Oemar Said Tjokroaminoto

Oemar Said Tjokroaminoto (16 August 1882 – 17 December 1934), in modern spelling Umar Said Cokroaminoto and better known as H.O.S. Tjokroaminoto, was an Indonesian nationalist who co-founded Sarekat Islam and chaired it for most of his life, making it the first mass movement of the Dutch East Indies. No Urdu Wikipedia article exists for him; this account is written from the English, Indonesian and Arabic articles and the Wikidata item, noting that the Arabic article is a translation of the English one. ^{1 2 3 4}

He was born at Ponorogo, the second of twelve children of R.M. Tjokroaminoto, district chief of Kleco; his grandfather R.M.A. Tjokronegoro was regent of Ponorogo, and his great-grandfather Kyai Bagus Kasan Besari taught at the Tegalsari pesantren. Educated for the civil service, he graduated in 1902 from OSVIA at Magelang, the highest school for indigenous officials, and worked at Ngawi from 1902 to 1905. He then moved to Surabaya, attended the Burgerlijke Avond School at night, worked in a sugar refinery from 1907 to 1912, and wrote for the Bintang Soerabaja daily. ^{1 2}

In Surabaya he met Samanhudi, who had founded the Islamic Trade Union (Sarekat Dagang Islam) at Surakarta in late 1905; Tjokroaminoto drafted its regulations, notarised at Surabaya on 10 September 1906, and at his suggestion the word "trade" was dropped and the body became Sarekat Islam, with Samanhudi as chairman and Tjokroaminoto first as deputy and then as chairman. Membership rose to about two and a half million. In 1915 the Centraal Sarekat Islam was formed with him as chairman, and he and Abdoel Moeis entered the new Volksraad in 1918. The movement's Marxist-Leninist faction under Semaun broke away to form the Red Sarekat Islam and then the Communist Party. In 1921 he was arrested over an alleged assassination plot by a local branch at Cimareme, Garut, and released some nine months later, in August 1922, without trial. The organisation became the Partai Sarekat Islam in 1923 and the Indonesian Islamic Union Party (PSII) in 1929, and he remained its chairman or board member until his death; along the way he performed the Hajj with Mas Mansoer and promulgated the non-cooperative "hijra" policy toward the colonial government. ^{1 2 3}

The Dutch called him the "Crownless King of Java". From his Surabaya household he taught students who went on to lead the country and its movements: Sukarno, who married his daughter Siti Oetari as his first wife, and also Semaoen, Alimin, Musso, Kartosuwiryo and Tan Malaka. His best-known saying sets out the three needs of a freedom fighter: "Highest education, purest tawhid, smartest of strategies." His message to his disciples was: "If you want to be a great Leader, write like a journalist and talk like an orator." His school of Islam is not recorded in the sources: they attest his Hajj, his chairmanship of an Islamic organisation and his descent from a pesantren teacher, none of which names a school, and Wikidata gives Islam in general. ^{1 2 4}

After the twentieth PSII congress in May 1934 — the English article names Banjarmasin, the Indonesian article Banjarnegara — he fell ill, and he died at Yogyakarta on 17 December 1934. The Indonesian article records his burial in the Kuncen heroes' cemetery at Yogyakarta. His brother Abikusno Tjokrosujoso succeeded him at the head of the party. He was declared a National Hero of Indonesia. ^{1 2}

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