Indonesian National Revolution 1945-1949: Freedom from the Dutch

The Indonesian National Revolution was the armed struggle and diplomatic campaign by which Indonesia won independence from the Netherlands between 1945 and 1949. It began with the proclamation of independence by Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta in Jakarta on 17 August 1945 and ended when the Dutch transferred sovereignty on 27 December 1949, creating what is now the world’s fourth most populous country.

The revolution was one of the first great decolonisation struggles after the Second World War. It combined guerrilla warfare, social upheaval and intense international diplomacy, and it shaped the politics of independent Indonesia for decades.

Background

The Dutch presence in the archipelago went back to the Dutch East India Company, founded in 1602. By the early twentieth century the Netherlands East Indies was a colonial state covering thousands of islands, ruled from Batavia (now Jakarta) and producing much of the world’s rubber, sugar, tin and quinine. A nationalist movement grew from the 1910s, but leaders such as Sukarno and Hatta spent years in prison or internal exile.

Japan invaded in early 1942 and the Dutch colonial army surrendered in March. The Japanese occupation was harsh: forced labour, requisitioning of rice and the internment of Dutch civilians caused great suffering. Yet the occupiers also released nationalist leaders, promoted the Indonesian language and trained Indonesian militias, notably the volunteer defence force known as PETA. When Japan’s defeat approached, it allowed a preparatory committee for independence to meet.

The proclamation

Japan announced its surrender on 15 August 1945. Young nationalist activists, the pemuda, feared Sukarno and Hatta would wait for Japanese approval. On 16 August they took the two leaders to Rengasdengklok, outside Jakarta, to press them to act at once. The next morning, 17 August, Sukarno read a short proclamation of independence outside his house at Pegangsaan Timur 56 in Jakarta, with Hatta at his side.

On 18 August the preparatory committee adopted a constitution and chose Sukarno as president and Hatta as vice-president. News of the proclamation spread across Java and Sumatra through radio, newspapers and word of mouth, and local committees began taking over offices from the Japanese. In many places the Japanese garrisons, ordered by the Allies to keep order until they arrived, clashed with Indonesian youths seeking their weapons.

The war against the returning Dutch

Allied forces, mainly British and British Indian troops under South East Asia Command, landed from late September 1945 to disarm the Japanese and evacuate internees. Dutch officials and soldiers followed. The weeks that followed, known in Dutch as the Bersiap period, saw chaotic violence in which Indonesian militias killed thousands of Dutch, Eurasian, Chinese and other civilians; estimates range from about 3,500 to more than 20,000 deaths.

The heaviest early fighting came at Surabaya. After the British commander Brigadier A. W. S. Mallaby was killed on 30 October 1945, British forces launched a major assault on 10 November. Indonesian fighters resisted for about three weeks, and thousands of Indonesians died. The battle convinced the British that the Republic had real popular support, and 10 November is still commemorated in Indonesia as Heroes’ Day.

In January 1946 the Republican government moved its capital to Yogyakarta in central Java. Under Prime Minister Sutan Sjahrir it pursued negotiations while its army, commanded by General Sudirman, prepared for a long war.

Diplomacy and the police actions

The Linggadjati Agreement, initialled in November 1946 and signed in March 1947, recognised Republican authority over Java, Sumatra and Madura and proposed a federal United States of Indonesia. Both sides interpreted it differently. On 21 July 1947 the Netherlands launched the first of two large offensives it called “police actions”, seizing plantations, ports and oil fields in Java and Sumatra.

The United Nations Security Council called for a ceasefire on 1 August 1947 and set up a Good Offices Committee of Australia, Belgium and the United States. The Renville Agreement, signed on an American warship in January 1948, left the Republic with a much reduced territory. In September 1948 the Republic faced an internal revolt when communists rose at Madiun in east Java; the Republican army crushed it, which reassured the United States that the Republic was not communist.

On 19 December 1948 the Dutch launched the second police action, captured Yogyakarta and arrested Sukarno, Hatta and much of the cabinet. An emergency government was set up in Sumatra, and Sudirman, though seriously ill with tuberculosis, led guerrilla resistance. On 1 March 1949 Republican forces briefly occupied Yogyakarta in a “general offensive” designed to show the world the Republic still existed.

Transfer of sovereignty

International opinion turned sharply against the Netherlands. The Security Council demanded the release of Republican leaders in January 1949, and the United States made clear that Marshall Plan aid to the Netherlands was at risk. The Roem–Van Roijen Agreement of May 1949 restored the Republican government to Yogyakarta.

A Round Table Conference in The Hague, from August to November 1949, settled the terms. On 27 December 1949 the Netherlands transferred sovereignty to the federal Republic of the United States of Indonesia. Indonesia agreed to take over a large part of the colonial government’s debt, and the status of Western New Guinea was left for later talks. In August 1950 the federal structure was replaced by a unitary Republic of Indonesia.

Key people

• Sukarno (1901–1970): leading nationalist, proclaimer of independence and first president.
• Mohammad Hatta (1902–1980): co-proclaimer, vice-president and chief negotiator in 1949.
• Sutan Sjahrir (1909–1966): first prime minister, who favoured diplomacy.
• Sudirman (1916–1950): commander of the Republican army and symbol of guerrilla resistance.
• Hubertus van Mook (1894–1965): Dutch lieutenant governor-general who promoted a federal Indonesia.

By the numbers

Legacy

The revolution gave Indonesia its founding story, its national heroes and a powerful role for the army in politics. Disputes over Western New Guinea continued until it passed to Indonesian administration in 1963. Tensions within the revolution, between nationalists, Islamic movements and communists, resurfaced in later crises, including the mass killings of 1965-1966.

In the Netherlands the war was long remembered mainly as a series of “police actions”. A large Dutch research programme published in 2022 concluded that Dutch forces had used extreme violence systematically, and the Dutch prime minister apologised. Episodes such as the killings at Rawagede in December 1947 and the counter-insurgency campaign in South Sulawesi in 1946–1947 have been the subject of court cases and official apologies.

Timeline

• 1942, March: The Dutch colonial army surrenders to Japan.
• 1945, 17 August: Sukarno and Hatta proclaim Indonesian independence in Jakarta.
• 1945, 10 November: British forces begin their assault on Surabaya.
• 1947, 21 July: The Netherlands launches the first police action.
• 1948, 17 January: The Renville Agreement is signed.
• 1948, 19 December: The second police action begins; Yogyakarta falls and Republican leaders are arrested.
• 1949, 1 March: Republican forces briefly occupy Yogyakarta.
• 1949, 27 December: The Netherlands transfers sovereignty to Indonesia.

Why it matters

The Indonesian National Revolution ended more than three centuries of Dutch involvement in the archipelago and created a new nation of tens of millions of people. Its success, helped by pressure from the United Nations and the United States, showed that European powers could no longer simply restore their empires after 1945, and Indonesia went on to host the Bandung Conference of newly independent Asian and African states.