Indonesian National Revolution
On 17 August 1945, two days after the Japanese surrender, Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta proclaimed the independence of Indonesia. The returning Dutch, determined to restore their East Indies empire, launched two military 'police actions' (1947, 1948) that killed tens of thousands and briefly captured the republican leadership. International pressure, including a US threat to withhold Marshall Plan aid, combined with the resilience of the republican guerrilla movement to force the Netherlands to recognise Indonesian sovereignty on 27 December 1949. The new state adopted Pancasila as a unifying ideology attempting to reconcile nationalism, Islam, and the political left. Structurally this is a decolonisation independence event: a colonised people asserting sovereignty against a metropolitan power, and the founding rupture of the modern Indonesian state.
- Year: 1945 CE
- Category: Political
