Dayaks in politics

[1] Missionary education served as alternative for Dayak youths to Dutch formal schools that were relatively expensive and discriminative in nature.

Missionary schools such as those by J.F Becker in 1940 had hundreds of Dayak students, but only 13 people converted to Christianity and mostly retained their Hindu folk religion Kaharingan.

The feudal Sultanates of Kutai, Banjar, and Pontianak figured prominently prior to the rise of the Dutch colonial rule.

This changed following Tumbang Anoi Agreement of 1894, where many representative of Dayaks gathered and renounced any tribal warfare tradition.

Early Pan-Dayakism sentiment to unite hundreds of Dayak sub-ethnics later influenced by the rise of Indonesian nationalism and as such often got mixed together.

[4] He was a district chief of Kuala Kapuas in 1919 after previously was focusing solely on journalism since 1905 and later worked on a Kalimantan magazine Barita Bahalap.

He is also known as one of the founding fathers of the Dayak Unity Party in 1945 and had been actively assisting the Brunei Revolt in 1962 during the height of the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation.

Under Indonesia's transmigration programme, which was initiated by the Dutch in 1905, settlers from densely populated Java and Madura were encouraged to settle in the Indonesian provinces of Borneo.

[15][16] The Dayak's political representation in Sarawak compare very poorly with their organised brethren in the Indonesian side of Borneo, partly due to the personal fiefdom that was the Brooke Rajah dominion, and possibly to the pattern of their historical migrations from the Indonesian part to the then pristine Rajang Basin.

Reconstituted into British crown colony after the end of Japanese occupation in World War II, Sarawak obtained independence from the British on 22 July 1963, alongside Sabah (North Borneo) on 31 August 1963, and would join the Federation of Malaya and Singapore to form the Federation of Malaysia on 16 September 1963 under the belief of being equal partners in the "marriage" as per the 18 and 20-point agreements and the Malaysia Agreement of 1963.

The first Sarawak Chief Minister was Datuk Stephen Kalong Ningkan, who was removed as the chief minister in 1966 after court proceedings and amendments to both the Sarawak state constitution and the Malaysian federal constitution due to some disagreements with regards to the 18-point Agreement as conditions for the formation of Malaysia.