RAFFLES – another side

…and the walls came tumbling down. That is the last line of the gospel song Joshua Won the Battle of Jericho. Remember, after circling the walled city of Jericho once each day for six days, and seven times on the seventh day, the wall came tumbling down.

I couldn't get those lines, and the bit of melody I remember, out of my head after attending the book launch of Tim Hannigan's Raffles and the British Invasion of Java.

Only recently had I written an article for the Jakarta Expat expressing approval and admiration for Thomas Stamford Raffles, the Lieutenant-Governor of Java, the visionary and enlightened administrator. Raffles the one who, during the British Interregnum, ended slavery and freed the indigenous people from the oppressive yoke that had been imposed by the Dutch. Raffles who had been told of the existence of a huge monument deep inside Central Java and who sent a survey team that brought back the first account and sketches of Borobudur. And of course thanks to Raffles we have his famous work, The History of Java.

And now the pedestal is crumbling and the hero has been reduced to a rather nasty man blinded by his insatiable ambitions. He also stands accused of inciting the massacre of the Dutch settlement in Palembang, the destruction and looting of the kraton (palace) in Yogyakarta, profiting from questionable proceedings of the sale of government land in Cianjur, and the introduction of land reform that, contrary to his grandiose plans and proclamations, did not result in higher government revenues, while it moreover reduced the farmers of East Java, where the scheme was tested, to penury. Such a shock…

What I find so astonishing is that in spite of many written complaints by compatriots and colleagues about his actions and behaviour, for instance from Colonel Rollo Gillespie, the military commander during the first years of the Interregnum, and a real certified hero at that, his image remains that of the visionary torch-bearer of a new class of colonial rulers, and the founder of Singapore.

On his return from the East the Directors of the East India Company did, however, decide that he would not get his pension of £500, and would also have to reimburse the Company the £22,000 (more than £1 million in current terms) received as salary while not on his post, and other unsanctioned commissions. It was their way of telling him that his actions had not really carried their approval.

Upon his death it was his second wife, Sophia, who set out to restore his reputation. Her Memoir and the Life and Services of Sir Thomas Stanford Raffles was published in 1830 and was based on her husband's letters and the replies he had received… heavily edited, that is, leaving out, erasing and eliminating any and all criticisms or doubts about the righteousness of Raffles' actions.

Tim Hannigan's book is the first to highlight the other side of the Raffles myth. It's a good read and I highly recommend it. Soon available in Europe and the US.