For Chinese-Indonesians in Yogyakarta, a Dutch colonial law is the reason for why they can’t own land
- The semi-autonomous Indonesian sultanate only grants ethnic Chinese citizens up to 30-year leasehold titles, after it resurrected a Dutch colonial-era law
- While the ban is seen as discriminatory and perpetuating racial identity politics, attempts to abolish it have come to nothing
“The existing body of research on Chinese-Indonesian settlements is largely focused on the history of Chinatowns dispersed throughout Indonesia and their conservation. This is why I eventually decided to tackle the controversial issue [of land ownership] in both colonial and postcolonial times,” the 38-year-old said.
Her PhD research at Belgian university KA Leuven has given her first-hand access to the colonial archives of the Netherlands. Various parts of Indonesia were under Dutch rule for about 350 years until 1942.
After Indonesia became independent, ethnic Chinese were given the same legal rights as their indigenous counterparts, but this is not the case in the Special Administrative Region of Yogyakarta, which is still governed by its hereditary sultan. Designated as semi-autonomous in 1950, it is the only Indonesian province where Chinese-Indonesians are prohibited from owning freehold land titles. Instead, they are permitted leasehold titles which typically last for 30 years.
The regulation, which was resurrected in 1975, is modelled on a Dutch colonial law known as Agrarische Wet 1870, whereby the colonial government decreed that Europeans and “foreign Orientals (Chinese, Indians and Arabs)” could only lease land classified as “non-indigenous”.
While it had the appearance of protecting lands belonging to indigenous local rulers, Dewi contended that the law was really formulated to protect Dutch interests, as in reality, the so-called protected indigenous lands were dwarfed by the size of the land directly under Dutch jurisdiction.