We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 April 2010
Beneath the surface of apparent unity of the colonial empires of Britain and Holland in India and Indonesia, there existed a wide variety of relations between the Western power on the one hand and indigenous political structures on the other. A colonial power could control its territorial possessions in several ways, usually classified in terms of either direct or indirect rule. Furnivall, in his famous comparative study of British Burma and the Netherlands East Indies, saw Burma as a ‘typical example’ of direct rule and Java as exemplary of fhe system of indirect rule. In the same work the author, however, acknowledged that in general there was no clear distinction between the two systems of government and that colonial practice was determined more by, what he calls, ‘economic environment’ rather than philosophies of empire. Indeed, the terms direct and indirect rule can be seen as extreme opposites. in the realm of ideas, while in reality colonial rule was always something in between. This explains partly the confusion about the form of government in nineteenth century Java, which, in view of its dualistic features, was classified by some authors under the system of indirect rule while others (with an eye upon less solidly controlled areas within Indonesia) thought it more in tune with theories of direct rule.
