A Promise To Be Fulfilled
The question is, have the six presidents of Indonesia fulfilled the promise of independence for the peasants and their homeland after more than 60 years?
It has been 62 years since we have commemorated the sacred promise of liberating the peasants. September 24 marks the enactment of Law No 5/1960 concerning Agrarian Principles.
This law mandates the government to implement agrarian reform, redistribution of land to sharecropping families and tillers. Law No 5/1960 concerning Agrarian Principles (the 1960 UUPA) ended the 1870 Dutch colonial agrarische wet, which stated that all unoccupied or vacant land was controlled by the state, to be transferred or sold to the private sector, plantation and mining companies.
A clear line of feelings and facts will be drawn from the people under the colonial government's agrarian structure to an equitable and sufficient pattern of land tenure in the style of an independent government. The promise of freedom for the people who have participated in the struggle and sacrifice, as proclaimed in the fifth precept, social justice, in the Preamble and Article 33, Paragraph 2 of the 1945 Constitution. This was legally formulated in the 1960 UUPA.
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The question is, have the six presidents of Indonesia fulfilled the promise of independence for the peasants and their homeland after more than 60 years? If so, to what extent has it been tried? Why hasn't it been fulfilled? And what should be a wise step forward?
Agrarian reform from above
Bernstein (2015) distinguishes "agrarian reform from above" and "from below" by state and leverage (Wiradi 2006). The agrarian reform of the 1960 UUPA included those from above, of the state. Referring to the spirit of the 1945 Constitution, in the right context and ideology, this agrarian reform follows the neo-populist school of AV Chayanov, an agricultural economist from Russia, the Soviet Union, who was killed by Joseph Stalin.
The reason he was killed was because his writings and works promoted “family farming” and “cooperative guilds” or people's workshops. So, of course, this is in contrast to the “collective state farm estate” sponsored by the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party.
This was done in Javanese villages, often with violence, seizing the lands of landlords, which incidentally were controlled by nationalist leaders and the Nahdlatul Ulama kiai.
The accusation that the 1960 UUPA is a communist product gained momentum because it was used by the outlawed Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) to hold unilateral actions. This was done in Javanese villages, often with violence, seizing the lands of landlords, which incidentally were controlled by nationalist leaders and the Nahdlatul Ulama kiai.
In that uncertain situation, told by Margo Lyon (1970), the army was involved in land conflict in 1963/1964, along with the food crisis, before the so-called Gestok/Gestapu or the popular but full of historical controversy, the G30S/PKI in 1965. Gen. Soeharto's New Order claimed that the 1960 UUPA being a product of the Communist Party was untrue.
Academic text has been written by Mohammad Tauchid, the personal secretary of Ki Hadjar Dewantara who is a teacher and son of a farmer from southern Central Java. This non-communist socialist was also the founder and first chairman of the Indonesian Farmers Front (BTI), who was later replaced by PKI member Asmu. Then it became BTI, the PKI's substructure organization. The chairman of the ad hoc committee for the formulation of the 1960 UUPA Prof. Imam Sutiknyo from UGM is known as a nationalist.
The awareness that farming families are petani gurem or small farmers with narrow land, was termed marhein by president Soekarno, in which latifundia, family or private estates, such as in the Philippines and Latin America, are still few, similar to today. According to a 2017 Tempo report, one percent of the population or 2.45 million people, control almost 49.3 percent of Indonesia's land, which is not the object of the agrarian reform according to Presidential Decree No. 86/2018.
It was only in 1983 that the 1960 UUPA was vaguely recognized as a product of socialist nationalism by Gen. Daryatmo, as minister of agrarian affairs, in the book Questions and Answers on Agrarian Law published by the Secretariat of Bina Desa, Jakarta. From 1983 until Presidential Decree No. 86/2018 was issued, or 25 years—a long journey, through five presidents—the promise of independence of the aging peasants to have sovereignty over land was missed rather than realized.
Fighting with the Job Creation Act
With unfulfilled dreams of the promise of Presidential Decree No. 86/2018, the agrarian reform had to deal with the correction of Law No. 11/2020 on job creation. The government was given two years to revise it, since the law had been rejected by the Constitutional Court. This is where the neoliberal social economic development model had to be returned to the more social Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution, especially Article 33, Paragraphs 1 and 2, concerning the cooperative economic system and the distribution of control over land, water and space assets by the state for the prosperity of the whole people.
In fact, Presidential Decree No. 86/2018 concerning agrarian reform which implements Article 33 of the 1945 Constitution, has not yet been passed and has as a matter a fact been blocked by the Job Creation Law. Coupled with difficulties that accumulated due to the blockage of the 1960 UUPA reform for more than 60 years. Presently, difficulties arise from the supply of farmers' resources. Becoming a farmer and living from agriculture is no longer attractive to the younger generation of farmers aged 20-39 years, which is only 7 percent (2.34 million) left from the total 33.4 million farming families (BPS 2019) of the total population.
Meanwhile, the number of farmers aged 40-60 is 91 percent (30.4 million). From 2017 to 2018, young farmers decreased by 415,789 people. The trend is very worrying. The population of Indonesia in 2022 is 275.77 million. Farmers make up 12.1 percent of the total population.
By rough calculations, a farmer bears food and other necessities of life for 8.3 residents. According to the 1960 UUPA 1960, in 1960 a farmer family was able to provide for the lives of seven family members with 2 hectares of fertile rice fields in Java-Bali. From the calculations of Wahono's (1997) field research on rice fields in two villages in Purworejo in 1992-1993, with a rice field area of 1 ha, one farmer was able to provide a decent living for four people. Therefore, in 2022, one farmer supporting eight people will need at least 1 ha of rice fields.
In fact, the average land tenure in Indonesia by farmers in 2021 was less than 0.3 ha (BPS 2021). With this figure, it can be concluded that the peasants of the common people will always be poor. The farmgate price (NTP) year to year has decreased on average.
Beyond the 1960 UUPA
There are at least five core elements of the 1960 UUPA that are undermined through newer rules and laws. The first; the minimum level of control over paddy fields that must be owned by a farming family of seven members (2 ha of fertile paddy fields in densely populated areas or twice the equivalent for dry land) and the maximum limit of 4 ha of paddy fields. This is what is missing in Presidential Decree No. 86/2018.
Land Banks are very vulnerable to being overthrown by large investors and economic rent-seeking affiliated with power.
The second; land redistribution means that less than the minimum (control) will be added, and more than the maximum will be reduced and to be divided among the lesser ones. This directive was replaced by the Land Bank in Articles 125 and 126 of the Job Creation Law. Land Banks are very vulnerable to being overthrown by large investors and economic rent-seeking affiliated with power.
The third; Land for Agrarian Reform Objects (TORA) includes excessive land which exceeds the maximum limit of 4 ha, abandoned land, vacant land and no man's land. Originally, plantation land and state forestry were excluded. However, in Presidential Decree No. 86/2018, 20 percent of the lands were included. Plantations, forestry and private lands are still excluded from the TORA.
The fourth; customary law lands are accommodated as customary land rights. In Presidential Decree No. 86/2018 it is termed as joint control land, which may also be by cooperatives, foundations and village-owned enterprises (BUMDes). This can open a hole for domination by large companies or investors. Here, land, water and space become vulnerable as commodities, trade and speculation.
The fifth; it is suspected that the neoliberalism school has infiltrated the Presidential Decree No. 86/2018 or the pending Law No. 11/2020 into the 1960 UUPA legal system, which is based on the social neo-populist Pancasila in the 1945 Constitution.
"Agrarian reform from above" must get its TORA expanded to cover all space (land, the bowels of the earth, waters and air) and collaborated/discussed with "agrarian reform from below", from the initiative of farmer unions/groups or prospective young farmers who are thirsty for land, so that democratic control occurs and the distribution of smallholders is truly guaranteed. TORA "land" needs to be expanded with TORA "space" which includes the land, water and space of Indonesia, where the third precept (unity) stands and the fifth principle is justified for livelihoods, generations and nature.
This is all based on the first precept (divinity) and encouraging the second principle (humanity), whose decisions and implementation are carried out with the fourth precept (popular democracy that prioritizes deliberation).
Sustainable development that is pro-environment and curbs global warming also requires democracy and equity, which ensures the contribution, participation and sense of belonging of every citizen of the world. Otherwise, all environmental actions and curbing global warming will only become a top-down, government project, in which people do not feel called to be participants in the process of building social justice. The people are only happy spectators for the five-yearly “democratic fiesta” (election) and the recipients of entertainment, beggars for direct cash assistance (BLT).
On the agrarian reform of the Presidential Decree No. 86/2018, if the average land control of Indonesian farmers is 0.3 ha per farming family (figure 2021), then to achieve 1 ha of land there is a shortage of 0.7 ha to ensure a prosperous life. The question is, will the lack of divided land (TORA) be taken from 20 percent of the state's plantations and forestry lands, plus abandoned land, without including the exclusive land owned by the private sector?
The absence of the maximum rights to limit use (HGU) and the length of the lease of up to 95 years with the possibility of an extension will complicate the implementation of any agrarian reform. Concentration of industrial zones, especially manufacturing, in Java is not a solution but saving an eternal problem.
The agrarian reform's point of view and strategy, which has been expanded to reform "redistribution" of space by state and by leverage, is a prerequisite for investment and job creation to accommodate creative work, especially the flood of young people that cannot be accommodated in the agricultural and plantation sectors. They can prepare themselves and enter the sustainable forestry, marine and mining sectors, as well as the digital economy, industrial sector, trade, transportation, communication and infrastructure.
Francis Wahono, Director of Cindelaras Institute Yogyakarta and Chairman of the Trustees of the Bina Desa Foundation, Jakarta
(This article was translated by Kurniawan Siswo)
