Java, Saviour of Indic Indonesia

From Majapahit to Pancasila, Java has repeatedly defended Indonesia’s plural ethos

The last article discussed the conditions, apparently threatening the survival of the Indic thread of Indonesia’s culture, responding to many triggers including a penchant for Arabization of the hitherto localized ‘Indonesian Islam’. Given the size of this wide-spread archipelago called Indonesia, along with the more or less equally well-spread Islamist outlook within the society as well as the polity, the wish for protecting Indonesia’s Indic DNA and thereby guarding its intrinsic plurality and diversity appears to have been pitted against heavy odds.

Although that may be the general situation, a major ray of hope lies indisputably in what is called ‘Javanism’ or the Javanese culture. Java counts as one of the five important islands of Indonesia, standing fifth among them in terms of land size but first in terms of population size. Most importantly, it also stands first in terms of its superior civilizational history. It has the most fertile soil, producing various crops abundantly, which explains the highest population within the archipelago. It carries the reputation of historically hosting the only Indonesian language out of its few hundreds, that produced high literature comparable with classic Sanskrit literature. It also enjoys the reputation of hosting a grand manifestation of arts and architecture of unmatched scale and quality.

Indigenous Empire

Topping it all, it has hosted the strongest ever indigenous empire, called Majapahit, for almost two centuries, that ruled over not only the entire archipelago but also today’s Singapore, parts of Peninsular Malaysia as well as Philippines, and in effect, provided a kind of balance of power in the region vis-à-vis the manoeuvres of the imperial Chinese court. It has also produced a class of aristocrats who formed the backbone of a stable bureaucracy that functioned even during the Dutch colonial rule and who took over the reins post-independence. Thus, the island of Java has indisputably been the cultural capital of the Indonesian archipelago for the last two millennia, which incidentally hosted the political capital of colonial Indonesia from 1619 to 1949, and continues to do so for free Indonesia today. All these facts should leave no doubt in the minds of the readers about the level of importance Java holds within Indonesia.

These all-round prosperous surroundings proved naturally conducive for spawning confident, strong-willed and free-spirited local population who received free exposure to multiple choices in life, who freely chose highly diverse ways of living amongst themselves, which cultural trait came to be identified eventually as ‘Javanism’ among the local populace as well as foreigners.

This Javanism is very core to the identity of being Javanese, which is valued highly by themselves. This free Javanese spirit is the gift of the long-experienced, experimented and embedded history of enmeshed Hindu-Buddhist-localist culture. Aggressive political Islam rose in Java in the mid-15th century, backed by the external power of Sultanate of Malacca, whose sole target was to anyhow pull down the once mighty Hindu-Buddhist Majapahit, which it achieved eventually. But, even after that ‘success of the power of Islam’ and the logically following destruction of the Hindu-Buddhist symbols of the bygone power, the ‘Javanism’ among the masses had managed to remain more or less intact over next few centuries. Evidence of that was found in the ways of the leader of the famous Java War of Independence fought in the 19th century, Prince Dipa-negara; although this Muslim prince with a Hindu name polarized the masses and fought the Dutch avowedly to ‘protect the glory of Islam’, his practice of cave-meditation for seeking ‘power from the heavens’ was unmistakably Hindu, which was unobjectionable then.

Free Spirit

This embedded free spirit and plurality of approach showed even in the mid-20th century when Indonesia became a free country; its leaders, who were majority Javanese, rejected the mounting pressure for declaring Indonesia as an Islamic state, and the top leader, the Javanese and charismatic President Sukarno, brought in the philosophy of ‘Pancasila’ (Sanskrit Pancha-Shila, meaning ‘five principles’) to be adopted by the newly free nation instead. This ‘Javanese intervention’ has decidedly kept Indonesia away from falling to growing Islamist and pan-Islamist ‘struggle’ so far. Even the later presidents of Indonesia post Sukarno have all been Javanese luckily, except one, B.J. Habibie, that too for a short intervening period of around one year. The difference showed – while all the Javanese presidents, all Muslim by religion, largely refused to buckle under the Islamist pressure (except the last ten years out of the total thirty-two of the second President Suharto), Habibie, the close friend and successor of Suharto, is said to have taken a few policy steps which can be viewed as critically important for the subsequent growth of Islamism in Indonesia.

This rising Islamism is hitting right at the heart of the innate pluralism of Indonesia, which is largely a Javanese gift. It has been manifesting in various ways – pressure on women for wearing ‘hijab’; relentless attacks on the state philosophy of ‘Pancasila’; reducing scope for practice of other religions, including restrictions on construction of places of worship; government-enabled migration of Muslim population in non-Muslim majority areas etc. The starkest example was noticed in 2017, when the socio-political campaign against one Basuki Purnama under the allegations of blasphemy of Islam was executed successfully, through legal and extra-legal means. It permanently ousted a popular politician and potential presidential candidate Purnama, Chinese by ethnicity and Christian by faith, thereby wiping out the possibility of non-Muslim competition for the top post for the upcoming general elections in 2029. Encouraging ‘Javanism’ to counter Islamism appears to be the only solution.

(The writer is a Ph.D. researcher in international relations. Views personal.)