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View all search resultsPrabowo’s textbook overhaul plan fuels revisionism fears
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President Prabowo Subianto visits the Bahri Sons bookstore on Jan. 25, 2024, in New Delhi, India. (The Jakarta Post/Handout)
P
resident Prabowo Subianto’s plan to overhaul school textbooks has raised concerns that the government could use the revisions to further its controversial project to reshape Indonesia’s history, which critics have accused of downplaying human rights violations committed during the New Order era.
The concerns followed Prabowo’s recent order to review textbooks used from elementary through senior high school, with the Presidential Palace saying the government would refine their content, particularly materials related to “nationalism and nationhood”, according to an official statement.
Cabinet Secretary Teddy Indra Wijaya said the overhaul would also cover the book’s physical design, including replacing materials that are “easily damaged” and improving text that is currently printed in “very small” type. The government has formed an interministerial team to oversee the textbook revision project.
The plan comes as the government prepares to release a separate, government-backed national history book covering the period from prehistory to the early years of Prabowo’s administration. The project, spearheaded by the Culture Ministry, was drafted by more than 100 historians throughout 2025.
The history project has drawn criticism from academics and rights activists, who accuse the government of seeking to establish an “official history” while glossing over darker chapters of the country’s past, particularly the New Order under late president Soeharto, Prabowo’s former father-in-law.
Read also: Secrecy shrouds government’s history book launch
Critics have pointed to a draft of the history book that omitted references to reported mass rapes during the May 1998 riots that preceded Soeharto’s resignation. Culture Minister Fadli Zon later dismissed the reports as “rumors” and said the book was intended to highlight the achievements of past presidents.
