The author looks beyond this dichotomy unveiling a ‘third’ dimension of this character, a politician whose legacy has shaped the role of Islam in Indonesian politics. For decades scholars of Indonesia have rejected the religious claims of this movement, interpreting the antagonism between the Islamic state and Soekarno’s republic as a fight for power, self-assertion, or land rights, whilst recently Kartosuwiryo and the DI have become heroic symbols of the local Islamist struggle. Tracing a trajectory of political activism consistently dedicated to the formation of an Indonesian state independent of foreign intrusions, the chapters delineate the gradual radicalization of the Islamic party and Kartosuwiryo’s own ideals from the 1920s until the 1950s. Focussing on the dialectic between the religious and secular anti-colonial and nationalist movements, this effort is pursued to understand the failure of political Islam in the mid-1950s and the consolidation of the Pancasila state under Sukarno’s and Suharto’s regimes. Through accurate archival research, the author follows the career and ideology of Kartosuwiryo, the religious nationalist leader of the Sarekat Islam party and later Imam of the Islamic state of Indonesia. This book investigates the relation between Islam and politics in Indonesia throughout the 20th century.
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