Who belonged to the Indies?
In the Dutch East Indies, social standing was shaped by racial categories. Dutch settlers, Indo-Europeans of mixed ancestry, and Indigenous people occupied unequal positions, and even Indo people could be treated as inferior by the colonial elite. E.F.E. Douwes Dekker saw that shared exclusion could become the basis for solidarity rather than division.
His answer was cooperation. Indo people, he argued, were too few to change their circumstances alone; they needed to join with the Bumiputera, the Indigenous population. The Indische Partij made that principle political. Its slogan, “Indie voor Indiers”—the Indies for the people of the Indies—defined belonging by connection to the homeland, not by ancestry alone.
A coalition, not a hierarchy
The party welcomed Indo-Europeans, Indigenous people, Dutch permanent residents, and people of Chinese, Arab, and other descent. It sought to end social arrogance in government and society, resist racial discrimination, and improve economic prospects for the weak. Douwes Dekker also warned Indo members not to reproduce the same prejudice they suffered: rejecting racial superiority meant refusing to look down on Indigenous people.
This idea, known as Indisch Nationalism, moved beyond a narrow campaign for Indo social advancement. The Indies was imagined as a common national home. The party’s outlook later fed into the development of Indonesian nationalism.
The remarkable part was not only that the party called for independence, but that it imagined a nation built across the divisions colonial rule had hardened.
