The Djajadiningrat family was a high-ranking priyayi family in colonial Indonesia, whose members often served as Bupati or Regents (district heads) of Serang in Banten, Dutch East Indies. [1] [2] Noted for their western outlook and loyalty to the Dutch authorities during the colonial period, the family nonetheless fought on both sides of the Indonesian National Revolution (1945–1949). [3]
The family is of Baduy and Bantenese extraction. According to Nina Consuelo Epton, the family's oral history recounts that in the middle of the seventeenth century, their ancestor Astapati ('deadhand'), the one-handed renegade son of a Baduy chieftain, sought shelter at the court of the Sultan of Banten. [2] [4] He was subsequently admitted into the inner circle of the Sultan's court and was allowed to marry one of the Sultan's daughters, thereby becoming the progenitor of the Djajadiningrat family. [2]
Later marriages into the Javanese reigning dynasties further cemented the Djajadiningrat family's hold on power, as was shown by the career of R.T.A. Natadiningrat and his eldest son, R.T. Sutadiningrat, who both ruled in succession as Regents of Serang, in Banten. [5] After an alleged involvement in a peasant revolt, he latter was succeeded by his younger brother, the progressive Raden Toemenggong Bagoes Djajawinata. [5]
In the late nineteenth century, the family benefited from the patronage of the Dutch scholar and educator Snouck Hurgronje. [6] [7] [8] Hurgronje, who believed in coopting the Indonesian elite by giving their children a Dutch education, ensured the admission to the prestigious Koning Willem III School of the brothers Achmad (1877–1943) and Hoesein Djajadiningrat (1886–1960), sons of Raden Bagoes Djajawinata. [5] [8] [9] Achmad, the elder son, went on to succeed his father as Regent of Serang (1901–1924), then of Batavia (1924–1929), and served as a member of both the Volksraad (Indonesia's colonial quasi-parliament) and the Raad van Indië (Council of the Indies). Hoesein, the younger son, completed his doctoral studies at Leiden University in 1913, and became a distinguished scholar of Sundanese, Bantenese, Malay and Islamic studies. [10]
The family, like most other native Sundanese and Bantenese families, originally had no surname; the Dutch-educated Achmad Djajadiningrat adopted the surname 'Djajadiningrat' in the late nineteenth century. [11] Other prominent members of the family include Achmad Djajadiningrat's son, Idrus Nasir Djajadiningrat (1920–1980), and the latter's cousin Maria Ulfah Santoso (1911–1988), both of whom were important figures in the Indonesian Revolution. The media tycoons Pia Alisjahbana and Svida Alisjahbana are the daughter and granddaughter respectively of Hisnat Djajadiningrat, Achmad's daughter from his first wife. [12]
Raden Bagoes Djajawinata, Regent of Serang (1854–1899) with his wife Ratoe Salehah had nine children:
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