Following a successful period working in the colonial capital of Batavia ( Jakarta), Prawiradinata, a young and ambitious clerk in the indigenous civil service, was transferred to a new post in Purwakarta, a small town in Java’s interior. His enthusiasm about his career advancement quickly evaporated when he discovered that beyond the capital, conservative attitudes pervaded the colonial administration. In December , Prawiradi-nata was summoned by his Dutch superior, Assistant Subdistrict Administrator A. A. C. Linck, who, in a confrontational tone, accused the clerk of not submit-ting his paperwork on time. Startled by the rebuke, Prawiradinata responded in Dutch rather than Javanese—a signal that he was not only Western-educated but also unwilling to offer traditional deference to his supervisor. At the time, it was still customary for Javanese subordinates to adhere to a strict colonial language hierarchy, addressing superiors in high Javanese while they in turn answered in a lower form of the language. is deviation from bureaucratic prac-tice infuriated Linck, who bellowed that he would “not be lied to by a native.” Declaring that everyone in the civil service complained about Prawiradinata’s sluggish work ethic, Linck clearly attempted to reassert his authority over an insolent colonial subject by invoking the trope of the lazy native. In the ensuing battle of wills, Prawiradinata persisted and vowed—still in Dutch—that he was neither lazy nor a liar. Linck dismissed Prawiradinata but immediately led an o cial complaint with the local bupati, the Javanese district head. Tellingly, when Prawiradinata later appeared before the bupati, he was not questioned about the missing paperwork but rather about his alleged impolite and boorish behavior in addressing his superior.