One time res­i­dent of In­done­sia, the au­thor traces the his­tory of how Sikhs made In­done­sia their home nearly a hun­dred years ago and how even though Sikhism is not a state-recog­nised re­li­gion, through sheer hard work, grit and ed­u­ca­tion, the Sikh pop­u­la­tion all across the is­land na­tion has made a niche for it­self.

Though not yet sub­stan­ti­ated and au­then­ti­cated by his­to­ri­ans, lo­cal folk­lore and im­agery makes the Sikhs set­tled in In­done­sia say that dur­ing the course of his jour­neys, the First Mas­ter of the Sikh faith -Guru Nanak vis­ited the is­lands of Suma­tra, which is one of the ma­jor is­lands of In­done­sia.  Though no traces of any in­flu­ence on the lo­cal pop­u­la­tion have so far come to light to the best of knowl­edge of this au­thor, Sikhs of In­done­sia want to know more about the pos­si­bil­ity of the visit of Guru Nanak. In his book pub­lished in 1810, his­to­rian Lt. Col Marks Wilks writes that Guru Nanak went from Cey­lon, now Sri Lanka to Dhanasri De­sha, which was the name, given to Suma­tra and pre­sent-day Banda Aceh was its cap­i­tal.

Since the foun­da­tion of Sikh re­li­gion, Sikhs have been mi­grat­ing to dif­fer­ent parts of the world -vol­un­tar­ily as well flee­ing in the face of per­se­cu­tion. Per­haps Guru Nanak the founder of Sikhism is the chief mo­ti­va­tion since he is his­tor­i­cally the sec­ond most trav­elled per­son of his times af­ter Huan Tsang. Also, fa­ble has it that Guru Nanak favoured that “good peo­ple” should dis­perse and those who are not so may stay set­tled wher­ever they are.

Sikh mi­gra­tion and set­tle­ment in the Malay Arch­i­pel­ago in South­east Asia be­gan some­where in late 1880’s al­though the ex­act pe­riod is not known. Some his­to­ri­ans be­lieve that ini­tially Sikhs were brought to the Arch­i­pel­ago for polic­ing. An­other group of Pun­jabis ar­rived as part of the army brought to In­done­sia by the British colo­nial ad­min­is­tra­tion. They con­sisted of var­i­ous In­dian eth­nic groups, in­clud­ing the Sikh and Gurkha reg­i­ments. Some of these troops were sent to In­done­sia for sup­ply­ing arms to the Dutch who were strug­gling to sup­press In­done­si­a’s de­mands for in­de­pen­dence.

“The first Gur­d­wara in Jakarta came up at the main har­bour of Tan­jung Priok in north Jakarta be­cause a ma­jor­ity of the Sikh work­force was em­ployed there in 1925.”

When these sol­diers, in­clud­ing Sikhs and oth­ers of In­dian ori­gin saw the way, the Dutch were op­press­ing the lo­cal pop­u­lace, many of them switched sides, tak­ing over Dutch ships and join­ing the lo­cals in their fight for free­dom. Many of these sol­diers even­tu­ally set­tled on the Suma­tra Is­land. The INA, the In­dian Na­tional Army and Sikh units that came in be­fore and af­ter the Japan­ese war sup­ple­mented the Sikh set­tle­ment in Suma­tra.  There­fore, Suma­tra be­came the first port of call for Sikhs in In­done­sia, which is an arch­i­pel­ago of 17000 is­lands.

To give the other side of the pic­ture, it must be men­tioned that many Sikh sol­diers and their British gen­er­als pro­tected many Dutch peo­ple from be­ing lynched and killed when the free­dom strug­gle for In­done­sian in­de­pen­dence reached its pitch.

In North Suma­tra, the his­tory of Pun­jabi ex­is­tence can be traced back to Am­rit­sar and Ja­land­har. Sikhs first ar­rived in the 18th cen­tury through Aceh. Most of them came as traders who set­tled in the area and slowly dis­persed through­out north­ern Suma­tra.

Ear­lier on, most of the Pun­jabi peo­ple used to live in Kam­pung Kel­ing but have now moved to more af­flu­ent ar­eas of the city. Writer and colum­nist Pu­tri Fi­tria de­scribes Sikh men as tall, dark and hand­some, wear­ing tra­di­tional tur­bans and long beards, while the women have sharp fea­tures and are of­ten bright skinned.

To be­gin with, Sikhs set­tled in Medan. They were mostly into dairy farm­ing. The Khalsa High school was founded si­mul­ta­ne­ously with the first Gu­rud­wara at Medan in 1925 with Sir­dar Ba­hadur Singh as its first head­mas­ter. The medium of in­struc­tion was Eng­lish.  The es­tab­lish­ment of an Eng­lish school was a far-sighted step by the founders, con­sid­er­ing the scant knowl­edge of Eng­lish in those days. The school has pro­duced some of the lead­ing Sikh fig­ures of In­done­sia, the no­table stu­dents be­ing Thakur Singh, Par­tap Singh Rani­wala and H. S. Dil­lon.  H. S. Dil­lon rose to be­come the Sec­re­tary of Agri­cul­ture, In­done­sia and his brother Raj Ku­mar Singh be­came the Sec­re­tary of In­done­sia Hockey Fed­er­a­tion, sig­nif­i­cantly both main­tain their Sikh iden­tity.  An­other alum­nus was long dis­tance run­ner Gur­nam Singh, who won a medal in the Asian games and was ho­n­oured by In­done­sian Pres­i­dent Soekarno.

“To be­gin with, Sikhs set­tled in Medan. They were mostly into dairy farm­ing. The Khalsa High school was founded si­mul­ta­ne­ously with the first Gu­rud­wara at Medan in 1925 with Sir­dar Ba­hadur Singh as its first head­mas­ter. The medium of in­struc­tion was Eng­lish.”

To­day, Suma­tra has a pop­u­la­tion of around 5000 Sikhs al­though these fig­ures can­not be con­sid­ered fully au­then­tic as legally Sikhs are clubbed with Hin­dus and Sikhism is not con­sid­ered a sep­a­rate re­li­gion and Sikhs are not recog­nised as a dis­tinct peo­ple. Founded in June 1953, Gur­d­wara Sri Guru Ar­jan Dev Ji is the cen­tral Gu­rud­wara in Medan.  Start­ing with a small struc­ture, to­day the Gur­d­wara is huge enough to house the grow­ing In­done­sian Sikh com­mu­nity.  In June 2003, the Gur­d­wara cel­e­brated 50 years of its foun­da­tion. To­day there are 9 Gur­d­waras in Suma­tra in the cities and towns of Pe­matang Siantar, Palem­bang and sev­eral other cities around Medan.

Over a pe­riod of time, Sikhs from Suma­tra started mov­ing to greener pas­tures mostly to the In­done­sian cap­i­tal city of Batavia now known as Jakarta. In a very in­ter­est­ing en­try, one Mr Mc­Coy is said to have re­cruited 50 Sikhs for his sugar cane plan­ta­tions in Aus­tralia when he passed through this re­gion in 1836, stopped at Batavia and saw tall, well-built bearded and tur­baned hard-work­ing peo­ple work­ing at the Batavia har­bour. Many his­to­ri­ans be­lieve these Sikhs from Batavia were the first Sikh set­tlers in Aus­tralia.

By 1900, there were al­most 80 Sikh fam­i­lies in the Tand­jung area of Jakarta. The poor among them worked as se­cu­rity watch­men and those who had re­sources be­came money lenders. Many had horse-carts which they rented to lo­cal In­done­sians for use as taxis. Sikhs sports com­pa­nies such as Bir & Co; Na­har Sports and Hari Broth­ers came up to cater the needs of Dutch rulers who re­quired sports equip­ment. When these sports com­pa­nies started thriv­ing de­mand for labour in­creased, many more Sikh fam­i­lies from Suma­tra came to Batavia.

It is said that dur­ing the Japan­ese in­va­sion of In­done­sia, Sikhs pros­pered as they got con­tracts from the Japan­ese Navy and Army. Re­li­gious ac­tiv­i­ties along with the Sindhi com­mu­nity al­ready set­tled in Batavia also started. How­ever, at the end of Japan­ese rule, the com­mu­nity went through a lot of un­cer­tainty. In west Java the sol­diers who had de­serted the British In­dian Army al­legedly killed 25 In­di­ans in­clud­ing a few Sikhs. As a re­sult, most of the Sikhs moved into the safe Dutch en­clave of Pasar Baru in Jakarta and stayed there till the Dutch left In­done­sia and the prop­er­ties were taken over by In­di­ans, mostly Sikhs. This area came to be known as came to be known as “Lit­tle In­dia”. Even to­day, it is dom­i­nated by Pun­jabi and Sindhi com­mu­ni­ties.

The first Gur­d­wara in Jakarta came up at the main har­bour of Tan­jung Priok in north Jakarta be­cause a ma­jor­ity of the Sikh work­force was em­ployed there in 1925.  Pras­ant Singh, Par­tap Singh, Da­sun­der Singh and Ajura Singh founded the Tan­jung Priok Gu­rud­wara. Over the years it was felt that as it was in­con­ve­nient for peo­ple from cen­tral Jakarta to come to Tan­jung Priok every Sun­day, it was de­cided that a Gur­d­wara should be con­structed at Pasar Baru where a ma­jor­ity of the Sikhs lived. In 1954,  Pri­tam Singh, Karam Singh, Av­tar Singh, Shiv Singh, Ajit Singh, Tar­lok Singh, Par­tap Singh, Kul­want Singh along with many Sindhi busi­ness­men of Pasar Baru founded the Pasar Baru Gu­rud­wara which be­came the biggest Gur­d­wara in Jakarta.

Due to var­i­ous geo-po­lit­i­cal rea­sons, dur­ing the lat­ter part of Soekarno rule re­la­tions be­tween In­dia and In­done­sia were at its low­est ebb, forc­ing the Sikhs to keep a very low pro­file. Pri­tam Singh, Jakar­ta’s noted In­dian com­mu­nity leader, who took part in both the In­dian In­de­pen­dence League and also In­done­si­a’s strug­gle for in­de­pen­dence, pro­vided valu­able lead­er­ship to the en­tire In­dian com­mu­nity in In­done­sia li­ais­ing with the mil­i­tary and civil au­thor­i­ties con­stantly sort­ing out mis­un­der­stand­ings. Fi­nally, due to his un­re­lent­ing ef­forts, in 1965, all the ex­pa­tri­ate In­di­ans were given In­done­sian cit­i­zen­ship.

To­day Jakarta has a vi­brant Sikh com­mu­nity of more than 5000. Among the ma­jor Gur­d­waras in Jakarta are Yayasan Sikh Gur­d­wara Mis­sion, Pasar Baru, Sikh Tem­ple, An­tara Jakarta, Sikh Tem­ple, Tan­jung Priok and Gu­rud­wara Guru Nanak Tang­gerang Se­la­tan.

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Gu­rud­wara Guru Nanak was started from a rented build­ing at Jalan Jo­hari No:2, South Jakarta by three in­di­vid­u­als namely Hard­jan Singh Bhuller, Cha­ran­jit Singh Mesam­pur and Bal­want Singh Ra­hal. In 2001 it was moved to Jalan Mer­pati, Cipu­tat Tang­gerang Se­la­tan. Re­cently the ad­ja­cent 9000 me­ters va­cant land has an in­ter­na­tional school from Kinder­garten to Ju­nior High School and is a joint ven­ture with the Gur­d­wara Sahib, with the com­plex hav­ing space of 12,000 sq me­ters with ex­cel­lent sports fa­cil­i­ties.

PHOTO CREDIT: All pho­tos from Sikhs in World War II by Bhupin­der Singh Hol­land