Foreword

Abstract

In historical terms the office of Minister for Development Cooperation is a relatively new one. Nevertheless, my predecessors, Mrs Schoo and Mr De Koning, seem to have started a tradition. Now, for the third time in succession, a Netherlands Minister for Development Cooperation has been invited to write the foreword to a collection of studies on the colonial history of India and Indonesia by Indonesian, Indian, British and Dutch scholars. Although as a general rule we should follow a critical approach to traditions, there is evidently much to be said for this one. During the past twenty years development cooperation relationships with Third World countries have evolved and matured. Those with India and Indonesia are of a special kind, lor they cover a wide range of activities and are securely based on mutual respect and understanding. Placing events in a historical perspective should enhance this understanding. The colonial histories of India and Indonesia display both differences and similarities which in part reflect the policies of the respective colonial powers, and in part the indigenous institutional structures. In both countries colonial administrations were preceded by merchants and traders: those of the East India Company in India, and of the Dutch East India Company in Indonesia. A comparative study of the heyday of colonialism in India and Indonesia should therefore prove to be enlightening. As in the former volumes, the articles published here are by scholars from each of the countries which played a part in the events in those regions at the time. This will facilitate a frank and critical assessment of a period constituting an important part of the history of the countries concerned. A better understanding of this period is not only important in historical terms, for there is also much to be learned from the past. If the principal aim of development cooperation today is to assist Third World countries in their efforts to combat poverty and deprivation and to strenghten their independence, we need to understand the causes of these problems. Historical studies can help to shed light on the institutional context and thus help us to avoid