TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - No matter how controversial Muhammad Yamin may have been, there is no denying the vital role he played in the rich modern history of Indonesia. When hundreds of youths at the 1926 congress debated on the issue of a national language, 23-year-old Yamin proposed that it be Malay, not Javanese or other local language, as a unifying language. Two years later, at the 2nd Youth Congress, it was Yamin who drafted the words of the now famous Youth Pledge.

His concept of how the Indonesian republic should take form was inspired by the romanticism of ancient kingdoms he avidly read about. He pored over the histories of the Sriwijaya and Majapahit kingdoms and concluded that the two states yes, he referred to them as 'states' and not kingdoms became big and powerful because they had a leader who united the people, supported by a strong central government. At the sessions held by the Indonesian Independence Preparatory Work Investigative Board (BPUPKI), Yamin would stress that Indonesia should be a union. He rejected the federal state, as proposed, among others, by Mohammad Hatta.

Yamin's awe of past eras together with his fear of the country's disintegration led him to be excessive on what territories Indonesia should cover. He proposed that Indonesia include the Malay Peninsula, Portuguese Timor and Irian (today's Papua). But he upset his contemporaries most when he proposed that the image of the nation's unifier be that of Gajah Mada, prime minister of the long ago kingdom of Majapahit. To this day, no historian has ever figured out what the real face of Gajah Mada is like.

Yet the biggest controversy surrounding Yamin may be his book Naskah Persiapan Undang-Undang Dasar 1945 (A Draft of the 1945 Constitution) which was published in 1959. In the book, he claims to have made a speech on May 29, 1945, on the draft of the Constitution whose contents were indeed similar to the actual 1945 Constitution. Records show that Bung Hatta was furious at this 'duplicity'.

Regrettably, the New Order took advantage of Yamin's one-sided claim when it sought to undermine Sukarno's role in the nation's history. Not long after Sukarno's Old Order was ousted, Suharto affirmed that Yamin was indeed the man who drafted the 1945 Constitution. This New Order claim is recorded in the book Proses Perumusan Pancasila Dasar Negara (The Drafting of Pancasila as the State's Basic Principles), authored by Nugroho Notosusanto, historian and member of the military who is suspected of having a hand in 'obfuscating' Indonesia's history.

Yamin's and Sukarno's concept of a unitary state, no matter how urgent it was during that period, faced what Hatta feared all along: rebellion from the regions. In supporting Sukarno on the need for a central government, Yamin encouraged the deployment of the military to West Sumatra to put down the rebellion of the Indonesian Revolutionary Republic Government (PRRI/Permesta) in that region. Yamin would later be hated by the people of his birthplace.

Nevertheless, Yamin was not the 'conniver' that Hatta described him to his fellow Sumatrans. Yamin, for example, initiated the idea of a legal institution to correct or amend laws created merely for specific political interests. In this post-reform period, the 1945 Constitution was amended for the third time to enable the establishment of the Constitutional Court, to implement Yamin's visionary idea. Admittedly, in many ways, Yamin was way ahead of his time.

The fanaticism of a unitary state as conceived of by Yamin and Sukarno cannot fully be modeled for today's needs. Unity often equated with the 'fearsome' acronym NKRI is the tie that binds the nation, but it must also be harmonized with the need to respect each region's uniqueness and special character. Hatta once played on the word persatuan (unity) with 'persatean' (relating to sate the food) as a form of black humor to show his concern over the threatening control under one person Sukarno.

Yamin's dream of Indonesia's glory based on past history cannot be swallowed just like that. Indonesia's sovereignty today stands side by side with that of other nations. The opinion of how big Indonesia should be must be balanced with a sense of humility and a respect for different nations. Today, Indonesia is a member of the world community whose greatness is not determined by victories of the past, but by its commitment towards brotherhood, pluralism and a respect for differences.

Yamin was indeed a controversial leader, but therein lies his uniqueness. He is a small part of the story of how Indonesia was born and built. Together with Sukarno, Hatta, Sjahrir, Tan Malaka, Natsir, D.N. Aidit just to mention a few Yamin proved that Indonesia's history is not a straightforward thing. Indonesia today was built 1 centimeter at a time, on the foundations of challenges and struggle. There is idealism in that. Perhaps, even pragmatism. That is why we need not be cavalier about looking at the past. Like the present, it had its flaws. (*)

Read the full story in this week's edition of Tempo English Magazine