Sukarno

Sukarno was an Indonesian nationalist leader who became one of the principal figures in the struggle to end Dutch colonial rule. During the Japanese occupation he worked within Japanese-sponsored political structures while also promoting Indonesian nationalism. After Japan’s surrender, Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta proclaimed Indonesian independence on 17 August 1945.

Sukarno became president of the new republic and remained the most prominent political symbol of independence throughout the subsequent conflict with Dutch forces. International negotiations and armed resistance eventually led the Netherlands to transfer sovereignty in 1949.

Phil Craig’s 1945 places Sukarno at the decisive break between Japanese occupation and the attempted restoration of European empire in Southeast Asia. Japan’s surrender creates a power vacuum in the former Dutch East Indies, and Sukarno, with Mohammad Hatta, responds by proclaiming Indonesian independence on 17 August 1945. Craig follows the British and Dutch attempts to re-establish pre-war authority alongside the nationalist movement that refuses to surrender the new republic. Sukarno therefore appears not simply as a later president but as the political figure who turns the end of the Second World War in Indonesia into the beginning of an anti-colonial revolution.