Atjeh as a prospective province, as recorded in De staatkundige ontwikkeling van Indonesië in de 20e eeuw (Amsterdam: Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen), is the mid-1950s consideration — recorded in the work’s survey of the administrative division of Indonesia — that Atjeh would be granted the status of a province. The work records: “Men overweegt thans een uitbreiding van het aantal provincies, waarbij bv. Borneo in 3 en Celebes in 2 provincies zou worden verdeeld. Ook aan Atjeh zou de status van provincie worden toegekend” — one is now considering an expansion of the number of provinces, whereby for example Borneo would be divided into 3 and Celebes into 2 provinces. Also to Atjeh the status of province would be granted.
The provincial division of Indonesia
The work records that the Republik Indonesia was initially divided into 10 provinces: West-Java; Midden-Java; Oost-Java; Noord-Sumatra; Midden-Sumatra; Zuid-Sumatra; Kalimantan (Borneo); Maluku (Molukken); Sulawesi (Celebes); and Nusa Tenggara (Kleine Soenda-eilanden). Sedert kort (recently), the work notes, the province of West-Irian also existed, formed from several districts of the Noord-Molukken daerah and the territory of Nederlands Nieuw-Guinea. The consideration to expand the number of provinces — with Borneo divided into 3, Celebes into 2, and Atjeh elevated to provincial status — was thus a mid-1950s development within the existing provincial framework.
Atjeh’s administrative history
The prospective provincial status for Atjeh must be read against the background of Atjeh’s administrative history in the early post-colonial period. Atjeh had been effectively self-governing under the Ulama since the 1945–1946 social revolution, and its de jure autonomous status had been confirmed by Sjafrudin Prawiranegara in August 1949. The central government’s partial disavowal of this concession, and the subsequent folding of Atjeh into the merged province of North Sumatra in early 1951, had been a major grievance of the Atjehnese Ulama under Teungkoe Moehamad Daoed Beureu-éh, and was a principal cause of the Daud Beureu’eh revolt of 1953. The mid-1950s consideration of granting Atjeh provincial status — recorded by Van Meurs — was thus, in context, a response to the revolt and a recognition of the Atjehnese demand for administrative autonomy.
The further administrative organization described in the work — the provinces divided into keresidenan (residencies), these into kabupaten (regencies), these into kedemangan (districts), and these into afdeelingen — is noted as still being the same as that of the Netherlands Indies, a continuity of the colonial administrative structure into the post-colonial period.
Significance
For AcehWiki, the Van Meurs record of Atjeh as a prospective province is significant as a mid-1950s source for the consideration of Atjeh’s elevation to provincial status — a consideration that must be read against the background of the 1953 revolt and the Atjehnese demand for administrative autonomy. The record complements the corpus’s existing entries on the formation of the Province of North Sumatra, on the 1945–1946 social revolution, and on the Daud Beureu’eh revolt, and it furnishes the metropolitan Dutch perspective on Atjeh’s administrative future within the post-colonial Indonesian state.
See Also
- De staatkundige ontwikkeling van Indonesië in de 20e eeuw
- Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen
- Formation of the Province of North Sumatra (1951)
- Ulama–Uleëbalang social revolution in Atjeh (1945–1946)
- Atjèh’s accession to the Negara Islam Indonesia (1953)
- Teungkoe Moehamad Daoed Beureu-éh
- Mr. Sjafrudin Prawiranegara
- Danubroto
- Acheh
- 1951
- 1953
- 1955
Source
De staatkundige ontwikkeling van Indonesië in de 20e eeuw, uitgave van het Bureau Cursussen en Vertalingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen (Amsterdam: Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen). Hoofdstuk IV: “Men overweegt thans een uitbreiding van het aantal provincies, waarbij bv. Borneo in 3 en Celebes in 2 provincies zou worden verdeeld. Ook aan Atjeh zou de status van provincie worden toegekend.”