By Sameer Arshad Khatlani
The spice trade dominated 17th-century European commerce and drove its economic and cultural development, altering diet, economy and traditions. The cloves, nutmeg, mace, cinnamon, ginger and pepper were worth their weight in gold. They spawned a new age of revolutionary credit-based economics, a banking system, and ultimately free enterprise. Spices were used in both condiments and pharmaceuticals. Nutmeg was thought to cure everything from the plague to coughs. Spices changed hands on the long route back to Europe, and their value rose 100%.
The British and the Dutch battled it out for years over nutmeg around the South Pacific atoll of Run (Indonesia). They signed the Peace of Breda in 1667, with the British relinquishing any claim to Run and ceding the Dutch their South Pacific sphere of influence. In 1621, the Dutch captured the Banda Archipelago (Indonesia) to monopolise the world’s nutmeg and mace production. They killed and enslaved the native Bandanese. Those who survived fled into the hills or the sea, where many died.
Foreigners had long coveted Indonesia’s Spice Islands (the Moluccas) for their abundance of cloves, nutmeg, and mace. The Dutch got the better of other competitors after beginning to occupy the Banda Archipelago by encroaching on islands for spices in the early decades of the 17th century. Over the preceding centuries, the Dutch territorial expansion continued after the Banda genocide.
From Dutch Colonial Expansion to Indonesian Independence
The Dutch expanded control over Java in the 18th century and Sumatra the following century. By the 20th century, Dutch control extended over the entire East Indies. The Dutch used machine guns and artillery against dagger-welding Balinese resistance during the 1906 and 1908 Bali invasions. They committed widespread war crimes as Indonesians rose for their independence during the post-Second World War period.
Dutch special forces summarily executed thousands between 1945 and 1949. South Sulawesi was the scene of one of the worst atrocities on January 28, 1947, when the Dutch executed 208 men. The mass murders were carried out on Captain Raymond Westerling’s orders to end resistance to colonization, which began with the spice trade and expanded to the colonial extraction of sugar, rubber, tea, coffee, and tobacco, together providing one-third of the Dutch budget revenues.
In the early decades of the 20th century, suspected revolutionaries were imprisoned or exiled, including to a remote New Guinea camp. Dutch intransigence fuelled the Indonesian independence struggle, with Sukarno, known for his oratory, as its leader. The Japanese victory in the Dutch East Indies during the Second World War offered Sukarno an opportunity to declare independence, making him a role model for decolonialisation. The Dutch believed they would stay forever. In 1936, Governor-General Jonkheer Bonifacius Cornelis de Jonge declared the Dutch had been around for 300 years and would stay there for another 300. ‘After that, we can talk,’ declared de Jonge.
Sukarno, Nehru, and the Rise of Asian-African Decolonisation
In 1955, Sukarno hosted the Bandung Conference to promote economic and cultural cooperation among Asian and African countries and to oppose colonialism and neocolonialism. It was the first major summit of world leaders excluding the West. Key decolonisation figures, representing over half the world, attended the conference. The conference preceded Egyptian Gamal Abdel Nasser’s move to nationalize the Suez Canal, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, and wrest its control from the French and British, and African decolonisation.
India’s national movement leader and first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, played a key role in convening the Bandung Conference, drawing on India and Indonesia’s civilisational bonds. The legacy of the Indian epics Ramayana and the Mahabharata, which have found expression in diverse forms in Indonesia for centuries, is a key aspect of these bonds.
Nehru shared Sukarno’s vision for Asian-African internationalism and anti-colonialism. When European powers Britain, France and the Netherlands reasserted colonial control after the Second World War, Nehru rallied anti-colonial leaders at the Asian Relations Conference in New Delhi in 1947. Sukarno, whom Nehru invited to be the chief guest at India’s first Republic Day celebrations in 1950, argued that merely achieving freedom was not enough. For him, true freedom required political sovereignty, economic self-reliance, and a strong cultural identity. He believed colonialism never ended but continued in new forms to maintain Western hegemony.
Ramayana, Mahabharata and Post-Colonial Indonesian Identity
A new genre of wayang comics based on the Indian epics Ramayana and the Mahabharata emerged in Indonesia in the 1950s as part of another historical connection between India and Indonesia—the struggle against colonialism. Western comics were introduced during Dutch colonial rule and were seen as promoting Western popular culture. Sukarno, Indonesia’s first president, who was still in his teens when he joined the anti-colonial movement, saw Western comics as a threat to cultural values. His policies encouraged local artists to create wayang comics, drawing on the Ramayana and Mahabharata, as they already enjoyed wide acceptance and were regarded as more compatible with Indonesian culture.
Wayang, an ancient form of shadow-puppet storytelling involving complex musical styles, is an enduring example of cultural exchanges between India and Indonesia. The puppets vary in size, shape, and style, including the three-dimensional wooden wayang klitik and the flat leather shadow wayang kulit, projected on a screen lit from behind. Wayang kulit integrates local folklore and philosophies with Indian epics.
Wayang comics also emerged against the backdrop of a perception that foreign comics lacked educational value and promoted Western influences through Andersen’s fairy tales and portrayals of figures such as the conqueror Alexander and the explorer Marco Polo. The new genre of comics based on the Indian epics, which had been passed down for centuries in Indonesia, emerged as an alternative. Wayang comics became a part of Indonesian popular culture and preserved traditional stories in a modern form.
Wayang Comics, Pancasila, and the Ramayana
Comic artists RA Kosasih, Teguh Santosa, and Gun Gun used the genre to articulate Indonesian identity. In an article titled ‘Articulation of Indonesian Identity in Mahabharata Epic Puppet Comics by Sundanese, Javanese, and Balinese Comic Artists,’ academics Wayan Nuriarta, Nyoman Suarka, Ida Ayu Laksmita Sari, and Suryadi of the Indonesian Institute of Arts, Universitas Udayana, Bali, and Universiteit Leiden, called the emergence of wayang comics a statement showing a cultural identity distinct from the Western one.
Writing in the Journal of Bali Studies in 2024, the academics argued that the works of Kosasih, Teguh Santosa, and Gun Gun expanded the reach and forms of the Mahabharata. ‘This has made the Mahabharata accessible to a wider audience, regardless of social status, through the use of the Indonesian language.’ The academics noted that the three artists are considered guardians of cultural values, conveying good teachings. ‘Moreover, the emergence of puppet comics revitalised comic production, as they have become recognised as a form of Indonesian cultural comics.’
The academics wrote that puppet shows traditionally performed throughout the night could now also be enjoyed as comic books while teaching moral values. Adaptations of the Ramayana and Mahabharata into comics went beyond cultural inheritances. They became instruments of post-colonial nation-building and inclusive nationhood in the world’s most populous Muslim nation and third-largest democracy, with foundational national principles, such as humanitarianism, democracy, and social justice, collectively known as Pancasila.
The author is a journalist and a writer interested in the dialogue of civilisations
