Mohammad Husni Thamrin

Mohammad Husni Thamrin was a pre-independence Indonesian political thinker and nationalist who after his death was named a National Hero. He was born in Weltevreden, Batavia (modern day Jakarta), Dutch East Indies, on 16 February 1894. His father was the son by his Indonesian mistress of an English businessman who owned the Hotel Ort in Batavia. Tabri was subsequently adopted and raised by his Javanese uncle. Thamrin was therefore born into a neo-priyayi class and in 1906, his father became district head (wedana) under Governor General Johan Cornelis van der Wijck. After graduating from Koning Willem III Gymnasium, Thamrin took several government jobs before working for ten years for the shipping company Koninklijke Paketvaart-Maatschappij. ¹ In 1919, Thamrin was elected a member of the Jakarta City Council, and in 1929, became second deputy mayor. In 1927 he was appointed by Governor-General de Graeff to the Volksraad. He was appointed again in 1931 and elected in 1935 and 1939. ² On 27 January 1930, Thamrin made a speech in the Volksraad announcing the formation of the Nationalist Fraction (Fraksi Nasional) to unite ten Indonesian nationalists under one flag. This was partly in response to the December 1929 arrests of Indonesian nationalist Sukarno and members of his Indonesian National Party and partly to counteract the reactionary Fatherlands Club (Vaderlandsche Club), which wanted to maintain Dutch control mover the East Indies in perpetuity. The aim of the faction was Indonesian autonomy, which was to be achieved through political reforms. The faction would use "all legal means" to achieve this goal. Thamrin put forward a number of motions, including one to remove the power of the governor-general to exile political enemies of the state. He realized that cooperating with the colonial regime offered a different way to oppose it, and he took full advantage of his immunity to prosecution conferred by his membership of the Volksraad. As a result, he was widely despised, but also feared, by Dutch conservatives. As Volksraad members, Thamrin and Kusumom Utoyo went to eastern Sumatra to look into working conditions at plantations there. Disgusted by what they found, upon his return Thamrin gave a speech condemning the plantation owners. ³ He criticised the legalised gambling and corporal punishment handed down for minor offences. In 1935 he was a founding member of the Great Indonesia Party (Parindra). ³ In July 1936, Volksraad member Soetardjo Kartohadikusumo, who was not a member of the National Fraction, put forward a petition asking the Dutch to convene a conference to discuss autonomy for the Dutch East Indies. Thamrin supported the petition, which was rejected by the Dutch. He died of heart failure in Jakarta on 11 January 1941. He was buried in the Karet Bivak Cemetery with full military honors. He was posthumously declared a National Hero of Indonesia in 1964. ¹²