In 1980–81 the School of Social Science of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton (N.J.) selected as its special research topic “The Comparative Study of Colonialism”. On the invitation of Professors Albert Hirschman and Clifford Geertz a number of scholars from various countries came together representing the disciplines of anthropology, economy, political science and history. Although each scholar was of course mainly occupied with his or her own research, a number of seminars and discussions were also organised where different ideas and approaches were exchanged. One of the conclusions was that further elaboration of this subject was not only interesting historically but was also relevant to the present day situation. Another conclusion was that especially the comparative study of India and Indonesia would be a most promising possibility within this field. The reasons for selecting this particular topic were both political and scientific. India and Indonesia are two of the most important countries in Asia, both politically and economically; they used to be the two most important colonies in Asia. The colonial impact was of long duration in both countries and both experienced the transformation from commercial capitalist exploitation to full colonialism. Even in pre-colonial times the histories of these two nations are in many ways comparable,

As a result of these considerations Prof. Dharma Kumar (Delhi School of Economics) and Prof. H.L. Wesseling (Leiden University) decided to study the feasibility of a long term research project on the comparative study of India and Indonesia and implicating Indian, Indonesian, British and Dutch scholars.