I knew that the arrival of the Indische Partij on the scene would mean more work for me. Especially as it turned out that the Sarekat still refused to die, despite the riots, arrests, and trials. Well, one thing was for sure—no matter what kind of new work I would be facing or why, I could say good-bye to any leave in Europe.
If it was true that Tjokro simply took over all that had been begun by Raden Mas Minke, then it was true too that the Indische Partij, at least to some extent, was also extending the influence of the ideas of the Modern Pitung. Douwager himself, and of course Wardi, had both worked with Minke. I had no file on Dr. Tjiptomangun.
These experiences of mine were quite interesting. You could say that yesterday I had faced my teacher. I had subdued him, my teacher. For the time being he had not risen again. But now four new teachers emerged at once! One teacher departed; now I faced four people who were continuing his work. Yesterday I faced the Sarekat; today I faced the Sarekat and the Indische Partij. It will be easier to deal with the Indische Partij, however. To start with, its members and leaders are Eurasians and educated Natives. That means their way of thinking will be more modern. And I won’t need to visit Meneer L— so often. Well, let’s see if they turn out to be tougher and more successful than our teacher!
“And, Meneer Pangemanann,” Monsieur R— greeted me one day, after glancing into my room while passing by the door. “It looks as if there will be a lot of work for you now.”
I replied with a smile, knowing that my holidays in Europe were gone, vanishing in the winds of a storm. Meanwhile, my wife was still making all the preparations—collecting herbs, roots, bark, and leaves.
“D-W-T, Meneer,” he spoke again. “You are going to have to put in much more effort, Meneer, especially more thought into your work. I don’t know if your knowledge and understanding will be up to this new challenge.”
“What do you mean, D-W-T, Meneer?”
He laughed, happy perhaps that his puzzle had been successful.
“They are the new commanders—Douwager-Wardi-Tjiptomangun.”
It had annoyed me too, his puzzle—as if he was more expert in these things than I.
And so more and more papers started to pile up on my desk dealing with the Indische Partij, in addition to the Sarekat. Although there were still many more coming in on the Sarekat, it no longer represented a danger to the government. It continued to survive as an organization but no longer as a sword of Damocles. The storm of riots had exploded the time bombs that had been planted by the Modern Pitung, but they had been aimed at another target, while the Kuomintang danger was also able to be contained at least to some extent.
In my eyes, the Sarekat was like a great wave formed by the ocean of life, which had been whipped into a storm by new modern ideas and ways. Then one day the wave crashed, leaving no traces at all. The Indische Partij was different again. It was oriented instead toward uniting all the modern elements in Indies society—the Eurasians and the educated Natives. The size of its membership was nothing compared to the Sarekat. But its level of political consciousness was much greater. As far as political consciousness was concerned, Mas Tjokro would still have to learn from them. But despite this, the two organizations shone like two stars in the blackness of space separated by millions of kilometers one from the other, never attempting to move closer together, let alone actually making contact. One was bloated from too many members and was unable to act. The other had just a few hundred members and was worn gaunt as a result of its wild, limitless ambitions.
Anybody could see in a moment that these two organizations were as different as heaven and earth, different in every respect—number of members, aims, basic philosophy, teachers, language, location, type of members. They would never join forces. . . .
Then one day my request to interview an Indische Partij member, who was involved in a criminal case, was approved. And so it was that, accompanied by a local police official, I visited a detainee in Purwakarta.
Reinard Jansen had accidentally shot dead a Native child whom he had mistaken for a wild boar. He was a Eurasian and a member of the Indische Partij.
My brief interrogation proceeded as follows.
“Meneer Reinard Jansen, what is your position in the Indische Partij?”
“Just a member, Meneer.”
“What is your occupation?”
“It depends. Sometimes I act as a middleman if somebody’s got something to sell. Otherwise, I hunt.”
“And if there is nothing to sell and there’s no hunting?”
“I ask for help or borrow money.”
“Tell me who has helped you or lent you money.”
He quickly rattled off the names and addresses of several of the quite numerous Eurasians who lived in Purwakarta. The senior police official who accompanied me confirmed what Jansen said.
“Do they always help you or give you a loan?”
“I have never been refused, Meneer, except if indeed no one has any money.”
I looked at the policeman and then asked the victim again: “It seems they trust you.”
“Yes, that’s how it is among us Eurasians. It’s difficult. We have no land, paddy fields or gardens, to fall back on. We’re not traders either. Most of us are just low-level employees.”
“You’re not old enough to have retired. You’re not an invalid. But you look as if you used to work as an official of some kind.” He said I was correct. “What happened?”
“I was dismissed, Meneer.”
“What did you do wrong?”
“I used to be a foreman on a tea plantation. A Pure, still green, just arrived from the Netherlands, was appointed to the business. He started bossing me around very arrogantly. He was no better educated than I was. We both had primary school education. The last time he treated me that way, I taught him a real lesson. He lost five teeth. And that is the true story of why I was dismissed.”
“Why did you join the Indische Partij?”
“It was one organization that at least understood that there needed to be a struggle for employment justice. Eurasians should be paid the same as Pures for the same work.”
“Does the Indische Partij also struggle for equality in wages for the Natives as well?”
“That’s for the Natives to work out, Meneer. We’re not Santa Claus, giving out presents at unknown addresses.”
“Do you believe the Indische Partij will succeed?”
“Even if we don’t succeed, Meneer, at least someone will have tried. That is enough as a beginning.”
“What else do you know about the Indische Partij?”
“It’s not my responsibility to explain all this to you. The Indische Partij leadership will no doubt be happy to explain everything to you.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I have already met them. But I want to hear from an ordinary member so I can see if I get the same explanations. So what is your answer?”
His gaze dropped to the floor. He couldn’t answer. Perhaps he didn’t know much more.
“Is it true that the Indische Partij is calling on the Indos to overthrow the Pures and rule the Indies in their place?”
“I’ve never heard that, Meneer.” But his eyes told me that he did know about this, and indeed that it was the reality.
“Of the three leaders of the party, there is only one Eurasian; the other two are Natives. What do you think about that?”
“Meneer, if a monkey were to join our struggle for justice, we would accept him, let alone Natives.”
“And if not Natives, or monkeys, but the devil himself, would you accept him?”
“Why not? Especially as it is only an ‘if’?”
“That is a very cynical answer.”
“Because in these crazy modern times, even justice has to be struggled for. The old stories about justice suddenly falling with a bang from the sky, well, that doesn’t happen anymore.”
“And was justice ever achieved in the past without struggle?”
Once again he
went silent, not because he had been lying but because that’s all that the Indische Partij had taught him on this question.
I asked a few more questions. He didn’t answer, but started to get angry and pound the table, shouting at me to shut up and to leave him alone. And I knew then that our question and answer session was over.
I interviewed three other Indische Partij members who were involved in police cases in other towns. They all gave differing answers but shared the same basic idea. They wanted to get rid of the Pures and replace them as rulers. I was forced to come to the conclusion, though admittedly based on rather limited and inconclusive evidence, that the Indische Partij had an anti-Pure outlook.
Its members probably viewed Wardi and Tjipto as two gods who had descended at the wrong time (or in the wrong place).
The more I delved into it, the more interesting this problem of the Indische Partij became. I forgot all about my leave to Europe. And the Sarekat was still following the path laid out by Raden Mas Minke; it still used Malay. In other words, it was still trying to address the concerns and serve the needs of the masses from the independent layers of society, the waisya caste, not the ksatria who lived off the generosity of the government, the priyayi as the Javanese called them. The Boedi Oetomo started off using Dutch and Javanese, which were suitable to its task of producing the new priyayi, but it was using Malay now as well. And the Indische Partij? I think it is best described as a party of the brahman caste, because its only capital comprised ideas and enthusiasm. It still used Dutch as its one and only language, as the language of politics, even though it is likely most of its members spoke Malay. Their decision not to use Malay also obviously reflected their intention to consolidate European domination over the Natives. They wanted to rule over the Natives, in the same way the Pures did now.
As we entered the second decade of the century, the newspapers were no longer just the conveyors of news. They tried to analyze, to teach, to guide, to present new ideas. Behind these modern newspapers were not just printing machines, but thinking machines as well. Sin Po was controlled by the thinking machine of the Chinese nationalists, Peroetoesan by the thinking machine of the Sarekat, and De Expres by the thinking machine of the Indische Partij. Through these papers the brain spoke to the other parts of its own body, annihilating distances of hundreds of kilometers. But they also spoke to me, in the same words and conveying the same intent.
And De Expres liked to ornament itself with the exultant cries of triumph and victory, like a hero who has just been victorious in battle, and also words of insult and contempt, glorifying itself, always on the offensive, promising better times to come. Yet its circulation never topped one thousand and fifty. Medan had overtaken De Locomotief, which had been publishing for almost a century. Now it was Sin Po that had the highest circulation and it had been going less than two years. In this field, as in many other fields, nobody had yet equaled Raden Mas Minke, let alone surpassed him. Peroetoesan, which was the youngest of all, had not yet reached two thousand.
I had not yet completed my picture of all that was happening, the ink had not yet dried on the papers giving legal status to the Indische Partij, when something entirely amazing happened, something very close to a major act of impudence. The Indische Partij requested an audience with His Excellency Governor-General Idenburg. What had possessed them to try this? Perhaps this impudence originated from the rather shallow idea that they could imitate Modern Pitung. Minke used to meet for chats with Governor-General van Heutsz, who summoned him to the palace several times. No one knows what they spoke about. Now these imitators wanted to clear a path to the palace as well.
Watch out, all of you, because His Excellency is no longer van Heutsz. He was merciless in battle, but amicable in socializing. The current governor-general did not like war but was a bureaucrat of unrivaled excellence. He was very inflexible and would not allow his authority to be diminished even the slightest little bit.
When Monsieur R— came to see me to ask my opinion on this, I answered: “Yes, Monsieur, now the Indische Partij has been given legal status. They have the right to request an audience. And His Excellency will no doubt wish to listen to them, to find out what they have to say, if their ideas and intentions are in accordance with their constitution and documents.”
“So?”
“So, is the Indische Partij truly a political party that feels it represents a certain current in society? His Excellency is the supreme political authority in the Indies and, of course, needs to hear for himself. It is different with the Sarekat or Boedi Oetomo or Tirtajasa, which are all social organizations.”
“So you think His Excellency should go ahead with the audience?”
And so it came about that all the educated people of the Indies were amazed to hear that Douwager, Soemantri, and Tjiptomangun were going to the palace to be received by the governor-general. For the three of them, this invitation was excellent propaganda for inside the party. For His Excellency himself, he was able to come to his own conclusions—that they were just students entranced by what they heard in some political science lectures, immature and one-dimensional in their thinking.
“You were right,” said my boss, Monsieur R—, after the excitement of the audience had died down. “They are nothing to worry about. His Excellency’s adjutant said they didn’t even know how to be diplomatic as any good politician should. They were quite cocky. Very rough nuggets indeed. What they had to say was as shallow as their pamphlets, just like their own writings in their paper. There were no hidden undercurrents in anything they said.”
My boss now came to see me every day, just to get some new angles on things and keep His Excellency happy. He was silent in a million words about my holiday to Europe. And there was even more work still for me as D-W-T became more and more active. They took turns traveling around the big and small towns of West Java propagandizing their ideas. Of this triumvirate, it was Dr. Tjiptomangun who was becoming the most gaunt, because he was doing the work of a doctor, politician, editor, and orator all at once. When did they sleep, these three?
One additional task that I now had to implement was to make sure that the Boedi Oetomo, Sarekat, Kuomintang, and the Indische Partij did not come together. But in fact I never had to put even a centimeter of ink to paper to ensure this. It seemed I might not even need Cor Oosterhof’s services again. Another group of Eurasians emerged who were opposed to the Indische Partij and who called Indische Partij Eurasians “goat class Dutchmen”! They argued that these “goat class” Indos were, in fact, dependent on the so-called “first class,” the real Dutchmen, for everything—their experience, knowledge, authority, and of course, their blood. If the Indische Partij’s ideas were correct, they said, then the Eurasians would have been ruling the Indies long before now. Pieter Elberveldt was the example they used. Here was a Eurasian who did not know how to be grateful. Loyalty to the Pures. That was their slogan. Without the Pures, the Eurasians would be nothing.
It was from among the employees of the big European merchant houses that this new voice first emerged, but then it spread quickly to all the small towns as well. They weren’t interested in the glories of politics, which others saw as the sesame that could open so many doors. They were happy enough and felt secure enough under the protection of Her Majesty.
“Do you think they should be encouraged to establish a rival organization to the Indische Partij, one advocating loyalty to the Queen?”
“Maybe it would be useful,” I answered. “But, Monsieur R—, there would be a risk of things getting out of our control. If a loyal organization was set up, which then challenged the Indische Partij, it is clear another party will emerge taking a neutral stance. And then another will emerge as soon it is clear the three older ones have failed. And this last one might very well decide to approach the Natives and draw them into it as well. And there will be bedlam in the Indies, a tumult of organizations, voices, papers, conflicts, and hostilities.”
“So you think we shoul
d just ignore the Indische Partij?”
“Let’s just wait. Let them be. Let them go on feeling that they are the cleverest, most knowledgeable, the bravest, the most fantastic, in other words, the best in everything. One day these emotions will reach their peak, they will lose control of themselves and will be unable to keep themselves within limits. We just need to wait, that’s all.”
“You seem to be very sure of your views.”
“If you have some better analysis, perhaps it is better we adopt that,” I answered.
Whatever else might be the case, I was the expert in these matters and he would listen to me. He didn’t discuss it with me for a few days. He seemed to be very busy but I didn’t know with what. Then one day he rushed nervously into my office, quite suddenly, just when I was in the middle of studying some new material: “Meneer, I will need everything about the Boedi Oetomo. Within the week, if you can.”
I knew that my boss had been reprimanded. Most of my reports up to then had virtually ignored this big organization. As far as I was concerned, it had found the form that suited it and was well satisfied with what it had achieved. I didn’t think His Excellency needed to bother himself with it. But an order is an order. While I set out studying whatever they had published in Dutch (I knew no Javanese), I requested a report from the director of STOVIA about the students who had originally been involved in founding the Boedi Oetomo, almost five years ago.
After I had studied everything, I came to the same conclusion. Nothing important was happening. The BO was paying no attention to either the Sarekat or the Indische Partij. During the year so far, 1913, they had founded two new primary schools in East Java. Some of the BO schools, those that had proved that they could sustain themselves and reach a sufficient standard of teaching, were receiving government subsidies, like the Protestant and Catholic schools.