JMBRAS, JUNE 2016 Vol 89

Nusantara: Part 1, Number

History |3
310, pp. 314
of a Concept

Nusantara: History of a Concept

Hans-Dieter Evers

Abstract
The dictionary meaning of Nusantara is Indonesia (in Indonesia) and Malay
World (in Malaysia), but different meanings have been attached to the concept
throughout Southeast Asian history. It appears in 14th century Javanese texts but
largely disappeared from written materials for a time, and surfaced again when its
almost magical qualities were (re)discovered in the late 20th century. The meaning
of the term has changed over time. In 1334, Gadjah Mada, the chief minister of
the Majapahit Empire, used it to refer to the maritime fringes (the nusantara) of
the Majapahit Empire. During the anticolonial struggle, the term captured the
imagination of writers, novelists, poets, and politicians in Indonesia and in British
Malaya but it then disappeared from public debates, only to resurface in the 1990s
with the emergence of a Nusantara youth culture and a politicized Nusantara Islam
in Southeast Asia.

The Author
Hans-Dieter Evers is Professor emeritus and a Senior Fellow at the Center for
Development Research at the University of Bonn. He is currently Visiting Professor
at the Institute of Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS), Universiti
Kebangsaan Malaysia

E-mail:

Keywords

4 | Hans-Dieter Evers

Introduction: The Power of Words

Words, concepts, and slogans can be powerful movers of history. Concepts like
Britannia! rule the waves, Volk ohne Raum or Merdeka have rallied support,
legitimised policies, and influenced the course of history. On another level,
managers have learned the power of branding and used slogans like Guinness is
good for you or Youll wonder where the yellow went when you brush your teeth
with Pepsodent to improve the bottom line of their balance sheets. The applied
linguistics literature shows how meaning is attached to signs that are then turned
into symbols. The symbolic universe is full of interrelated signs and symbols that
have been transmitted throughout history, may change their meanings over time,
remain dormant, and re-emerge and lead to actions.
Nusantara is such a concept to which different meanings have been attached
throughout Southeast Asian history. It made its first appearance in fourteenth-
century texts, disappeared for a while, and then surfaced again at intervals of
hundreds of years, until it swamped newspaper reports, company directories,
policy briefs, and scholarly articles when its almost magical qualities were (re)
discovered in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

The Oath of Gadjah Mada and Other Classical Texts

The concept Nusantara is derived from two Sanskrit words: nusa meaning island
and antara meaning in between or including. It made its way into old Javanese
texts, where nsntara can be translated as other islands.1 The meaning of the term
has, however, changed over time.
The word nusantara appears in copperplate inscriptions dated 1305 and in
Javanese manuscripts of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.2 The best-known
written document is the Pararaton, a Javanese text on the Javanese kingdoms of
Singhasari and Majapahit and their mythical ancestor Ken Angrok.3 This text
reports that Gadjah Mada, the chief minister of the Majapahit Empire, swore an
oath (sumpah palapa) in 1334 that he would refrain from using spices with his food
until a number of kingdoms in the Nusantara on the fringes of the Majapahit
Empire were subdued. Given the importance of sambal for all Javanese dishes, this
oath must, indeed, have been taken very seriously!4 The list of realms illustrates, if
not the extent of Majapahit, then the total area covered by the concept of Nusantara,
or at least the outlying maritime areas outside Java.
We do not know precisely when the term Nusantara entered the classical

*
An earlier version of this paper was presented at a seminar organised by the Malaysian
Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society in Kuala Lumpur, chaired by Dato H. S. Barlow.
The author would like to thank the participants of this seminar and two anonymous
reviewers of the manuscript for useful comments, and last, but not least, Gareth
Richards in Penang for superb copy-editing and additional comments.
1
Zoetmulder and Robson (1982).
2
Poerbatjaraka (1936); Av (1989: 230).
3
Brandes (1897).
4
There are also other interpretations of the word palapa (e.g., refraining from sexual
intercourse), but the reference to spices is widely accepted in the popular Indonesian
literature.
 Nusantara: History of a Concept |5

texts, as the earliest surviving Pararaton text originates only from 1481. 5
Nusantara is mentioned in the Sejarah Melayu, in a text copied somewhat later,
with a connotation similar to that in the Pararaton text and in the Javanese
Negarakertagama.6 Nusantara also appears in a text from Bangka and in the title of
the Surat Beriluminasi Raja Nusantara (17911886) in which, however, the term does
not itself appear in the text of 27,592 words.
The concept of Nusantara seems to have been widespread throughout insular
Southeast Asia, but might have been also known in medieval Europe, though the
evidence is not entirely clear.7
Bernhard Vlekke, in his book Nusantara: A History of Indonesia, explains the
term only in a short footnote: Its original meaning is the other islands as seen
from Java or Bali, hence it took the more general meaning of the outside world
or abroad. In this meaning it is used in fifteenth-century texts.8 In modern
Indonesian or Malay it is therefore often translated as archipelago.
In my interpretation the concept has the connotation of including islands and
the maritime space around them. We will revert to this point in the last section of
this paper.

Nusantara and the Struggle for Independence and Nationhood

The term Nusantara receded into the background and did not appear in written
documents for a long time, but may have survived as an oral tradition, especially in
the tale of the oath of Gadjah Mada. It was rediscovered in the twentieth century,
when an alternative name for the colonial term Netherlands India was needed.
There is an extensive literature on the anticolonial struggle for independence of
Indonesia and Malaysia, but the importance of the old-age vision of Nusantara
has not yet been treated at any great length. Here I offer a short summary of
the importance of Nusantara in the anticolonial struggle, before the term again
disappeared as a political concept from public debates. We will be more concerned
with the sudden resurgence of the Nusantara concept in recent decades.

Ki Hadjar Dewantara
During the colonial period, the well-known educator and nationalist Raden Mas
Suwardi Suryaningrat (18891959), also known as Ki Hadjar Dewantara, created the
educational organization Taman Siswa. Its schools emphasized Javanese cultural
values and art. He allegedly suggested the name Nusantara as appropriate for
an independent Indonesian state, but I have not been able to verify this point.
It is possible that the claim to the name Nusantara was ascribed to Ki Hadjar
Dewantara during the later Sukarno period to back up his claim for a Greater
Indonesia. During that time Ki Hadjar Dewantara was declared a national hero.

5
Sarnowsky (2011).
6
Sejarah Melayu: Terlalu besar kerajaannya pada zaman itu, segala seluruh Jawa emuanya
dalam hukumnya, segala raja-raja Nusantara pula, setengah takluk kepada baginda.
7
Braginsky (1998); Alexentseva (2001).
8
Vlekke (1965: 400).
6 | Hans-Dieter Evers

Ernest Douwes Dekker (Danoedirdja Setiaboedi)

Ernest Douwes Dekker (18791950), a colonial intellectual of Dutch-Javanese
origin, is widely credited with propagating the name Insulinde in place of the
Dutch Hindia Belanda (Netherlands Indies) of colonial times. He must have
known the palapa oath of Gadjah Mada and the term Nusantara, which he also
proposed as a name for a new postcolonial state. The early Indonesian freedom
movement, however, was based in the Netherlands, where its members were more
familiar with the European historical and ethnographic literature on Insulinde.
The German scientist Adolf Bastian used the terms Indonesien (German) or
Indonesia (English) for his influential five-volume work, Indonesien: oder die Inseln
des Malayischen Archipel,9 though the popularization of the term Indonesia is usually
credited to the Penang-based lawyer James Logan after it was coined by George
Earl.10
Eventually, Indonesia was chosen as the name for the new state after the
declaration of independence in 1945, but the discussion about the proper name for
the archipelago did not disappear completely. As late as 1989 the Dutch historian
Jan B. Av suggested Nusaraya was a more appropriate name.11 In 2015, a petition
was launched and presented to President Joko Widodo, urging him to change the
name Indonesia to Nusantara.12 The petition was not successful.
It is likely that the discussion on Nusantara and the name for the new nation
was also noticed in the nearby Straits Settlements and the Malay States, but a
detailed study of this challenging issue has to be left to a new generation of
historians. So far the discussion has focused on Malayness and the alam Melayu.
As Anthony Milner points out, in many cases, peoples who only in relatively
recent times have identified as Malay have also been drawn retrospectively into
the sphere of Malay history.13 Nusantara, in contrast, has always been a much
wider concept, encompassing large geographical cultural areas, albeit with shifting
boundaries.

9
Bastian (1884).
10
Earl (1849/1850); Logan (1850); see also Av (1989).
11
Av (1989: 232).
12
Petitioning Individu: Dukunglah Presiden Joko Widodo setuju merubah nama
Indonesia menjadi Nusantara: Faktanya Indonesia adalah nama pemberian asing yang
tidak merupakan salah satu dari nama penguasa, nama bangsa, nama daerah, atau
nama semangat bersama, yang biasa dijadikan acuan nama sebuah negara. Sebutan
Nusantara telah digunakan sebagai sinonim untuk menyebut kepulauan Indonesia
sejak dahulu kala. Mengganti nama Indonesia menjadi Nusantara akan menumbuhkan
rasa persatuan yang makin menggelora serta memperbaiki struktur nama Indonesia
yang buruk menjadi baik. Yang akan berdampak pada kehidupan negara yang lebih
baik disegala bidang. Indonesia kini sedang sakit akut, bangkitkan Nusantara untuk
sembuh. https://www.change.org/p/individu-dukunglah-presiden-joko-widodo-setuju-
merubah-nama-indonesia-menjadi-nusantara, accessed on 9 December 2015.
13
Milner (2011: 75).
 Nusantara: History of a Concept |7

The Battle of Words and the Concept of Nusantara

Poets and Politicians
The term Nusantara has captured the imagination of writers, novelists, poets,
and politicians in both Indonesia and British Malaya and later in Malaysia, where
in 1973 the Organisasi Sasterawan Nusantara was formed, which organized its
seventh congress in Singapore in 1991,14 and its thirteenth congress in Brunei
Darussalam on 18 May 2015. The membership of this organization appears to be
drawn from Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, and Indonesia. A competing organization
has held several meetings in Padang, West Sumatra.
In pre-independence Malaya the nationalist youth movement, centred on
Sultan Idris College and later Kesatuan Melayu Muda (founded in 1938 and led by
Ibrahim Yacoob), supported the idea of a state uniting the Nusantara or Melayu
Raya (British Malaya, British Borneo, and the Netherlands Indies) into a single
state.15 On 13 August 1945 at a meeting in Taiping, Perak, Sukarno, Mohammad
Hatta, and Ibrahim Yacoob pledged to create a postcolonial state of Nusantara,
comprising the Netherlands Indies and the Federated Malay States.
One of the best-known proponents of a greater Indonesia was Aidit (192365),
born Ahmad Aidit on Belitung Island. In the early 1950s, after he had been elected
as chairman of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) in 1947, he changed his
name to Dipa Nusantara Aidit. During the Japanese occupation he was in contact
with Sukarno and Ki Hadjar Dewantara, and it could well be that he learned about
the term Nusantara during that time. It is not known what induced him to change
his name but, given the historical significance of the term Nusantara, he must have
had his reasons. He may also have been familiar with the Cerita Bangka, a classical
Malay text from the neighbouring Riau island of Bangka that describes the glorious
life of a Bupati Nusantara.16 Sukarno himself often used the term Nusantara in
his speeches, but more in the sense of creating a modern independent state on the
territory of the colonial Dutch East Indies.17
The vision of the Nusantara of a Greater Indonesia (Indonesia Raya),
building on the history and glory of the Majapahit Empire, came to the fore again
under the guise of an anticolonial struggle during Konfrontasi, the low-key war
between Indonesia and Malaysia (19636). Sukarno's opposition to the integration
of Sabah and Sarawak into the new state of Malaysia failed, and concluded with
an agreement to recognize and respect the sovereignty of both countries.18 This
agreement marked the termination of the Indonesia Raya ambition as well as the
end of Nusantara as a geopolitical concept. The political unification of Indonesia,
Malaysia, and possibly Singapore did not take place. Instead, ASEAN was created
as a block of sovereign nation states, patterned on the European Union rather than
the locally and historically grounded concept of Nusantara.
American academics also fought over the proper use of the term Nusantara. As
early as 1951, Justus M. van der Kroef voiced the opinion that by 1943 there would

14
Metzger (1992).
15
Ariffin (2015: 26).
16
Wieringa (1990).
17
Liow (2005: 46).
18
McIntyre (1973).
8 | Hans-Dieter Evers

have been every reason to use Indonesia as the correct national terminology for
the East Indian Archipelago, but Nusantara, pleasantly obscure, did not carry the
dangerous property of the term Indonesia.19 Meanwhile, some popular authors
looked at the Nusantara as a still more wide-ranging area. In the words of Charles
Allen:
From the Marquesa Islands in the Pacific, right through South-East Asia
and through Ceylon down to Madagascar in the shape of an enormous
lozenge are the between the islands people, the Nusantara in Sanskrit or
the Kun Lun people, as they have been known to the Chinese since pre-
Christian times.20
The question of whether Nusantara was another name for the Majapahit Empire,
referring to the outer islands beyond Java and Bali, or encompassed the whole of
the Malay world is once again being debated today, as we show below.

Dewan Bahasa Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur

The discussion over Nusantara has mainly been conducted in the context of
Indonesia or by Indonesian scholars. Its use and meaning in Malaysia is less well
researched. The meaning of Nusantara was in the past quite different in the two
countries, but recently appears to have merged. The distinction between the terms
is clearly expressed in the official dictionaries (Kamus Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka) of
the two countries. In the Jakarta dictionary, Nusantara is translated into English
as Indonesia; in the Kuala Lumpur dictionary as the Malay world. Also, in the
widely used Wikipedia (Malay-language edition) Nusantara is equated with the
Malay world:
In modern language usage, the term Nusantara refers to the sphere
of influence of the Malay cultural and linguistic islands that comprise
Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the southernmost part of Thailand, the
Philippines, Brunei, East Timor and perhaps even Taiwan, but it does not
involve the areas of Papua New Guinea.21

The Re-emergence of the Concept of Nusantara

Generalization of Nusantara
In the 1980s and, especially, the 1990s, Nusantara abruptly became a very
popular term throughout Southeast Asia (see Fig. 1). Why and how did this
happen?

19
van der Kroef (1951: 170).
20
Allen (1983: 434).
21
Wikipedia (n.d.) The original Wikipedia text reads: Dalam penggunaan bahasa moden,
istilah Nusantara merujuk kepada lingkungan pengaruh kebudayaan dan linguistik
orang Melayu yang merangkumi kepulauan Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapura, bahagian
paling selatan Thailand, Filipina, Brunei, Timor Timur dan mungkin juga Taiwan,
namun ia tidak melibatkan daerah Papua New Guinea.
 Nusantara: History of a Concept |9

18000
16000
14000
12000
10000
8000 references in Google
6000
4000
2000
0
1960-69 1980-89 2000-09
1950-59 1970-79 1990-99 2000-15
Fig 1. Use of the term Nusantara in books, articles and papers.

The word has been used and misused for all sorts of purposes. Like the
sudden proliferation of Sanskrit or old Javanese terms in the naming of public
buildings in Jakarta, a process I have described as the Sanskritisation of Jakarta,22
the old Javanese term Nusantara now adorns organizations, companies, meetings,
research institutes, and websites. The movement started in Indonesia, but then
spilled over into Malaysia and Singapore as well. The reasons for this resurgence
are not entirely clear. There was no political debate in which the concept of
Nusantara played any significant role, and it appears to have entered the realm of
consumer culture and popular music before it was used in debates about Islam and
in discussions about maritime resources of the South China Sea.

Names of Companies and Organizations

Some names given to companies make sense. Merpati Nusantara Airlines, founded
in 1962, was a domestic airline that flew between major airports on the islands of
Indonesia until it closed down in 2014. For other companies the name was probably
chosen for purely aesthetic reasons. Some examples of the hundreds of names are
given in Table 1.

Evers (2011).
22
10 | Hans-Dieter Evers

Table 1. Examples of company names using Nusantara

INDONESIA Focus Nusantara

Nusantara Handicrafts
PO Nusantara bus company
Nusantara Infrastructure (2006)
Nusantara Surf Charters
MALAYSIA Nusantara Forum (Gerakbudaya Bookshop, Penang)
Nusantara Technologies Sdn Bhd
Neo Nusantara Garden Designers
Nusantara Metal Detector
SINGAPORE Nusantara Development Initiatives
Nusantara Ventures Singapore Pte Ltd (2010)
Nusantara Capital (1984)
EUROPEAN Nusantara performing arts company, UK (2008)
UNION and Nusantara restaurants in Berlin, Melbourne, Newcastle
AUSTRALIA Nusantara Indonesian Bookshop, Australia

The term also appears in many strange combinations, such as a treasure of
gold and precious stones that Sukarno and the World Bank secured from the
heritage of the kings and sultans of the Nusantara. In some cases the word has
evolved into a virtual Asian fantasy land, as with the proclamation of a Nusantara
Empire (Kekaisaran Nusantara) with Gadjah Mada as ruler, Joko Widodo as prime
minister, Angela Merkel as minister of foreign affairs and, among others, Bupati
Bastian Schweinsteiger (football hero of Bayern Mnchen and Manchester United)
as court official.23

Islam Nusantara
One of the more serious developments of the concept of Nusantara consists of
the emerging movement of Islam Nusantara. In August 2015 the Spirit of Islam
Nusantara was launched at the 33rd Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) conference in
Jombang, East Java. Using the concept as a counterweight to radical Islam and
the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, its proponents emphasized the distinctive
features of a moderate Nusantara Islam. Islam Nusantara is based on religious
spirit, akhlakul karimah (good deeds). It is also based on nationalism, diversity and
humanity, declared the NU chairman Said Aqil Siradj.24 The term Nusantara
does not appear in Islam Hadhari (Civilizational Islam) propagated by former
Malaysian prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, but the concept may well have

23
Internet pages on the Kekaisaran Nusantara have appeared on the internet off and on,
but have been online less frequently, perhaps since Indonesian police have arrested
officials of the Nusantara government in Sukabumi http://news.liputan6.com/
read/123888/dua-pimpinan-kerajaan-sunda-nusantara-dibekuk, accessed 14 April 2016.
See also http://tolololpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Nusantara, accessed 14 April 2016.
24
Junaidi (2015).
 Nusantara: History of a Concept | 11

influenced Malaysian politicians seeking an alternative to the caliphate envisaged

by radical Islamic groups in Southeast Asia. Indonesian and Malaysian scholars
have developed an online International Journal of Nusantara Islam that covers the
Nusantara territories i.e. Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, Singapore,
Thailand, the Philippines, and Timor Leste.25
The term Nusantara also appears in the name of a combat unit formed in 2014
in Islamic State-held territories in Iraq and SyriaKatibah Nusantara. Led by Abu
Ibrahim al-Indunisiy, the unit is said to consist of Malay-speaking fighters from
Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore, known for their valour and fighting spirit.26 The
term was also used in connection with a deliberate reference to a proposed province
of a caliphate, covering the Malay world of Southeast Asia.27 There are also reports
that Katibah Nusantara was linked to the Jakarta terrorist attacks in early 2016.28

Nusantara Youth Culture

In recent years the young generation in the Malay world of Southeast Asian has
adopted the concept of Nusantara. A common consciousness of a joint Nusantara,
encompassing Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, southern Thailand, the Philippines, and
even Singapore, appears to have emerged.
Several joint youth-centred events have been organized under the banner of
Nusantara. To cite just one example: a Nusantara Leadership Camp took place in
Jakarta in 2013 and in Putrajaya in 2014, drawing around 170 participants from
Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Thailand, and Singapore.29 The camp was organized
by the secretariat of Generasi Baru Nusantara (the New Nusantara Generation).
In a Twitter message, a participant from Malaysia expressed her appreciation of
friends from the Nusantara: Rindu sahabat sahabat nusantara ku dari Indonesia
Brunei and Thailand (Longing for my Nusantara friends from Indonesia, Brunei
and Thailand).30 This novel Nusantara identity appears to be apolitical and is firmly
anchored in the new ASEAN Community that was officially inaugurated on 31
December 2015.
Popular music is also promoted under the banner of Nusantara. On 24th
March 1989, Manan Ngah launched the album Sheqal, the first Malaysian popular
musical form based on the genre Balada Nusantara.31 The opening lines of Manan
Ngahs song Balada Nusantara are: Laut membiru bukan pemisah / Hasrat
hatiku bukan rahsia / Seloka pantun khazanah kita (The blue sea does not
separate / There is no secret to my intention / Pantuns are our treasure). The line
blue sea that does not separate refers clearly to Nusantara, which is made up of
islands surrounded by seas. Later on, the chorus intones Itulah kita di nusantara
(Thats us in the Nusantara).

25
International Journal of Nusantara Islam (n.d.).
26
Singh (2015).
27
Mohamed Nawab (2010).
28
Cochrane (2016).
29
Brunei Times (2014).
30
https://twitter.com/hashtag/NusantaraLeadershipCamp?src=hash, accessed 5 December
2015.
31
Zawawi (2015: 14).
12 | Hans-Dieter Evers

Nusantara and the South China Sea Conflict

The Nusantara concept has surfaced in relation to the struggle for the resources
of the South China Sea and for the control of its shipping lanes. Rising conflicts
about the control of shipping lanes, fisheries, and mineral resources of the South
China Sea have led to a proliferation of historical claims and counterclaims over
the possession of rocks, shoals, and islands. Recognition of islands as sovereign
territories establishes claim to the surrounding 12-mile zone and to an exclusive
economic zone of 200 nautical miles. On the basis of Chinas (and Taiwans)
historical claim and actual control over some islands, China has asserted that
most of the South China Sea falls within its sphere of influence orthough
this has not been clearly and officially spelt outwould be considered Chinese
territory. As I have argued elsewhere, the conflict between China and the ASEAN
states of Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam is exacerbated
by different culturally based conceptions of maritime space. 32 The Chinese
government has a clear-cut conception of bounded space, made obvious by the
so-called nine-dash line, but the Malay world and its states tend to look at the
South China Sea as part of the Nusantara, the sea between islands. Islands and
the sea lanes between them are part of a patchwork of land and sea space (tanah
air) to which the states surrounding the South China Sea have common and not
necessarily clearly defined claims. They have suggested the possibility of joint
development areas (kawasan gotong royong), or of sharing layers of the sea with
different rights to the sea above (shipping lanes), the sea below (fishing), and the
bottom (oil, minerals), very much like the recently introduced strata titles in high-
rise buildings. Some voices have suggested a Malaysian maritime policy based on
the Nusantara principle.33 The Malaysian Prime Ministers Office has prepared a
paper on such a maritime policy, but as of late 2015 it had not yet been discussed
or approved by the Cabinet. The Indonesian president, however, has proclaimed
a new maritime fulcrum embracing five principles of maritime policy that would
require further analysis, but the point that Indonesia is a maritime archipelagic
(i.e., Nusantara) state is clearly established and very much emphasized. Nusantara
is thus on the way to setting out guideposts to Malaysian and Indonesian, and
possibly ASEAN, maritime policy towards the South China Sea and beyond.

Conclusion
As this paper makes clear, the Nusantara concept has been used throughout
modern history in differing ways. It has been instrumentalized for political
reasonsNusantara as Greater Indonesiaand for commercial reasons (for
example, Merpati Nusantara Airlines). In the present era, a Nusantara model of
sharing resources, differentiated according the type of resource (such as fisheries,
oil and gas, and rights of passage) could be a blueprint for the governance of
the South China Sea.34 The resurgence of the concept of Nusantara in public
consciousness, its intrusion into popular and youth culture, and its transfer into
a cultural concept appears to be an interesting topic for further observation and

32
Evers (2014, 2016).
33
Evers (2016).
34
Ibid.
 Nusantara: History of a Concept | 13

research. It could also be of interest to the Malaysian and Indonesian governments

to strengthen their claims to resources of the South China Sea as part of an
evolving Nusantara region.

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