Get the PhD. That was the only instruction.
In the years following Indonesian independence, a university dean named Sumitro Djojohadikusumo recognized that sovereignty without intellectual self-sufficiency was incomplete — and so he sent five young economists to Berkeley, funded by the Ford Foundation, to become the minds a new nation would eventually need. Those students, including Emil Salim and Widjojo Nitisastro, returned not merely as academics but as architects of Indonesia's economic governance during the New Order era. It is a reminder that the deepest transformations in a nation's life are often seeded quietly, in classrooms and decisions that only reveal their full weight across decades.
- A newly independent Indonesia still ran its universities on colonial infrastructure — Dutch professors teaching Indonesian students in a sovereign state that had not yet fully claimed its own institutions.
- Sumitro Djojohadikusumo saw the contradiction clearly and moved with urgency, designing the Economic Urgency Plan to dismantle that dependency from within the Faculty of Economics at UI.
- With Ford Foundation backing, he dispatched roughly 20 students and lecturers to the United States — Berkeley above all — demanding not prestige but a single outcome: the PhD.
- The five students he chose — Emil Salim, Widjojo Nitisastro, Mohammad Sadli, J.B. Sumarlin, and Ali Wardhana — came from modest backgrounds, making the opportunity both improbable and transformative.
- When the New Order rose to power, those Berkeley-trained economists were ready, moving from lecture halls into the highest corridors of economic policymaking and reshaping Indonesia's development trajectory for a generation.
In the 1950s, as Indonesia was still learning what independence meant in practice, Sumitro Djojohadikusumo — dean of the Faculty of Economics at the University of Indonesia — noticed something that others had left unexamined: the faculty was still largely Dutch, a colonial residue sitting awkwardly inside a sovereign state. He resolved to change it, not through protest but through planning.
His instrument was the Economic Urgency Plan, a three-part initiative to expand qualified Indonesian lecturers, build institutional capacity, and develop curricula suited to the country's own economic needs. Partnering with the Ford Foundation, he secured the resources to send around 20 students and lecturers abroad, with Berkeley as the central destination. His instruction to those he selected was spare and serious: get your PhD.
The five students who would define this initiative — Emil Salim, Widjojo Nitisastro, Mohammad Sadli, J.B. Sumarlin, and Ali Wardhana — were not from privileged backgrounds. The prospect of studying at one of the world's leading universities was, for them, genuinely unlikely. Sumitro made it possible anyway.
Decades later, Emil Salim recalled in a 2026 interview with Tempo that Sumitro had understood something essential: institutional change is made of people, and people require opportunity. The students who left for California in the 1950s did not stay in academia. They became the economic architects of Indonesia's New Order, carrying their Berkeley formation into decisions about development, trade, and the structure of the economy itself.
What Sumitro had framed as a faculty-building exercise turned out to be something far larger — the deliberate cultivation of a generation whose training would echo through Indonesian governance for decades.
In the 1950s, when Indonesia was still finding its footing as an independent nation, a dean at the University of Indonesia made a quiet but consequential decision: he would send his best economics students to study in California, betting that they would return to reshape the country's intellectual and policy landscape. Sumitro Djojohadikusumo, who led the Faculty of Economics at UI, had identified a problem that few others seemed to notice. The university's faculty was still predominantly Dutch—a remnant of colonial administration that sat uneasily in a newly sovereign state. Sumitro wanted to change that. He wanted Indonesian lecturers, qualified ones, teaching Indonesian students about economics and governance.
The students he selected were Emil Salim, Widjojo Nitisastro, Mohammad Sadli, Johannes Baptista Sumarlin, and Ali Wardhana. None of them came from wealthy families with resources to fund overseas education. The idea that they might study at the University of California, Berkeley—one of the world's leading institutions—seemed improbable, even impossible. Yet Sumitro made it happen. He did not tell them they had to become professors. His instruction was simpler and more demanding: get your PhD.
Sumitro's strategy was systematic. He had designed what became known as the Economic Urgency Plan—a three-part initiative aimed at transforming the faculty from the ground up. The plan sought to rapidly expand the number of qualified lecturers, build the administrative and institutional machinery the faculty needed to function, and develop curricula that would serve Indonesia's economic needs. To fund this ambition, he partnered with the Ford Foundation, the American philanthropic organization that had committed itself to supporting education and public welfare programs around the world. The foundation's backing gave Sumitro the resources he needed. In the end, he sent roughly 20 students and lecturers to study in the United States, with Berkeley as a primary destination.
What made this initiative remarkable was not just its scope but its clarity of purpose. Sumitro was not simply sending bright students abroad for prestige or personal advancement. He was executing a deliberate plan to build a cadre of Indonesian economists who would return home with advanced training, international exposure, and the credentials to lead. He was, in effect, creating a pipeline of talent that would eventually shape how Indonesia thought about and managed its economy.
When Emil Salim reflected on his time under Sumitro's mentorship decades later, in an interview with Tempo in February 2026, he recalled a mentor who understood something fundamental: that institutional change required people, and that people required opportunity. Sumitro had provided that opportunity. The students who went to Berkeley in the 1950s would not remain academics. They would become the architects of Indonesia's economic policy during the New Order era, the long period of authoritarian rule that followed the political upheavals of the 1960s. The education Sumitro had invested in would ripple through decades of Indonesian governance, shaping decisions about development, trade, and the structure of the economy itself.
What began as a dean's ambition to replace Dutch professors with qualified Indonesian ones became something larger: the foundation for a generation of policymakers who would carry their Berkeley training into the highest levels of government. Sumitro had understood, perhaps before anyone else, that the future of an independent Indonesia would be determined not by rhetoric or ideology alone, but by the quality of the people who understood how economies actually worked.
Citações Notáveis
He never told us we had to become lecturers. Get the PhD.— Emil Salim, recalling Sumitro's mentorship advice in an interview with Tempo, February 2026
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why did Sumitro focus specifically on sending students to Berkeley rather than other universities?
The source doesn't specify why Berkeley in particular, but the Ford Foundation connection likely mattered. Berkeley was already a leading economics program, and the Foundation had relationships there. What's clear is that Sumitro was strategic—he wasn't sending students randomly. He had a plan.
Did these students face any resistance when they returned to Indonesia?
The source doesn't address that directly. But consider the context: they were returning to a newly independent nation still sorting out its identity. Having a PhD from Berkeley would have given them credibility, but also perhaps made them outsiders to some. The fact that they became policymakers suggests they found their place.
Was Sumitro himself trained abroad?
The source doesn't tell us about Sumitro's own education. But his willingness to partner with the Ford Foundation and his vision for transforming the faculty suggests he understood the value of international networks and training. He was building something he believed in.
How many of these students actually stayed in Indonesia after their studies?
The source mentions five by name—Emil, Widjojo, Mohammad, Sumarlin, and Ali—and says about 20 total went to the U.S. What we know is that at least these five returned and became key figures in economic policy. Whether all 20 stayed is unclear from what we have.
What happened to the Dutch professors after this plan took effect?
The source doesn't say. But the whole point was to gradually replace them with qualified Indonesian academics. It was a transition, not a purge. Sumitro was building capacity, not tearing things down.