27 Facts About Mohammad Yamin

Muhammad Yamin was an Indonesian poet, politician, historian and national hero who played a key role in the writing of the draft preamble to the 1945 constitution.

Mohammad Yamin was born on 24 August 1903 in Talawi, Sawahlunto on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia.

Mohammad Yamin was educated at Dutch schools for natives, firstly at a Hollandsch-Inlandsche School, then at an Algemene Middelbare School in Jogyakarta.

Mohammad Yamin began his literary career as a writer in the 1920s when Indonesian poetry was marked by an intense and largely reflective romanticism.

Mohammad Yamin started to write in Malay in the Dutch-language journal Jong Sumatra, the literary publication of the Jong Sumatranen Bond, a semi-political organization of Sumatran youth.

Mohammad Yamin debuted as a poet with "Tanah Air" in 1922.

Mohammad Yamin's compatriots included Roestam Effendi, Sanusi Pane, and Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana, founders of Poedjangga Baroe.

Mohammad Yamin published plays, essays, historical novels, and poems, and translated works from such authors as Shakespeare and Rabindranath Tagore.

Mohammad Yamin was the leader of the Jong Sumatranen Bond from 1926 to 1928, and Indonesia Muda in 1928.

Mohammad Yamin then became an active member of the Association of Indonesian Students and the Indonesia Party.

Mohammad Yamin was expelled from the organization in 1939 for breaches of regulations, including campaigning against another Gerindo candidate in the Batavia municipal council elections.

Mohammad Yamin then established the Party of Indonesian Unity.

In 1939, Mohammad Yamin became a member of the Volksraad, an advisory body created in 1917 by the Dutch in the Netherlands East Indies.

Mohammad Yamin then formed the National Indonesia Group, which was chaired by Mangaradja Soeangkoepon, and included Abdul Rasjid and Tadjuddin Noor.

Mohammad Yamin subsequently claimed that he and his new colleagues had been unhappy with Parindra members dominating the National Fraction.

Concurrent with his role in Putera's advisory board, Mohammad Yamin was appointed a senior official at the Sendenbu.

Mohammad Yamin was one of the sixty-two founding members of the Japanese-established Investigating Committee for Preparatory Work for Independence.

Mohammad Yamin suggested to the body that the new nation should include all the Malay-speaking world: not only the territories of the Netherlands Indies, but Sarawak, Sabah, Malaya, and Portuguese Timor.

Mohammad Yamin later claimed that on 29 May 1945, he delivered a speech on certain philosophical and political foundations for the proposed new nation and enumerated five principles for the nation, which came to be known as Pancasila and were later incorporated in the Preamble of the 1945 Constitution.

However, the fact that Mohammad Yamin was seemingly the only person to possess complete records of the BPUPK sessions, which he used for his 1959 book Naskah persiapan Undang-undang Dasar 1945 was particularly useful for the New Order regime, which took power in Indonesia following the coup attempt of September 1965.

Mohammad Yamin was a member of the Committee of Nine tasked with beginning to draft a constitution.

Mohammad Yamin, who did much of the work in producing this draft, called it the Jakarta Charter.

Mohammad Yamin was disappointed at not being appointed to this committee and refused to accept his appointment to a different committee that discussed financial matters.

Mohammad Yamin subsequently claimed that he had produced a draft constitution that was very similar to Soepomo's version, but there is no evidence for this, and Hatta specifically denied that Mohammad Yamin had presented such a document to the BPUPK.

The originator of significant ideas, Mohammad Yamin dominated modern Indonesian political and cultural history.

Mohammad Yamin's ideas contributed to the political awakening and the surge in national pride in Indonesia.

In 2015, a species of fossil fish, Ombilinichthys yamini, was named after Mohammad Yamin after being discovered in his hometown.