Mandailing Identity

Classified as Bataks in Indonesia and as Malays in Malaysia, the Mandailings are however a distinct ethnic and cultural group from the Bataks and the Malays.

In 19th century Malaya, the Mandailings were called "foreign Malays" by British administrators. In the 19th century Dutch Indies, the Mandailings were labeled as "Batak-Mandailing". Colonial administrator-scholars used these categories in their pseudo-scientific ethnological writings, and attempted to manipulate ethnic categories for their own political agenda. Colonial census perpetuated these categories for "administrative convenience" and denied Mandailings a choice of their distinct identity.

Until today, the Mandailings have been misrepresented in official publications and academic journals alike, inspite of their enormous contributions to society, literature and politics both in Indonesia and Malaysia. Any study of the Mandailings as an appendix of the Bataks or Malays can only be superficial to say the very least. In this way, the Mandailings have been academically marginalised.

Subsequently, in the name of Malay nationalism (kebangsaan Melayu), a movement forged through the print media and reinforced by national education, the Mandailings in Malaysia have all but lost their cultural and ethnic identity. This is precisely what Mangaradja Ihoetan had warned later generations Mandailing not to do, that is, "carelessly forsaking nationhood and obliterating it by entering into the fold of another ethnic group that does not elevate their status."

In British Malaya, the Malayan-born Mandailings were assimilated into mainstream Malay society through a process of Melayu-ization without any opposition.

In constrast, the Mandailings in Indonesia, in particular the Mandailing who had moved to the East Coast of Sumatra and settled there, found a way out of this identity crisis with the outbreak of the Social Revolution in the 1940s. The Social Revolution in East Sumatra was revolt against the Malay rajas and aristocracy that broke out after the Japanese Occupation.

The Mandailings took this opportunity to reassert and revert to their original cultural and ethnic identity. Arif Lubis, the editor of Soeloeh Merdeka and Mimbar Umum during the Social Revolution pointed out that those who have "masuk Melayu" can also "keluar Melayu".

In Indonesia today, the Mandailings are often grouped together with the Angkola, as "Angkola-Mandailing". Since the Angkolas largely identify themselves as Bataks, this coupling only reinforces the notion that the Mandailing fall under the Batak label. Statist agendas to classify or "unify" people under a racial stock or "rumpun" such as "rumpun Melayu" or the Batak grouping only serve to reduce human diversity and the possibilities of self-determination.