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Afiff, Suraya A., Noer Fauzi, Gillian Hart, Lungisile Ntsebeza and Nancy Lee Peluso (2005) “Redefining Agrarian Power: Resurgent Agrarian Movements in West Java, Indonesia,” Center for Southeast Asia Studies Working Paper CSEASWP2-05. Berkeley, California: Center for Southeast Asia Studies, University of California Berkeley. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7rf2p49g
I. Introduction
In the early 21st century, we are witnessing the extensive resurgence of agrarian issues and struggles in different parts of the world. These include the rise of landless people’s movements demanding access to land and other resources; growing attention to land reform by governments and official development agencies; heated debates over customary tenure, often framed in terms of ethnic nationalism and indigeneity; and the emergence of new forms of rural-urban connections, often in the context of the collapse of relatively secure forms of urban employment, the rising costs of urban services, and the decentralization of many state functions to local and district governments. These processes fly in the face of linear, teleological notions of rural-urban transition. Most importantly, they provide a crucial window into vibrant – yet little recognized – forces for social change, some of which are in the process of forging connections with one another.[1]
Yet, in this era of neoliberal capitalism, land questions remain a central grievance closely linked to ongoing – if not intensifying – dynamics of poverty and inequality. In one way or another, most activists believe that land questions remain the very heart of Indonesian politics in the period of reformasi.[2] The thirty-two year period of the Soeharto’s New Order regime (1966-1998) was marked by severe repression along with appropriation of land and other resources by Soeharto family members and cronies, military and state institutions, and powerful individuals and enterprises.
These considerations are particularly important since we focus quite specifically on one configuration of NGOs and a major agrarian social movement in West Java that are closely connected with one another.[3] The NGOs with whom we are associated are the Consortium for Agrarian Reform (Konsorsium Pembaruan Agraria or KPA) based in Bandung, which in turn is closely linked with three more “community development” NGOS based in nearby districts (kabupaten). They are the Community Development Foundation (Yayasan Pengembangan Masyarakat or YAPEMAS) in Garut, the Youth and Student Forum for the People (Forum Pemuda Mahasiswa untuk Rakyat or FPMR) in Tasikmalaya, and the Ciamis Forum for the Aspirations of Students and the People (Forum Aspirasi Rakyat dan Mahasiswa Ciamis or FARMACI) in Ciamis. The agrarian movement is the Sundanese Peasant Union (Serikat Petani Pasundan or SPP).[4] The NGOs collaborate with one another and with the SPP.
We recognize that it is only one of a set of agrarian movements, and that there are debates and differences among different movements. Our discussion does, however, draw on Lucas and Warren (2000) who treat in great detail the early years of these groups’ formations and their points of departure from one another. In this way, we take Lucas and Warren’s (2003) excellent discussion of the rise of these agrarian movements and activism around them a step further by observing some of the changes and activities that have gone on since their analysis (which stops in 2003). Where Lucas and Warren were able to document the broad contours of agrarian organizations and movements in the first few years of ebullient activity after Soeharto’s fall from power, we have focused more closely on how a particular configuration of NGOs and movements are playing out in West Java. West Java provided an excellent place to explore these processes, both because it was a site of major dispossession in Java, and because NGOs moved swiftly to take advantage of openings provided by reformasi.
The fall of Soeharto unleashed a series of occupations all over Indonesia. In Java, most occupations have taken place in upland and forest areas for reasons that we explain more fully later in the paper. This paper is organized as follows: In Part II we offer a broad sketch of reformasi and the rise of agrarian movements. The next part of the paper contains a more detailed account focusing on different but interlocking arenas of contestation: legislative arenas (Part III), decentralization and district level government (Part IV), and the land occupation in the village of Cieceng (Part V).
[1] We are collectively engaged in a comparative exploration of these dynamics in post-apartheid South Africa and post-Soeharto Indonesia in ways that we hope will also contribute to strengthening transnational linkages. With connections stretching back to the Dutch East India Company in the 17th century, South Africa and Indonesia offer fascinating grounds for study of agrarian questions, both historical and contemporary. Both were the site of massive resource extraction, along with land dispossession that intensified in the second half of the 20th century under apartheid and Soeharto’s New Order regime; and both have undergone major political transformations in the 1990s through which a repressive centralized state gave way to greater political opening and formal democracy.
[2] The Indonesian term reformasi refers to the period following the fall of Soeharto in May 1998 in the context of the Asian financial crisis.
[3] For an account of the emergence of these NGOs and movements and their relationships to one another, see Fauzi (2003).
[4] The Indonesian word petani translates into English as either “peasant” or “farmer.” According to Noer Fauzi, members of the Expert Council of KPA and the Teaching Council of SPP discussed how the “petani” in Serikat Petani Pasundan should be translated into English, given its different political connotations. They decided that the term “farmer” encompassed agri-business, to which they saw themselves in opposition. The “peasant” connotation connects to a nationalist image of a rural smallholder tied to the land deployed by President Sukarno in the immediate post-independence period.
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