Sudirman - Early Life

Early Life

Sudirman was born to Karsid Kartawiraji (father) and Siyem while they lived with Siyem's sister Tarsem, one of three women married to the sub-district head Raden Cokrosunaryo, in Rembang, Bodas Karangjati, Purbalingga, Dutch East Indies. According to the family's records, Sudirman – named by his uncle – was born on a pon Sunday in the month of Maulud in the Javanese calendar; the Indonesian government later established 24 January 1916 as Sudirman's birthday. As Cokrosunaryo was in a better financial situation, he adopted Sudirman and gave him the title Raden, reserved for Javanese nobility; however, Sudirman was not told that Cokrosunaryo was not his birth father until he was eighteen. When Cokrosunaryo retired from his position as chief in late 1916, Sudirman went with the family to Manggisan, Cilacap, where he was raised. In Cilacap Karsid and Siyem had another son, Muhammad Samingan. Karsid died when Sudirman was six, at which time Siyem left the boys with her brother-in-law and went back to her village at Parakan Onje, Ajibarang.

Sudirman was raised with stories of heroic deeds and taught the etiquette and ways of the priyayi, or noble caste, as well as the work ethic and simplicity of the wong cilik, or commoners. For his religious education, he studied Islam under Kyai Hajji Qahar with his brother; Sudirman was a religious child, and always prayed on time. He was soon entrusted with performing both the adhan and iqama, or calls to prayer. When he was seven years old, Sudirman was enrolled at a school for natives (hollandsch inlandsche school), where he was an average student. The family, although it had enough to live by, was not rich. During his tenure as sub-district head, Cokrosunaryo had not accumulated much wealth, and in Cilacap he became a distributor of Singer sewing machines.

In his fifth year of school, Sudirman asked to leave his studies, concerned with the ridicule he faced at the government-run school; this request was at first refused, but Sudirman was transferred to a junior high school run by Taman Siswa in his seventh year of school. In his eighth year, Sudirman transferred to Wirotomo Junior High School after the Taman Siswa School was found to be unregistered and closed under the Wild School Ordinance. Many of Sudirman's teachers at Wirotomo were Indonesian nationalists, which influenced his views of the Dutch colonists. Sudirman studied diligently at school; his teacher Suwarjo Tirtosupono later recalled that Sudirman would already be studying second-term lessons while the class was still in term one. Although he performed poorly in Javanese calligraphy, Sudirman was strong in mathematics, science, and writing in both Dutch and Indonesian. Sudirman also became more religious under the guidance of his teacher Raden Mohamad Kholil; his classmates named him "hajji" because of his devotion to his prayers, and Sudirman took up preaching to other students. Aside from his studies and religious activities, Sudirman also served in the school's musical troupe and on the football team, on which he was a defender. Although Cokrosunaryo's death in 1934 left the family poor, Sudirman was allowed to continue his studies without paying until he graduated later that year; after his step-father's death, Sudirman also devoted more time to studying the Sunnah and prayer. By age 19, Sudirman had become a pupil teacher at Wirotomo.

While at Wirotomo Sudirman was a member of the Wirotomo Student Union, drama club, and band. He helped establish a branch of the Hizboel Wathan, an organisation similar to the Boy Scouts, which was run by the Islamic establishment Muhammadiyah. Sudirman became the leader of the Cilacap division after graduating from Wirotomo; he was tasked with deciding and planning his groups' activities. He emphasised the need for religious studies, insisting that the contingents from Cilacap attend Muhammadiyah conferences throughout Java. He taught the younger members about the history of Islam and the importance of morality, while with older members he enforced near-military discipline.