A Vision on Vernacular Governance and Hatta’s Archipelagic Federalism

In this Open Column submission, Radit Mahindro reimagines a more appropriate way to run a country home to 17,000 islands, 1,300 categorised ethnic identities, and 700 spoken regional languages spread across three time zones - in his words, a ‘vernacular governance’ - through ideas borrowed from ancient maritime empires to Mohammad Hatta’s cooperative commonwealth.