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