian
view that Indian cultures, languages, customs were primitive and inferior[1] while Indian people, minus their culture and acculturation were the
same as Europeans to the “Orientalist” racially deterministic view that Asian
people were by nature different, and in most things inferior, to Europeans.
The Utilitarian view led to the belief that erasing
Indian culture and acculturation, and replacing it with a
scientific-rational-European total upbringing and education would turn Indians
into ideal rational men. When this would be completed, in the words of Lord Macaulay, a leading exponent of the utilitarian point of view, in his historically
important Minute on Indian Education (1835) -
Come what may, self-knowledge will lead to
self-rule, and that would be the proudest day in British history.
It may
be that the public mind of India may expand under our system till it has outgrown
that system; that by good government we may educate our subjects into a capacity for better government; that, having become instructed
in European knowledge, they may, in some future age, demand European institutions.
Whether such a day will ever come I know not. But never will I attempt to avert
or retard it. Whenever it comes, it will be the proudest day in English
history. To have found a people sunk in the lowest depths of slavery and
superstition, to have so ruled them as to have made them desirous and capable of all the privileges of citizens, would
indeed be a title to glory all our own.[2]
The Orientalist racially deterministic view led to the
belief that educating Indians as Europeans led only to corrupt Indians showing
the worst features of both races[3]/civilizations. This approach naturally led to the marginalizing of
Eurasians[4].
1.3 Marginality of Concern with Empire
1.3.1 British Raj
Although India was of great importance to Britain
both economically and in maintaining Britain’s position in the world there was
little general interest in its welfare. Though the Conservative party
passionately embraced the Empire, and the Liberal party considered the Empire
to be a heavy moral responsibility, many writers have remarked that the few
days Parliament dedicated to debating Indian issues were marked by the very
sparse attendance of MPs. There were prominent British politicians, most
notably Winston Churchill, who tried to make India
a party issue. However, to their credit, some statesman, such as Ramsay
MacDonald, William Wedgwood Benn
and Stanley Baldwin tried to maintain it as a non-party
issue. Unfortunately, this resulted in excessively cautious decision making.
This approach resulted in the Government of India Act 1919 and the Government of India Act 1935 both of
which were too little and too late to win the cooperation of most nationalist
opinion.
In fact, aside from the small number of Britons
connected to India by family or service, concern with India was centred in
narrow political circles of which the following were the most important:
Ø
The Lancashire
cotton trade for which India was the most important export customer for its
product as well as being a minor supplier of raw cotton. The main concern of this group was to
maintain its position in the Indian market, which implied opposing any
imposition of import tariffs, and retarding the development of the Indian
cotton industry. Their concern for the wellbeing of India and Indians was
non-existent;
Ø
Government patronage
managers who enjoyed the filling of the limited number of lucrative positions
particularly that of viceroy and
the governorships of the three presidencies (Bengal, Bombay, Madras). The fact that
these positions were frequently filled with politically involved aristocrats,
often in payment of a political debt, shows a high degree of insouciance of the
British political establishment regarding their responsibility for hundreds of
millions of Indians. In this connection, one has only to survey the viceroys
between Hardinge
and Montbatten
to get the point –
·
Lord Chelmsford (viceroy 1916
to 1921)
India made a massive contribution
to the British war effort in World War I. The mishandling
of the war effort by British authorities (disaster in Iraq, coerced recruiting
for the Indian army, inflation, cutting off of vital imports etc.) led to
inflation and wide-spread social distress and potential unrest. In addition,
the wartime propaganda about fighting for freedom etc. led to a strong demand
for “home rule” after 1915 among the numerically small but rapidly growing
and important westernized elite.
Lord Chelmsford was considered unimaginative and not very intelligent[5]. However, he
was selected at this time of unprecedented crisis because no first class talent
in British politics was willing to leave the center of power in London during
the First World War. Among the mediocrities available, he was supposedly
selected because he was the only fellow
of All Souls at hand in India (see Gopal, Sarvepalli, “ALL SOULS AND INDIA, 1921-47”). In fact,
contrary to what might have been expected, like Lord Irwin he turned out to be a
strategic thinker and reformer making a major contribution to Indian political
development (see Robb 1976).
·
Earl of Reading (viceroy 1921
to 1926) - a brilliant jurist sent when what was needed was a dynamic
politician capable of restoring rapport between the British and the Indian
political classes – i.e. brilliant but the wrong man for the time and place.
·
Lord Irwin (viceroy 1926
to 1931) – when sent he had not accomplished much in life and was not
known to have any interest in India. He made, from the British point of view, serious blunders which decreased the prestige of the Raj, undercut its
Indian supporters, strengthened the Indian nationalist movement and led to a
split in the Conservative party in Britain.
These were:
Ø
He proposed,
and then supported, against opposition, the decision to have an all-white
constitutional Statutory Commission (Simon Commission). This gave a
badly needed issue to unify and revivify the flagging nationalist movement;
Ø He negotiated the Gandhi-Irwin
Pact to buy Gandhi’s attendance at the second Round
Table Conferences in London and a temporary suspension of the second
civil disobedience campaign at the price of treating Gandhi as the leader
of India and thus making the Congress Party into a
sort of shadow parallel government. This
undermined the support for the British Government of India among its most
important supporters and made the task of governing India almost impossible.
Ø He made the “Dominion Status” announcement
(31 October 1929) –
The goal of British policy was stated in the declaration of August 1917
to be that of providing for the gradual development of self-governing institutions,
with a view to the progressive realization of responsible government in India
as an integral part of the British Empire…. I am authorized on behalf of His
Majesty's Government to state clearly that in their judgement it is implicit in
the declaration of 1917 that the natural issue of India's constitutional
progress, as there contemplated, is
the attainment of Dominion Status.
This statement thoroughly upset the Conservative and Liberal parties
while it did little to propitiate the nationalists because:
o
It did not give any time for the realization of
dominion status;
o
Dominion status in 1917 meant internal
self-government with the UK being in charge of defense and foreign affairs and
a theoretical right to disallow colonial legislation[6]. This was
similar to the commonwealth status enjoyed by the
Philippines[7] 1935-46.
Dominion status was redefined in 1926 when the Balfour
Declaration, recognized the self-governing Dominions of the British Empire as fully autonomous
i.e. virtually independent states. It will be noted that the wording of
Irwin’s statement essentially stated that the British government remained
committed to giving India the pre-1926 version of dominion status[8]. This was in line with the clear, if undiplomatic, statement of Sir Malcolm Hailey, Home Member to the Government of India, on 8
February 1924 -
The pronouncement of August 1917 spoke of '… the
gradual development of self-governing institutions with a view to the
progressive realization of responsible government in India '. That is also the
term used in the Preamble to the Act … The expression used in the Act is a term
of precision, conveying that the Executive in India would be responsible to the
Indian Legislature instead of to the British Parliament. If you analyse the
term full Dominion Self-Government ', you will see that it is of somewhat wider
extent, conveying that not only will the Executive be responsible to the
Legislature, but the Legislature will in itself have the full powers which are
typical of the modern Dominion. I say there is some difference of substance,
because responsible government is not necessarily incompatible with a
Legislature with limited or restricted powers. It may be that full Dominion
self-government is the logical outcome of responsible government, nay, it may
be the inevitable and historical development of responsible government, but it
is a further and a final step.[9]
Even so, Conservative opposition prevented any mention of dominion status in the Government of India Act of 1935.
In fact, the first statement that
Britain was committed to give India dominion status of the post-1926 (Statute of Westminster) variety
was made in a minor speech of the Viceroy in 1940. It is worth quoting Rizvi’s text (pp.
148-149) -
The reaction
was somewhat different in Britain. Linlithgow's mention of 'Dominion Status of Westminster
variety' evoked protests from the diehards who tried to bring pressure on Zetland to
dissuade Linlithgow from coming to terms with the Congress, The
difficulty, as Morley had complained thirty years before, lay in synchronizing
clocks in different hemispheres.
'It was not easy to devise a formula that could pass for self-government in
India, and for the British Raj at Westminster.' Sir Henry Page-Croft, a
diehard who was to become a parliamentary Under-Secretary in the Churchill
Government, declared himself 'astonished' that in order to placate the Congress
'the Viceroy should have gone out of his way to stress that Dominion Status was
of the same kind as that provided by the Statute of Westminster'. A few days
later he again warned Zetland:
The Viceroy seems to have made a most definite
statement which goes far beyond the intention of Parliament, which statement
some of us regard as most dangerous and seriously to embarrass Parliament in
dealing with any alteration of the constitution should it become necessary, at
the end of the war.
·
Earl of Willingdon
(viceroy 1931 to 1936)
Willingdon had been a very progressive governor of Bombay (1913-18) and
Madras (1919-24). He got along well with upper class Indians and had many India
friends. He also genuinely wanted the Indians to achieve self-government.
Unfortunately he was not very intelligent[10]
and time had rather passed him by. Like Van Mook, he
believed that no progress could be made in a situation of disorder. In the case
of India this required that Congress cease its program of civil disobedience,
cease claiming to be the sole spokesman of the Indian people, cease claiming
the right to be a parallel government and start behaving as a responsible
democratic party, like those in Britain, dedicated to achieving its supporters’
goals through constitutional means. Having been landed by Irwin with a
situation of severely weakened morale among government officials and the
government’s traditional supporters[11]
he used a two pronged approach of encouraging the Home government to make a
generous constitutional settlement while trying to re-establish the government’s
ability to rule[12]
through applying repressive measures aptly called “civil
martial law”[13].
Though this was successful it eventually became clear that in the long run, the
British had to get the support of Congress as they could
not permanently rule through the use of emergency powers.
·
Marquess of Linlithgow (viceroy 1936
to 1943)
Linlithgow was really an aristocratic party hack. If not for his birth it
is doubtful whether he would have risen higher than the chairmanship of a
parliamentary committee or, at most, a second level ministerial post. He was
high-minded, cautious, unimaginative, hard working and extremely unempathetic[14]. He lacked the ability to put people at their
ease and they generally felt uncomfortable with him.
·
Viscount Wavell (viceroy 1943
to 1947)
Wavel was a man of great
integrity, a capable if rather unlucky soldier, an intellectual and a poet. It
might fairly be said that his personality was polar opposite to those of Irwin
and Montbatten. He knew and loved India and wanted to
help it achieve independence. He forced Churchill to provide food to the
victims of the Bengal famine of 1943 which had been almost
ignored by Linlithgow. However, he was no politician and did not like
politicians and politics, whether Indian or British. He had did not have any of
the social graces required to develop a relationship with the key political
figures.
Wavel was selected by Churchill (see: Wavel 1973; Mason 1982; Marshall 1977) for
two reasons which show his lack of concern for India:
Ø
He did not
like Wavell and wanted to force his retirement from the army to clear the way
for the appointment of Montbatten as Commander in Chief, South-East Asia;
Ø
No major political
figure was willing to take the post which would amount to political exile. Atlee, Lord Halifax (formerly Lord Irwin) and Eden were
considered to be suitable and indeed would have been.
|
Sir
Stanley Reed, the highly respected editor of The Times of India from 1907
until 1924 wrote the following (Reed pp. 79-80) Those whose work and responsibility lay in India
were often baffled to understand what possible justification there was for
many of the appointments made. When they peered below the surface it was
frequently to learn that the last consideration was fitness for the job.
"Lord A." was selected because his wife had held a position at
Court; "Mr. B." because he was a failure in his political office
and it was desirable to get rid of him without friction; "C."
because he was a junior Whip or a Parliamentary Private Secretary… This
practice prevailed almost to the end. One of the
evening newspapers announced a certain name; it seemed to me so grotesque,
knowing the circumstances; I could not believe it possible... To everyone's
amazement the official announcement was made two days later, with
consequences everyone should have foreseen….
(A)ll blinked their eyes when Sir George Clarke was taken from his
desk as Secretary to the Committee of Defence and sent to Bombay. What was
the reason? It can be given in his own words. "Haldane had produced his
scheme of Army Reform. As Secretary to the Committee of Defence I tore it to
pieces in a note, and a precis was sent to each member of the Cabinet.
Haldane was told to carry on. After that, of course, there was no place for
me in the Committee of Defence and they sent me here." |
1.3.2 French Indochina
Historically there was little public or political
interest in the empire[15]. Indochina started out as an initiative
of the French Navy and was run largely for the benefit of French prestige,
French settlers (colons) and French investors in that order. No real, as
opposed to rhetorical, interest was taken in the native population though any
sign of unrest was brutally suppressed.
It was true that the colonies, African and Asian,
had proved valuable to France in the depression: in 1927 France imported 11.4 per cent of its goods and raw materials from the empire and exported 14.7
per cent; by 1936 the figures were 33.6 per
cent and 33.1 per cent.[16] Colonial soldiers and factory workers had been
important in the First World War, even if their importance had apparently been forgotten by the late 1930s.[17] Despite the National Colonial Exposition of 1922 and the vast International
Colonial Exposition at Marseille in 1931, the
idea colonial had not, however,
become a popular one: the colonies remained a
minority interest. For the general public they were `exotic', and colonialist propaganda, evoking that
feeling, could not make them less so.[18] The French proletariat, as Ho Chi Minh put it,
thought of a colony as 'nothing but a country full of sand
below and sun above, with a few green palms and a few
brown natives'.[19]
Quoted
from Tarling Imperalism
in Southeast Asia: a fleeting passing phase p. 272
1.3.3 Dutch
East Indies (Netherlands’
East Indies (NEI), Netherlands India, modern Indonesia)[20]
The degree of public and political interest in the
NEI was much higher than in the case of the other imperial powers. This is accounted for by three factors
·
The Netherlands’
standing as a middle power was due to that tiny country’s ruling the huge,
populous and potentially wealthy NEI;
·
Income from the NEI
was of great importance to the
Netherlands’ economy[21];
·
It was an important
source of employment for Netherlands’ university graduates.
1.3.4 The Philippines
There was never much imperialist sentiment in the 19th and early
20th century USA. For that reason the United States defined its
colonial mission as one of tutelage, preparing the Philippines for eventual
independence.
B. Land and People of the
Empires
2. Diversity and
Integrity of: the British Raj (Indian
Subcontinent); French Ruled Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos); the
Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia); and the Philippines
2.1 British Raj
India
is a subcontinent with variations in geography, language and culture exceeding the
parallel variations in Europe. Underlying all these differences is the
underlying unity of the Hindu
religion and culture. In 1940, the Indian total population 360 million[22] while the UK population in 1941 was 48.2 million.[23]
Two of the most important divisions in the British
Raj, compromising in 1937 modern day India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were:
·
Religion – Overall,
about 25% of the population of the Raj was Muslim and about 70%
were Hindu. Only in the
Northwest (modern day Pakistan)
and in the Northeast (modern day Bangladesh) were Muslims a
majority.
·
The British directly
ruled about two-thirds of the area of the Raj (called British India) containing
about three-quarters of the population. The remaining area was divided up into
almost 600 Princely or
Native States. In the words of Hodson[24] -
The
Indian States presented a unique problem, and a highly complex one, in the
progress to independence. They varied enormously, from principalities the size of France to petty
estates unworthy to be ranked as political entities yet neither part of British India
nor subordinate to any other government than the Crown itself. Their citizens
were not British subjects, but, in international status, ‘British protected
persons’. Some of the States were ancient monarchies
whose history went many centuries back beyond the advent of European power;
some had been former feudatories or satrapies of the Mogul Empire which had
asserted their independence of the Delhi throne; others were fragments from the
breakup of Mogul dominion after the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, or of the
more limited empires of the Mahrattas, the Sikhs, or the Muslim overlords of the Deccan and the south; a few were
deliberate creations of the British….
Geographically,
India was one and indivisible; communications, common economic interests, and close
ties of cultural affinity, linked States and provinces. Only two things
separated the Indian States from the rest of India, the historical factor that
the States had not been annexed by the British, and the political factor that
the States maintained the traditional monarchical form of government.
Did
these factors, however, really segregate the States from the Provinces and
create an impassable political barrier between them? The freedom of the Indian
States from foreign subjugation was only relative; the paramount power
controlled the external affairs of the States and exercised wide powers in
relation to their internal matters. The whole of the country was, therefore, in
varying degrees under the sway of the British Government.
As suggested by the name Indochina, the native population
was heavily influenced by Chinese and Indian culture and religion[25]
(mainly Buddhism[26]).
Population 1936
|
|
Millions |
% of Total French Indochina |
|
Cochinchina
(in the south – major city Saigon)[27] |
4.6 |
20.0 |
|
5.7 |
24.8 |
|
|
8.7 |
37.8 |
|
|
Total Vietnam |
19.0 |
82.6 |
|
3.0 |
13.0 |
|
|
1.0 |
4.3 |
|
|
Total French Indochina |
23.0 |
100 |
|
Population France |
41.5[30] |
|
Although containing many minority groups all three
countries have one predominant ethnic group and have long, if fluctuating
histories as states (see: Vietnam; History of Cambodia-Khmer
Empire; History of Laos-Lan Xang). This is a major distinction between Indochina, on the one hand, and
India, Indonesia and the Philippines, on the other. As regards ethnic groups in Indochina –
Ø
"Vietnamese"
population (Annamite for the French administration, also known as Kinh ethnic
group) always represented more than 80% of the total population of Annam,
Cochinchina and Tonkin..”[31]
Ø
Cambodia is
ethnically homogeneous. More than 90% of its population is of Khmer
origin and speaks the Khmer language, the country's official language. The
remainder include Chinese, Vietnamese,
Cham,
Khmer Loeu,
and Indians.”[32]
Ø
Laos More than 80%
of the population are Lao, while most of the remainder belong to various
indigenous minorities such as the Hmong and the Yao. There are small Thai,
Vietnamese and Chinese minorities.”[33]
|
“The Malay Archipelago is a vast archipelago
located between mainland Southeastern Asia (Indochina)
and Australia.
Straddling the Indian and Pacific
Oceans, this group of some 20 000 islands, the
world's largest archipelago by area, constitutes the territories of Indonesia,
the Philippines,
Singapore,
Brunei, the Malaysian
states of Sarawak
and Sabah along
with the Federal Territory of Labuan, East Timor, and most of Papua
New Guinea.[34]
“ The native
populations of Malaysia, Indonesia (excluding New Guinea) and the Philippines
have related linguistic (Malayo-Polynesian) and ethnic (Austronesian) origin. Indian cultural
and religious influence was felt throughout the region. Indian influence was least
profound in the Philippines (see Hinduism
in the Philippines; Buddhism in the Philippines; Maradia Lawana[35])
and in the Outer Islands of Indonesia, more important in Malaysia
(see Hikayat Seri Rama) and strongest in Java (see: Kakawin Rāmâyaṇa; Kakawin Bhāratayuddha) where Hindu (see: Majapahit
Empire; ) and Buddhist (see Srivijaya; Sailendra) kingdoms lasted
until the rise of Islam and Bali (Ramakavaca) which remains predominantly Hindu until
today. In Java a native spiritual tradition, (Kebatinan or Kejawen) co-exists with Islam.
Subsequently all, except Bali, were converted to Abrahamic religions by
foreign missionaries.
In the case of Malaysia[36]
and Indonesia Arab traders played a key role. In the case of the Philippines
Spanish rule fostered the Catholic faith. However, the Southern Philippines
include a significant Muslim population.
However, traces of Hindu influence remain in the Malay
language, literature and art, while “[t]he
influence of Hinduism and classical India remain
defining traits of Indonesian culture; the Indian concept of
the god-king
still shapes Indonesian concepts of leadership and the use of Sanskrit in
courtly literature and adaptations of Indian mythology such as the Ramayana
and Mahabharata.”[37]
“Islam is Indonesia's
dominant religion
with approximately 88% of its population identifying as Muslims, making
it the most populous Muslim-majority nation in the world.”[38]
However, Indonesia has major Christian,
Hindu
and animist
minorities.
The peoples of the
Malay Archipelago, though similar in language and ethnic origin,
developed into many isolated communities due to separation by the sea and,
within islands, separation by mountains and jungles. This prevented the rise
of a shared sense of national identity. The boundaries of
present day Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines mirror the final
boundaries between the British, Dutch and Spanish empires respectively within
the Malay Archipelago rather than any distinction of language, culture or
ethnicity. The sense of national identity of Indonesians and Filipinos are
products of the nationalist movements of the 20th century, in the
case of Indonesia, and the late 19th century in the case of the
Philippines. The rise of nationalist movements, in turn, was a response to
Western rule and Western education which led to acceptance of Western norms
including the normative nature of nation states, the right of
self-determination for peoples, democracy and human rights. |
2.3 Dutch
East Indies (modern
Indonesia)
Indonesia, excluding the former Netherlands territory on New Guinea (present day Indonesian
provinces of Papua and West
Irian Jaya) is part of the Malay
Archipelago.
“Most Indonesians are ethnically Austronesian , particularly in central and
western Indonesia, although much of eastern Indonesia is Melanesian.
There are, however, around 300 distinct native ethnicities in Indonesia and 742
different languages and dialects.”[39]
Outside New Guinea the languages are of the Malayo-Polynesian group. The national
language is Indonesian
is a standardized dialect of the Malay
language though the most widely spoken language is Javanese.
Indonesia is made up of about 18 thousand islands
about 6,000 of which are inhabited (see Geography of Indonesia). Java is by far the most populous island in
Indonesia, with approximately 62% of the country's population.
With 130 million inhabitants at 940 people per km², it is also the most populous
island in the world. If it were a country, it would be the second-most
densely-populated country of the world after Bangladesh,
except for some very small city-states. Approximately 45% of the population of
Indonesia is ethnically Javanese”[40]
At the time of the Second World War, the population
of Indonesia was about 72 million as compared to the Dutch population of about
9 million.[41]
The Dutch at times claimed that they wanted to
develop a sense of Indies nationality while at other times they claimed that
valid political institutions could only be rooted in the many diverse indies’
societies and ethnic groups[42]. This view, strongly propounded by Colijn[43], led to the conclusion that there never was or could be an Indonesian
nation and that Dutch rule and coordination would always be required even if
local autonomy were to be granted. This view parallels those of the anti-nationalist
Conservative politicians in the UK and the associationists in France. In Colijn’s
view the Volksraad should never have been established; it promised a non-viable
(autonomous Indonesian nation) future.
“The Philippines constitutes an archipelago
of 7,107 islands with a total land area of approximately 300,000 square
kilometres (116,000 sq. mi).” [44]
(See Geography of the Philippines.)
In 1940 the population of the Philippines was about
16.4 million[45]
as compared to the United States population of 131.7 million for that same
year.[46]
About two-thirds of the population lived on the island of Luzon which includes
the capital Manila.[47]
“About 90% of Filipinos are Christians, where 81%
belong to the Roman Catholic Church, and the 9% composed of
Protestant denominations…. Approximately
5% of Filipinos are Sunni Muslim. They primarily settled in parts of Mindanao and
the Sulu archipelago.”[48]
C. Origin of the Asian Empires
3.1 British Raj
“The British East India Company … [b]ased
in London … presided over the creation of the British Raj.
In 1617, the Company was given trade rights by the Mughal
Emperor. 100 years later, it was granted a royal dictate from the Emperor exempting
the Company from the payment of custom duties in Bengal, giving it a
decided commercial advantage in the Indian trade. A decisive victory by Sir Robert Clive at the Battle
of Plassey in 1757 established the British East India Company as a military
as well as a commercial power. By 1760, the French were driven out of India,
with the exception of a few trading posts on the coast, such as Pondicherry.”[49]
“The efforts of the company in administering India
emerged as a model for the civil service system in Britain, especially during
the 19th century. Deprived of its trade monopoly in 1813, the company wound up
as a trading enterprise. In 1858, the Company lost its administrative functions
to the British government following the 1857 uprising which began with what the
Company's Indian soldiers called the Sepoy Mutiny or Indian Rebellion of 1857. India then
became a formal crown colony.”[50]
3.2 French Indochina
“France assumed sovereignty over Annam and Tonkin after the Sino-French
War, which lasted from 1884 to 1885.
French Indochina was formed in October 1887 from Annam,
Tonkin, Cochin China, and the Kingdom of Cambodia; Laos was added after the Franco-Siamese War of 1893. The
federation lasted until 1954.
The French formally left the local rulers in power, who were the Emperors of Vietnam, Kings
of Cambodia, and Kings of Luang Prabang, but in fact gathered
all powers in their hands, the local rulers acting only as figureheads.”[51]
“Beginning in 1602 with the founding of the Dutch East India Company, the Dutch took
three centuries to establish themselves as rulers of what is now Indonesia,
exploiting the fractionalisation of the small kingdoms that had replaced
Majapahit….
Although the full extent of the colonial territory was not established
until the early twentieth century[52], it was these
boundaries that formed the modern nation of Indonesia that was declared in 1945….
[The of the Dutch East India Company] went bankrupt
at the end of the 18th century and after a short British rule under Thomas Stamford Raffles, the Dutch state
took over the … possessions in 1816.”[53]
3.4 The Philippines[54]
In the wake of the Spanish-American War, “Spain was forced to
cede the Philippines to the United States in exchange for 20 million United States dollars with the Treaty of Paris in 1898.”[55] United States forces then bloodily defeated the
Filipinos in the Philippine-American War.
“A civilian government was established by the
Americans in 1901, with William H. Taft as the first civilian governor of the Philippines. English
was declared the official language. Six hundred American teachers were imported
aboard the USS Thomas. Also, the Catholic
Church was disestablished, and a considerable amount of church land was
purchased and redistributed.
Some
measures of Filipino self-rule were allowed, however. An elected Filipino legislature
was inaugurated in 1907.
When Woodrow
Wilson became the American President, in 1913, there was a
major change in official American policy concerning the Philippines. While the
previous Republican administrations had
envisioned the Philippines as a perpetual American colony, the Wilson
administration decided to start a process that would gradually lead to
Philippine independence. U.S. administration of the Philippines was declared to
be temporary and aimed to develop institutions that would permit and encourage
the eventual establishment of a free and democratic government. Therefore, U.S.
officials concentrated on the creation of such practical supports for
democratic government as public education and a sound legal system. The Philippines were granted free trade
status, with the U.S.
In 1916,
the Philippine Autonomy Act, popularly known as
the Jones Law, was passed by the U.S. Congress.
The law which served as the new organic act (or constitution) for the
Philippines, stated in its preamble that the eventual independence of the
Philippines would be American policy, subject to the establishment of a stable
government. The law maintained the Governor General of the Philippines,
appointed by the President of the United States, but established a bicameral
Philippine Legislature to replace the elected Philippine Assembly (lower house)
and appointive Philippine Commission (upper house) previously in place. The
Filipino House of Representatives would be purely elected, while the new
Philippine Senate would have the majority of its members elected by senatorial
district with senators representing non-Christian areas appointed by the
Governor-General.”[56]
D. Defensibility of the
Empires
The
British, as dominant naval power, could easily defend its Asian possessions at
least until the early 20th century.
The Americans as a rising naval power could do likewise. France could
not have defended its Asian colonies against Britain but, it was a major
European military power which Britain would think twice about offending. Here
the situation of the NEI was quite different. The Netherlands could not have
defended the NEI against seizure by the British, Americans or French or, after
about 1910 by the Japanese. What kept the NEI safe was the benevolent
protection of the British navy. The temptation for stronger powers to seize the
NEI to gain markets or access to resources was reduced when, in 1870, the Dutch
instituted a 'Liberal Policy' opening the markets of the Netherlands East
Indies to foreign imports and its resources for exploitation by foreign
investors.
E. Benefits from the Empires
to the Metropolitan Country – i.e. National Interests Served by the Colonies
4.1 British Raj
British Material Self-interest in India
|
The material self-interest was economic and
strategic. India was a captive market, for long prevented by a system of
countervailing excise duties from protecting its cotton-manufacturing
industry from the products of Lancashire. Even after the Fiscal Convention of
1920 had thrown out this system, and established that when the Government and
Legislature of India, acting for the benefit of India and in response to
Indian opinion, were agreed on fiscal policy, the Secretary of State would
not exercise his overriding power on behalf of any British interest, it
remained true that British control of Indian government conveyed substantial
economic advantages. At least it prevented the development of Indian economic
policy on autarkic lines which most British people honestly believed to be
harmful to India—and which would certainly have been harmful to Britain.
Strategically, India became the trunk of a systematic corpus of imperial
defence whose limbs stretched from Hong Kong to the Middle East, from East
Africa to the northern passes of Burma. Apart from the Indian forces
themselves, it was an essential overseas training-ground and cantonment for
the British Army. And for this India paid. Such benefits were not lightly
yielded to political pressure. A less tangible but nevertheless very
powerful interest was the prestige and authority that Britain gained in world
affairs from being master of an immense empire of which India was the heart.
Without that empire and the naval power that cemented it she was but a
medium-sized European country. With it, she was great among the greatest,
boasting a world-wide Pax Britannica. Without India, the subordinate empire
would be scarcely more than a string of colonial beads. Pride is less easily
sacrificed than even major material interests. Quoted from Hodson pp. 3-4. |
"In the years before 1914 India's imperial commitment
meant three things in practice: that India should be retained as a market
for British exports. which meant that the Government of India should not impose
insurmountable barriers, especially tariffs, to the flow of British merchandise
to India; that the Indian army be kept available for the imperial cause;
and that the Indian administration should ensure that repayment of interest
on guaranteed debt bonds was made smoothly and that adequate revenue and
remittance was available for the Home Charges. Isolating the imperial
factor in India policy allows us to pin-point the fundamental dichotomy of
British rule in India. Each prong of its triple commitment cost the Government
of India money…. As an India Office memorandum pointed out in June 1931: If a
Federal Government were established in India, the aggregate charges under these
three heads (Defence, Service of the Debt, and Salaries and Pensions) would, at
a very conservative estimate, absorb three-quarters of the total revenues of
the Federation, and a very large proportion of these payments would have to be
made in sterling. This fact illustrates vividly the direct interest which the
British Government must continue to retain in the financial administration of
India, and explains why it is necessary to impose such measures of
Parliamentary control as may be sufficient to ensure that these obligations are
met. . . There is no escape from the conclusion that so long as the British
Government retains obligations which absorb so large a proportion of the total
revenues of India, it must retain a direct interest in the financial
administration of the country. This by no means implies that financial
administration must remain under close or detailed control, but merely that
provision must be made to ensure that the financial stability and credit of the
country will be maintained, as unless this can be ensured the obligations
falling on the British Government could not be met. This, from the purely
British point of view, is the primary object of the [financial]
safeguards."[57]
In practice British latitude was constrained.
Ø India as a market for British exports – The Fiscal Autonomy
Convention of 1922, a bid to win the support of industrial and political
India, allowed the Government of India to set protective tariffs even if they
hurt UK exports.[58]
Ø Sterling Charges on the Government of India – The British Government ensured that the Rupee was maintained at the
high rate of R.1=1s 6d in the face of strong Indian opposition. This required an extremely tight monetary
policy at a time of depression. It
is clear now, and was clear then, that the interests of the Indian economy were
being subordinated to those of the British tax payer who would have had to pick
up the tab if the government of India could not meet its Sterling obligations.
Ø British Indian Army - The financial stress on the Government of India put severe limits on
the Indian Army. In the period after 1918 military expenditures continued to be
the largest item of government expenditure (Sen pp. 152-3).
".. 35.7% of India's national expenditure was devoted to the military...
compared to that of Britain itself (16.8%) and Canada (0.6%)"[59]. In this context, there was a strong reaction when Imperial planners
attempted to use Indian troops to cheaply garrison Britain’s new empire in the
Middle East. This led to a struggle between, on the one side, the India Office,
the Government of India and Indian political opinion vs., on the other side the Imperial General
Staff. In the end, the position of the Indian government was agreed to, i.e. that
“…except in the gravest emergency, the Indian Army
should be employed outside the Indian Empire only after consultation with the
Governor-General in Council. . . . The …Indian army should not be required
permanently to provide large overseas garrisons is supported. Units required
for such purposes should be maintained in addition to the establishment laid
down for the Indian Army, and the whole cost, direct or indirect, of recruiting
and maintaining such units should be borne by His Majesty's Government, or by
the dependency or colony requiring their services. This position held for the
rest of the decade; the Indian army could still play a limited imperial role,
but at London's expense."[60]
“How important was India to
Britain in 1929? A third of the British army trained there, still free of cost to the British taxpayer.
The Indian army, one of the largest standing armies in the world, was under
complete British control, and protected strategically vital Middle Eastern oil
and Malayan rubber. Indeed the area it patrolled, from Cairo to Peking,
absorbed a third of Britain's overseas trade. India was the biggest customer for
Britain's largest export industry, Manchester cotton
goods. India accounted for a fifth of British overseas investment. At a
more personal level, many Conservative MPs had family connections there via the army or
civil service. In the 1929 parliament fully a fifth of the Conservative MPs themselves had served in
the colonies, or armed services or both. The Indian empire had played a
central part in the Conservative imagination since Disraeli. Although from 1917
British governments had been committed to move by stages towards eventual self-government for
India within the empire, the Conservative party, at least, had solid reasons for making the
transition safe and slow. They recognised
that possession of India was essential if Britain were to remain
a first-rate power.”
“What made the retention of the empire important was, above all, the
sense of French greatness: losing it would be unpopular, even if it was not a popular endeavour.
‘For us', the Free French leader Charles de Gaulle wrote in May 1942,
'the outcome of the war must be the restoration at
one and the same time of the complete territorial integrity of the French
Empire, of the heritage of France, and of the total
sovereignty of the French nation.’[61] The measures that the French had taken to hold
on to Indo-China had not helped their cause. They had
not been able to come to terms with Vietnamese nationalism. Fear, Milton
Osborne suggests, 'drove the French to reject any significant liberalization
of their rule ... the middle ground of genuine constitutional opposition
of the sort which emerged in India was not available.[62]
“Had Gandhi tried
civil disobedience in Indo-China, Ho Chi Minh observed, he 'would long since have ascended
into heaven'.”[63]
Quoted
from Tarling Imperalism
in Southeast Asia: a fleeting passing phase p. 272 -273
4.3 Dutch
East Indies (modern
Indonesia)
American interests in the Philippines before the
war were the following in steeply declining importance:
·
As a naval and air
base close to Japan which the USA considered a
potentially hostile power. The position of the Philippines was such as to
potentially block Japanese access to the South Pacific;
·
As a “civilizing
mission” preparing their “little brown brothers”
for independence;
·
Commercial benefit. This was quite minor. Although the USA did supply the bulk of imports
to the Philippines it might very well have done so in any case. Unlike the case for NEI, FIC, present day Malaysia
and India, there were no strong domestic lobbies which supported the maintenance
of the Philippines as a dependency of the USA. In fact there were strong
lobbies which were keen to see it independent. Two of these were US sugar
growers who wanted Philippine sugar excluded from their domestic market and
groups calling for the reduction or elimination of Asian immigration which
wanted to impose the most restrictive controls on the entry of Filipinos into
the USA.
E. Philosophies,
Objectives and Realities of Government
5. Philosophies and Objectives
5.1 British Raj[65]
5.2 French Indochina
“The bureaucracy of colonial
government was split between proponents of assimilation and advocates of
associationism. In other words, divided between those who believed in the
acculturation of colonial populations to French republican rights and values
and those who favoured a less ambitious style of indirect rule that minimised
change in the prevailing social order while denying political inclusion to most
colonial subjects. Neither policy was adopted throughout the empire. Nor was
either alternative consistently applied in individual colonies. But the
interwar period is generally considered to have marked the ascendancy of
associationist pragmatism in imperial administration. We should be wary of
viewing these doctrinal arguments too rigidly. As Alice Conklin has argued,
French imperial practice in the late Third Republic was the product of several
paradoxes. These, in turn, arose from the nuances in colonial administrative
and judicial methods born of adaptation to local conditions. A republican democracy withheld basic rights and
freedoms from its overseas subjects, amplifying the exclusion of French women
from the metropolitan electoral process by insisting that colonial peoples of
both sexes were generally incapable of making informed political choices. A
republican state founded on hostility to hereditary privilege relied on tribal
chiefs and colonial monarchs to maintain order in vast swathes of the empire.
Anticlerical republicans committed to secular education defended France's
continued reliance on missionary educators in rudimentary colonial school
systems. French liberals attached to individual freedom and equal access to
justice accepted the use of forced labour and a separate legal code - the
indigënat - for the vast majority of colonial subjects. These contradictions
were the stuff of argument between supporters of associationism and their
opponents. Yet, for all that, this
political community of republican imperialists concurred that French
colonialism could be a constructive force for progress.” Thomas p. 6
In principle Dutch rule in the Indies aimed at
developing the population’s ability to govern itself with the aim of developing
the Indies as a more equal, and autonomous, partner of the European Netherlands
within the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
In practice, the government, proclaimed the
need for an educated electorate before any concession of Dutch power could be
permitted while starving the education system of funds thus ensuring that any
transition of power would be over centuries rather than years or even decades.
The Dutch government closely controlled the Indies through the
government-appointed Governor-General
who in turn controlled the country through a highly trained, overwhelmingly
Dutch elite civil service. They ran a highly centralized, autocratic police
state[66].
5.4 The Philippines
6. Nature of Rule in Reality
A. The ‘Colons’ Factor
Ideally, one might hope that
Europeans resident in colonies, in daily contact with at least some elements of
the native population, would be more understanding of the realities and
aspirations of the colonized. However, in general, European residents (‘colons’ in French)
tended to be the most resistant to the growth of indigenous capacities for
development and the according of rights to native peoples.
The influence of European residents was most
extreme and unremittingly negative in the French empire[67]; seriously negative in the NEI[68], especially after the communist
rebellion of 1926; occasionally negative and important in the Raj, mainly
before 1930; and, of little account in the Philippines.
B. Dealing with Nationalists
The Americans closely allied themselves with wealthy nationalists in the
Philippines.
The British repeatedly attempted to split the nationalists to encourage
the formation of a large, powerful, stable and politically legitimate
nationalist party willing to rule India under British approved rules in
partnership with the British. If successful, this would have isolated
radical nationalists opposed to constitutional methods and maintaining the
British link. The radicals would either have to join the moderates or become an
isolated fringe. The British were never able to get this strategy to work.
The French denied the legitimacy of nationalism in their colonies and
would not talk to the nationalists.
The Dutch government mainly saw nationalism as a police rather than a
political matter. They would not allow officials to talk to
nationalists. They took the view that:
· The native population was
uninterested in politics; the nationalists being a tiny, westernized,
self-serving clique;
· The radical nationalists
were unprepared to cooperate even had the Dutch been interested in such
cooperation;
· The moderate
nationalists, who were very interested in cooperating with the Dutch, were of
little interest or importance.
6.1 British Raj
|
Pillar of British Rule |
Eroding Factor/Process |
|
Acquiescence of the vast
majority of Indians |
Gandhi/INC non-cooperation
movements from 1919 |
|
Active partnership and support
of key groups such as the land owners, the princes and the moneyed and
martial classes |
British policy on exchange
rates and tariffs gained Congress the support of many Indian industrialists
while the non-cooperation movement of Gandhi/INC attracted support of some of
the land-owning and money-lending groups. |
|
British in depth knowledge of
the grass roots reality vital to maintaining control |
Indian provincial ministers
(from 1922), provincial autonomy (from 1937), Indian district officers
(gradually from about 1920), urbanization (the British always understood and
controlled rural areas better than cities). |
|
British dominance of modern
economic sectors. |
Indian capitalists took over
control of most of the modern sector during the 1930s. |
|
British dominance of modern
(Western) scientific, technical and administrative skills |
In the early days of British
rule the only scientifically trained personnel were British physicians who
consequently undertook some interesting tasks. These were joined by military
and then civilian railway and civil engineers. The British soon set up
medical and engineering colleges in India and encouraged the growth of
English education. These, together with the experience gained by Indians in
the British administration of India, and in the legal profession, and
self-education by Indians literate in English, created a cadre of Indians
with the skills needed to develop India on modern lines. |
|
Support of the small, but
important and rapidly growing English-educated urban classes |
British racist behaviour,
social contempt, denial of access to the ICS etc. had alienated much of this
group before WW I. This group provided much of the leadership for the INC |
|
Monopoly of key policy and
administrative positions by the almost exclusively British Indian Civil Service
which usually numbered about 1000. |
Intake into Indian Civil
Service was half British half-Indian from the early 1920s. |
|
Monopoly of key police
positions |
Gradual Indianization from the
early 1920s. |
|
Exclusively British officered
Indian Army. |
Slow program of accepting
Indian commissioned officers from 1918. |
|
British military units
stationed in India and paid for by the Indian tax-payer. |
Prestige of these forces
severely dented by British incompetence in the defence of Malaya,
Singapore. and Burma.
Burma had been part of the Raj until 1937. An empire that cannot defend its
territories looses much of its legitimacy. |
|
British control of the seas
around India. |
The British fleet would have
been hard put to defend India in the context of a simultaneous war against
Japan and Germany even before World War I but its total inability to do so in
World War II was demonstrated to the world by the sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse
on 10 December 1941, and the capture of Singapore naval base by a numerically much
inferior Japanese force. |
British rule was highly bureaucratized and
generally locked into the British concept of rule of law. Censorship was
generally mild and, even then, tended to be limited to the vernacular press.
6.2 French Indochina
French administration tended to be disorganized,
confused (different government departments involved), highly repressive (see eg. Foster) and as economically exploitative as could be managed. A general feeling,
among the French, in France and in the colonies, was that any native who did
not see French rule as an invaluable gift must be either ignorant or miscreant
against whom severe measures were justified.
6.3 Dutch East Indies
When involved in colonial wars within Indonesia the
Dutch practiced the same level of brutality[69] as the Americans did in the Philippine-American War; the British in the
Indian Mutiny; and,
the French whenever their military was called in. After
pacification, the Dutch ran a highly organized, tightly administered, generally
humane (unless you were a “coolie” labourer on starvation wages) regime which concentrated on extracting
maximum benefit for the Netherlands out of their Indonesian milch cow.
6.4 The Philippines
The USA allied itself with the upper class
landowners working with them to establish the Philippines as a modern
independent state by 1946. (See 3.4 above).
7. Policies Between the Wars
Including Reform Attempts
7.1 British Raj
The Raj, like the British and French empires,
seemed at its height at the victorious conclusion of the First World War in
November 1918. However, as was the case for Britain and France, the war had led
to economic and psychological exhaustion. Factors included: the cost to India
of participation in WW I and its inflationary impact; the unwise enactment of
the Rowlatt
Acts; the related Punjab disturbances climaxing in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre;
the impact of the Spanish
Flu; economic instability in the 1920s; and, pressure for home rule from 1916, the Non-cooperation Movement of the early
1920s and 1930s.
In these difficult conditions the British enacted
two major democratizing reforms leading ultimately to Indian independence – the
Government of India Act 1919 (enacting
the Montagu-Chelmsford
reforms) and the Government of India Act 1935. The latter was preceded by the Simon Commission and the Indian Constitutional Round
Table Conferences, London 1931-1933.
7.2 French Indochina
The Popular Front
government tried to effect a minor reform of colonial policy in 1936 which was,
however, defeated by the bureaucracy and colons.
The Dutch established a powerless and racially
unrepresentative[70] local parliament (the Volksraad[71]) in a 1916 reform. This met for the first time in 1918. In the closing days
of World War I, in the context of fears of a possible Communist takeover of the
Netherlands, the Governor General, without authorization from the Netherlands,
promised the Volksraad real power[72] and Indies autonomy[73]. Once the panic had passed right wing governments ruled in the
Netherlands[74].
The only major outcome of the promise was the
launching of a committee to investigate needed reforms[75]. This recommended autonomy for the Indies. The report was forwarded to
the Netherlands which was involved in revising the national constitution. The
recommendations for autonomy were rejected. The revised constitution
reclassified the status of the Indies, Curaçao and Surinam as parts of the Kingdom
of the Netherlands rather than as colonies. This enabled the Dutch to claim
that anyone advocating Indonesian
independence was committing sedition[76].
In the late 1930s the Dutch rejected with contempt,
using spurious logic, the Soetardjo Petition[77] in which the Volksraad requested the reorganization of the Kingdom of the
Netherlands.
Far too late, and from a position of weakness, the
Governor-General announced, on June 16, 1941, that revisions to the constitution
would be considered right after liberation[78]. The holding of a round table conference aimed at the development of a
reformed empire with full Indonesian internal autonomy was promised in the radio address by Queen Wilhelmina
on 7 December 1942.
7.4 The Philippines
F. Second World War and
Decolonization
8. Second World War
8.1 British Raj
The Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, declared India to be
at war with Germany without consulting Indian political leaders or the Central
Legislative Assembly. Although constitutionally this was acceptable it was
politically insensitive. The Congress ministries in the Hindu majority
provinces were ordered to resign by the Congress High Command and did so. The
key Muslim majority provinces, Bengal and Punjab, continued to be governed by
Muslim political leaders. British
bureaucrats, for the duration of the war, governed the Hindu majority provinces
more absolutely than they had at any time in the previous half century. The
Viceroy, governors and Indian Civil Service ensured maximal war production and,
overall, a huge Indian war effort.
The British government made two initiatives to gain
an interim political settlement and the restoration of political rule in the
Hindu majority provinces –
·
The “August Offer” in 1940 made just after the fall of France. In the words of Hodson (pp. 84-85)
On 8th August
the Viceroy issued a statement which became known as the August Offer. Lord
Linlithgow declared:
It is clear that earlier differences which had
prevented the achievement of national unity remained unbridged. Deeply as His
Majesty's Government regret this, they do not feel that they should any longer,
because of those differences, postpone the expansion of the Governor General's
Council, and the establishment of a body which will more closely associate
Indian public opinion with the conduct of the war by the Central Government. .
. .
… There is still in certain quarters doubt as to the intentions of
Majesty's Government for the constitutional future of India, and … as to whether the position of minorities, whether political or
religious, is sufficiently safeguarded. . . .
. . It has already been made clear that my
declaration of last October does not exclude examination of any part either of
the Act of 1935 or of
the policy and plans on which it is based. His Majesty's Government's concern
that full weight should be given to the views of minorities in any revision has
also been brought out …
… They could not contemplate transfer of their present
responsibilities for the peace and welfare of India to any system of government
whose authority is directly denied by large and powerful elements in India's
national life. Nor could they be parties to the coercion of such elements into
submission to such a Government.
. . .
There has been very strong insistence that the framing of the new
constitutional scheme should be primarily the responsibility of Indians
themselves. . . . His Majesty's Government are in sympathy with that desire and
wish to see it given the fullest practical expression, subject to the due fulfilment of the obligations which Great
Britain's long connection with India has imposed on her and for which His Majesty's Government cannot divest
themselves of responsibility. It is clear that a moment when the Commonwealth
is engaged in a struggle for existence is not one in which fundamental
constitutional issues can be decisively resolved. But His Majesty's Government
authorise me to declare that they will most readily assent to the setting up
after the conclusion of the war with the least possible delay of a body
representative of the principal elements in India's national life in order to
devise the framework of the new Constitution, and they will lend every aid in
their power to hasten decisions on all relevant matters to the utmost degree. Meanwhile
they will welcome and promote in any way possible every sincere and practical
step that may be taken by representative Indians themselves to reach a basis of
friendly agreement, first upon the form Which the post-war representative body
should take and the methods by which it should arrive at its conclusions, and,
secondly, upon the principles and outlines of the Constitution itself. . . .
Whatever might be said of
the substance of this declaration, its structure and terminology were such as
to make it as unattractive as possible in India.
·
The Cripps Offer made under American and Labour party pressure
as Britain was being comprehensively defeated in Burma and Malaya.
Churchill, who opposed India’s desire for
independence, probably had little interest in actually making a settlement as
opposed to appearing reasonable to the Americans. However, there was probably
little prospect of any settlement because of the demands of each of the key
parties –
Ø
The British were
impressed with India’s war effort under Linlithgow’s leadership and were
determined to maintain complete control of the Indian war effort, and the
Indian Army for the duration of the war;
Ø
The INC demanded
immediate independence and majority rule though they would probably have
settled for a very large slice of power immediately including a large measure
of control over the Indian war effort. There was a strong element in the
Congress leadership which wanted to make a separate peace with Japan;
Ø
Organized Muslim
opinion demanded that any transfer of power into Indian hands include a Muslim
veto and Muslim equality in the central government even though Muslims were
only 25 percent of the Indian population.
The Cripps Offer effectively made Indian independence
and partition soon after the war inevitable.
Being realistic, the post-war Labour government
set about seeking the best way to bring this about.
|
Concessions to Self-Rule by
the British Government |
What Was Ceded |
|
Eventual responsible
government for British India. Pace and form to be decided by British
Parliament |
|
|
“Dominion
Status” announcement - 1929 |
|
|
Dyarchy in provinces |
|
|
Provincial autonomy and proposed
central federal structure for all of India. It gave the princes a veto on
whether the central federal government would come into existence. The
princes refused to accede and the federal part of the act never came into
force. |
|
|
|
|
|
Linlithgow 10 January 1940
speech at the Bombay Orient Club, |
For
the first time it was formally conceded that the British Government's object
was to grant India the 'full
Dominion Status . . . of the Statute of Westminster variety' and that the British government would do its best to 'reduce to the minimum the
interval between the existing state
of things and the achievement of Dominion Status'. |
|
Linlithgow statement on 'War Aims' and 'War Effort' 18 October 1939 |
"His Majesty's Government
will, at the end of the war, be prepared to regard the scheme of the Act as open to modification in the
light of Indian views."[79] This was significant since previously HMG had refused to reconsider
the federal portion of the Act even though it had been rejected by almost all
Indian political opinion. |
|
“August
Offer” of August 1940 |
Essentially replaced the veto of the
princes on the adoption of responsible central government by a veto placed in
the hands of the Muslim minority. " … (HMG) could not contemplate transfer of their
present responsibilities for the peace and welfare of India to any system of
government whose authority is directly denied by large and powerful elements
in India's national life. Nor could they be parties to the coercion of such
elements into submission to such a Government." |
|
Cripps Offer
1942 |
This in effect conceded
India's right to write its own constitution for independence right after the war.
It removed the princely and Muslim vetoes by giving provinces and princely
states the right to opt out of the independent Indian union. This was a big
step in making Pakistan a reality. |
8.2
French Indochina
The Vichy French ruled
Indochina 1940-45 under Japanese control. On 9 March 1945 the Japanese carried
out an armed takeover killing, imprisoning or driving out the Vichy garrisons.
They then “encouraged” the monarchs of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos to declare
their “independence” as allies of Japan. At the end of the war, Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh
dominated Democratic Republic of Vietnam
claimed sovereignty over all of Vietnam. In fact, it effectively controlled the
north but had a weak hold on the south. The British
occupying force in southern Vietnam restored French rule in that region.
Negotiations between the French and the Viet Minh,
during which the French were willing to offer very limited autonomy, eventually
broke down after a series of rogue initiatives by aggressive local French
commanders[80]. This led to France’s ultimate defeat in the French Indochina War.
8.3
Dutch East Indies
Out of view of the population, the Dutch air
and naval forces resisted
the Japanese. However, in plain view, the NEI government surrendered to the Japanese
invasion forces without a land
battle. This undoubtedly save many civilian lives but it shattered any
respect the Indonesians may have had for Dutch military prowess. This had major
long-term effects.
Partly due to Indonesian
hostility, the Dutch had virtually no knowledge of the situation in the Indies when
the war unexpectedly ended in August 1945[82].
When the British arrived in Batavia (Jakarta) in
mid-September 1945 to accept the Japanese surrender and release prisoners of
war and civilian detainees, they found Java more or less controlled by the
self-declared Republic of Indonesia. (For details see Drooglever,
Dennis, Anderson, Reid,
van der Post and other sources in the bibliography)
Key Official Netherlands
Government Statement and Agreements on the Future of Indonesia
- Radio address by Queen Wilhelmina on 7 December 1942
- Dutch Proposals for Indonesian Settlement 6 November 1945
- Dutch Proposals for Indonesian Settlement 10 March 1946
- the Linggadjati Agreement
- the Renville Political Principles
- Dutch–Indonesian
Round Table Conference
8.4 The Philippines
Tydings-McDuffie Act under which the Philippines became a Commonwealth.
|
Autopsies of empire, particularly by British
writers for whom the subject is of great forensic interest, tend to focus on
the shared experience of colonies scattered throughout the world. In that the
entire British empire was wiped out in the space of a few decades, they
understandably look for tell-tale lesions common to British colonial rule
worldwide. Perhaps, for instance, the British electorate, enamoured of social
spending at home, had come to recognise empire as an imposition, the pax
Britannica as a 'tax Britannica'. Perhaps the failings of Britain's
class-ridden society with its elitist educational system had finally betrayed
the empire by precluding the innovative compromises that twentieth-century
dominion demanded. Or perhaps reliance on the now largely obsolete concept of
naval power had fatally reduced imperial clout. These and many other causes for the demise of the
British empire make good sense. But it was not only the British empire that
succumbed in the space of a few decades. So did all the West's other colonial
enterprises. There may, therefore, be some merit in dissecting not a
particular empire but a particular arena of empire. Comparing the cadavers of
British, Dutch, French and American empire in the Far East may focus
attention on contributory causes of a regional nature and may reveal failures
in the very concept of empire. If there
was one major surprise about decolonisation in the East it was the speed with
which it came about. In the 1930s, although few expected empire to last indefinitely,
a couple more generations still looked a safe bet. As late as 1950, with
India, the Philippines and Indonesia already independent, Europeans and
Asians in Malaya, Singapore, Vietnam and Borneo were still thinking in terms
of decades rather than months. Decades, in the case of Hong Kong, would prove
right; but for the rest it was as if some unforeseen force had taken over,
depressing the accelerator of history and scattering empire to the winds. The force
in question seems to have been that cliche of the period, the 'revolution in
communications'. Impossible to quantify and difficult to incorporate into a
historical narrative, the twentieth century's catalogue of advances in
long-distance transport, mass media and instantaneous communication would
make the structures of formal empire look antiquated and superfluous. This
applied, of course, throughout the world; but in the East the impact was
particularly dramatic, partly because of the war and partly because of
existing traditions of travel, trade and migration around the west Pacific
rim. The war
brought to the East the whole paraphernalia of a modern communications
infrastructure, something which to this day some parts of the once colonial
world lack (notably most of sub-Saharan Africa). Malayan and Javanese
villages received their first radio sets courtesy of Tokyo's propaganda
effort. Airstrips were built, under both Allied and Japanese direction, in
places which even now scarcely justify an air service. Roads and rail tracks,
like the notorious `death railways' of Sumatra and Siam, were carved through
the jungle. Wharves, dockyards and ferries opened up whole archipelagoes in
the Philippines. And then
came American matériel. Vehicles, ships and planes, radios, telephones
and radar flooded the East courtesy of the US war effort and then continued
coming under a variety of aid and reconstruction programmes. Whole airlines
sprang into existence using superfluous US army transports and whole
automotive industries were jump-started by the maintenance requirements of US
army vehicles. Later a country like Laos, though still awaiting a television
service, would find itself inundated with television receivers. South
Vietnam's airports would briefly become the busiest in the world. The ease
of contact, and the ability to exert long-range influence which resulted,
might have been superfluous elsewhere. Not so in the Far East. To the peoples
of the west Pacific rim, the island-girt Java and South China Seas have
always formed an integrated trading basin, like the Mediterranean,
criss-crossed by routes of migration and exchange. Vietnamese, Malay, Bugis,
Chinese, Indian and Arab navigators have travelled and traded within and
beyond the region since 2000 BC…. Under colonial auspices new products and new
markets brought a dramatic increase not only in the region's external trade
but also in its internal trade. American emphasis on the 'Open Door' in
China, British obsessions with free trade and free ports, and the inability
of the Dutch to withhold free access to their island world in the Indies
encouraged a highly competitive and uniquely open trading climate. Migration
also boomed, especially of Chinese and Javanese labourers to the plantation
economies of Malaya and Sumatra. The Chinese commercial networks which
dominate the region today were as much a product of empire as the great
European- and American-owned `hongs' of the China coast. Ascribing the Far East's late twentieth-century
economic 'miracle' to the liberation of its peoples from the tentacles of
empire may, therefore, be simplistic. There seems to be a continuum in the
history of the East to which, albeit for its own purposes, empire
substantially contributed. In this sense the white men did 'come and go
leaving all things as they were'. |
9.1 British Raj
9.2 French Indochina
A very good outline of post-war developments in French
Indochina is contained in Tarling 2001 (pp. 272-279).
|
Hubertus Johannes van Mook (1895–1965) was of Dutch parentage, born in
the NEI. He was a member of the elite Indies civil service (BB) which ran the
NEI with almost military rigor[84]. From his student days during
the first World War he believed that the NEI should be developed into a
quasi-independent country whose natural rulers would be the permanently
resident Dutch, the Indo-Europeans and the tiny class of educated natives[85]. When, van Mook took up his career in the BB he found a country deeply
disturbed by war time pressures ruled by a Netherlands whose government was
becoming more right wing and controlling[86]. Van Mook fought against the economic
exploitation of the NEI[87] and for his view of the future. To this end he
was a founder of the Stuw group[88]. When appointed to the Volksraad,
he used it as a platform for his views. During
World War II, he was Minister of the Colonies in the Netherlans government in
exile in London and later Lieutenant Governor-General of the Netherlands East Indies based in
Australia. In
September 1945 he became the top Dutch official in the NEI and may have been
one of the few key Dutch decision makers to really work for Indonesian
independence. However, he believed that independence could, and should, come
only after the Dutch had first restored their rule, stamped our disorder[89] and followed all the forms and stages so dear to
the legalistic Dutch approach. The refusal, and probably the inability, of
the leadership of the self-proclaimed Republic of Indonesia, to play by his
rules led to his practical actions and recommendations converging with those
of the Dutch politicians, military leaders, colonials, investors etc. whose
aim was the reestablishment of colonial rule perhaps with cosmetic changes.
The bulk of the Netherlands political leadership embraced this position
because: ·
They
were convinced that the Netherlands could not recover economically without
the resources of the NEI; ·
They
considered that the Netherlands without the NEI would be a powerless and ignored
tiny power in Europe whereas with the NEI they would be a significant
economic and political force; and, ·
Their
legalistic mindset was highly offended by the “illegal” Indonesian
declaration of independence and its “unconstitutionality” in terms of the
Netherlands constitution of 1922 which was formulated without any input from
the Indonesian people and against the recommendations of the Dutch NEI
government’s reform recommendations. To Van Mook the full, though transitional
restoration of Dutch rule was an essential precondition for the restoration.
He simply closed his eyes to the fact that the Republic had maintained order
over much of its territory while Dutch settlers and Dutch and Dutch-led
soldiers caused much of the chaos and actively provoked violence. When blocked by Dutch military weakness and
British authority from restoring Dutch rule in Java where the population was
overwhelmingly anti-Dutch. Van Mook set up Dutch-supported puppet governments
first outside Java and after the first police action (anti-Republic military
offensive) on Java itself. |
9.4 The Philippines
See Independent Philippines and the Third Republic (1946–1972)
G. Conclusions
Comparative Summary of Aspects of
Colonial Rule
|
Issue |
Indian Raj |
French Indochina |
NEI |
Philippines |
|
Conscious preparation for Independence |
From 1919 indianization of
Indian Civil Service, Army etc. and provincial government under the from Government of India Acts of 1919 and
1935 |
The French denied the
possibility of independence at any time. |
See above |
See
above |
|
Economic Benefit of Colony to Metropolis |
Moderately important |
Moderately important |
Very important |
Not important |
|
Education |
poor |
Tiny elite only |
Tiny elite only |
Major effort |
|
Health |
poor |
Serious effort |
Serious effort |
Serious effort |
|
Indigenous Access to Top Admin. Posts |
From 1919 |
no |
Almost none |
yes |
|
Army |
Slow indianisation from 1919 |
no |
Limited number of Indonesian
officers |
yes |
|
Divide and Rule |
Yes but only serious during
WWII |
Major aspect for maintaining
rule |
Major aspect for maintaining
rule |
no |
|
“Colons” |
Minor importance |
Major constraint to good race
relations, advancement of indigenous personnel and eventually to
decolonization. |
Major constraint to good race
relations, advancement of indigenous personnel and eventually to
decolonization. |
no |
Table
Origin and Nature
Military and Civil Governance
Origin and Impact
|
Issue |
India |
French Indochina |
NEI |
Philippines |
|
Military Culture |
Civilian government controls the military Linear continuation of the British Indian Army which
was ethnically and religiously mixed and always stayed out of politics and
was loyally subordinate to the civilian authorities. From 1918 Indians became commissioned
officers embued with the British military ethos. The British Indian Army served
victoriously against Germany (North Africa, Italy) and Japan (Burma). |
Communist Party controls the military Viet Minh, a communist
dominated guerrilla army, |
Military dominates
civilian government Although there were some Indonesian officers in
the Royal
Netherlands East Indies Army (Koninklijk Nederlands Indisch Leger; KNIL),
which fought against the Republic in
the Indonesian National Revolution,
the basis of Indonesian military culture was in the ideology of Japanese
militarism inculcated into the
young officers of the Japanese sponsored Indonesian army (PETA). The PETA became
the army of the Republic and fought the Dutch 1945-49. In this they were
greatly aided by sympathetic Japanese officers handing over about half the
Japanese weaponry in Java contrary to the terms of surrender. |
Civilian government controls the military Copy/adaptation of American
military ethos. |
|
Politics/Government |
1. Elections, cabinet system,
legislatures etc. adapted from British Parliamentary practice 2. Federal constitutional
system similar to that in the USA adapted from Government of India Act, 1935 |
Communist party control |
1. New
Order 1966-98 2. Attempt to establish democratic regeime. 1998
- |
Attempt to replicate the
American system. |
1. Books
Abeyasekere, Susan, One hand clapping:
Indonesian nationalists and the Dutch, 1939-1942, Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, 1976
Alatas, Seyd Hussein, The Myth of the Lazy
Native: A Study of the Image of the Malays, Filipinos and Javanese from the
16th to the 20th Century and Its Function in the Ideology of Colonial
Capitalism, Routledge,
1977, ISBN-10: 0714630500
Allen, Louis. Fujiwara and Suzuki:
patterns of Asian liberation. in Newell,
William H., ed. Japan in Asia. Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1981. Discusses the part played by Major Iwaichi Fujiwara and Captain
Mohan Singh in the development of the Indian National Army in Malaya. Pp.
83-102.
Anderson, Benedict R. O'G. (Benedict
Richard O'Gorman. Java in a time of revolution; occupation and
resistance, 1944-1946. Ithaca,
Cornell University Press [1972]
Note – review by J. A. C. Mackie in the American Political Science Review vol. 70 no.
4 pp. 1320-1321.
- Some Aspects of Indonesian Politics under the Japanese Occupation: 1944-1945. Ithaca, Cornell University
Indonesia Project, Interim Report Series 196, 1961
Andrew,
C. M., '”The French Colonialist Movement during the Third
Republic: The Unofficial Mind of Imperialism”, TRHS
26 (1976).
Andrew,
C. M.and Kanya-Forstner, A., “French Business and the French
Colonialists”, HJ 19 (1976), 981-1000.
Antlöv,
Hans and Stein TØnnesson, eds., Imperial Policy and Southeast Asian
Nationalism, London: Curzon Press (1995) 34-62. Note bibliography.
August, Thomas G., The
Selling of the Empire: British and French Imperialist Propaganda, 1890-1940 (Contributions in Comparative Colonial Studies),
Greenwood Press, 1985, ISBN-10: 0313247226; ISBN-13: 978-0313247224
Bennett, Frank C., Jr., The Return of the
Exiles: Australia's Repatriation of the Indonesians, 1945-47 (Monash Papers on Southeast Asia,), Monash Asia Institute
(2002), ISBN-10: 187692411X; ISBN-13: 978-1876924119
Boot, Max, The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of
American Power, Basic Books; Reprint edition (2003)
Broek, Jan O. M., Economic Development
of the Netherlands Indies, Institute
of Pacific Relations, New York, 1942.
Chowdhry, Carol. Dusk of Empire: Roosevelt and Asian Colonialism,
1941-1945. U. of Virginia 1973.
Cribb, Robert, Gangsters and Revolutionaries: The Jakarta People’s
Militia and the Indonesian Revolution 1945-1949, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1991.
De Jong, L., The
Collapse of a Colonial Society: The Dutch in Indonesia During the Second World
War (Verhandelingen Van Het Koninklijk Instituut Voor Taal-, Land), Kitlv Press (April 2003), ISBN-10:
9067182036; ISBN-13: 978-9067182034
Dennis, Peter. Troubled days of peace: Mountbatten and South East Asia Command, 1945-46. Manchester University Press,
1987. (Extensive references to published and unpublished sources)
Djajadiningrat,
Idrus Nasir, The beginnings of the Indonesian-Dutch negotiations and the Hoge Veluwe
talks (Cornell University. Modern Indonesia
Project. Monograph series), Modern
Indonesia Project, Southeast Asia Program, Dept. of Far Eastern Studies,
Cornell University (1958), ASIN: B0007EG4B8 . (Extensive references to unpublished sources and bibliography)
Djajadiningrat, Raden Lukman, Educational Development in
the Netherlands East Indies, National Council for the Netherlands and
the Netherlands East Indies of the Institute of Pacific Relations, 1942.
Doom, J. van, A Divided Society: Segmentation and Mediation in
Late Colonial Indonesia, Comparative Asian
Studies Programme, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, 1983.
Fieldhouse, D. K. (David Kenneth). The colonial empires;
a comparative survey from the eighteenth century, Delacorte Press, 1967.
Frederick, William H., Visions and Heat:
The Making of the Indonesian Revolution, Ohio University Press, Athens OH, 1989.
Friend, Theodore, The Blue-Eyed Enemy:
Japan Against the West in Java and Luzon, 1942-1945, Princeton University
Press, 1988.
Fujiwara, Iwaichi,
F. Kikan: Japanese Army Intelligence Operations in Southeast Asia During
World War II, Heinemann
(1983), ISBN-10: 9622250726; ISBN-13: 978-9622250727
Furnivall, J. S. (John Sydenham). Netherlands India. London, Cambridge U. P., 1939.
George, M. L., Australia and the
Indonesian Revolution, Melbourne University Press, 1980.
Hahn, Emily. The Islands, America's imperial adventure in the
Philippines. New York, N.Y. : Coward, McCann & Geoghegan,
c1981 ISBN: 0698110978
Hammer, Ellen J. (Ellen Joy), The struggle for
Indochina, 1940-1955. Stanford,
Calif.: Stanford University Press, [1966, c1955]
Hyma, Albert, A history of the
Dutch in the Far East. Ann Arbor, Mich. G. Wahr 1953
Ingleson, John.
Title Road to exile : the
Indonesian nationalist movement, 1927-1934, Singapore :
Published for the Asian Studies Association of Australia by Heinemann
Educational Books (Asia), 1979.
Jong, Louis de, The collapse of a colonial society : the Dutch in
Indonesia during the Second World War, [translated by, Jennifer Kilian, Cornelia Kist and
John Rudge]. Leiden :
KITLV Press, 2002.
Note –
"This the first book to offer a thorough
English-language study on the vicissitudes of the Dutch and Dutch Eurasians
during the Japanese occupation of the East Indies." "Dutch historian
Louis de Jong's extensive study Het Koninkrjik der Nederlanden in de Tweede
Wereldoorlog (1969-1988), whose 13 parts were published in 27 volumes and
together add up to almost 15,000 pages, is considered to be the standard work
on the history of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the Second World War. The
present book, a translation of chapters 5 through 10 of Part 11b - one of the five volumes on the
East Indies - makes a section of De Jong's magnum opus available to English
readers. It presents an impressive account of the experiences of the Dutch
civilians and prisoners of war under the Japanese occupation. An extensive
introduction by Jeroen Kemperman sketches the course of events from the arrival
of the Dutch in the Indonesian archipelago to the capitulation of the Dutch
East Indies in March 1942." "De Jong did not aim his work exclusively
at historians, but made a conscious effort to reach a broader audience. His
text is thus lively and easy to read. As a starting point for all future
research on the Netherlands during the Second World War, De Jong's study
continues to be of inestimable value."- BOOK JACKET.
Karnow,
Stanley. In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines,
Random House 1989.
Keay, John. Empire's end : a history of the Far East from high colonialism to Hong
Kong. New York : Scribner, c1997.
ISBN: 0684815923 (Extensive Bibliography)
Klaveren, Jacob Van. Dutch colonial system
in the East Indies. Gravenhage,
Nijhoff, 1953. Ann Arbor, Mich.,
University Microfilms., 1972. ASIN: B0007IX77S
Kramer, Paul A., The Blood of Government: Race,
Empire, the United States, and the Philippines, The University of North
Carolina Press (2006) Lancaster, Donald. The emancipation of
French Indochina. London, New York, Oxford University Press, 1961.
Lancaster, Donald. The
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Lebra, Joyce C., Japanese-Trained
Armies in Southeast Asia, New York: Columbia
University Press, 1977
Louis,
William Roger. Imperialism at bay 1941-1945: the United States and
the decolonization of the British Empire.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977.
-
Ends of British Imperialism: The Scramble for Empire, Suez and
Decolonization, I. B. Tauris,
Low, D. A., “Counterpart
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Note –
book review by Metcalf in Journal of Asian Studies,
vol. 51, no. 1, Feb. 1992 pp. 128-129.
- Britain and Indian Nationalism, 1929-1942: imprint
of ambiguity, Cambridge University Press, 1997 (the Introduction contains the relevant
material).
Marshall, D. Bruce. The French colonial
myth and constitution-making in the Fourth Republic, New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1973
Mehden, Fred R. von der. South-East Asia
1930-1970; the legacy of colonialism and nationalism. London. Thames and Hudson, 1974
Meulen, D. van der, Don’t You Hear the Thunder: A Dutchman’s Life Story,
Brill, Leiden, 1981
Miller, Stuart Creighton, Benevolent Assimilation: The American Conquest of the
Philippines, 1899-1903, Yale University Press; Reprint edition (1984)
Mook, Hubertus J. van, The stakes of democracy in South-East Asia, Allen and Unwin (1950), ASIN: B0006DB0F0
Nish, I ed. The Indonesian Experience, The role of Japan and Britain, London School of Economics, 1979.
Pender,
Chr. L. M. (ed. and translator) Indonesia: Selected documents on colonialism
and nationalism, 1830-1942, University
of Lewis
Pyenson, Civilizing Missions: Exact Sciences
and French Overseas Expansion, 1830-1940, Baltimore and London, 1993.
Queensland Press
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Quinn, Frederick. The French overseas empire. Westport, Conn. : Praeger,
2000.
Raben, Remco, Representing
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Indonesia, Japan, and the Netherlands, B.V. Waanders Uitgeverji (2000), ISBN-10:
9040093466; ISBN-13: 978-9040093463
Raffin, Anne, Youth
Mobilization in Vichy Indochina and its Legacies, 1940 to 1970 (After the
Empire: the Francophone World and Postcolonial France),
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Shipway, Martin. The road to war:
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Tarling, Nicholas. Imperalism in Southeast Asia: a fleeting passing phase. New York: Routledge, 2001. (In
my view this is the best treatment of this subject)
- A Sudden Rampage: The Japanese Occupation of Southeast Asia, 1941-1945, University of Hawaii Press (2001), ISBN-10:
0824824911; ISBN-13: 978-0824824914
Thomas, Martin. Title The French empire between the wars : imperialism, politics and society. Manchester : Manchester
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bibliography)
2.
Articles
Abeyasekere, Susan. “The Soetardjo Petition”.
Alexander,
Jennifer and Paul Alexander, “State Economic Policy and Social Division:
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Hans, “Rulers in Imperial Policy: Sultan
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COLONIES AND A KINGDOM:
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Citation: Foreign Affairs 1973 51(3): 608-628. ISSN: 0015-7120
Dulles, Foster Rhea, and Ridinger, Gerald E. “THE
ANTI-COLONIAL POLICIES OF FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT”. Political Science Quarterly 1955 70(1): 1-18. ISSN: 0032-3195
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Foster, Anne L., “French,
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Frederick, William H., “The Man Who Knew Too Much: Ch. O. Van der Plas and Postwar Indonesia”
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TØnnesson, eds., London: Curzon Press (1995) 34-62
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W., “In Search of Grandeur: France and Vietnam 1940-1946”, The Review of Politics
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World War”, Journal of Contemporary History
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See also
- Text and Comments on the Radio address by Queen Wilhelmina
on 7 December 1942
- Dutch
Proposals for Indonesian Settlement 6 November 1945
- Dutch
Proposals for Indonesian Settlement 10 March 1946
- Text and critique of the Linggadjati Agreement
- Text and Comments on the Renville Political
Principles
Politionele acties ('police actions') - Wikipedia
Ambonese - Wikipedia
Imperialism in Asia - Wikipedia
Malay
Archipelago- Wikipedia
Federation of Malaya - Wikipedia
Malayan Union - Wikipedia
Malaysia - Wikipedia
Malayo-Polynesian
- Wikipedia
4. Others
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Valentine, Bart Daniel, “The British Facilitation
of the French Reentry into Vietnam”, PhD thesis 1974, UCLA
Part I constitutes the archive of Dr. Van Mook, first
Minister of the Colonies and later Lieutenant Governor-General of the
Netherlands East Indies. In this capacity Van Mook played a central role in the
events of the time.
Part II consists of the papers of the Director of the Cabinet of the
Governor-General and later the High Representative of the Crown, Dr. P.J.
Koets.
Part III is particularly revealing in documenting the war period. It includes
intelligence material on the Japanese occupation and informaton on allied
military actions, all from the archive of C.O. van der Plas.
Part IV, the Van Roijen materials (1946-1962), mostly concern the question of
Indonesian independence and the transfer of sovereignty to the Republic. They
include telegrams, correspondence, reports and position papers. A smaller
section covers the New Guinea affair, in the early 1960's.
Documents on the United Nations
Statute of the Netherlands-Indonesian Union, Signed at the Round Table
Conference, the Hague, November 2, 1949
International
Organization, Vol. 4, No. 1. (Feb., 1950), pp. 177-183.
(Accessible through JSTOR)
[1] “The Victorians set out, in
addition, to order and classify
[2]
“At its heart … liberalism can be seen as
informed by a radical universalism. Contemporary
European, especially British, culture alone represented
civilization. No other cultures had any intrinsic
validity. There was no such thing as 'Western' civilization; there existed only
'civilization'. Hence the liberal set out, on the basis of this shared
humanity, to turn the Indian into an Englishman; or, as Macaulay described it in his 1835 Minute on Education,
to create not just a class of Indians educated
in the English language, who might assist
the British in ruling India, but one 'English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect'. The fulfillment of the
British connection with
This liberal idealism was inevitably fraught with troubling implications. With neither racial nor environmental
theories to sustain it, culture alone
remained to distinguish Europeans from those overseas. As a result,
the more fully non-European peoples were accorded the prospect of future
equality, the more necessary it became to devalue and depreciate their contemporary cultures. The hierarchical ordering of
societies on a 'scale of civilization' reflected not just the classifying enthusiasms of the Enlightenment, but was a way to
reassure the British that they themselves
occupied a secure position, as the arbiter of its values…. It was not some
chance prejudice, but the liberal project itself,
that led Macaulay in 1835 to scorn the `entire native literature of
By its very nature the
liberal transformation of
Thomas R. Metcalfe, Ideologies of the Raj, (pp. 34-35)
[3] Critically important in this creation of a history
for
[4] “In both the
“Although the race
criterion was finally removed from the
“Presumed Frenchness rested on two sorts of certainty: the evaluation of
the child's "physical features
or race" by a "medico-legal expert" and a "moral
certainty" derived from
the fact that the child "has a French name, lived in a European milieu and was considered by all as being of French
descent." Thus, French citizenship
was not open to all metis but restricted by a "scientific" and moral judgment that the child was decidedly non-indigene.
As we have seen in the case
of Nguyen van Thinh dit Lucien, however, the name Lucien, the acknowledged paternity by Icard, and the patriotic
ambiance of the household were
only sufficient for the child to be legally classified as French, not for him to be treated as French by a court of law. Inclusionary laws left ample
room for an implementation based on exclusionary principles and practices.” Stoler p. 533
“Internal to this logic was a
notion of cultural, physical, and moral contamination, the fear that those
Europeans who did not subscribe to Dutch middle-class conventions of
respectability would not only compromise the cultural distinctions of
empire, but waver in their allegiances to metropolitan rule.
Such fears were centered on mixed bloods but not on
them alone. In the
[5] In fact, he made a major contribution to Indian constitutional history by demanding that, for the first time, the British government declare a goal for British rule. This led to the declaration of August 1917 see Robb, Peter G., The government of India and reform: policies towards politics and the constitution, 1916-1921, Oxford University Press, 1976.
[6] “Colonial Laws Validity Act (28 and 29
Victoria, C. 63), an Act passed by the British parliament in 1865 to remove
doubts as to the validity of colonial laws. It laid down that a colonial law
cannot be repugnant to the laws of
[7] “The following year (1934), … the Tydings-McDuffie Act was finally passed. The
act provided for the establishment of the Commonwealth of the Philippines
with a ten-year period of peaceful transition to full independence. The
commonwealth would have its own constitution and be self-governing, though
foreign policy would be the responsibility of the
[8] “In view of continued disquiet in
the Party after the debate, Hoare, who was himself being groomed for the India
Office, and had been due to speak in support of Baldwin if the debate
had continued, arranged for an exchange of letters between Baldwin
and MacDonald
confirming that there was no intended change of policy." There was now
no doubt that the declaration, already denounced by some Conservatives as
dangerous, was also meaningless. Nevertheless, many Conservatives were still
worried about the terms
of reference of the conference, the Party was "badly shaken" and, as one of
them noted, "Winston" was "promising serious trouble later
on"." There was nothing to stop the forces which had risen against
[9] Gwyer
and Appadorai
p. 220.
[10] “An especially informative insight into Lord
Willingdon in December 1931, was written privately by Sir George Schuster, Government
of India Finance Member to both Irwin and Willingdon. When the author
interviewed Sir George some thirty years after Willingdon's death, the former
colleague of the Viceroy re-affirmed then his views written earlier in 1931.
Schuster thought Willingdon:
… a genuine liberal - and more liberal, far
more genuine and far more courageous than Irwin - to tell the truth. He is
delightful to work with and keeps everybody's tail up. He has not really much
brain. He is very old. He is sometimes indiscreet. And yet underneath it all he
has great courage, good British common sense, absolute honesty, and trusts his
team. The result is that he has ready been a success so far and much better
than men with fifty times his- brain power.
He believes in providing
constitutional advance as fast as he can and in fact, driving the Indians
faster than they may in reality want to go themselves.” Quoted in Bergstrom p. 152
[11] Sitting next to Mr. Muggeridge after a Viceregal Lodge dinner,
Willingdon, 'slightly tipsy', said: '
[12] In Willingdon’s words
“The whole
trouble is that Gandhi looks upon himself as an equal and parallel with me in
working the administration of the country and not without some reason. You see,
the negotiations for this settlement were carried on by the then Viceroy and
Gandhi on absolutely terms of equality, and the condition for Gandhi calling
his civil disobedience campaign were agreed upon as between two opposing
generals. That was the position when I arrived and had to take over. Well I
won't admit Gandhi's equality with me, and he is continually trying to assert
it, and I confess logically he has got some claim for his assertions owing to
what had happened before between him and Irwin. And the fact that I look upon
him as the head of a very inconvenient political party and treat him as such
makes him very restive.
But there can't
be two Kings of Brentford out here and he must be put back into his place, and
while we are the best of friends I think he is feeling his position very
keenly. You will see by what I have told you what I think of the settlement,
and must own I rather wish Irwin had been here to wrap up the men he left
behind him! Still it's all amazingly interesting and I am sure we shall get
through. We may have to hit and hit hard which I shall hate but it won't be my
fault if we do.” Quoted in Bergstrom p. 118
[13] “As Lords Irwin and Willingdon are frequently
contrasted and compared, it is helpful to analyze Irwin's view of the
Gandhi-Willingdon confrontation in 1931. Irwin had been relatively silent on
Indian topics, but not long after the confrontation, he broke his silence by
noting that Congress was responsible for the 'recent upheaval' and that their
‘position is both unecessary and unjustified'. He did not doubt that Gandhi's
lieutenants in
To those who
knew Linlithgow intimately, the hallmarks of his character were reliability,
industry and 'conscientious thoroughness'. It was not always easy to fathom
him, and only those near enough to him could get a real insight in his
character. To his colleagues in
Although Lord
Halifax's comment that Linlithgow 'did not really get on human terms with
anybody' is unjustified, it must be acknowledged that Linlithgow had little
'gift for establishing personal relationship'. He was, it ought to be mentioned
at the outset, a rather oldfashioned British aristocrat, with a public school
boy's sense of duty, but lacking in 'political imagination' and
'sensitiveness'. But what he lacked in imagination, lie made up in reliability:
if he was cautious in movement, he 'planted his feet firmly'.
[15] Quoted from Thomas pp. 347-349
Yet examination of popular imperialism,
imperialist lobbying and colonial policy making indicates that decisions of
lasting import to the empire were made with minimal ministerial, parliamentary
or public discussion in
An essential paradox of French imperialism
was that
The sky-blue Chamber of 1920-24 was fervently
nationalistic. Even so, empire remained peripheral to National Bloc politics.
Colonial modernisation and constitutional reform were rejected. Empire was
there to serve, to be dwelt upon only when urgently required in the assistance
of
On those occasions
when significant parliamentary time was devoted to questions of empire, as, for
example, during the extended debate over colonial development between 1921 and
1923, or in response to the rebellions in
[16] Thomas A. August, 'Colonial Policy and
Propaganda: the Popularization of the "Idée Coloniale" in
[17] Ibid., pp. 58, 198.
[18] Ibid., pp. 196, 201
[19] q. C. M. Andrew and A. S. Kanya-Forstner,
[20]
In English the Dutch mainly referred to the colony as
[21] “Dutch income in and from Indonesia probably
amounted to about 1.4 per cent of Indonesian domestic product in 1700 and rose to
about 17 per cent in 1921-38 (see Table 1). Until 1870, about 90 per cent of
this Dutch income in
“Income remitted from
“In
Quoted
from Maddison pp. 645-646.
[24] Quoted from H. V. Hodson, The Great Divide: Britain-India-Pakistan,
[25]
The principal religion in Vietnam is the so-called Tam Giáo
("triple religion"), characterizing the East Asian
intricate mixture between Mahayana
Buddhism, Confucianism,
and Daoism. The
dominant religion of
[26]
The principal religion in Vietnam is the so-called Tam Giáo ("triple religion"), characterizing the East Asian
intricate mixture between Mahayana
Buddhism, Confucianism,
and Daoism.
[30] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_France#Historical_population_of_metropolitan_France
[35]
The Ramayana became popular in Southeast Asia and manifested itself in text,
temple architecture and performance, particularly in Indonesia (Java, Sumatra, Bali and Borneo), Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines
(Maradia Lawana) and Vietnam
[36] “Hinduism was at one time widespread in
[T]he aim for a national identity vacillated between
the creation of a Great Netherlands citizenship or a Netherlands Indies citizenship,
whose members would participate in a pluralistic society of liberty, equality,
and fraternity; and the creation of national identities in a narrower frame,
preserving the identity of each component group in the colonial society.
[43] Colijn’s views from Pender p. 124
While Colijn agreed with the general
condemnation of earlier liberal-minded
colonial statesmen for having been too weak in dealing with Indonesian nationalists, his criticism
was far more fundamental. In his
pamphlet Staatkundige Hervormingen in Nederlandsch-Indie
(Constitutional Reforms in the Netherlands Indies), published in 1918, he
argued that indigenous political development
should start off at the grass roots level and that the establishment of the Volksraad
had been entirely premature, as this institution had no roots in
the people. Colijn also dismissed as unrealistic the attempts to superimpose on the
[52]
“The
[54]
The following is quoted from Karnow pp. 196-198
The
The venture
had originally been infused with apostolic fervor when McKinley divulged his
divine directive to "uplift and civilize" the Filipinos—a goal he had
earlier advertised as "benevolent assimilation." Elihu Root, his
secretary of war, codified the doctrine in his instructions to William Howard
Taft to promote the "happiness, peace and prosperity" of the natives
in conformity with "their customs, their habits and even their
prejudices." Seconding that sentiment soon after becoming governor, Taft
intoned: "We hold the
Compared to European
colonialism, the
Aware from the
start that the Filipinos would judge them by actual deeds, the Americans
launched practical programs to demonstrate their benevolence. They bought and
redistributed the rural estates held by the Catholic friars, whose excesses had
provoked Filipinos to rebel against
The
But the
Above all, the
[61] q. Thorne, p. 133.
[62] in W. F. Vella (ed.) Aspects
of Vietnamese History, Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 1973, p. 167.
[65] As noted
above, the early 19th century British Utilitarians foresaw without
trepidations the likelihood of Indian becoming culturally European and naturally
demanding political independence in a very distant and indeterminate future.
The orientalist point of view, which was dominant about 1850-1917 saw the
Indians as being racially incapable of ruling themselves. This, of course, was
a situation that could not be amended without a change of population. An late
representative of this point fo view was Lord Birkenhead who, on the rare
occasions that prior clasims on his time for drinking and golf allowed, served
as Secretary of State for India during
the late 1920s.
The First World War
made it necessary to rally Indians behind the flagging war effort. To do so, in
1917, Edwin Montagu, the new Secretary of State for India, made a policy statement in parliament
which included the following –
“The policy of His Majesty’s government, with
which the Government
of India are in complete accord, is that of the increasing association of
Indians in every branch of the administration, and the gradual development of
self-governing institutions, with a view to the progressive realization of responsible government in India as an
integral Part of the British Empire…. I would add that progress in this
policy can only be achieved by successive stages. The British Government , and
the Government of India, on whom the responsibility lies for the welfare and
advancement of the Indian people, must be the judges of the time and measure of
each advance, and they must be guided by the co-operation received from those
upon whom new opportunities of service will thus be conferred and by the extent
to which it is found that confidence can be reposed in their sense of
responsibility.”
I have elsewhere,
traced Indian developments.
Spear (p9. 185-189)
A declaration of policy had been delayed for three
years, but when it came it proved to be radical. For it envisaged internal
self-government of the kind then enjoyed by the dominions of
The first principle of the new constitution was that
of realization of self-government by stages…. But self-government did not mean
independence. It was the reading of independence in dominion status at the
Imperial Conference of 1926 which raised the issue in
When the Montford reforms are viewed as a whole… they
marked a great departure.
However, it is true as
Read and Fisher (p.
134) have pointed out -
As a
promise of freedom, Montagu's declaration was decidedly tentative, hedged in by
weasel words like 'gradual development', 'progressive realization’, and `responsible government'. An accompanying clause
stated that the government alone would
decide what 'responsible government' meant and when the Indians would be
ready for it. But for Indian nationalists the declaration was a landmark, a clear promise of the dominion status
they sought. No longer could their demands for Home Rule or independence
be considered seditious.
[66] Quote
from Shmutzer Pp. P149
The Dutch imperialism, though highly commercial, was
in fact not really interested in the transmission of European religious and
social institutions from the motherland to the natives. The average Dutchman
did not, in fact, consider his legal or political system as necessarily
superior to that of the natives. The dutch colonial idea was, therefore, more
dedicated to transforming the natives into a contented people who would worship
“peace and quiet,” respect the position of the guardian country, and accept the
rational and impersonal relationship between guardian and ward. In short, he
was more interested in creating an ideal climate in which to continue doing
business. On the other hand, Dutch democratic humanitarianism carried the
implicit convictions of equality of till races and peoples, and the moral
obligation to strenghten and support their development to equal standards.
The subconscious recognition of the above realities
had undoubtedly a disturbing and demoralizing influence upon Dutch leaders and
their approach to colonial prohlems. Here, it is essential to keep in mind that the national ideology of the
Dutch is based upon the independence of a people in spite of all efforts to the
contrary from without. This ideology accounts, in part, for Dutch reluctance to
impose their civilization upon the natives, and for the discomfort of so many
colonial officials. The often wavering attitude of the colonial government
takes its rise in the impossibility of reconciling basic Dutch ideology with
the unavoidable necessities of a colonial administration. In its desire to give
expression to its respect for the liberties and needs of the people ni the East
Indies, the Dutch government… moved to a re-adjustment of the administrative
machinery by decentralizing the government and by creating the Volksraad.
A growing awareness of a political identity among the
Dutch, native, and other inhabitants of the colony led to a feeling of
belonging to a particular society (a nationalism of the Netherlands Indies), a
feeling which was manifested by the diverse groups of the population, in their
formulation of aims, desires, and demands for a measure of self-government and
self-determination of the dependency.
But, instead of thus creating a harmonious
relationship between the
Quote from Shmutzer p. 72
… the Europeans have made it clear that there do not
exist thinking natives, that all of them are only inferior beings one can
approach only with the utmost suspicion, and that it is all-important to keep
them down….
[69]
By 1904 most of Aceh
was under Dutch control, and had an indigenous government that cooperated with
the colonial state. Estimated total casualties on the Aceh side range from
50,000 to 100,000 dead, and over a million wounded. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aceh#The_Aceh_War
[70]
Quoted from Raymond Kennedy, “Dutch PLAN for the
The … Volksraad was
democratic and representative, but only to a degree. Only thirty-eight of the sixty delegates were
elected, and the remaining twenty-two were appointed by the Governor-General. The European population was
greatly over-represented, for
while Europeans formed far less than one percent of the total
population, they held twenty-five, or over forty percent, of the seats. The Foreign Asiatics, with about two
percent of the total population, were also favored in the legislature, having five, or almost ten percent.,. of the
delegates. The natives held half of the seats, but they composed over ninety-seven
percent of the population…. election of delegates to the Volksraad
was carried out on the basis of an electorate severely restricted by income and property qualifications, which affected the
natives almost exclusively. Moreover, the method of election was so indirect that true
mass representation was far from achieved. Especially indirect was the electoral procedure for Indonesians….
The Governor-General could and did veto Volksraad legislation.
[71] “The Volksraad (the People's Council) was created in 1918. Until 1927 it had only advisory powers, but in that year it was given co-legislative powers, which in practice meant that legislative measures normally required the approval of both the Volksraad and the Governor General. Deadlocks on the budget were resolved
by the States General. Other conflicts between the Volksraad and the
Governor General went to the Crown for settlement.
Only when the Volksraad failed to declare within a stated time whether or not it gave its concurrence to a
bill submitted by him, or if urgent circumstances
demanded immediate action, did the Governor General have the power to
issue an ordinance on his own authority.
The Volksraad was composed of 60 members and a chairman, the latter appointed by the Crown. Under the provisions of the Indies Government Act, the membership was divided as follows: 30 Indonesians, 25 Europeans, and from 3 to 5 nonindigenous Asiatics. Of the Indonesian members 20 were elected, and of the Europeans and the non-indigenous Asiatics, 15 and 3 respectively. The remaining members were appointed by the Governor General after consultation with the Council of the Netherlands Indies. There were also provincial, municipal, and regency councils. In the regency councils the Indonesian members were in an overwhelming majority.” Vandenbosch 1943
Quote from Shmutzer Pp. P74
… the great error of the Volksraad was in
"having granted too much and lot not enough.- Too much … because, although
the natives were not sufficiently awakened to political realities, they had
been given a voice in all state affairs: not enough because, even in the smallest
administrative units, they had not been allowed to share the responsibility of
power
[72] Quote
from Shmutzer Pp. Pp58-9
On behalf of the Indies Government, Commisioner Mr.
Dr. D. Talma, declared on
The transfer of authority to the provinces or
districts its organs of native authority and the central government (in which
the native population will participate, and which will be responsible to it)
can only be achieved when a large group of the population, of adequate
development and moral vigor, is available to call their leaders to account,
concerning the policies they are pursuing as public representatives, its well
as a justification of their actions. The duty of the government to look after
the interests of the population as a whole, stands out against a transfer of
authority without conclusive guarantee that this transfer can be made without
harm to the society. That small group of intellectuals consider themselves able
to take over and judge the time ripe is not enough. There first has to be
completed the school for responsible exercise of authority – which is to be
opened with the creation of the promised councils…. It is a fact, however, that
a re-organization of some significance is unthinkable without a substantial
extension of the competence of the Volksraad; without a fundamental change in
the character of this college, which has been re-organized from a purely
advisory body into an integral part of the government with actual co-
determination in and control upon the administration…. it is inevitable that
the re-organization will bring on, not only a transfer of authority and
influence to the local councils and the Volksraad, but also a shift in the
relations between the motherland and the colony….
[73] Quoted from Pender
p. 122-3
The ruling Liberal coalition
was far more concerned with accommodating to some extent the growing pressure of
Indonesian nationalists at this time for a greater degree of participation in government. In 1916 the
Liberal Minister of Colonies submitted a proposal to parliament for
the establishment of a Koloniale Raad (Colonial Council), which
was to have a multi-racial membership and advisory powers. This
was approved by parliament, and the council, called the Volksraad (People's
Council) was officially instituted in May 1918 by the progressive
Governor-General van Limburg Stirum. Members of the Volksraad, who
enjoyed full parliamentary privileges and immunities, were to be partly elected and partly appointed. The Volksraad,
which could be consulted on all matters of state by the colonial
government, was responsible for the preparation of the annual budget in conjunction
with the Governor-General, although final approval still rested with the Dutch Parliament.
Any hopes the Dutch might
have held about pacifying radical nationalists by instituting the Volksraad were
dispelled almost immediately after the opening of the first session when Sarekat Islam leaders such as
Tjokroaminoto severely criticized the colonial system. Again during the
second session of the Volksraad on
The immediate reaction of
Governor-General van Limburg Stirum was that the Volksraad would have to be
transformed into a full parliament in case the Socialists came to power in
The Socialist coup in
[74] . Letter of the Minister of Colonies (Idenburg) to the
Governor-General (van Limburg Stirum),
From your telegrams—and from press reports ... I have noticed that the current situation in
I am convinced that in the
It was with interest that I noticed from your telegram that you have set up a commission for political reforms. My first impression was that such a commission should have been instituted in this country ... But on reflection I understood that your commission is meant as a type of lightning conductor and as such—apart from disadvantages—can have advantages.
If there is still an opportunity, perhaps the Commission for the Revision of the Constitution [instituted on 20
December 1918] will take account of the work of your commission,
although I doubt very much whether the
Netherlands Government will be prepared to make proposals at this stage which in fact would surrender the whole of the Indies to a small group of intellectuals and
semi-intellectuals, who so far have
shown very little evidence of altruism and a willingness
to sacrifice themselves for the general benefit.
Of course ministerial
"responsibility" to the Volksraad is out of the question; at least I refuse to
co-operate in this. First of all "responsible" ministers can only be
considered in the provinces—after the provincial councils have first been
established and are working well, and then only carefully and gradually. These [provincial councils] are even
considered necessary in British India, and consider how much further
British India has advanced in this field, and how much greater its
right is to participate in government through the sacrifices of at least some of its
people in the war ...
[75] Commission
for Constitutional Reform from
Pender pp.
124-5
However, the Herzieningscommissie
(Commission for Constitutional Reform), which had been instituted by van
Limburg Stirum in
1918, in its report of 1921 rejected Colijn's proposals and advocated the
creation of a unitary government with wide powers in internal affairs, although it did not press for full self-government. The commission also recommended that suffrage
should be extended to all
The Minister for Colonies, de Graaff, dismissed
the commission's proposals as "studeerkamerwerk"
("an academic exercise") and argued that the most urgent need was for administrative decentralization. And although, owing to the strong
pressure of progressive opinion in the Dutch Parliament, the Netherlands
Grondwetherziening (Constitutional Reforms) of 1922 laid down that
in principle the Indies should be allowed to take care of their internal affairs as much as possible, and the name
"colony" was officially abandoned, in practice very little
notice was taken in the actual reform measures introduced by de Graaff in 1925.
Admittedly die Volksraad was given
co-legislative power and in 1929 Indonesians were granted a majority of seats, but without the introduction of the principle of ministerial responsibility to
the Volksraad these measures
were largely meaningless, as the final power still lay with :he Dutch
Parliament.
De Graaff, taking advantage of the swing towards
conservatism in Dutch politics, managed to
have his earlier proposals for administrative
reform accepted by parliament, and Java was now divided into a number of semi-autonomous provinces, regency councils, and municipal councils. The
Although Colijn and his
followers did not deny that
Quote from Shmutzer Pp. 86-8
Uneasy feelings were also increased when Colijn and his
supporters publicly opposed a unitary government for the
Much of the dissatisfaction is understandable if one
keeps in mind how all hopes were raised by the declarations of … 1918, and the
subsequent suggestions of the Reforms commission … in 1921; hopes … which were
not realized. Even the early draft of the new fundamental laws in 1922,
anything but
Satisfactory in the eyes of Indonesian politicians,
at least promised autonomy for the governor General, a delegation of all powers
of the Minister of the Colonies – except those especially reserved to the
government of the Netherlands, a limitation of intervention by the Crown in
specific cases, and an elected representative assembly in the colony.
The new Constitution of 1925, however, did not realize even those
promises. It directed the Governor General to follow instruction from the
Crown; it reserved all powers to the Minister of the Colonies, except those
especially delegated; it referred conflicts between the Governor General and
the Volksraad to the Crown for it final decision; and the representative
character of the Volksraad was done violence to by increasing the European
membership to a majority at the expense of that of the natives. It was clear
that the chief idea, that of greater independence of the
[76] In 1929
the need to revise the constitution was again raised and the Dutch response
reveals their dead end, head in the sand, thinking (Quote from Shmutzer Pp. 150-155) -
Questioned as to its opinion, the Crown Council
replied that the majority of its members considered a revision unnecessary,
even inadvisable, since the country needed a period of political stabilization,
undisturbed by any new demands or repeated changes:
Apart from the frets which would seem to point to the
contrary, consideration of a revision of the Indies Constitution would be
motivated by a strong demand of voiced public opinion. In native political
circles, such an opinion is not disclosed. Certainly the ultra-leftist nationalist
and related groups regard the political rights, which are conferred upon the
native population, to be of little or no value. But this judgment is given
expression more in non-cooperation than in a positive action for the extension
of these rights. The relative programs of the more moderate nationalists are
not considered by them to be of such importance that they are worth more
specific notice. On the other hand, European public opinion and the European
press voice much concern over the political future of the
This opinion of the Crown council’s majority was not
shared, however, by member Ch. J. I. Welter, who judged that the political
development had come to a dead end without offering any promise of progress or
further perspective. In his opinion, the main question was less whether the
actual political organization worked satisfactorily or not at that particular
moment, than whether this political organization was capable of serving a
people increasingly aware of itself, and whether it would be able to give
satisfaction in the highest possible degree to their political and national
aspirations under Dutch authority and leadership. Welter declared that he was
convinced that in a very short time the thinking part of the native population
would realize that the basic laws did not offer them a possibility for the real
satisfaction of their political hopes. Disillusion in this respect could not be
avoided, said Welter, and this feeling would he expressed in embitterment and
further resistance to Dutch authority….
Welter pointed, in particular, to the new election laws,
in which representation in the Volksraad was based on particular sections of
the population instead of being based upon programs, convictions, and
principles submitted to popular approval, as had been done previously. Here,
the Volksraad, born of the desire to express the association of the population
of the
It had to be realized that under the regulations of
the existing constitution, a further political development would be impossible…
any political change had to be at the expense of Dutch authority under these
circumstances. It was necessary, in fact, to get out of this deadlock. The
longer one existed the more sharply would these controversies be felt; the more
resistance against Netherlands’ authority increased, the more difficult a
change in direction would become argued Welter, He reproached his fellow
members for resigning themselves to the idea that a conflict between Indonesian
political development and Dutch leadership was an inescapable fate, instead of
pondering what actions to take to avoid such a conflict, or to postpone it to a
time as far distant as possible….
Immobility, in the name of peace and order, was
prefered to the dynamism and change necessary to adjust the governmental
organization in line with the vast and rapid changes which had occurred in the
social relationships within the dependency. This immobility was to cause additional
friction in political and economic: affairs.
Quoted from Raymond
Kennedy, “Dutch PLAN for the
The censorship laws of the Indies have been almost unbelievable in their
repressiveness, and the restrictions on free assembly and free speech have been almost as bad.", Any
person or group advocating independence, for example, has been liable to
prosecution for sedition, and with the passage of time there was no softening of the rules.
just before the great debacle, in 1910, a government spokesman in the Volksraad declared officially that
anyone who raised the issue of independence would be subject to legal punishment. Use of the word "
[77] “Since 1931, the Indonesians
had thirty representatives in the Volksraad, equal to the combined European and
Foreign Asian contingents. Soetardjo's petition was the first attempt to
utilize the increased Indonesian numbers to effect political change through the
council…. The initial coolness towards the petition amongst the Indonesian
political public was followed by partial support, indicating that the
nationalist parties were realizing that a cooperating tactic required
gradualist political methods. In
As presented to the
Volksraad in 1936, the Soetardjo Petition requested the government in
In August 1936 the signatories of the petition stated that according to
their view of the future political form of the
An interesting aspect of the official reaction to the Soetardjo Petition
is the extreme slowness with which it was deliberated at the top level,
indicating indifference and the absence of any conviction that the matter was
urgent or important…. The new Governor-General perhaps had the excuse that it
took him some time to find his feet, but obviously he did not give high
priority to the petition. His report on the matter shows a remarkable ability
to ignore anything disturbing in the advice he had received." Although he
began by admitting that there was widespread feeling in the Indies that the
country's development was outgrowing its constitutional structure, that the
European population felt that the Dutch government exercised too much influence
on the conduct of the Indies administration, and that the politically-conscious
part of the native population wanted leadership in its own hands, he then
proceeded as if these facts were irrelevant to the petition…. Even if the
government attempted to set out a political plan, it would give no satisfaction
and would merely cause confusion. Calling a conference or commission would give
the damaging impression that the government was admitting weakness, and at the
same time it would arouse wild hopes which could only be disappointed. The
Governor-General clearly thought the petition could be rejected with impunity….
He did not think it worthwhile … to offer alternative reforms. In his opinion a
Rijksraad, for example, would not be useful, and its composition would create
problems….
In November
1938 the Royal Decree on the Soetardjo Petition was finally sent out to the
Volksraad. It rejected the petition on several grounds. Article 1 of the
constitution could give no support to Soetardjo's request because it "gave
no indication of the state of autonomy of the Netherlands Indies." The
Dutch policy towards the
[80] Micaud, Charles A. “POST-WAR GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS OF
FRENCH INDO-CHINA”, The Journal of Politics Vol. 9, No. 4 (Nov., 1947), pp. 731-744.
At the
Brazzaville Conference, early in 1944, principles and plans were elaborated
that were to reconcile the interests of the colonial peoples with those of the
mother country. An official declaration on December 8, 1943, promised a new
status to the people of Indo-China and the declaration of March, 1945,
guaranteed administrative and economic autonomy to an Indo-Chinese federation
of five states within the framework of the French Union. These concessions were
not, however, to jeopardize the unity of the Empire, considered
as one body with
Such a
solution would have been foreign to French experience and psychology.
Accustomed to a highly centralized government at home, the French have
naturally applied this principle of centralization to their colonies. The République une et indivisible was not to
teach colonial peoples how to become independent. On the contrary, dependencies
were to be drawn progressively closer to
If we add to
this concept of centralization the French love for constitutional structures
designed to guarantee the safe evolution of life's undisciplined forces, it is
not surprising that the French should be skeptical of the British approach….
"It is a fact," said Premier Ramadier … "that in the middle of
the twentieth century a nation of traditional size is condemned to be a
satellite unless it becomes the center of its own constellation. . . .
The
Constitutional Assembly attempted to reconcile the vital interests of
All parties,
including the Communist, have insisted on
For the
Rightists it would be senseless to negotiate with treacherous leaders who are
communist as well as nationalist and whose only hope is to force out the French
and make their country a vassal of
While the
Left seems willing to make "generous and bold" proposals to the Viet
Nam Government, the Right and Center parties are anxious to maintain
In December,
1946, Admiral d'Argenlieu declared that "
Such
declarations seem to indicate that the policy of the French Government is
similar to the policy formulated by the declaration of March, 1945, in which
the ministers in the federal council of Indo-China would be responsible to the
French Governor-General rather than to the elected Assembly. If so, the powers
to be reserved by the federal government of Indo-China could not in practice be
distinguished from the powers to be reserved by the French Union, i.e., the
French Government, whether these powers were exercised from Paris or on the
spot through a governor-general.
Actually the
degree of independence to be given to the federal government hinges on the fate
of Cochin-China. If it becomes an integral part of Viet Nam the overwhelming
superiority of that state over Laos and Cambodia would preclude a satisfactory
equilibrium and would jeopardize France's position unless the governor is given
broad powers —a solution unacceptable to the Viet Nam leaders. Significantly,
M. Moutet declared in March, 1947, that Tong-king,
…Are French assets to be protected against a policy
of collectivization by the
"The members of the French Union hold in common
the totality of their resources to guarantee the defense of the whole
The close integration which the French consider
necessary and which would preclude the right of secession, may not be possible
unless a federal system is adopted in which the representatives of the various
peoples of the Union share with the French deputies the right to legislate for
the whole Union. If, on the other hand, a loose form of association is accepted
by the people of
Throughout the war information on the NEI was scanty
and, as later events showed, often completely unreliable. Special Operations
Executive (SOE), the British organisation charged with undercover activities in
occupied territories, coordinated the work of Helfrich's Corps Insulinde which
operated as an intelligence service, employing fewer than a hundred men.
According to Helfrich's chief of staff, Rear Admiral L.G.L. Van der Kun, its
lack of success was the result of the British policy of doing nothing to
disturb the Japanese on Sumatra for fear that they would respond by
strengthening their forces there." In addition to this British brake on
the Corps Insulinde's activities, there were other factors that prevented it
from achieving very much. Its senior staff was inadequate to the task, it
lacked sufficient submarine transport facilities to land significant numbers of
agents, and even if it had been provided with those facilities, it was unable
to recruit enough competent agents. Those who were landed ran into strong
hostility from the indigenous population, which ought to have signalled to the
Dutch that their eventual return might not be greeted with complete favour, but
it seems not to have produced in Dutch circles any questioning of their
oft-repeated claim that apart from a few unrepresentative political activists,
Dutch rule was largely accepted, indeed welcomed, by the great majority of the
people.
[83] Pp.
5-7
Coupled with this kind of attitude was the pride with
which the Dutch colonial officials (including Van Mook) could point to their
administrative achievements: a well-functioning production system, an honest
civil service, a growing economy that had borne the brunt of the last world
depression and so on.104 steeled by such confidence, the average colonial civil
servant was wont to believe that he was in the best position to rule the
Indies, given his past experience and performance. Willy-nilly, Van Mook was a
product of his time. It was as R. Emerson had said:
The white man's burden finds its counterpart in the
contention that those who know best should be the custodians of power.
The Japanese Occupation was to destroy whatever visions the colonial
civil servants had of their continued service in the
[85] Following
is quoted from Yong
pp. 10-11
Van Mook organised the first Congress of Students of
the
The
Van Mook set
out three main propositions in his speech. Firstly he claimed that Dutch
colonial rule resulted in benefits for the
The second proposition that Van Mook made was that
the independence of the
Yes, we shall one day lose the sovereignty over our
colonies; but that day is still distant, and when it comes it will bring us a
profit equal to that of our present ownership. Our descendants, grown wise by
the experience of what is happening before our eyes, will no longer make war
upon those overseas territories when they are prepared for independence, but
will readily grant them their liberty and so enter into new relationship of
friendship and commerce with them, which will fully outweigh the advantages
that we now enjoy.'?
The third proposition was of equal importance to the
later political views of Van Mook. He argued that the people of the
p. 12
… it is important to note that Van Mook by the time
of the above-mentioned congress of 1917, had sympathies for the creation of an
ethnically mixed
Founded in
1912, the Partij had aims that shared a degree of reement with Van Mook's
vision of the future of the
It would be useful at this stage to identify the main
elements in Van Mook's view of the future of the
p. 21
…(It) is plausible to suggest that he would have
liked to see it developed on the lines of the mestizo republics of
How did the
Indonesians respond to Van Mook's idea that the Indies Dutch should be given a
role to play in the
It is also relevant
to note that despite the image Van Mook tried to project as a defender of the
interests of the
Van Mook returned to an
Alongside
these opportunities for political organization was the increasing trend towards
a more reactionary attitude vis-a-vis the nationalist movement in the
p. 16
…The main theme in most of Van Mook's speeches in the
Volksraad centred on the need to adopt measures to ward off the worst effects
of the depression on the Indies and its native population.
For example, in August 1931, Van Mook called for
measures to protect the Javanese peasants who had rented their farmlands to the
sugar planters. The depression led to a fall in sugar prices and in order to
firm up those prices, the Dutch colonial government signed the Chadbourne
Agreement in March 1931 hereby the Indies was allotted an export quota. By the
end of 1931, sugar production in the
p. 17
government
dismissed the solution, arguing that as long as no force was used, the
cancellations were valid and did not warrant official intervention. Moreover
the crisis was viewed as temporary.
In 1931, Van Mook criticised the imposition of an
excessive burden on the
Van Mook
alleged that the "open door" policy for investments led to the
establishment of big industries that were dominated by the nonindigenous
interests. Far from stimulating Indonesian private enterprise, these largely
European-owned industries established an impregnable monopoly. Assisted by
government measures like the penal sanction (which provided labour for
industries), the construction of roads and water-works, the establishment of
experimental stations, the position of the European-owned industries had been
greatly strengthened.
In trade
policy too, Van Mook tried to defend the interests of the
Underlying Van
Mook's defence of the interests of the
For the Netherlanders who have worked here [
p. 18
on the basis of this outlook, we must cooperate to
protect these interests and must not act as defenders of the interests of the
This stand clearly reflected the attitude of Van Mook
in defending the interests of the
p. 22
While Van Mook felt that there was a grave
miscarriage of justice in the trial and imprisonment of Soekarno in 1929
because the latter did not really plan violence, he asserted that Soekarno
should have known that his propaganda would play into the hands of the colonial
"conservative diehards". IN While he condemned the judgment passed on
Soekarno, his objections were focussed almost entirely on the legal problems of
the case and did not question the wisdom of the colonial government's response
to the emerging nationalist movement led by Soekarno. There is no recorded discussion on how best
to accommodate the rising nationalist aspirations of the 1930s. He made no
known attempt to try to understand the political ideology of Soekarno. To Van
Mook, Soekarno was merely lacking in political insight and responsibility. The
element of "realpolitik" was missing in Van Mook's objections.
p. 14
… Van Mook and other like-minded people teamed up in
January 1930 to form the Stuw (Stimulus) movement.
The name of the movement suggested the kind of role
it intended to play in the
To bring about the association and co-operation of
all Dutchmen who are convinced that it is their duty as Netherlanders to take
their share in a further realisation of Holland's colonial task, which will
only be fulfilled when an Indies Commonwealth shall take up a place of its own
among the independent people of the world, able and prepared both to meet
international obligations and to recognise and protect the rights and the
interests of non-indigenous inhabitants. The society finally aims at the
forging of lasting links between the
p. 15
… The Stuw leadership noted:
We see in the non-Indonesian blijver [resident] as
much as in the Indonesian himself, a future member of the
Inter-ethnic relations were so bad that the Stuw
movement, for all its liberality, remained exclusively Dutch. The founders of
the Stuw felt that, given the state of Dutch-Indonesian relations existing at
that moment, it was not timely to extend its membership to the non-Dutch. In
any case the Indonesians paid scant attention to the Stuw vision of an
independent
The
But what was
clear was the fact that for the moment, independence was not to be realised
immediately. The Stuw leadership argued that it was just as meaningless to
speak of the
p. 16
However it must be borne in mind that apart from any
considerations of sentiment, the Netherlands Indies needs the link with the
Yong p. 19
Van Mook's views on administrative reform are
relevant because they revealed his concern for firm and efficient functioning
of the administration, an obsession that could have been responsible for his
persistent reluctance to accept the idea of full independence immediately for
the
The proposals of Van Mook and those of the Stuw in
general failed to evoke a positive response. In 1931, the new Governor-General
was B.C. de Jonge whose inaugural speech in the Volksraad in that year revealed
that a time of tight and restrictive colonial control had dawned in the
As a result of the adverse reaction of the colonial
government towards the Stuw, new members were not encouraged to join the
movement. The Stuw remained small and at the end of 1933 their publication was
discontinued. … In 1935 when the new Volksraad convened, neither he nor any
other Stuw member was appointed to that body….
While Van Mook felt that there was a grave
miscarriage of justice in the trial and imprisonment of Soekarno in 1929
because the latter did not really plan violence, he asserted that Soekarno
should have known that his propaganda would play into the hands of the colonial
"conservative diehards". IN While he condemned the judgment passed on
Soekarno, his objections were focussed almost entirely on the legal problems of
the case and did not question the wisdom of the colonial government's response
to the emerging nationalist movement led by Soekarno. There is no recorded discussion on how best
to accommodate the rising nationalist aspirations of the 1930s. He made no
known attempt to try to understand the political ideology of Soekarno. To Van
Mook, Soekarno was merely lacking in political insight and responsibility. The
element of "realpolitik" was missing in Van Mook's objections.
Put simply,
Van Mook was little different from the civil servants of his time. A breed of
men dedicated to the creation and maintenance of an efficiently functioning
bureaucracy in a peaceful stable state, they had little time for leaders like
Soekarno who were considered demagogues and unrepresentative of the masses. The
world view of the civil servant in the
For the conventional colonial official, the world
divided normally into two: praters and werkers. Praters (talkers) were
especially the politicians, parliamentarians, idealists, "reds" and
ideologues. Werkers (doers) were busy and practical men of affairs, who kept
their mouths shut, "ran a tight ship", had a strong sense of
hierarchy and knew their place down to the last e. The division was in many
ways a conventional pejorative distinction between administrators and
politicians. Furthermore Dutch officialdom clearly defined their Great Society
as consisting of Rust en Orde (Tranquility and Order), which was constantly
being threatened by "chaos"…. Any reading of Dutch colonial literature
astounds one with its obsessive concern with a (supposedly fragile) orde.
Society (in all serious matters) divided between law-givers and law-takers, the
regulators and the regulated. The politician was an intruder and an outsider,
to be kept firmly in his place. The essential danger was always that the
hierarchy would be disturbed by "lower" elements making claims to
power in the name of communal, revolutionary and/ or democratic forces. The
good political state is stabiel, the bad labiel.