Java's Village Headmen under the Japanese Occupation

Field: Social Sciences (Social Sciences)

Interference by Dutch colonial authority in Java's village administration was indirect in comparison with that in higher levels of administration. Chiefs of the higher administrative units such as kabupaten, kewedanaan and kecamatan were appointed as local administrative officials called pangreh praja. On the other hand, a village headman was a man of renown in his village who was elected through an election for mere form's sake. And a newly-elected village headman often had a blood relationship to his predecessor. So naturally he was not a modern administrative official.Assuming he was a modern administrative official, he must have had the two essential qualifications, namely occupational skills and the occupational loyalty. But village headmen had neither occupational skills nor occupational loyalty, because he was not a modern administrative official.After the beginning of Japanese occupation, Java's society rapidly became involved in the wartime economy. And village headmen, whose title was changed to kucho, meaning the head of ku, were made to bear the responsibility for all of the demands that the Japanese authorities made of the villages. In short, a village headman was required to be the lowest-level administrative official.The Japanese demands seemed to have two aspects. On one hand, a kucho was required to be a capable official with occupational skills to handle new tasks. On the other hand, he was supposed to be a spokesman with occupational loyalty to the Japanese authorities. But in fact, the majority of kucho could not sufficiently adapt themselves to these new conditions. For example, most kuchos were illiterate. Furthermore, many kuchos were dismissed or arrested on suspicion of non-cooperation with Japan.In February 1944, a new ordinance on the election and dismissal of kucho called Kucho Senkyo Himen Rei was promulgated in order to save this situation, but this ordinance had a structural defect. According to this ordinance, every incumbent kucho was allowed a tenure of 4 years starting on the 1st of March 1944. Consequently, an election was not expected unless an incumbent kucho was dismissed, retired or died.At this point, a short training course for kuchos called Kucho Koshukai was prepared to save this immediate situation. But these short training courses were usually only for a few days. In such a short time period, it was impossible for a kucho to improve his occupational skills such as literacy. I think the main purpose of this Kucho Koshukai was to cultivate the occupational loyalty of kuchos to the Japanese authorities, the other essential qualification for modern administrative officials.I assumed that the main requirement of kuchos was to have occupational loyalty. Thus, a kucho was merely a spokesman for Japanese rule in his village, and it was in fact difficult for him to improve his occupational skills.I used Sinar Baroe, an Indonesian daily newspaper, as the main historiographical source for this research. Sinar Baroe was published in Semarang city between July 1942 and September 1945 with permission of the Japanese authorities.