Professional organization and even nomenclature are inextricable from
rising nationalism in the early twentieth century. The VIG began in 1910 as
the Vereeniging van Inlandsche Geneeskundigen (Association of Native Physicians)
and in 1926 changed its name to Vereeniging van Indische Geneeskundigen
(Association of Indies Physicians). At this time, a proposal from
Indonesian physicians studying in the Netherlands to call the Association
“Indonesian” was rejected because the word had distinct nationalist implications.58
The students in the Netherlands could not comprehend this response,
since to them it was self-evident that the association was already politically
involved, if only because everything in colonial society had political ramifications.
If the name “Indonesian” was rejected, they said they would prefer the
designation “native” rather than “Indies,” because at least it correctly indicated
the membership of the association, which ought to promote the interests of indigenous
physicians (and not those of Europeans).59 Radical students in the Netherlands—who
had just engaged in an extensive debate about the reactionary
views of two Dutch psychiatrists on the nature of the native mind60—
thought the association should be a vehicle for the advancement of Indonesians,
and not merely medicine, in the Indies.