Campus on Fire: Indonesian Universities During the Political Turmoil of 1950s-1960s

Abstract

The 1965 Coup has deeply affected Indonesian state practice and society. In the rich body of literature that has been produced to understand the political crisis preceding the 1965 Coup —the persecution of millions of alleged communists and state discrimination against survivors and their families— higher education forms a rather under-researched sector. This study contributes to the debate on the immediate and long-term effects the 1965 event has had on Indonesian academia. It presents the situation preceding the crisis and proposes an exploratory study of what happened to public universities in several important cities in Indonesia during the political turmoil of 1965-66. Based on archival sources and interviews, the paper analyses how the anti-communist campaigns launched by Suharto’s regime in this sector has affected campuses and changed fundamentally the academic life and landscape of Indonesian public universities.