31 Facts About Sutan Sjahrir

Sutan Sjahrir was an Indonesian politician and revolutionary independence leader who served as the first Prime Minister of Indonesia from 1945 until 1947.

Sutan Sjahrir was considered to be an idealist and an intellectual.

Sutan Sjahrir became involved in Socialist politics, and Indonesia's struggle for independence, becoming a close associate of the older independence activist Mohammad Hatta, who would later become the first Vice President of Indonesia.

Sutan Sjahrir played a crucial role in negotiating the Linggadjati Agreement.

Sutan Sjahrir founded the Indonesian Socialist Party in 1948 to politically oppose the Indonesian Communist Party.

Sutan Sjahrir was born on 5 March 1909, in Padang Panjang, West Sumatra.

Sutan Sjahrir came from an ethnic-Minangkabau family, from what is today Koto Gadang, Agam Regency.

Sutan Sjahrir's father had six different wives, with Sutan Sjahrir's mother being the fifth wife his father married.

Sutan Sjahrir was the half-brother of Rohana Kudus, an advocate for women's education and a journalist with the first feminist newspaper of Sumatra.

Sutan Sjahrir attended the Europeesche Lagere School, before continuing to the Meer Uitgebreid Lager Onderwijs, in Medan.

Sutan Sjahrir completed his studies at the AMS in 1929, and continued his education to the Netherlands, after receiving a scholarship.

Sutan Sjahrir arrived in the Netherlands in 1929, enrolling first at the University of Amsterdam and later becoming a law student at Leiden University where he gained an appreciation for socialist principles.

Sutan Sjahrir was a part of several labor unions as he worked to support himself.

Sutan Sjahrir was briefly the secretary of the Perhimpoenan Indonesia, an organization of Indonesian students in the Netherlands.

Sutan Sjahrir was one of the co-founders of Jong Indonesie, an Indonesian youth association instead of the need for association to assist in the development of Indonesian youth for further generations, only to change within a few years to Pemuda Indonesia.

The Perhimpoenan Indonesia came under increasing communist influence, and Hatta and Sutan Sjahrir were both expelled in 1931.

In reaction to the intrigue by communist cells in the PI against Hatta and himself, Sutan Sjahrir stayed calm and in character.

Sutan Sjahrir had not finished his law degree, when Hatta sent Sutan Sjahrir ahead of him to the Dutch East Indies in 1931, to help set up the Indonesian National Party.

Sutan Sjahrir was heavily involved in the Daulat Rajat, the newspaper of the new PNI.

Sukarno, Hatta, and Sutan Sjahrir had agreed that Sutan Sjahrir would go underground to organise the revolutionary resistance while the other 2 would continue their cooperation with the Japanese occupier.

At the height of chaos and violence during the early Bersiap period of the Indonesian revolution, Sutan Sjahrir published an epoch-making pamphlet named 'Our Struggle'.

Sutan Sjahrir's pamphlet went directly against this, and many must have felt his call for chivalry, for the understanding of other ethnic groups, as a personal attack.

Sutan Sjahrir knows what he wants and will not be distracted by popular sentiment or circumstantiality.

Sutan Sjahrir is able to overturn a ministry fabricated by the Japanese and establish a new ministry of honest, fairly capable, fairly democratic and social minded men under his leadership.

In 1946 Sutan Sjahrir played a crucial role in negotiating the Linggadjati Agreement.

Sutan Sjahrir founded the Indonesian Socialist Party in 1948 to politically oppose the Indonesian Communist Party.

Already in the mid-1930s 1930s Sutan Sjahrir warned about the tendency of socialists to be dragged into the notions of the extreme political left.

However, the party performed poorly in the 1955 elections, partly because the grassroots constituency at the time was unable to fully understand the concepts of social democracy Sutan Sjahrir was trying to convey.

In 1962 Sutan Sjahrir was jailed on alleged conspiracy charges for which he was never put on trial.

Sutan Sjahrir was sent to Zurich, Switzerland for treatment and died there in exile in 1966.

Sutan Sjahrir should be a model for the young generation of Indonesians.