The Hague gets New Indian Festival Jalan Pedis: “We don’t want to get stuck in nostalgia”

It is busy in the production kitchen in addition to event location The Slachthuis in Haarlem. Chef and cookbook author Van der Leeden (49) cuts baking full of red peppers and rawits for a sambal with five other chefs. A day before they marinated a hundred kilos of chicken for saté. It is the preparations for the new Indian festival Jalan Pedis, which will take place in The Hague on Saturday 16 August. “I’ve always been bothered by the” too many gene, “says co-organizer Van der Leeden. “Just like in my own kitchen, where I am afraid that everything will run out, we make a lot of food now.”

Jalan Pedis takes place between the commemoration of the capitulation of the Japanese occupier – the end of the Second World War in Asia – on Friday and the Indonesian Independence Day on August 17. The new festival fills the gap that left the tongue fair fairly in 2024. Where the latter event held on to a nostalgic view of the colonial Dutch East Indies, Jalan Pedis wants to create a modern Indian festival.

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“When the tongue Tong Fair disappeared, it was a loss for the city,” says Van der Leeden. “But we are not a successor. We do not want to create expectations that we cannot live up to. This is really something new.” Jalan Pedis does not stand on its own. There are more Indian festivals in the Netherlands, such as Nongkrong in Zaandam, the Floating Pasar in Rotterdam and Ayo Festival in Amsterdam. Yet, with its great Indian community, The Hague has a special position. “The Indian city cannot be left behind,” says Van der Leeden.

Precursor Tong Tong Fair held on to the nostalgic view of the colonial Dutch East Indies

Aunt Lien

The Tong Tong Fair was the largest Indian event in the Netherlands for years, good for tens of thousands of visitors per edition. The festival, which started in 1959 as the Pasar Malam Besar, combined a market full of Indian and Indonesian products with food stalls, music performances by, among others, Wieteke van Dort (aunt Lien), dance performances and lectures. For many Indian Dutch people it was a fixed meeting place, where memories were shared and dishes from the youth were eaten. After years of financial problems, partly due to the rise of other Indian festivals and declining visitor numbers, the organization went bankrupt in 2024.

The tongue tongue fair also struggled with persistent criticism. The event was blamed too much Tempo Doeloe -The nostalgic view of the colonial Dutch East Indies, where painful aspects of that past remained underexposed. Criticism came from later immigrants from the independent Indonesia and some (grand) children of the first generation. They found that decor and programming too much emphasized the idyllic image of the colonial India, with traditional traditional costumes, krontjong music and historical photos, and offered too little room for contemporary voices.

Van der Leeden wants to break that course with Jalan Pedis. “We don’t want to get stuck in nostalgia, but see how we can give the heritage future. Grandpa must be able to enjoy the festival, but we want him to be able to take the grandchildren with us.”

That idea translates into a varied line-up. In addition to the Indo rock band The Crazy Rockers, with an 87-year-old guitarist, are younger acts such as Nusantara Beat and the Indonesian soul and funk band Lair, who plays on Lowlands a day later.

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38 liter sambal

Jalan Pedis is a taste of Jalan Jalan, a broader festival that will start in 2026 in The Hague. “Jalan-Jalan is often the first slogan you learn when you are on vacation in Indonesia,” explains Van der Leeden. “It means ‘a little stroll’ or ‘strolling’. It is precisely that is the idea behind the Hague Stadsfestival.” You stroll from the Schouwburg to the film house and from exhibition to film. Within this big festival, Jalan Pedis is the ‘spicy street’ with six food trucks where everything comes together in the sentence, but also toughly. “

The Jalan Jalan festival is also intended for Dutch people who know little about the shared history with Indonesia. Van der Leeden: “I hope that Jalan Jalan and Jalan Pedis will become a platform for the cultures of the Indian, Moluccan, Papua and Indonesian communities that have been part of this country for so long.”

Jalan Pedis will take place on Saturday 16 August from 12:00 to 10:00 pm at the Lange Voorhout in The Hague and can be visited free of charge.

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