Sutan Sjahrir[a] (5 March 1909 – 9 April 1966) was an Indonesian politician and revolutionary independence leader who served as the first Prime Minister of Indonesia from 1945 until 1947.

Following the release of his 1945 pamphlet "Our Struggle" ("Perjuangan Kita"), he was appointed Prime Minister of Indonesia by President Sukarno.

As prime minister, he was one of the few Republican leaders acceptable to the Dutch government, due to his non-cooperative stance during the Japanese occupation.

[2] His father, Muhammad Rasyad Maharajo Sutan, served as the Hoofd or Chief public prosecutor at the Landraad in Medan.

[6][4] Although from Padang Pandjang, Sjahrir's family lived in Medan, but he was often brought by his father to his grandmother's house in Koto Gadang, which has now become abandoned.

During his political activities as a student in the Netherlands, he became a close associate of the older independence activist Mohammad Hatta, future vice-president of Indonesia.

While he spent years in exile in the Banda Islands, he taught the local children to love their country and inspired them in many ways.

In his memoirs their Dutch associate Sol Tas recalls: "He was not intimidated for one minute by official or quasi-official declarations, by communiques or other formulae, not afraid for one second of the maneuvers directed against him, and still less concerned for his reputation.

[15] At the height of chaos and violence during the early Bersiap period of the Indonesian revolution, Sjahrir published an epoch-making pamphlet named 'Our Struggle'.

For it appeared at a moment when the Indonesian masses, brought to the boiling point by the Japanese occupation and civil war, sought release in racist and other hysterical outbursts.

Sjahrir's pamphlet went directly against this, and many must have felt his call for chivalry, for the understanding of other ethnic groups, as a personal attack."

No small feat in revolutionary circumstances..."[18][failed verification] Due to his non-cooperative stance during the Japanese occupation, he was one of the few Republican leaders acceptable to the Dutch government during the early independence negotiations.

[19][20] If we determine the value of Indonesia's freedom by its genuinely democratic quality, then in our political struggle vis-a-vis the outside world, it is for this inner content that we must strive.

]They envision the terminus of human development as one huge military complex of extreme order and discipline [...]"[24] Although small, his party was very influential in the early post-independence years, because of the expertise and high education levels of its leaders.

However, the party performed poorly in the 1955 elections, partly because the grassroots constituency at the time was unable to fully understand the concepts of social democracy Sjahrir was trying to convey.

Although a revolutionary opponent of Dutch colonialism his intellectual prowess was recognised by his adversaries and he remained highly respected in the Netherlands.

[27] After he died in 1966 the former Dutch Prime Minister Professor Schermerhorn commemorated Sjahrir in a public broadcast on national radio, calling him a "noble political warrior" with "high ideals" and expressing the hope that he would be recognised as such by the next generations in Indonesia.

[29][30][31][32] In 2009 Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda said: "He was a thinker, a founding father, a humanistic leader and a statesman.