Mohammad Hatta

Prime minister of Indonesia (1949-1950)

• Born: August 12, 1902
• Birthplace: Bukittinggi, Sumatra, Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia)
• Died: March 14, 1980
• Place of death: Djakarta, Indonesia

Hatta directed the nationalist movement leading to the independence and final transfer of power to Indonesia at the end of 1949. He consolidated the independent nation’s government, military, and economy based on democratic means.

Early Life

Mohammad Hatta (HAT-tah) was born in Bukittinggi in Sumatra, one of the islands of the archipelago of the Dutch East Indies (now called Indonesia). He is from a family of the Minangkabaus, a group of indigenous Sumatran Muslims known for their matriarchal social structure and sharp business acumen. Hatta’s father, Haji Mohammad Jamil, an Islamic scholar in the mystical tradition of the Sufist tarekat, died when Hatta was eight years old. So the young Hatta was mostly reared in Padang by his mother’s family, a family better known for its business than for its scholarship in religion.

In spite of their interest in running a business, Hatta’s family provided him with the best possible education. After his initial schooling in Sekolah Melayu in Bukittinggi, he was sent to Europeesche Lagere school, a Dutch-language elementary school in Padang, the capital of West Sumatra, which accepted only a handful of Minangkabau students. While still in elementary school, the precocious Hatta passed the examination that qualified him for entrance into the Dutch-language secondary school in Batavia (modern Djakarta), a city on the island of Java. His mother was not ready to part from her young son, however, so she decided to send him to the junior secondary school in Padang.

The school in Padang gave Hatta time to become the chair of the school’s soccer association, which brought him in touch with people interested in politics, and to assume the treasurer’s office of the Jong Sumatranen Bond (young Sumatra league). After his graduation in 1919, Hatta moved to Batavia. In 1921, he completed his senior high school education with distinction at Prins Hendrik School, a school with an emphasis on commerce. In Batavia, Hatta continued to hold the treasurer’s office of the Jong Sumatranen Bond.

Life’s Work

Hatta took a major step toward his self-actualization when he left for the Netherlands in 1922 to pursue higher education at the Rotterdam School of Commerce. After ten years of course work in economics, he succeeded in finishing the requirements for his doctorate except for the dissertation, which he never finished because of his intense involvement in politics through the Perhimpunan Indonesia (Indonesian Association), an Indonesian nationalist student organization in the Netherlands. Hatta became the treasurer of the Perhimpunan from 1922 to 1925 and, later, its chair until 1930. During this period, Hatta was the Perhimpunan’s delegate to the first and second congresses of the League Against Imperialism and for National Independence in Brussels (1927) and in Frankfurt (1929), acts for which he was arrested and imprisoned for six months.

The political insights that Hatta actualized through his political activities in the Netherlands made him very valuable to the nationalist movement at home when he returned to Indonesia in 1932. He found the leading nationalist political party of Indonesia, Partindo (an acronym for Partai Indonesia, meaning “Indonesian Nationalist Party”), repeating the mistake that the banned Partai Nasional Indonesia (PNI) had made, namely, trying to create nationalism in the masses through the charismatic leadership of a few key political figures who could easily be controlled by the colonial rulers to crush the movement. Instead, Hatta wanted to build a significant nucleus of well-educated, well-trained, and self-reliant personnel who could progressively expand until Indonesia could lift itself out of the colonial control and become free for good. The plan was somewhat elitist, yet Hatta incorporated it in his newly created party, the PNI Baru. The plan could not go too far because from 1934 to 1941, Hatta was put in prison, exiled, and interned, until the pandemonium created by a Japanese attack released him in 1942.

The Japanese invasion gave an interesting turn to Hatta’s struggle for freedom. For one, it created a unique symbiosis of the ruler and the ruled because of the presence of a common enemy, the Dutch. The Japanese needed Hatta and Sukarno to guide them with the rounding up process of the Dutch. Hatta and Sukarno used this need of the Japanese to bargain for their early retirement from Indonesia. Further, it brought together the otherwise divergent personalities of Sukarno and Hatta into a dwittunggal (two-in-one) symbol of complementary fulfillment; Sukarno’s charming flamboyance of a born leader complemented Hatta’s studied deliberateness of an inveterate diplomat-administrator. Also, the Javanese Sukarno working in harmony with the non-Javanese Hatta symbolically created a unity in the diversity of Indonesia. Such a symbol of unity gave the nationalist movement a sense of pride and self-confidence that went a long way in making them take advantage of the Japanese surrender to the Russians in Manchuria and usher in the revolutionary proclamation of Indonesia’s independence on August 17, 1945. The revolutionary government of the republic named Sukarno its president and Hatta its vice president.

The gestalt energy of the dwittunggal further helped the revolutionary republic, inexperienced in war as it was, fight successfully against the British in 1945 and 1946. It also succeeded in warding off the military efforts of the Dutch to reassert their power especially the two police actions on July 20, 1947, and December 18, 1948 besides crushing the domestic left-wing rebellion of Tan Malaka in 1946 and the communist revolt, called the Madiun Affair , of September, 1946. While engaged in defensive military acts, Hatta on behalf of the republic continued to carry on dialogue with the Dutch on the issue of transfer of sovereignty to an independent United States of Indonesia beginning December, 1949.

After the transfer of power in 1949, Hatta became prime minister for a period of about eight months, went back to the vice presidency in 1950, and stayed in the position until his resignation in 1956. During his time in office, Hatta noticed the power of dwittunggal diminishing. The frequent changes of cabinets did not please Hatta. Without making it explicit, Hatta did his best to remind his country of the dangers of losing democracy. He also knew that, without a sound economic base, democracy would be unattainable. Hatta therefore promoted cooperatives to improve the economic conditions of small business. In spite of his busy schedule, he found time to lecture at Gadjah Mada University in Jogjakarta and at the Army Command and Staff College in Bandung.

Sukarno, on the other hand, moved more and more toward authoritarianism. He became increasingly critical of democracy and decided to introduce demokrasi terpimpin (guided democracy), which in effect was authoritarian control. Hatta found it difficult to cooperate with Sukarno’s new concept of democracy. He resigned on December 1, 1956.

After his resignation, Hatta carried a low profile, even discontinuing his lectures at Gadjah Mada University and the Army Command and Staff College. When Suharto came to power in 1966, however, Hatta was pleased at the economic reforms that Suharto promised. He even offered to be the president of the country and served on a committee on controlling corruption. Apart from these public events, Hatta lived mostly a private life. He did resume his public educational activity, however, through lecturing at universities in Indonesia and abroad and publishing pamphlets on topical issues until his death on March 14, 1980.

Significance

Hatta is a unique example of an East-West synthesis, which made him comfortable with both camps but cozy with neither. The West introduced him to the concept of democracy, Kadaulatan rakyat (peoples’ sovereignty) as he called it. He was attracted to the socialist slant in communism, although its atheistic slur made his soul squirm. The East gave him Islam. Hatta brought a synthesis of the two by purging communist socialism of its atheistic overtones and internalizing Islamic values more as character-building guides than as norms for passing judgments on others. This point of view helped him be a devout Muslim and at the same time follow the principles of Panca sila, the five secular principles of good government, one of them being respect for all religions. His public life, however, was different. He was too Islamic for Indonesia’s Communist party, the Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI), and too liberal for the Islamic-oriented Masjumi Party. Later in life, Hatta succeeded in blending the two in the profile of his political creation, Partai Demokrasi Islam Indonesia. Understandably, the party did not get the approval of Suharto’s so-called New Order regime, which probably was afraid that Hatta’s party would release the stored-up anger of the banned liberal and religico-political parties of Indonesia. If an individual has to be evaluated more for the example that he presents to the world than the precepts or theoretical frameworks he preaches, then Hatta stands out as a shining star.

Bibliography

Feith, Herbert. The Decline of Constitutional Democracy in Indonesia. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1962. This is a good source that comes alive because of the author’s personal experience in Indonesia, although it covers a limited period.

Hatta, Mohammad. Mohammad Hatta, Indonesian Patriot: Memoirs. Edited by C. L. M. Penders. Singapore: Gunung Agung, 1981. A very readable book that stops with the transfer to power to the Indonesians. Contains some photographs that illustrate Hatta’s life.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Portrait of a Patriot: Selected Writings. The Hague, the Netherlands: Mouton, 1972. Herein Hatta discusses Indonesian and world politics. This work not only provides understanding of the times of Hatta but also provides good specimens for research topics defining “orientalism.”

Lewis, Reba. Indonesia: Troubled Paradise. London: Robert Hale, 1962. An account of the author’s experiences in the three years of her stay in Indonesia (1957-1960). The author has the eye of a keen observer, the inquisitiveness of a historian, and the narrative style of a novelist. Refreshing to read.

Palmier, Leslie H. Indonesia. New York: Walker, 1966. Contains brief but solid biographical information on Hatta and shows how he fits into the history of Indonesia. There are many photographs, including one of Hatta, notes, a select bibliography, a section of “who’s who” in Indonesia, and an index.

Rose, Mavis. Indonesia Free: A Political Biography of Mohammad Hatta. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, 1987. Complete in its coverage of Hatta’s life, this work, being the result of the author’s research for a master of philosophy thesis, is well-documented.

Vickers, Adrian. A History of Modern Indonesia. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. This concise history of Indonesia includes some discussion of Hatta.

Zainu’ddin, Ailsa. A Short History of Indonesia. North Melbourne: Cassell Australia, 1968. A general work on Indonesia by a non-Westerner. Contains a useful index and a glossary that beginners will find useful for their studies.