3 - The Indies Youth Movements: Progress, Westernisation, and Cultural Pride

Summary

Employing the intellectual tools they had acquired during their medical training, Indies physicians and medical students became diagnosticians of colonial society. They analysed the process of social evolution and identified factors that might impede or accelerate it, and diagnosed threats to the health of the colonial social body while thinking of ways to neutralise them. Yet despite their apparent consensus about their social role, they presented divergent and at times incompatible views on the ills of colonial society, the direction of the nationalist movement, and the future of the archipelago. Some physicians embraced modernity while others praised traditional culture. Some were elitist while others were more egalitarian. In 1912, Tjipto Mangoenkoesomo, the most radical physician-politician, became an active member of the Indies Party, which advocated independence for the Indies. At the same time, medical students founded several youth associations, which kindled the nationalism of many young men and women. Many Indonesian political, academic, and social leaders began their careers as members of these associations, which introduced them to broader social and political ideas.