relatively narrow. The second feature to highlight in the colonial formulation is that alongside the relatively narrow Raffles definition of ‘Malay’, and an expressed interest in determining racial origins, other more relaxed formulations continued to operate, though sometimes informally. Having promoted the Malay language, the Dutch might have promoted ‘Malay’ as the inclusive term for the people of the ‘Indies’ – but they did not do so as Natives () was often used, and sometimes Indian (). The third feature to note in the colonial influence on the construction of ‘the Malays’ is of particular importance when we come to the problems arising in the propagation of Malayness in the ‘Malay’ community itself: it is that the idea of ‘race’ carried an egalitarian ethic. The Pan-Malay union was based on understandings on similarities in race, shared language, religion and culture among ethnic groups in Maritime Southeast Asia. At the end of the 1920s, the idea to form a new independent nation grew among the people of Dutch East Indies, especially among educated pribumi (native Indonesian). While in the Malay peninsula, the idea of Greater Malay was proposed. In the Dutch East Indies, the activist youth of Indonesian nationalists were more interested in forming an independent Indonesia. In 1928 the Youth Pledge was declared in Batavia (today Jakarta) by Indonesian nationalist youth activists proclaiming three ideals; one motherland, one nation, and support one unifying language. The Malay nationalist Kesatuan Melayu Muda group, founded in 1938 by Ibrahim Yaacob, was one of the more notable entities that embraced the concept as part of its goals. World War II During World War II advocates of Greater Indonesia collaborated with the Japanese Empire against the British and the Dutch. The co-operation was based on the understanding that Japan would unite the Dutch East Indies, Malaya and Borneo and grant them independence. It was understood that under a unified Japanese occupation of these areas, the formation of Greater Indonesia was possible. In January 1942, Kesatuan Melayu Muda (KMM) requested the Japanese to grant Malaya the independence the Japanese had promised earlier. This was the first request for Malayan independence by a Malaya-wide political body. The request however was turned down. The Japanese authorities instead disbanded Kesatuan Melayu Muda and established Defenders of the Homeland (, abbreviated as PETA) militia in its stead. In July 1945, Union of Indonesian Peninsular People (, abbreviated as KRIS), that