The concept of a ‘return’ to NU's original socio-religious rather than political orientation was expressed long before ‘Kembali ke Khittah 1926’ (Return to the Guidelines of 1926) became a rallying cry in the early 1980s. Most scholars cite Marijan's (1992: 132) assertion that it was first heard in 1959 at NU's 22nd National Congress (Muktamar), when KH Achyat Chalimi of Mojokerto argued that NU had become too involved in political affairs, thereby placing the organization and its members at risk. The concept did not gain much traction at the time because of the intensely political atmosphere of the late 1950s. However, by the mid 1970s a combination of external political developments and internal conflicts would provide the momentum necessary for the Khittah ’26 movement to change the course of NU's history.

I argue in this chapter that the salient issue is not whether Khittah ’26 was a move towards or away from politics, but rather whether it allowed NU to develop a more oppositional stance towards the New Order regime. An examination of political and internal developments between 1984 and 1998, in five-year segments, allows us to evaluate that question.

I also argue that, while often obscured by the political ramifications of Khittah ’26, the civil society discourse the movement engendered among NU intellectuals and activists was equally important. The latter part of the chapter examines this discourse in more detail, taking an especially close look at the activist agenda it inspired. Central to this movement was Abdurrahman Wahid (or Gus Dur as he is called in Indonesia), the son of NU leader and politician KH Wahid Hasyim, the grandson of NU founder KH Hasyim Asy'ari, and one of the most formidable thinkers and strategists in recent Indonesian history. The chapter concludes that the civil society movement of the late 1990s was strongly informed by NU's political position, but that it eventually took on a life of its own, separate from the political exigencies of its architect, Abdurrahman Wahid.