Umi Sardjono

Umi Sardjono was a prominent Indonesian activist who fought for the independence of the country and supported women's rights. She was involved in the anti-fascist and anti-war movements from the 1940s to the 1960s. As a resistance fighter during the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies, she and her husband operated a food stall which served as a message center for the underground. Captured in 1944, the couple were imprisoned until the surrender of Japan. On gaining release, they worked in the independence movement hoping to free Indonesia from Dutch rule. From 1945, Sardjono helped to establish women's organizations to foster women's participation in the independence movement. The most important of these was Gerakan Wanita Indonesia (Indonesian Women's Movement, Gerwani), founded in 1950. She led the organization from its founding until its demise in 1965. Sardjono was one of the first women elected to serve in Indonesia's government when it became independent. She was a member of the Constituent Assembly formed in 1955 and from 1959 served on the People's Representative Council. Issues she addressed included the need for a marriage law and for agrarian and educational reforms. She also served on the executive board of the Women's International Democratic Federation. After a failed coup d'état in 1965, Sardjono and other activists involved with Gerwani were accused by the army of mutilating the corpses of military officers who were killed in the attempted coup. The women were arrested and held as political prisoners. Sardjono was detained without trial for fourteen years in the Bukit Duri women's prison and the Plantungan concentration camp. Released in 1979, fearing reprisals from the government and anti-communist reactionaries, she gave up further involvement in politics and refused to participate in the movement to fight the false arrests of communists and intellectuals. She and her husband operated a food stall until he died in 1991. The stigma created by the false army narrative and its repetition for many years by the media curtailed research on the Indonesian women's movement and Sardjono. Since her death in 2011, renewed scholarship has confirmed her prominence.