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Pre-Independence Domestic policy Foreign policy Media and legacy | ||
The Grave of Sukarno (or Bung Karno's Grave), Indonesia's first president, is located in Blitar, East Java. Initially an ordinary grave where he was buried shortly after his death, a mausoleum was constructed in the late 1970s and the site evolved into a political and religious pilgrimage site, receiving hundreds of thousands of visitors annually.
During the transition to the New Order, deposed first president of Indonesia Sukarno was placed under house arrest, and he requested that he be buried in a simple grave close to the Bogor Palace. [1] Following Sukarno's death on 21 June 1970, then-incumbent Suharto decided to bury the former president in a public cemetery at Blitar, [lower-alpha 1] East Java, next to Sukarno's mother's grave. [3] [4] Sukarno's family protested his burial in Blitar, [5] and the anti-Suharto newspaper Merdeka published an editorial stating that Sukarno had wished to be buried near Bandung. [6] In his later autobiography, Suharto claimed that Sukarno's large family had differing views on the burial site, and argued that Sukarno had been very close to his mother during her life. [3] A historian later claimed that Suharto's decision to bury Sukarno in Blitar was to avoid pilgrimages to Sukarno's grave too close to the political center of power in Jakarta. [7]
In the first years after Sukarno's burial, pilgrims would visit his grave and often took some of the soil, at some point causing concern that all the soil on his grave would be gone and forcing the government to regulate access to his grave. [4] By around 1977, dissatisfaction with Suharto's rule resulted in the loosening of the De-Sukarnoization policy and a rehabilitation of Sukarno's legacy, including his grave, and the following year the government decided to construct a mausoleum over the grave. [4] [6] In 1979, on the ninth anniversary of Sukarno's death, Suharto dedicated the new mausoleum, in a ceremony attended by approximately one million people. Again, members of Sukarno's family criticized the decision to build the mausoleum, with Sukarno's son Guntur saying that Sukarno's family was not involved in the mausoleum's construction. [6] Regardless, high-ranking officials of Suharto's government would make publicized pilgrimages to the tomb, and in 1980 1.4 million people visited the site. [8]
Each year, on the anniversary of Sukarno's death, his family (in particular his daughter Megawati Sukarnoputri, chairman of the Indonesian Democratic Party) would utilize the crowds visiting the mausoleum as a representation of dissent against Suharto's government in the national media. In 1995, there were around 10,000 visitors to the annual commemoration. [4] There were initially fences surrounding the grave preventing it from becoming a pilgrimage site and keeping the grave itself sterile of visitors, but after the fall of Suharto, Megawati became president in 2001, and the site began attracting a large number of pilgrims from across Indonesia. [4] [9] In June 2001, it was estimated that 25,000 people visited the grave daily. [4]
While it was not feasible during Suharto's era, after Suharto's fall Blitar's city administration under Djarot Saiful Hidayat chose to utilize the grave in order to improve the city's allure as a tourist destination, and many statues of Sukarno were built across the city while old sites associated with Sukarno were restored. [10]
Sukarno's grave presently is a common site for political pilgrimages - many politicians visit the grave prior to announcing their runs for office, including Joko Widodo, Prabowo Subianto and Megawati Sukarnoputri prior to their presidential campaigns in 2014, 2019 and 2004, respectively. [1] [11] [9] It was estimated in 2015 that the number of "political pilgrims" to Sukarno's grave numbered between 400 and 500 thousand every year. [7]
The second type of visitors to the grave are spiritual pilgrims, primarily Muslims. Although veneration of the dead is often considered blasphemy within Islam, there is strong Javanese tradition of visiting "holy men" graves (such as the Wali Sanga), and tens of thousands of Javanese Muslims visit Sukarno's grave each year in order to obtain his spiritual blessing. [1] It is also a popular tourism destination. [12] There is also an annual tradition for the Commander of the Indonesian National Armed Forces to visit the grave annually on each 18 September, the anniversary date for the TNI. [13]
As of 2019, Blitar's tourism agency recorded around 1,500 visits to the grave on average each day, reaching up to 5,000 daily visitors on school holidays. The site has been a significant driver for the local economy due to the number of tourists it generates. [10] Since 2017, the municipal government has been charging Rp 3,000 (~US$0.2) in entry fees per visitor, their vehicles excluded. [14]
The entire burial complex is located on 1.8 hectares of land [15] and is divided into three areas: the courtyard, terrace and the mausoleum, symbolizing Javanese beliefs in stages of life (prenatal, life and death). Sukarno's grave itself is located next to his parents', and a black epitaph [lower-alpha 2] commemorating his career is placed behind his gravestone. The complex also has a library and a museum which were built in 2004, [15] in addition to statues and reliefs depicting Sukarno's life. [9] The mausoleum itself was 51 feet (16 m) tall, and had a three-tiered copper roof of Javanese design. [6] At the time of its construction, the mausoleum had cost US$395,000 to build. [6]
Sukarno was an Indonesian statesman, orator, revolutionary, and nationalist who was the first president of Indonesia, serving from 1945 to 1967.
A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A mausoleum without the person's remains is called a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be considered a type of tomb, or the tomb may be considered to be within the mausoleum.
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Imogiri is a royal graveyard complex in the Special Region of Yogyakarta, in south-central Java, Indonesia, as well as a subdistrict under the administration of Bantul Regency. Imogiri is a traditional resting place for the royalty of central Java, including many rulers of the Sultanate of Mataram and the current houses of Surakarta and Yogyakarta Sultanate. The name is Imagiri is derived from the Sanskrit Himagiri, which means 'mountain of snow'. The latter is another name for Himalaya.
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Javanese sacred places are locations on the Island of Java, Indonesia that have significance from either village level through to national level as sacred, and in most cases deserve visitation—usually within the context of ziarah regardless of the ethnicity or religion of the visitor. The dominant form for many places is a sacred grave, or a place associated with persons considered to have special attributes in the past—like Wali Sanga or Royalty.
The Order of Eleventh March, commonly referred to by its syllabic abbreviation Supersemar, was a document signed by the Indonesian President Sukarno on 11 March 1966, giving army commander Lt. Gen. Suharto authority to take whatever measures he "deemed necessary" to restore order to the chaotic situation during the Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66. The abbreviation "Supersemar" is also a play on the name of Semar, the mystic and powerful figure who commonly appears in Javanese mythology including wayang puppet shows. The invocation of Semar was presumably intended to help draw on Javanese mythology to lend support to Suharto's legitimacy during the period of the transition of authority from Sukarno to Suharto.
Blitar is a landlocked city in East Java, Indonesia, about 73 km from Malang and 167 km from Surabaya. The area lies within longitude 111° 40' – 112° 09' East and its latitude is 8° 06' South. The city of Blitar lies at an altitude on average 167 metres above sea level, and is an enclave within Blitar Regency which surrounds the city on all sides. It covers an area of 32.57 km2, and had a population of 131,968 at the 2010 Census and 149,149 at the 2020 Census; the official estimate as at mid 2023 was 159,781.
Sutomo, also known as Bung Tomo, was an Indonesian freedom fighter, and is best known for his role as an Indonesian military leader during the Indonesian National Revolution against the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. He played a central role in Battle of Surabaya when the British attacked the city in October and November 1945.
Ratna Sari Dewi Sukarno, widely known in Japan as Dewi Fujin is a Japanese-born Indonesian businesswoman, socialite, television personality and philanthropist. She was one of the wives of the first President of Indonesia, Sukarno.
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Fatmawati was a National Hero of Indonesia. As the inaugural First Lady of Indonesia, she was the third wife of the first president of Indonesia, Sukarno, and the mother of Indonesia's first female president, Megawati Sukarnoputri. She constructed the first flag flown by Indonesia.
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Sidarto Danusubroto is an Indonesian politician and a retired police officer, who is serving as a member of Indonesia's Presidential Advisory Board. A member of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, he previously served as speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly, from 2013 until 2014, following the death of Taufiq Kiemas.
Diah Permana Rachmawati Sukarnoputri was an Indonesian politician. Her father was Indonesia's founding president Sukarno and her elder sister is Megawati Sukarnoputri, who was Indonesia's fifth president.
De-Sukarnoization, also spelled de-Soekarnoization, was a purging policy that existed in Indonesia from the transition to the New Order in 1966 up to the beginning of the Reformation era in 1998, in which President Suharto intended to defame his predecessor Sukarno as well as lessen his presence and downplay his role in Indonesian history.
Diah Mutiara Sukmawati Sukarnoputri is the third daughter of Indonesia’s founding president Sukarno and his wife Fatmawati. Sukmawati is the younger sister of former Indonesian president Megawati Sukarnoputri and politician Rachmawati Sukarnoputri.
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