The Netherlands colonised Indonesia starting in the 1600s through the Dutch East India Company. In 1796, the Dutch government took over the management. Dutch colonial rule lasted until 1941, when the colonialists were kicked out by the Japanese.
During their 1942-1945 occupation of Indonesia, the Japanese made empty promises of independence to Indonesians in a bid to keep them from siding with the Allies.
Two days after the Japanese surrender, on 17 August 1945, Sukarno, destined to be Indonesia’s first president, declared Independence. The Dutch refused to recognise the declaration. Tensions escalated and culminated in the November 1945 Battle of Surabaya. The battle pitted Indonesian pro-independence forces armed with military hardware left behind by the Japanese against revisionist forces, consisting mainly of Indian and Sri Lankan troops under British command, in cahoots with the Dutch.
Between 6,000 and 16,000 Indonesians were killed with another 20,000 wounded, while the revisionists lost between 300 and 2,000 dead and 210 wounded. Although the revisionists won the Battle of Surabaya, it soon became clear that Indonesians were not about to give up their dream of freedom. The war continued for a full four more years until, finally, in 1949, the Netherlands agreed to transfer full sovereignty to Indonesia.
It is astonishing that the Dutch and the British were unable to grasp the moral abhorrence of attempting to re-colonise Indonesia after the War. After all, the very reason for the outbreak of World War II had been occupation by foreign powers – by Hitler in Europe and by the Japanese in Asia. The Netherlands itself had been occupied by the Nazis, at a terrible cost, including the deaths of some 20,000 to famine. Was it not abundantly obvious that colonialism was now completely unacceptable? Many Europeans could not see it. Most British colonies did not win independence until the 1960s.
The crime of colonialism is all the more galling when one looks at Indonesia today. Indonesia is a vibrant and dynamic middle-income economy with a GDP of 1.2 trillion Dollars and GDP per capita above USD 4,000. It is the third largest Democracy in the world after India and the United States. If colonialism had been allowed to continue, Indonesia’s development would undoubtedly have been held back in a bid to satisfy foreign vested interest in the plantation sector. Education, which is today free for all Indonesians from primary school through secondary school, would have been viewed as a threat and discouraged. Some 280 million people would have been prevented from exercising the right to run their own affairs.
Surabaya, Indonesia’s second largest city, bore witness to a small, but symbolically important event in Indonesia's independence struggle. In the centre of Surabaya you find the premier Majapahit Hotel. During the War, the hotel headquartered the Japanese occupation force and was renamed Hotel Yamato. When the Japanese left, the Netherlands flag was raised on the hotel’s flagpole, causing outrage among nationalist Indonesians. On 19 September 1945, in what is now known as the 'Hotel Yamato Incident', a small group of young revolutionaries tore away the blue part of the Dutch flag, thereby changing the Dutch flag into the Indonesian flag of today, the bicolour with a bands of red above white.
In 2014, the Indonesian government officially recognised the significance of the 'Hotel Yamato Incident' in Indonesia’s independence struggle, making Hotel Majapahit a cultural heritage landmark. The original flag pole stands to this day and bears the Indonesian flag 24 hours a day.
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