bung karno

Sukarno (1901-1970), dominant figure of Indonesia’s nationalist movement against the Dutch and the country’s first president (1945-1968). He was toppled following an attempted coup and held under house arrest until his death.

The spelling "Sukarno" has been official in Indonesia since 1947 but the older spelling "Soekarno" is still frequently used, mainly because he signed his signature in the old spelling. Official Indonesian presidential decrees from the period 1947-1968, however, printed his name using the 1947 spelling.

BACKGROUND

Sukarno was born in the city of Surabaya in eastern Java. At the time, Java and the rest of Indonesia were under Dutch colonial control. Although brought up in the traditional Javanese cultural world, Sukarno was educated in modern Dutch colonial schools. In 1921 he entered the Bandung Institute of Technology to study architecture, graduating in 1926. Sukarno had been increasingly involved in nationalist politics since his teens, when he had boarded in the house of H. O. S. Tjokroaminoto, a leading nationalist politician.

EARLY CAREER

In 1927 Sukarno co-founded the Indonesian Nationalist Party (Partai Nasional Indonesia, or PNI) and became its first leader. The goal of the party was to achieve independence for Indonesia through popular struggle against the Dutch. In 1929 the Dutch jailed him for being a threat to public order, and the PNI collapsed in his absence. Released in 1931, Sukarno resumed his political activity, but he was arrested again in 1933 and exiled, first to the island of Flores and then to Sumatra.

A skilled public speaker, Sukarno quickly drew a mass following for the PNI.

When Japan invaded and occupied Indonesia in 1942, during World War II, Sukarno returned to Jakarta and worked with the Japanese regime. He argued later that his collaboration with the Japanese enabled him to advance the cause of Indonesian independence and protect the Indonesian people from the worst excesses of the occupation.

On July 1, 1945, Sukarno delivered an important speech to the committee urging the adoption of the Pancasila (Five Principles) as the ideological basis of the new state. The five principles were nationalism, internationalism (or humanitarianism), democracy, social justice, and belief in God.

Symbol of Indonesia's Pancasila with National Flag (Sang Merah Putih or "The Red White") as the background.

RISE TO PRESIDENCY

On August 17, 1945, immediately following Japan’s surrender to the Allies, Sukarno and fellow nationalist Muhammad Hatta declared Indonesia’s independence. The next day the provisional parliament adopted a constitution and elected Sukarno president. The constitution included the Pancasila in its preamble and gave the president a great deal of authority. The Dutch refused to accept the independence proclamation. For the next five years Indonesia and The Netherlands negotiated and fought with one another. Finally, in December 1949 the Dutch acknowledged Indonesia’s independence, but the status of the western half of New Guinea (now the province of Papua) remained in dispute.

DOMESTIC POLICIES

In the early and mid-1950s Sukarno remained a figurehead president. However, beginning in 1957, as Indonesia’s political system began to disintegrate and military rebellions broke out in Sumatra and Sulawesi, he asserted a more powerful political role. In 1959 Sukarno decreed the reintroduction of Indonesia’s 1945 constitution, which gave the president wider authority. Arguing that Western-style parliamentary democracy was unsuited to Indonesian needs, he introduced in its place a system called “Guided Democracy,” that emphasized traditional Indonesian values, such as decision making by deliberation and consensus rather than majority vote. Sukarno promoted national unity through NASAKOM, an acronym for the three major ideological streams in Indonesian politics: nasionalisme (nationalism), agama (religion), and komunisme (communism).

In practice, such unity was never achieved. Under Sukarno Indonesian politics became more divided than ever before. Parties refusing to accept Guided Democracy were banned, and Sukarno’s political opponents were jailed. The system was accepted most enthusiastically by the Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia, or PKI), with which Sukarno was increasingly aligned by the early 1960s. The army also increased its power under Sukarno, and became the only meaningful rival of the Communists.