The Dar ul-Islam Movement in West Java (1948-62): An Experience in the Historical Process

The Dar ul-Islam (Islamic State) movement, commonly referred to as the DI, which terrorized the mountainous areas of West Java between 1948 and 1962,has received comparatively little analysis despite the impact it had on the newly independent Indonesia. Such Western scholars as Nieuwenhuijze and Kahin1 offered ideological and economic explanations for the movement while it was still alive. Long after it was over, Jackson and Moeliono suggested that the course of action taken by the three Sundanese villages of West Java,which they studied with regard to their affiliation to the DI, derived from their adherence to a general Indonesian cultural ethos, bapakism (unquestioning loyalty and obedience of inferior to superior), rather than from any specific political orientation.2 On the Indonesian side there is the regional government report on the DI in 19543 and Pinardi's journalistic biography of the leader of the movement, Kartosuwirjo.4 In general, however, the Indonesian sources have tended to be hostile to the leader and the movement largely because of the atrocities committed by the DI in the villages and difficulties caused for the newly independent government, and perhaps also because of the latter's embarrassing inability to suppress the movement promptly.