Jakarta –
Peter Carey
Fellow Emeritus di Trinity College, Oxford
Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Cultural Sciences, University of Indonesia (2013-2023)
On October 25, 1945, a 4,000-strong Indian troop brigade led by Brigadier General Aubertin Walter Sothern Mallaby (1899-1945) arrived in Surabaya from Singapore.
Their task is to restore order. This is because since August 22, 1945, after the proclamation of independence by President Sukarno and Vice President Hatta in Jakarta on August 17, various struggle organizations in Surabaya, especially those led by youths, began to take action to affirm the newly proclaimed independence.
The revolutionary movement was rapidly gaining momentum. It was recorded that in early October 1945 the center of Surabaya City was in the hands of the revolutionary movement and the Japanese were completely powerless. In fact, various weapons and ammunition in large quantities, especially from the Japanese Navy armory in Gubeng, were confiscated or handed over to be distributed to local residents.
Completely without direction, Mallaby, as historian JGA Parrott of the 23rd Indian Division under the brigadier general’s command, “stepped into the beehive unnoticed”.
Parrott later wrote an article entitled Who Killed Brigadier Mallaby? on the journal Indonesia published by Cornell University, 1975 ago.
In less than a week, after dividing its troops into various companies (100 people) and platoons (30 people) to guard the main buildings and installations, the Mallaby Brigade was overwhelmed and forced to retreat to the Tanjung Perak port area.
Mallaby bled to death (October 30) in a gray Lincoln limousine with the windows open. The brigadier general was shot by a young man while he was on his way to negotiate a truce.
British revenge emerged on 10 November 1945. All troops of the Indian Fifth Division, led by Major General Sir Robert Mansergh (1900-70), landed in Surabaya carrying tanks and fighter planes.
Over the next two weeks (10-27 November) fighting continued to take Surabaya one street at a time.
By the time the fighting finally stopped on November 27, a third (150,000 people) of the city’s prewar population (450,000 people) had been left homeless. It is estimated that as many as 16,000 Indonesian youths and soldiers (Tentara Security Rakyat, TKR), including a large number of civilians, lay dead, with another 20,000 injured.
From the British and Indian sides, the number of soldiers who died reached 588 people.
It was the last time the British Empire used Indian troops in a colonial conflict. Dr Roeslan Abdulgani (1914-2005), who later became Indonesia’s foreign minister, said the battle for Surabaya was “a catastrophe that cut the course of Surabaya’s history and Indonesia’s path to independence.
How could this happen?
On 15 August 1945 after Japan’s unconditional surrender, responsibility for the former Netherlands East Indies (NEI) was transferred from the Southwest Pacific Command led by General Douglas MacArthur to the Southeast Asia Command (SEAC) led by Lord Louis Mountbatten, a completely unexpected transfer by the English duke:
“After taking over the NEI from the Southwest Pacific Region without any intelligence reporting, I [Mountbatten] did not get a clue about the political situation in Java. It is known that the Indonesian Movement already exists [sejak] before the war; and that it was endorsed by leading intellectuals, some of whom experienced exile [misalnya Dr Tjipto Mangoenkoesoemo, Suwardi Suryaningrat / Ki Hadjar Dewantara, E.F.E. Douwes Dekker] for their participation in nationalist propaganda [sic!]but no information has been given to me regarding the fate of this movement under the Japanese Occupation [1943-45].
“Dr HJ van Mook [1894-1965]Lieutenant-Governor NEI [menjabat 1942-48]who came to Kandy [Ceylon] on September 1, gives me no reason to think that the occupation of Java would present any operational problems beyond disarming the Japanese.
The consequences of this intelligence failure have been explained in relation to the British and Indonesians in Surabaya, but what about the Indian troops?
Mallaby, who was an Indian army officer of the 2nd Punjab Regiment, commanded the Mahratta Light Infantry (4th and 6th Battalions) and Rajputana Rifles (5th Battalion).
However, once the 5th Indian Division led by Major General Sir Robert Mansergh had landed, the Gurkhas (1st, 5th, 8th, 9th and 10th Gurkha Rifle Regiments), Punjabi ( 15th Punjabi Regiment), Sikhs (11th Sikh Regiment), Jats (9th Jat Regiment), Bihari (1st Battalion Bihar Regiment), Baluchs (10th Baluch Regiment), Mahratta (Mahratta Light Infantry Regiment), Hyderabad (19th Hyderabad Regiment), and Rajput (Rajputana Rifle Regiment).
How did these people react when they were called to fight under British command to quell Indonesian nationalist troops who were struggling to expel the invaders just like the Indians under the swadeshi (self-sufficiency) and swaraj (self-government) movements?
How did the Indian army react when they saw the English posters put up by Indonesian youths in Surabaya?
“Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, leader of the Indian National Congress, ordered today [30 September 1945] that Indian troops should not be used to suppress the struggle of Indonesia and other nationalist parties. We are interested in the struggle for independence in Asian and African countries because we want to help them achieve [itu].
“The Indonesian nation has declared its independence and we are now fighting to defend it!
How will the Indian army react?
The story of PRS Mani (1918-2011), who was commissioned as captain of the British-led Indian army in 1944, is an interesting case in point.
PRS Mani was assigned to the public relations unit to report on the experiences of the Indian army in Burma and Malaya (Malaysia post-1962) until the Japanese surrender.
After August 15, when Mountbatten’s SEAC (South East Asia Command) turned Indian troops including Mani against nationalist forces in Indonesia and Vietnam, he became increasingly disillusioned. Especially when he had to fight with the 5th Indian Division led by Mansergh in Surabaya.
The series of experiences so opened his eyes that in January 1946 he resigned from British military service and became foreign correspondent for the Free Press Journal of Bombay (Mumbai), an English-language Indian daily founded in 1928 and an ardent supporter of Indian and Indonesian independence. Mani reported from Indonesia in 1946-1947, wrote articles strongly supporting Indonesian independence.
After India’s independence on August 15, 1947, Mani joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of India and became the first Indian Consul General in Jakarta. After retiring from the Indian diplomatic service in 1980, he collected his letters while in Indonesia in 1945-1947 and wrote a book about the Indonesian Revolution from an Indian perspective.
The book is entitled The Story of the Indonesian Revolution1945-1950 (Madras: Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Madras, 1986) was then translated into Indonesian as Traces of the 1945 Revolution: A Testimony to History (trans. Lany Kristono, Jakarta: Main Library of Graffiti, 1989).
There were many people like Mani who sympathized with Indonesia’s struggle for independence and used their military skills to aid the Indonesian armed struggle.
We need more testimonies like Mani’s to build a picture of how widespread Indian sympathy was for the Indonesian cause and how British was involved during the eight months in Indonesia (September 1945-March 1946).
Another story is Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq (1924-88), who later became prime minister of Pakistan (1978-88).
He graduated from Dehradun Indian Military Academy (Dehra Doon) in 1943, served in the British Indian Army in Asia-Pacific (“Operation Capital” in Burma and “Operation Zipper” in Malaya) before being transferred to Java with the 23rd Indian Division in Sept. 1945.
After participating in British military operations in Java (1945-1946), he was transferred to the Pakistan Army in 1947.
We can only speculate what his wartime experience was like and how it influenced his future military career and political ambitions.
This article is written by Peter Carey which is the author’s full personal view.
(it/it)
2023-08-15 10:29:05
#Role #Indian #Army #Battle #Surabaya
