managed under sharecropping arrangements with local natives despite the prohibition
against doing so.56 These generous benefits captured Indonesians’ attention: IEV’s
demand for land rights and the state’s response by creating the Spit Commission
demonstrated to them what citizens could claim vis-à-vis the state. The benefits
also underlined the state’s obligations to its citizens, such as the provision of free quality
education and protection from pauperisation. Understandably, the widespread
resentment toward IEV’s demand for land rights sprang from the belief that
Indo-Europeans already enjoyed generous benefits from the state.