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Tan Malaka’s family want to move hero’s body to W. Sumatra
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Limapuluh Koto deputy regent Ferizal Ridwan (second right) and West Sumatra customary figures from the Tan Malaka Institut pray at the grave of national hero Tan Malaka in Selopanggung village in Kediri, East Java, on Dec. 21. (Antara/Prasetia Fauzani)
N
ational hero Tan Malaka’s family has insisted on moving the hero’s body from Selopanggung village in Semen district, Kediri, East Java, to his birthplace in Limapuluh Koto, West Sumatra.
Hengky Novaron Arsil Datuk Tan Malaka, a representative from the family, said the family really wanted to move Tan, or Datuk Sutan Ibrahim, to “the proper place.”
“We from the family, the heirs, want to place the grave of our ancestor in the proper place, whatever it takes. We will continue trying,” he said during a discussion on Tan Malaka in Kediri on Wednesday as quoted by Antara news agency.
(Read also: Tomb of Tan Malaka, finally)
He said his intention to move Tan’s body had been through a long discussion with the whole family because Tan was not only a national hero but also a king ruling 140 “datuk”.
“This is not a political move but purely our good intention to continue Tan Malaka’s thinking, experience, ideas, mission and vision,” Hengky said.
He said the family was concerned with the condition of the grave, believed to be Tan’s, when it was dug up in 2009 after a long search by historian Harry Poeze. He said the family had now repaired the grave, putting by it a stone reading “Ibrahim Datuk Tan Malaka”.
Poeze believes Tan was murdered under the order of Lt. Soekotjo in 1949 in Selopanggung.
Hengky said the family had talked with the Limapuluh Koto regency administration, which welcomed the idea to move the grave to Limapuluh Koto.
The family’s plan is to move the grave in April next year and from January to February to hold a procession, akin to a pilgrimage, to visit the sites that Tan Malaka visited during his struggle for Independence.
Tan was named a national hero by President Sukarno in 1963. He was a communist who believed that communism and Islam were compatible. (evi)
