From Jail to Jail. Tan Malaka
Maeda and Hitoshi Shimizu, the fanatical director of the Sendenbu (the Japanese Department of Propaganda). Tan Malaka broadcast regularly from Bantam as the “Voice of Tokyo.”61
The extent to which such extreme and inaccurate reports can gain a life of their own and gradually become accepted as fact is revealed by the 1973 entry for Tan Malaka in the Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern, which makes the following statement: “His condemnation of ‘Western imperialism’ led him to seek Japanese support on the eve of World War II, when he went to Tokyo. During the Japanese occupation of Indonesia he spoke on the radio and taught at a political school founded by the Japanese.”62
It is easy to see how this pro-Japanese characterization of Tan Malaka arose: Tan Malaka’s link with Subardjo, his long-standing pan-Asian viewpoint, and the fact that “false Tan Malakas” had been promoted by the Japanese to propagandize on their behalf led to his inclusion, with Subardjo as well as Sukarno and Hatta, in the category of “collaborators,” despite the fact that he had lived incognito as a clerk in a remote coal mine during the occupation.63 As Tan Malaka emerged publicly in early 1946, taking a militant perjuangan stance, he was tagged with the “made in Japan” label by those, especially in the Netherlands (including the Communist party), who were trying to push the republic to accept the Dutch back again, this time not as colonial oppressors, but as fellow antifascists.
The text of From Jail to Jail provides a great deal of evidence to counter these allegations. Unlike most Indonesians, Tan Malaka had first-hand experience of Japanese expansionism into China and down into southeast Asia. “Three times I was interrupted by Japanese attacks: in Shanghai in 1932; in Amoy in 1937; and finally again in Singapore in 1942” (Volume II, p. 112). In Volume II, chapter 1, Tan Malaka discusses in great detail the Japanese “imperialist” thrust into China, “to implement its . . . policy with the samurai sword, and to control its subject territory through a puppet government” (Volume II, p. 21). Furthermore, he discusses the economic basis for this process, and refers back to his prediction made in 1925 that Japan and America “will settle by the sword which of them is the more powerful in the Pacific” (Menudju ‘Republik Indonesia, ’ p. 47).
His description of the Japanese advance into Singapore (Volume II, chapter 4), and the detailed account of his own experiences during the occupation of Indonesia (Volume II, Chapters 5 and 6), leave no doubt as to Tan Malaka’s trenchant criticism of the repressive behavior of the occupation forces, the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, and the collaboration of Sukarno and Hatta with the occupation forces, adding, “Not for one minute did I consider the possibility of ‘collaborating’ with the Japanese army, whether or not it won the war” (Volume II, p. 141). As a relief from accounts of repression and torture, Tan Malaka’s criticism is frequently presented in humorous form as he describes tricks and jokes the Indonesians carried out on their oppressors, or in sarcasm, as the following comment on the Triple-A movement shows:
All along the streets walls were scrawled with the slogans:
NIPPON the light of Asia!
NIPPON the protector of Asia!
NIPPON the leader of Asia!
The first time I saw these slogans I wondered why the movement was not called the Triple-N, for wasn’t the word Nippon also repeated three times, and wasn’t it always the first word in the slogan? The slogans seemed to me to hide the reality:
NIPPON the obscurer of Asia!
NIPPON the looter of Asia!
NIPPON the duper of Asia! (Volume II, pp. 150-51)
“Pacar Merah”. With as little basis in fact as the images previously discussed, although written in a sympathetic, if not sycophantic, tone, are the many fictional accounts of Tan Malaka’s life, generally giving him the appellation “Pacar Merah” (Scarlet Pimpernel), used for Tan Malaka at least as early as mid-1933.64 In various combinations these stories wove information on Tan Malaka’s movements, as reported in the contemporary press, with fantasy and romance of foreign ports, superhuman feats, and elaborate stories of espionage and counterespionage.
The best known of these stories were in the series written by Matu Mona (pen name of the Medan journalist Hasbullah Parinduri) and published by Centrale Courant en Boekhandel. The first, with a foreword dated March 1938, was Spionnage-dienst (Secret Service). The central character, Vichitra, is a very thinly disguised Tan Malaka, and many of the other characters are clearly intended to refer to other PKI leaders such as Alimin (portrayed as Aliminsky), Musso (Paul Musotte), Subakat (Soe Beng Kiat), and Djamaluddin Tamim (Djalumin). From their prepublication advertising, at least two other of Matu Mona’s prewar works appear to feature Pacar Merah, although I have not found copies. They are Rol Patjar Merah Indonesia and Panggilan Tanah Air.
Pacar Merah featured in two books by Yusdja published by Tjerdas, also in Medan in 1940. Typical examples of roman picisan, the penny novelettes that were all the rage, they appeared in the fortnightly Loekisan poedjangga series. On 1 February 1940 the first appeared—Moetiara berloempoer: tiga kali Patjar Merah datang membela (Pearls in the mud: three times Pacar Merah comes to the rescue). On 15 May 1940 the publishers announced that the story advertised for the next issue was postponed, and was to be replaced, by popular demand, by the sequel to Moetiara berloempoer, entitled Patjar Merah kembali ketanah air (Pacar Merah returns to his native land). In April of the same year just as fanciful a tale was published using the hero’s real name. Tan Malaka di Medan appeared in the series Doenia pengalaman, again in Medan, this time by Emnast.65
The fantasy approach to Tan Malaka did not disappear with the fall of the Dutch East Indies government and its secret police. Ratu Sukma epitomizes the style in a wild testimony of love and prostration before a highly romanticized Tan Malaka:
As soon as we heard Your name, as soon as Independence was regained, as soon as the Red and White fluttered, we all said
Ibrahim our leader
Tan Malaka Father of the Republic
Tan Malaka Defender of the Nation
Tan Malaka Leader of Asia
. . . The more the slanders came, the more You were scorned, the more Your name was stained, the greater was OUR LOVE for You.66
Other examples from the period of the Indonesian revolution blend fact with a dramatic overplaying of the role of Tan Malaka’s political party, PARI, founded in 1927. Tamar Djaja, Trio komunis Indonesia: Tan Malaka, Alimin, Semaun berikut Josef Stalin dan Lenin (1946), and Sakti Arga, Tan Malaka . . . datang! [1946?], refer to PARI branches in Shanghai and Singapore, a PARI conference planned for the Punjab in 1934, headquarters in Tokyo and assistance from Japan, and freedom of action in China. Tamar Djaja adds with a flourish a tale of the capture of Tan Malaka by the Dutch intelligence in Teheran in 1936!
Later Matu Mona continued his series with Vichitra reappearing as a participant in the revolution in Penjelidik militer chusus (Special military investigator) (1951). Opposing the negotiations, the hero is clearly Tan Malaka, projected into the period after the Renville Agreement when, of course, the real Tan Malaka was still in jail.
Tracing the development of the Pacar Merah hero in Indonesian literature, both print and screen, and assessing to what degree it combines a transposition of the Scarlet Pimpernel to the Indonesian scene with the adventurous exploits of an indigenous protagonist—a latter-day Hang Tuah—would throw more light on this aspect of Tan Malaka himself and of his autobiography.67
Reappraisals
In recent years, a start has been made on a reappraisal of these images of Tan Malaka. Benedict Anderson’s 1967 doctoral dissertation from Cornell University, “The Pemuda Revolution: Indonesian Politics 1945-6,” was the first work on the revolutionary period to look at Tan Malaka as a figure of some significance and to shift attention away from exclusive concentration on groups and individuals who held governmental power. It was this dissertation that formed the basis for Anderson’s later published work, Java in a Time