PEMUDA SOSIALIS INDONESIA (Pesindo, Indonesian Socialist Youth).

Armed youth wing of the ruling Partai Sosialis (PS), founded in Novem- ber 1945. Pesindo fought the Dutch and also provided quasi-military back- ing to the government when its policies aroused the hostility of the army and other sections of society. It became increasingly trusted and favored under Amir Sjarifuddin, who made it the core of the so-called TNI Masyarakat (People’s Indonesian National Army), created to balance the power of the more conservative conventional army. In 1948 it joined the left-wing Front Demokrasi Rakyat (FDR) and was heavily involved in fighting during the Madiun Affair. In 1950 it became firmly affiliated with the Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI) and changed its name to Pemuda Rakyat. [0661, 0674]

PENDIDIKAN NASIONAL INDONESIA (PNI, Indonesian National Education; also called PNI-Baru, New PNI). A nationalist party founded by Mohammad Hatta and Sutan Sjahrir in December 1931. Both were concerned by the relative ease with which the Dutch had been able to de- stroy the first Partai Nasional Indonesia (PNI) by arresting its leadership, and they proposed instead to build a strong, less obtrusive party of nationalist caders that would have the strength to resist Dutch repression.

PERDIKAN VILLAGES • 337 They were given, however, relatively little time to put these ideas into

practice since both were arrested and exiled in February 1934 to Boven Digul and then to Banda. [0613, 0661, 0865, 0875, 0915]

PENGHULU. The title of a Minangkabau clan head, but also used in colonial times for religious officials in state employment. See RELI- GION AND POLITICS. [0648]

PEPPER (Piper nigrum Piperaceae). Properly not the fleshy hollow fruit of various Capsicum species (chili peppers) but the small hard berries of

a woody vine. Whereas the sirih, P. betle, leaves of which are used in the chewing of betel, is probably native to the archipelago, true pepper was introduced from India, probably as early as 100 B.C. Commercial production was well established on Sumatra, Kalimantan, and Java by the 14th century. Pedir and Pasai in northern Sumatra were the earliest states to depend heavily on the pepper trade, followed in the 16th century by Aceh and Banten. Indiscriminate clearing of forest for pepper production in this era created large areas of alang-alang in Sumatra and Kalimantan. At the end of the 16th century, Banten produced 25,000 bags of pepper a year and all male inhabitants were obliged to maintain 500 pepper plants and to deliver the produce to the sultan at a fixed price. Pepper was traded especially to the West, becoming a major target of Portuguese and, from the late 16th century, Dutch commercial expan- sion in the archipelago. The Dutch East Indies Company (VOC) at- tempted to enforce monopoly contracts in pepper ports as they had done in Maluku with cloves and nutmeg but were relatively unsuccessful due to the wide distribution of the plant and the relative ease with which it can be cultivated. From the18th century, China’s market for pepper grew while Europe’s declined. Production on Java had largely ceased by the end of the 18th century. Although pepper production in North Sumatra increased in the 19th century and Chinese immigrants became important growers, the center of the trade shifted to Penang and Singapore. [0331]

PERANAKAN (“native born”). Term applied to those of non-Indonesian ethnic origin born in Indonesia, and generally implying some degree of cultural adaptation to local conditions. See CHINESE IN INDONESIA.

PERDIKAN VILLAGES. The traditional rulers of Java occasionally freed a village of the obligation to pay land tax or provide corvée labor, either as a reward for service or in exchange for the village’s acceptance

338 • PERGERAKAN of the obligation to carry out some task, such as the maintenance of a

school or holy place. Such villages, called perdikan desa, were found most commonly on Madura and in Central Java and were preserved under Dutch rule. They were commonly major centers of handicrafts, including batik. The tax exemption of perdikan villages was abolished by the Indonesian Republic in 1946.

PERGERAKAN. See NATIONALISM. PERHIMPUNAN INDONESIA (PI, Indonesian Association). Organiza-

tion of Indonesian students in the Netherlands founded in 1922, based on the Indische Vereeniging (Indies Association), founded in 1908. The PI was small, with only 38 members at it peak, but its members included such later national leaders as Mohammad Hatta, Sutan Sjahrir, Ali Sastroamijoyo, and Sukiman Wiryosanjoyo. Its major aim was to pre- pare Indonesian students to provide political leadership on their return, but it also sought to inform the Dutch public on conditions in the colony. Its ideology was strongly influenced by Marxism and especially by Lenin’s theory of imperialism, but many of its members, including Hatta, despaired of communism after the Comintern decision in 1927 to aban- don cooperation with noncommunist nationalists, and the organization gradually split between a Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI) wing led by Rustam Effendi and the radical nationalists led by Hatta and Sjahrir, who were finally expelled in 1931.

PERIODIZATION OF INDONESIAN HISTORY. The conventional historiography of Indonesia commonly divides the country’s history into three broad periods, precolonial, colonial, and independent, normally subdivided as follows: traditional societies, Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms, the arrival of Islam and the emergence of Muslim sultanates, European commercial penetration and company rule, British interregnum, Culti- vation System, Liberal Policy, Ethical Policy, the rise of nationalism,

Japanese occupation, Revolution, parliamentary democracy, Guided

Democracy, New Order, and now the post-Suharto or reformasi era. This sequence can be criticized on a number of grounds. First, the earlier of these periods are visible clearly only on Java, though it is possible to apply them to other regions by, for instance, omitting the Muslim period, setting the date of colonial penetration later, and so forth. More important, as a system of periodization based on government policy and organization, it ignores deeper structures, patterns, and continuities. J. C.

PERSATUAN ISLAM • 339 van Leur and John Smail, in particular, have criticized it for the promi-

nence it gives to the European role in Indonesian history and have argued for an “autonomous” (Smail’s term) approach concentrating on the ex- periences of Indonesians rather than of their European rulers. Indonesian historians have often used the notion of successive generations in peri- odizing. [0502, 0504, 0505, 0521]

PEMUDA SOSIALIS INDONESIA (Pesindo, Indonesian Socialist Youth).