How successful were the prewar nationalist movements in Southeast Asia

in achieving its aims?

Pre-war nationalist movements mark a period of time before world war
two where a series of efforts were put in place by the various nationalist
groups to progress towards their various cultural-religious ethnic or
political aim of eventual independence or varying degree of autonomy.
While pre-war nationalist movements achieved some intangible successes
like stirring up anti-colonial sentiments among the masses which allowed
the nationalist leaders to secure support bases that are sine qua non in
achieving their cultural-religious, ethnic economic and political aims, their
efficacy in employing these feelings of mass resentment to attain
concessions for each of these aims from the colonial powers varied widely.
This essay seeks to argue that in terms of political aims, pre-war
nationalist movement has been largely unsuccessful because despite prewar nationalist movements being successful in protecting the economic
interests of locals from alien immigrants who dominated the economies
and achieving their cultural-religious aims such as reviving their
traditional belief and practices, majority of the Southeast Asian countries
were far from achieving independence. In fact, there was not even any
momentum towards it.
Pre-war nationalist movements failed to achieve unity due to the
conflicting beliefs within nationalist groups that made cooperation and
compromise impossible. As such, they were not able to come up with a
cohesive force to secure political concessions, thus leading to
retrogression in their movements in the sense that its strength in terms of
support bases was enfeebled because differing aims and beliefs separated
the nationalists. For example, there were several factions within Sarekat
Islam (SI) from 1917 onwards after the communists entered. The
communist ideology conflicted with the modernist Muslim religion and as
a result there were rivalry between the communist and the modernist and
Islamic reform faction led by Agus Salim. SI was struggling to hold on to its
dual identity as a conservative religious organisation and a revolutionary
party. Due to this inherent weakness of the party, in 1920, when the
communist withdrew from SI to form Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI), SI
faded into political insignificance because many former Si members had
also left when the Dutch started cracking down on the party. Hence, they
were never able to gain an early prominence in the nationalist movement
again, as compared to the 1910s. Such impedance to the nationalist
movement due to disunity can also be seen in Burma. Even though the
Dyarchy Constitution established in 192 was supposed to be a success in
terms of political concessions achieved by the nationalists, it precipitated
a split between within the Burmese Western-educated elites on whether to
support or boycott the Dyarchy reforms and cooperated with the British to
seek further political concessions for Burma, the radical nationalists,
supported by the majority, rejected thee reforms and sought
independence or self-government and separation from the Indians. This
led to a boycott of the 1922 Dyarchy Elections by the radical nationalists

and the pongyis with an extremely turnout of less than 6.9% of the entire
population. In this way, even though the nationalists were able to achieve
concrete political concessions from their colonial masters, the success of
their achievement was severely undermined by their failure to secure the
support of the locals due to disunity within the nationalist group itself,
which stems from the differing methods and alignments of the
nationalists. This would in turn discredit the nationalists and harden
colonial masters because radical aims of the nationalist discouraged
colonial powers from granting political concession and instead convince
them to employ more strong-fisted methods.
Moreover, even when the nationalists resort to violent tactics such as
armed revolts, they were effectively crushed by the colonial masters with
their sheer military strength and the nationalists were never able to
achieve their aims of overthrowing the colonial masters. This is evident in
Indonesia. In 1926, Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI) formed in 1920, started
the PKI revolt with the aim to overthrow their colonial master and setup a
communist state. However, in less than 2 months, they were rapidly
extinguished as a nationalist force in Indonesia and they were not able to
recover until after World War Two. Similarly in Vietnam, Nguyen Thai Hoc,
the key leader of Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (VNQDD) leading a group that
comprised of mainly teachers and civil servants and some soldiers tried to
launch the Yen Bai Mutiny in February 1930 with the aim to spark a
widespread revolt. However, due to the lack of support from most of the
Vietnamese soldiers, they were rapidly crushed by the French and the
revolt ended with the French still firmly in power. The failure of the
Vietnamese Western-educated elites and VNQDD led to a vacuum in the
leadership of the pre-war nationalist movements, thereby stagnating their
nationalist movements. This elucidated the futility of armed revolts and
the disparity in terms of combat ability between the colonial powers and
the nationalists, thus showing the failure of nationalist movements.
Nevertheless, before world war two, some of the Southeast Asian
nationalists, using a combination of collaborationist tactics and peaceful
demonstrations, were successful in attaining varying degree of autonomy
which will eventually lead to the achievement of independence after world
war two. This is important because it portrayed a recognisable momentum
towards independence, unlike the nationalist movements in many other
countries. In Burma, Home Rule, a heightened degree of autonomy from
the Dyarchy Constitution that was already achieved in 1922, was granted
to the Burmese in 1930 to ease the governance of Burma for the British.
Under Home Rule, they Burma would be separated from India and be
given full control over its own economy. The Burmese would have almost
all control over internal affairs, and the British will only retain control over
defense, foreign relations and monetary policy. For responsibilities granted
to the Burmese, even though the British still has the rights to question
their decisions, they no longer have to report to the British unlike in
Dyarchy constitution. Such success in achieving autonomy can also be
seen in the Philippines. The Partido Nationalista (PN) through their non-

violent collobarationist tactics of a pressure group was able to achieve a

bicameral legislature in 1907. The Bicameral legislature consisted of a
Commissioner and an Assembly made up of Filipino delegates selected
from different provinces. Filipinos held positions of authority such as
municipal officers and provincial officials. In this way, pre-war nationalist
movements can be seen as a success because in spite of the nationalists
asking for autonomy or self-government which is a radical demand in the
eyes of almost all colonial masters, one that would blatantly contradict the
interests of the colonial powers and one that would be rarely accepted,
autonomy was nevertheless achieved in some countries and that is one
big step towards achieving an eventual independence for them.
Furthermore, Southeast Asian nationalist movements were able to achieve
their cultural-religious aim of reviving traditional beliefs and practices,
thereby fostering a common identity which may serve as a precursor to
nationalist movements when politicized. In Burma for example, the Young
Men Buddhist Association (YMBA) formed in 1906, was able to successfully
challenge the British authority over the Footwear Controversy from 1916
to 1918 by achieving the ruling that shoes must be taken off in pagodas.
The success of this movement preceded by none other gave a significant
boost to the Burmese nationalistic pride and confidence and
demonstrated the potential power of Buddhism in mobilising Burmese
nationalist sentiments. Similarly, in Indonesia, Muhammadiyah, founded in
1912, was successful in reforming Islam and preparing Islam for the
modern way of life by running clinics, hospitals, libraries, mosques and
attacking the influence of Adat and Westernisation. The large following
they had across Indonesia, showed how it easily appealed to people of
different background.
In conclusion, although the Southeast Asian nationalists were successful in
achieving their ethnic-economic and cultural-religious aims that did not
threaten the rule and interests of the colonial masters, in terms of
achieving their political aims, apart from the one or two exceptions that
managed to secure significant degree of autonomy from their colonial
masters, majority of the Southeast Asian nationalists were far from their
goal of achieving independence. Their revolts were so futile in face of the
sheer military strength of the colonial powers that they were not even
able to pose a threat to the rule of the colonial masters when they resort
to doing so. The weakness of their armed revolts brought brutal
repressions on the nationalist movements, leaving them stunted with no
leadership to take charge of the nationalist movements. It crushed all
their political power and dampened their dream of self-determination. On
top of that, they were also not able to overcome obstacles like disunity
within the nationalist groups, which undermined the extent of success
even when the nationalists successfully achieve some political
concessions because the conflicting ideas that drew the nationalists apart.
Therefore, pre-war nationalist movements have failed largely.