The Phantom World of Digul: Policing As Politics in Colonial Indonesia, 1926-1941

Digul was an internment colony for political prisoners that was established in 1926 in West Papua. This book argues that Digul is the key to understanding Indonesia’s colonial governance between the failed communist rebellion of late 1926 and the declaration of independence in 1945, a time when the Dutch regime attempted to impose what they called “rust en orde,” or peace and order, on the Indonesian people via the suppression of politics by the police. The political policing regime the Dutch Indies state created, Takashi Shiraishi shows, was simultaneously a success and a failure. While unrest was to some degree put down, the native terrain was never completely pacified, as activists linked up with each other in fluid networks that cut across spatial and ideational boundaries.   How did the government deploy political policing to achieve its policy objectives? What were the consequences and challenges for Indonesian activists? How was the government able to fashion its policing apparatus as the most potent instrument to achieve peace and order when the Great Depression hit the Indies, nationalist and communist forces were gaining strength in other places of the world, and war was coming both in Europe and Asia? This book answers those questions and more, breaking new ground for our understanding of the history of the Dutch Indies state in the early part of the twentieth century.

About the Author :
Takashi Shiraishi has taught at Tokyo University, Cornell University, Kyoto University, and National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS). In 2007, he was awarded the Japanese Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon for his contributions to academic developments and accomplishments. He currently serves as Chancellor, Prefectural University of Kumamoto.  

Review :
"Dense with material, this study offers insights into how individuals fit into a larger nationalist narrative and how and where Dutch assumptions aligned (and did not align) with action on the ground. It provides a much more expansive view of colonial policy from 1926 to 1941 than a history of Digul itself would." "This is a rich historical study which synthesizes important interventions that Takashi Shiraishi has offered to the field of Indonesian history." "The Phantom World of Digul has made yet another crucial contribution to the rich scholarship on Dutch colonialism and Indonesia’s anti-colonial struggles. This long-overdue monograph is a must-read for historians of modern Indonesia and the Dutch empire. Beyond these core groups, the book may also appeal to readers who seek to understand late-colonial states’ shifting political ideologies and everyday practices in maintaining peace and order." “I believe The Phantom World of Digul has made yet another crucial contribution to the rich scholarship on Dutch colonialism and Indonesia’s anti-colonial struggles. This long-overdue monograph is a must-read for historians of modern Indonesia and the Dutch empire. Beyond these core groups, the book may also appeal to readers who seek to understand late-colonial states’ shifting political ideologies and everyday practices in maintaining peace and order.” "This long-awaited sequel opens new and innovative ways of understanding late colonial Indonesia through political policing and all the contradictions therein." “Chapter 2 offers arguably the best concise history to date of modern policing in the Dutch East Indies, together with a detailed account of the rise of the institutional infrastructure of political policing…. The Phantom World of Digul is required reading not just for historians but also for political scientists and others interested in contemporary Indonesia." “[The] amount of detail and the author's desire to capture what was distinctive about the Dutch policy of the period make this book very much a tome written for Indonesia specialists and historians. However, there are insights here that will benefit a broader readership. Afterall, discourses of extremism and terrorism have contemporary expressions in state policies everywhere and political policing has if anything become omnipresent…. This is a fascinating book, sometimes too fascinating for its own good. It reminds us to pay close attention to the dynamic between politics and policing and the entanglements between the aboveground and the underground that political policing both generates and patrols.”