Live on two and a half cents a day?
Live on two and a half cents a day?
From Surabaya Post
After a series of unhealthy speculative acts on Wall Street
(the New York Stock Exchange), the share price index plummeted on
Sept. 24, 1929, a situation known in economics texts as Black
Thursday.
Soon after, the financial and economic crisis spread almost
all over the world, including Indonesia, which was then known as
the Dutch Indies. The Indonesians called this period the age of
meleset (malaise). The Dutch colonial rulers were forced to
implement massive economizing within every sector, including, of
course, its revenue and expenditure budget.
The effects of this Great Depression can be read in books by,
among others, Sumitro Djojohadikusumo (Het Volkscredietwezen In
De Depressie), Oei Tjong Bo (Niederlandisch Indien Eien
Wirtscahftsstudie) and Neytozell de Wilde (The Netherlands Indies
During the Depression).
To find out the impact of the economic recession on the
people's economy, the Dutch Indies administration conducted, in
the thirties, a survey on the daily necessities of Indonesians.
The village taken as the sample was Kutawinangun in Kutoarjo
regency, Central Java. The result of the survey, announced during
the session of the Raad van Indie (similar to the present Supreme
Advisory Council), said among other things: "It turns out that
now (in 1931) an (Indonesian) adult can live on just two and a
half cents a day."
The value of two and a half cents, locally known as sebenggol
in that year (1931) was worth Rp 750 at present. In 1921, long
before the Great Depression, a similar survey was also conducted.
The result was reported as Huenderrapport, titled Overzicht Van
De Economische Toesland Der Inheemsche Bevolking Van Java En
Madoera, Den Haag, 1921.
It was said in this report that, at that time, the Javanese
and the Madurese could live on only 8 cents a day, a bigger
amount than that referred to in the findings of the Kutawinangun
survey.
After reading the Kutawinangun report, Bung Karno, the popular
name of Indonesia's first president Sukarno, could not accept it.
He said, in his writing titled Enough for Indonesians to Earn
only Two and a Half Cents A day? (published in Under the Banner
of the Revolution, Volume 1, 1963, pp 177-178), that there was a
big difference between the word "enough", that came from the
colonial ruler, and the expression "had to" that he himself used.
When Bung Karno was jailed in Banceuy and Sukamiskin (1929-
1931), the budget for an inmate was set at 18 cents a day and
later cut to 14 cents a day. Clearly, the people had a worse lot
than the inmates because only two and a half cents a day would be
enough for them.
Perhaps this Kutawinangun report was used as a pretext to
slash the salaries of the civil servants. It came as no surprise
that social unrest ensued, among others the mutiny on De Zeven
Provincien, on Feb. 5, 1933 (John Ingleson: "Road to Exile - The
Indonesian Nationalist Movement 1927-1934", 1980, p. 208).
Despite the harsh criticisms leveled against him, the governor
general did not budge from his reactionary stance. Instead, he
applied greater pressure on Indonesian political parties.
Haughtily, he said: The Dutch have been in the Dutch Indies
for 300 years and will be here for another 300 years with the use
of single-edged sabers and whiplashes. (G. Moedjanto: Indonesia
in 20th Century, Vol I, 1974, p. 58).
Soon after this de Jonge resorted to exorbitante rechten, the
extraordinary rights of the governor general to exile people
considered harmful to the Dutch Indies administration. So, Bung
Karno, Bung Hatta and Bung Syahrir were forcefully moved out of
the Indonesian political arena. Bung Karno was exiled to Endeh,
Bengkulu, while Bung Hatta and Bung Sjahrir were sent to Boven
Digul before being moved to Bandaneira. They were set free only
when Japan occupied Indonesia in 1942.
JOHN ISKANDAR
Surabaya