What made two native warriors from India and Indonesia so alike yet so different

A close look at history shows us that indigenous writers and journalists have played a significant role in the struggles against colonisation across the world. Each one was different in his way of protest though. However, two such heroes, one from India and the other from Indonesia, had many things in common. It may be a coincidence, but scholars believe that it was also a historic necessity. While Tirto Adhi Soerjo has been hailed as a frontrunner in Indonesian nationalism which demanded freedom from the Dutch colonial government, Subramania Bharati was at the vanguard of the freedom struggle against the British in India.

Born in different countries, both Bharati and Tirto had similar life arcs. Tirto and Bharati were freedom fighters and their foes – colonial oppressors. Their battleground – journalism. Their weapon of choice – the pen. These turbaned, moustachioed native warriors even resembled each other in their sartorial look and intense gaze, said Azhar Ibrahim, a senior lecturer at the Department of Malay Studies, National University of Singapore.

What lesson can we draw from these two luminaries who were contemporaries? “The significance of Tirto and Bharati lies in their intensity, depth and passion to raise and articulate the need for advancing reform and socio-economic progress in society,” said Azhar Ibrahim, who studied in detail the personal and social life of Bharati and Tirto. Bharati, according to him, was fluent in English but was very critical of the English-educated men of his country, whom he dismissed as guilty of ‘colossal spiritual fraud’ of the time, in which he composed an allegorical story titled ‘The Fox with the Golden Tail’, which was targeted at this group.

“Tirto too had such sentiments, but was more guarded, in emphasising that to learn Dutch language was important for knowledge acquisition and exposure, but nowhere the people who ape their colonical masters,” he said, while speaking on “Eastern voices against western colonialism” at an online talk organised by the Centre for Singapore Tamil Culture recently.

Tirto would say, “We have never wanted to be European or half European, we only want progress which can alleviate us from the subsistence level, we still want to be Javanese with our custom and secret institutions, yet appropriate those good European practices.”

However, Tirto denounced any forms of Europeanisation within the native population. He criticised Dewi Sartika School which introduced Western embroidery and dress making, instead of batik (an Indonesian technique of wax-resist dyeing applied to the whole cloth) making and the schoolgirls playing music in public. Tirto put high hopes on Javanese aristocracy and middle-class to have interest in entrepreneurial ventures rather than seeking a salaried position in the government.

Subramania Bharati (1882-1921) was born on December 11, 1882, in Ettayapuram in Tamil Nadu. He showed great interest in writing poems even as a child. His patriotic poems evoked tremendous response and he was the first Asian poet to sing the glory of the Bolshevik Revolution. He used journalism as a tool to fight colonial forces. He lived in Puducherry in self-imposed exile for a decade and it was during this time that he wrote his great works of poetry titled ‘Kuyil’, ‘Kannan Pattu’ and ‘Panchali Sabatham’.

Born in a Blora (Central Java), Tirto Adhi Soerjo (1880-1918) was an Indonesian activist-journalist, who questioned the brutal polities of the colonial Dutch government. In 1902, he became the editor of the Jakarta-based daily, Pembrita Betawi. He launched his first newspaper, Medan Prijaji, in 1910. Tirto was exiled in 1912 to Bacan due to his uncompromising stand against the colonial forces. Called the father of Indonesian journalism, Tirto was made a national hero in 2006. Literary experts say the Buru Quartet, a literary tetralogy written by Indonesian author Pramoedya Ananta Toer when he was at the Buru Island detention camp in Maluku, is based on the life of Tirto. Published between 1980 and 1988, the books, titled This Earth of Mankind, Child of All Nations, Footsteps, and House of Glass were banned by Indonesian president Suharto. The ban was lifted in 2000.

Tirto’s pen was sharp and accurate, said Azhar Ibrahim, quoting Ahmat Adam, a Malaysian historian. He would persistently appeal to the government to pay attention to the plight of the native people. Both Tirto and Bharati fought against the colonial powers in their respective countries. But it was interesting to note that their anti-colonial sentiments did not mean a total rejection of the western practices.

“I found a striking resemblance when it came to the headgears worn by Tirto and Bharati. Tirto wore ‘blangkon’, a traditional Javanese headdress made of Baltik fabric, which was the hallmark of Javanese gentlemen. Bharati used a turban similar to the ones worn by the people in north India. It was his nod of appreciation to north Indian culture. Both the headgears were symbols of their cultural affirmation,” he said. “The headgears and attires [both wore coats] of Tirto and Bharati were meant to project a certain kind of political statement of their times,” he added.

Bharati’s moustache has always been a topic of discussion among scholars and observers. In his famous biography, Subramania Bharati, Va Ra said Bharati sported a clean moustache. “It was neither sharp like Kaiser’s nor a neatly scissored one. It was grown beautifully and daringly on its own accord. He wore a beard sometimes. But he was simply mustachioed for the most part of his life. As far as my memory goes, he was without a moustache only once,” wrote Va Ra, a prolific writer-reformist. However, Bharati’s moustache, according to Azhar Ibrahim, was a symbol of rebellion.

“Bharati was in constant touch with great activists and freedom fighters, unlike Tirto. Bharati was always in touch with people who fought for the same cause. He met Mahatma Gandhi in 1919. He was close to Aurobindo. Tirto never had such a great line of friendship. He used all his time and energy to criticise the Dutch government. As a result, the colonial forces tried their level best to suppress him. But in the case of Bharati, the subsequent generation used his thoughts and ideas to fight injustice in society. They immortalised him as a hero of anti-colonialism. Tirto never got the space and recognition in Indonesia the way Bharati got it in India,” he said.