He Was Known for Kleptocratic Rule and Bloodshed. Now Suharto Is a National Hero.

He oversaw the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people. He siphoned off billions of dollars of wealth from state coffers. And while widespread economic discontent led to the end of his strongman rule in Indonesia, he never faced criminal prosecution.

But on Monday, less than three decades after he was forced to step down, the late dictator Suharto was anointed as a national hero by the current, democratically elected leader, Prabowo Subianto, his former son-in-law.

The elevation of Suharto, who died in 2008, came with a dizzying split screen. Mr. Prabowo also bestowed the honor on Abdurrahman Wahid, a longtime Suharto critic who became Indonesia’s first democratically elected president, and Marsinah, a young labor activist who became a face for human rights after she was kidnapped, tortured and killed during Suharto’s rule.

The accolade for Suharto, to many, was a jaw dropping swerve of revisionist history in Indonesia.

“All the moral and ethical transgressions committed over the years, which we currently acknowledge as historical truths, would be wiped out,” said Islah Bahrawi, a senior official at Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia’s largest grass roots Muslim organization.

Another episode of rewriting history, many have argued, was Mr. Prabowo’s election campaign. He used social media to rebrand himself as a cuddly grandfather to millions of young voters who did not remember Suharto’s era or know of Mr. Prabowo’s own record: He was a feared general under Suharto, and was discharged after the armed forces found he was involved in the abduction and torture of pro-democracy activists.

To his critics, Mr. Prabowo’s election as president last year was a huge step backward for Indonesia, which emerged as the world’s third-largest democracy following Suharto’s resignation. Since taking office, he has expanded the role of the military in civilian functions. Civil society groups say the space for criticizing the authorities has shrunk and many had protested against the award for Suharto.

At the State Palace in Jakarta, the capital, Mr. Prabowo conferred on 10 people the award for Heroes’ Day, an annual tradition. The first three honorees were Mr. Abdurrahman, Suharto and Marsinah, who like many Indonesians used only one name.

Mr. Prabowo picked them from a list of names that began with public nominations. Suharto had been nominated previously, following his death. A daughter and a son of the former dictator accepted the award from Mr. Prabowo, whose former wife, Siti Hediati Hariyadi, another daughter of Suharto, also attended the ceremony.

But there was no mention of Suharto’s kleptocratic rule or his role in massacres at home — including against separatist movements in Aceh and Papua Provinces, and in East Timor, which he invaded and where Mr. Prabowo led the feared Kopassus special forces.

Yenny Wahid, a daughter of Mr. Abdurrahman who accepted the award on her father’s behalf, said Indonesians are divided on how to remember Suharto because the country has never reckoned publicly with his legacy.

Her father had supported the creation of a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate Suharto’s human rights abuses but it lacked political backing. There is still time to pursue one, she said in a telephone interview.

“Then the people can decide: Who was he? Does he really deserve to be recognized as our national hero?” she said.

Suharto took power in the 1960s after his predecessor, Sukarno, fell from office in a wave of violence that was officially attributed to a leftist uprising. Around that time, he ordered the armed forces order to eliminate the Communist Party of Indonesia, said Asvi Warman Adam, a historian, who cited work done by the Australian researcher Jess Melvin.

An estimated 500,000 to 1 million people, accused of being communists, are estimated to have died in the bloodletting. But many religious leaders credited Suharto with saving Indonesia, which now has the world’s largest Muslim population, from being becoming a communist state.

Suharto ruled Indonesia for 32 years. He won some praise for his “New Order” era, in which Indonesia’s economy grew. But the price was repression and corruption. He diverted billions of dollars from state coffers, with his children and political allies dominating key sectors.

But economic malaise was a key reason behind Suharto’s downfall. He was forced to resign in 1998 amid the Asian financial crisis and widespread student protests and rioting, in which hundreds were killed.

He apologized to the nation but, in a sign of his enduring influence, never faced a criminal court.