Nyai

Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Bumi Manusia well known as an underground distributed work of art. Amidst the new order era, one who caught read the novel would be incarcerated for a political reason. The first tittle of this Buru Trilogy depicts how native people became the objection of collonial repression through the couple of a lover.

It tells the romantic story of Minke and Annelies Mellema. Minke was a “pure blooded” man who has a privilege to study in medical school of HBS. Not all pribumi has a chance to get an education. Only Dutch collonial descendants and local government’s family can savour such speciality.

On the other side of this story, Annelies Mellema gave us a description of ambiguity. She was a “half blooded” woman whom her dad was a dutch. Meanwhile, her mother was a nyai named Sanikem or Nyai Ontosoroh.

Nyai was a local lady whom known for their position as a netherlander’s “illegal wife”. Collonial law said so. So much so that when Ontosoroh’s husband died, Annelies cannot be considered as her “legal” daughter. The court stated that Annelies belongs to Mr. Mellema’s wife in Netherland. And she has to be taken to Europe, disregarding her status as Minke’s wife.

This saga was also shown how racism works in the age of pre-Indonesia’s independence. The pribumis were mentioned to be as equal as dogs. They were forbidden to enter a “white restaurants” and ought to speak Malay rather than dutch language. Bumi Manusia was a story of how native “Indonesian” became slaves in theirown homeland.

Recently I watched this novel-adapted movie, entitled Earth of a Mankind. When this film being displayed in cinema, some critics appointed to their disagreement of how this novel transformed into moving pictures. Some said, the appearance of name “Tirto Adhi Suryo” betrayed its original story. Even Minke was actually a fictional character inspired by Tirto, Pram has never stated that name on the novel.

For me, it was trivial—not so important. The point of what Pram want to say, is that injustice was ironically came from the law enforcement. And a discrimnatory kind of law, came since it arise from the injustice mindset. []