It was Oct 28, 1928. Night fell on the capital of the Dutch Indies. Lamps were lit along the busy Kramat Street when on the scene in the hall of the building 10 B, where the Second Youth Congress was finishing its work, one of its participants came with a violin in his hands.
The audience, which had become silent, listened to the lyrics of the then-unknown song, Great Indonesia.
The lines of the future Indonesian anthem were filled with the ideas of the progress and prosperity of the sacred land of their ancestors, the duty of its sons and daughters to fight for the freedom of their homeland.
The hall then burst into applause. Those present rose from their seats, forcing the already terminally ill poet and composer, Supratman, to repeat the performance. It seemed like a miracle had happened.
Only an hour ago, they — Javanese, Minangkabau, Sundanese, Malays, Bataks, Makassars, Balinese and representatives of other nationalities of the colony — formulated and adopted the "Oath of Youth" on the unity of the country, nation and a national language.
Now, its spirit was embodied in a song, conceived and created before the resolution was drafted!
After all, it was the unity of the motherland and the nation that Supratman sang. True, the third slogan of the Oath of the national language was not mentioned in the text. But, the hymn itself was written in it.
It was basically the same Bahasa Melayu that since immemorial time has spread as a language of trade and inter-ethnic communication throughout the Malay Archipelago and, more broadly, throughout coastal Southeast Asia.
In writing, ancient Malay was first recorded in the Indian Palava script in 7th-10th century in the epigraphy of the Sumatran empire of Srivijaya. Starting from the 14th century, Bahasa Melayu, already fixed in Arabic script, was used by Persian and Arabic preachers to introduce the teachings of Prophet Muhammad.
Europeans, who penetrated the archipelago in the era of great geographical discoveries and settled here for a long time also used Malay. The first person who fixed Malay lexicographically was Antonio Pigafetta, who accompanied Magellan during his circumnavigation in the 16th century.
Bahasa Melayu, which was understood in the region, was used by the Dutch East India Company and the colonial administration that succeeded it.
Since the middle of the 19th century when the population of the colony was drawn into the orbit of modern development, newspapers and literary works began to be published in Bahasa Melayu.
The Youth Congress' proposal to make Malay the national language under the name of Indonesia was primarily a political act, and not an attempt by a group of intellectuals to model a new, hitherto non-existent means of communication.
No matter what changes the Indonesian language has undergone in its development, there is no doubt that the basis for its establishment in the country was precisely Bahasa Melayu which played, according to members of the liberation movement, a revolutionising role.
The Indonesians consider Bahasa Melayu their most valuable acquisition, which soon after gaining independence made it possible to exclude the language of the former colonialists from all spheres, including higher education and science.
There are 280 million Bahasa Melayu speakers in Indonesia. This has lent strength to the joint efforts of Malaysia and Indonesia to make it as the second official language of Asean.
The writer, writing from Russia, is a former lecturer of Universiti Malaya
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times