THE DYNAMICS OF COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT IN RURAL CENTRAL AND WEST JAVA
A Comparative Report
SELO SOEMARDJAN
The Dynamics of Community ueveiopmc
MONOGRAPH SERIES
MODERN INDONESIA PROJECT
Southeast Asia Program
Department of Asian Studies
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York
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640 Stewart AvenueTHE DYNAMICS OF COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT IN RURAL CENTRAL AND WEST JAVA
A Comparative Report
Selo Soemardjan
MONOGRAPH SERIES
Modern Indonesia Project
Southeast Asia Program
Department of Asian Studies
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York
1963©	1963 by Cornell Modern Indonesia ProjectIll
PREFACE
The Cornell Modern Indonesia Project has maintained a continuing
interest in research at the village level in Indonesia. Beginning in
1955 a number of studies have been sponsored by the Project on the char-
acter of the Indonesian village and the social and political changes that
have taken place during the post-colonial period. The present monograph,
based on field work undertaken as recently as 1962, deals with the
community development program in Indonesia and the results it is having
in particular villages of Central and West Java.
There is, I believe, no one better qualified than Dr. Selo
Soemardjan to undertake a study of this nature. His work over a period
of more than twenty-five years has been very closely connected with the
village level of society in Java. Beginning in 1935 he worked, under
the Dutch, as an officer in the administrative service of the Sultanate
of Jogjakarta, Central Java, being charged with the supervisory adminis-
tration of several groups of villages in the area. During the Japanese
Occupation and later during the Indonesian Revolution he worked in the
central administrative offices of Jogjakarta. In the latter period he
played an important part in the changes that were introduced in the
administrative structure of the Jogjakarta Special Region, changes with
which the villages were of course vitally concerned. When at the conclu-
sion of the Indonesian Revolution the central government removed to
Djakarta Dr, Soemardjan was charged with administrative responsibilities
on the national level. Since that time he has held a number of important
positions, in all of which he has remained closely connected with develop-
ments on the village level throughout Indonesia.
From 1955 to 1959 Dr· Soemardjan was enrolled in the Graduate
School of Cornell University, being awarded his Ph.D. in sociology in
1959· During this period he also undertook return visits to the
villages of Central Java in whose administration he had played such an
important part during his service in Jogjakarta. From this research grew
his book, published by Cornell University Press in 1962, Social Changes
in Jogjakarta.IV
After his period of study at Cornell, Dr, Soemardjan returned to
Djakarta, where in addition to serving in important governmental adminis-
trative positions he is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of
Indonesia. For several years now he has served as a consultant on
community development. He has been able to study the operation of the
various governmental agencies connected with community development, and
during the summer of 1962 he undertook a series of visits to villages in
Central and West Java to observe the actual operation of these agencies
on the local level.
Dr. Soemardjan's study is an important one, and his findings
should, I believe, be of interest to all social scientists concerned with
contemporary Indonesia. The Cornell Modern Indonesia Project takes
pride in publishing this monograph.
Ithaca, New York
May 24, 1963.
George McT. Kahin
DirectorV
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
INTRODUCTION ............................................. 1
I	THREE SYSTEMS OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT .................... 3
II	COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT IN BANJUMAS, CENTRAL JAVA............ 13
III	COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT IN THE VILLAGE OF BODJONG,
WEST JAVA............................................ 23
IV	SOME THEORETICAL COMMENTS .................................
31AUTOMOBILE
ROAP
*·+·+· PROVINCIAL
BOROrRUNCINTRODUCTION
This is a report of a short visit to ten villages in the
Kabupaten of Banjumas,(l) Central Java, in June 1962 and of another
visit to two villages in South Tjiamis, West Java, in July 1962. The
purpose of the visits was to obtain first hand data by observation and
interviews about community development in action and the response to it
by the village communities. Special emphasis was given to the positive
aspects of the subject matter. In other words a deliberate search was
carried out to find the answer to the question: What makes a community
development program successful? The idea was that if it was possible
at all to find generalizable elements that account for the success of a
program, other programs in the same field would be able to profit from
the theoretical findings by using them as tools to analyze their
results.
For purposes of conceptual clarity we accepted the notion that
community development covers all activities planned to stimulate or to
open the possibilities for a community to develop its culture in such a
way that its psychological and material needs can be met on a higher
level of satisfaction.
With this definition in mind we contacted several ministries of
the Indonesian Government and found three agencies under the jurisdiction
of different ministries, each engaged in community development inde-
pendently from the others, and each having a system quite different from
that of the others. These agencies were the Department of Community
Education of the Ministry of Basic Education and Culture, the Department
of Social Information and Guidance of the Ministry of Social Affairs,
(l) A Kabupaten is an autonomous part of a Province. In official
language it is called Second Level Area, the First Level Area being
the Province.
12
and the Bureau of Village Community Development of the Ministry of Co-
operatives .(2) When asked to recommend a rural area for our visits, the
Department of Community Education advised us to take the Kahupaten of
Banjumas where outstanding work had been carried out by their local
service. Both the Department of Social Development and Information and
the Bureau for Community Development suggested that we choose the villages
of Bodjong and Tjikembulan in the district of Pangandaran, South Tjiamis,
where remarkable results had been accomplished by the Lembaga Sosial Desa,
or Village Social Institutions, and the Village Cooperatives.
Following the official use in Indonesian governmental circles, we
conform to the following abbreviations: Pen-mas is used to refer to the
Department of Community Education, or Djawatan Pendidikan Masjarakat.
LSD stands for Lembaga Sosial Desa, which is the name given to the village
social institutions organized by the village communities after stimula-
tion by the Department of Social Information and Guidance. The initials
PMD designate the Bureau for Village Community Development, or Biro
Pembangunan Masjarakat Desa.
We wish to express our appreciation and gratitude to all three
Departments for their invaluable help and the extensive information which
made our visits both pleasant and successful. We recognize gratefully
the kind hospitality and cooperation of the Civil Service, the headmen
and members of the village administrations, the Inspector of Pen-mas and
his assistants in Banjumas, and the Service of Social Work in West Java.
The author's sincere thanks go to his friends Doellah Atmodiredjo,
Soepodo, Soedigdo Hardjosoedarmo, and Kardyat, who patiently and dili-
gently assisted him during the field work. We are indebted to Professor
Howard W. Beers who was kind enough to make our English more easily
understandable to non-Indonesians. We owe him also many thanks for his
valuable criticisms, which originated from his treasury of experience
and expert knowledge in the field of rural sociology, gained in Indonesia
and elsewhere.
(2) The Ministry of Cooperatives was called, prior to the administrative re
grouping by the President in March 1962, the Ministry of Transmigra-
tion, Cooperatives, and Community Development. It is since named
after the department of Cooperatives to recognize the duty which is
apparently considered the most significant among those assigned to the
Ministry of pursuing the establishment of an Indonesian socialist
society as mentioned in the country's Political Manifesto.I
THREE SYSTEMS OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Community development in Indonesia, as in other developing
countries in the world, focuses primarily on the rural sector of the
society and very much less on the urban centers of the population.
This does not necessarily mean that the urban people have advanced far
enough in their social and economic development so that community de-
velopment programs would have little marginal effect upon them. The
fact is that large parts of the city population in Indonesia are in no
way superior to their rural counterparts in terms οΐ material wealth,
educational level, and working skills. A considerable percentage of
city inhabitants originate from outside the city limits and a great many
of them maintain their relationships with their kinsmen in the villages.
Their seasonal migration to the countryside during harvest time is a
common phenomenon that managers of industrial enterprises have to cope
with.
Nevertheless city people, irrespective of their social frame of
reference, are subject to a community structure that requires many more
individual activities and responsibilities than are traditionally known
in village communities, where communal norms and communal social con-
trols have a determining influence upon individual behavior. This is most
probably the reason why village communities are considered more promising
than cities in their response to consciously guided efforts for
development.
Perhaps there is also the notion among those in charge of goverh-
mentally sponsored community development that cities are generally
looked upon as well developed centers of administration, industry, educa-
tion, and recreation and thus lend themselves properly as guiding lights
in the development of rural communities.
Interviews with prominent government officers in Djakarta re-
vealed their firm conviction that it is of vital importance to the
3h
continuation of the national revolution to subject Indonesia's rural popu-
lation to well planned programs of community development.
Of the three Indonesian government agencies working in the field
of community development, Pen-mas was established first. It came into
being in 19k9 as part of the Ministry of Education to start a literacy
campaign and to set up public courses to increase the general knowledge
of adult people. Second in the sequence of establishment was the LSD
program of the Ministry of Social Affairs, conceived in 1951. The last
to be organized was the PMD, which came into existence in the context of
the first Five Year Plan of the Republic of Indonesia, covering the
period 1955 - I960.
In order to understand the differences in the systems of community
development adopted and developed by each of the three agencies, it is
worthwhile to consider the qualities of the people who gave birth to the
concepts. The fundamental duties of the Ministry of Education were
naturally embedded in the education of the people both within and outside
of the school rooms. The officers occupying decision-making positions in
that ministry, including those in the Pen-mas Department, were for the
large part recruited from school teachers. No wonder that their system
of community development bears the name of Community Education and is
strongly educational in spirit and practice i
The Minister of Social Affairs, R. P. Soeroso, who conceived the
first ideas about LSD, is an ex-civil officer with much experience in
dealing with both urban and rural communities since prewar times. In
whatever ways the pre-war civil service wanted to push village communi-
ties ahead, it was a strict conditio sine qua non that tranquility and
peace should be kept undisturbed. His work on the LSD was continued by
the present Secretary General of the Ministry of Social Affairs, Soemantri
Praptokusumo, who firmly believes in the moral and ethical standards in
Javanese culture in general as potential forces to arouse the develop-
mental dynamics of communities and the individual.
Unlike the other two agencies mentioned above, the Ministry of
Cooperatives is primarily manned by young and vigorous people, who by their
sheer youth have very little or no experience in their work. The Minister
himself and almost all members of his staff, including the policy- and
decision-making personnel in the Bureau for PMD, served as members of the
Students' Army during the armed national revolution. As a group they are
still imbued with revolutionary zeal which is manifest in their system
of working: decisions of the top echelons in the hierarchy have to be
carried out by the shortest route to the desired goal.
A systematic comparison of the three systems in terms of their
basic philosophy, their approach toward their objectives, the goals the
agencies have set for themselves, the activities they engage in, and the
organization they have set up to carry out their programs show the per-
sistent qualities dominant in the backgrounds of those who conceived them
or who have the authority to make policy decisions.$
The Pen-mas system
The basic philosophy of the Department of Community Education
(Djawatan Pendidikan Masjarakat) is clearly stated by its present
director, Tartib Prawirodihardjo:
Ordinarily, man is generally content to live his routine pattern
of life, if not forced by a new and revolutionary situation
which confronts him with new experiences and new problems . . .
Without the conscious process of education, it is possible
that a community may develop and change through the sheer force
of the evolutionary process. But much change is bound to be
slow, and involve avoidable hardships to the community and
allow the unnoticed development of undesirable values.(3)
From this statement one can deduce the attitude of Pen-mas in carrying
out its work toward the village community. It assumes that society, or
more exactly the village community, should not be allowed to develop it-
self without guidance of the government lest it be unable to keep pace
with the very rapid changes in special aspects of the wider culture,
e.g., the change from a colonial to an independent status, from a feudal
to a democratic social structure, and from a tradition-oriented to a
progressive attitude about development in general. It also wants to save
the village community from unnecessary mistakes and inefficiencies while
taking care that community development will not deviate from the general
goals set by the state. The educationist’s attitude also presumes
that new knowledge and new skills from outside may be introduced to
enrich the community’s culture, if necessary by agencies or personali-
ties from outside the community.
In a conference in Purwokerto from November 11+ to 2lt, 196l, on
the techniques of community development, a resolution was passed to
emphasize again that Pen-mas, as an educational institute of the state,
will always respect the principles of pedagogy. It was further decided
that education for the people should be organized by, from, for, and
within each community itself, with due attention to particular aspects
of social and geographic significance. The conference understood that
special care should be taken in the timing of the program implementation
in order to secure a favorable response at the start. Nevertheless the
’’frontal approach” adopted at the time of the initial experimental years
of Pen-mas did not allow any part of the community to lag behind in set-
ting up uniform educational institutions on blueprints drawn by Pen-mas.
No excuses on grounds of sex, age, status, or occupational function
could be accepted as legitimate grounds for not participating in the
community education program. Village communities were therefore
(3) Tartib Prawirodihardjo, Community Education in Indonesia (Djakarta:
Ministry of Education, Training, and Culture, I960), pp. 55 and
56.6
repeatedly encouraged to apply what Pen-mas called a system of social
persuasion upon unwilling or deviant members. Oral or tangible rewards
were intended to be conferred by the village headmen in the village
council's sessions to those who successfully participated in the program,
and the most honored seats next to the village administration members
should be reserved for them at every social gathering. On the other hand
punishments should be meted out to those who did not cooperate by denying
them a travelling license—indispensable during recurrent periods of
armed rebellious activities against the national government— a marriage
or divorce license, or a permit for the acquisition of rationed
commodities.
In its long terra program Pen-mas has defined its function as to
increase a community's ability for logical reasoning along with the
establishment of a favorable attitude toward progress in all fields of
life. As Tartib Prawirohardjo comments, "Thus community education will
serve as the foundation for all activities of development of the in-
dividual, the community, and the nation."(M By defining this function
Pen-mas hopes to contribute to the realization of one of the major
national goals included in the Indonesian Political Manifesto—the
establishment of an Indonesian socialist society.
Judged from the definition of its function, Pen-mas could be ex-
pected to confine itself to cultural changes in the village communities;
but a brief examination of its planned activities shows a considerable
concern for changing the communities' social structure as well. For in-
formation on this subject we refer again to Tartib Prawirodihardjo, who
explains that "the activities /of Pen-mas7 intended to achieve these aims
are to be 1) A national literacy campaign, 2) Courses for community
leadership, 3) Organization of the community for self help, and U) Organ-
ization of youth and women."(5) While items 1) and 2) presumably will
affect only cultural elements, items 3) and U) deliberately enter into
the organizational features of the community. Perhaps Pen-mas maintains
the opinion that cultural progress can be solidified only if supported by
adequate social organizations in the community.
For· the implementation of its program, Pen-mas has organized it-
self along the current administrative hierarchy of the Indonesian
Republic. It has a Department of Community Education on the national
level as a part of the Ministry of Basic Education and Culture. The
Department has a branch office in each province, and inspectors on the
kabupaten and district levels. The inspectors are in fact the actual
community workers who are expected to translate the national policies
of the Department into workable community projects. Their role in rela-
tion with the village communities and in assuring the cooperation of
other governmental Services in their working area is decisive for the
(U) Tartib Prawirodihardjo, op, cit., p. 62.
(5) Tartib Prawirodihardjo, op. cit., p. 63.7
success of the projects. In some areas where Pen-mas is most active a
start has already been made on appointing officers in the sub-districts.
Pen-mas appoints only one officer, preferably recruited from the local
community, for each sub-district; he ha3 no assistance either in his
office or in his field work.
The LSD system
The Lembaga Sosial Desa, or Village Social Institution, is a
creation of the Ministry of Social Affairs to materialize its concepts
of an ideal social life within a community. It is a serious effort
to bring the Ministry’s basic philosophies into practice. "Tat Twam
Asi," or "I am You," is one of the sayings from an ancient Indian
culture that is used to imbue all social work carried out by each de-
partment of the Ministry. It means that the ego of an individual
should not be confined to his own physical and spiritual self only but
it has to include every other individual with whom he establishes social
relationships. In other words it is the idea of the unity of man and
society.
Another philosophical foundation for social work is the notion
that "Homo Sacra Res Homini," or "Man is sacred to Man," which insures
a peaceful coexistence and a brotherly cooperation between people in
the same social environment.
If closely examined the two sayings assign different role
systems to the individual in his relationships to others in society.
In the first case there is no difference between himself and his social
surroundings since his mental and psychological being is welded into
the social universe. What occurs to him automatically concerns that
social universe, and conversely whatever experience befalls the society
is by the same token the individual’s experience as well. In such a
psychological condition there is no I, there is no You, nor He nor She.
All there is exists in an all encompassing We.
The secbnd saying, on the other hand, depicts the individual as
a separate social entity that establishes relationships with other
individuals as other separate and autonomous entities. Here there is a
distinct I as compared with a clearly defined You and He or They. It is
because of the relationships between the many individuals in a society
that every man has to perceive his fellow man as sacred, lest society
turn into a social chaos. That this social attitude is possible maybe
derived from the natural inhibition of man as a social being.
But no matter how controversial the philosophical principles
adopted by the Ministry of Social Affairs, they do not contradict each
other when used to induce people to be always helpful and cooperative
with others and to live in complete harmony with society.8
On the basis of these philosophical principles the Ministry decided
that in no way should the harmonious life of the village community be
disturbed, not even by the process of community development. The only
way seen by that Ministry to accomplish development without social dis-
organization is to manipulate the stimulus to actual progress in such a
way that it will be regarded as coming from within the community itself.
To put it in sociological terras, the agent of change should be a true
member of the community and may not be a non-participant outsider and
very much less the government itself.
The technique applied is to recruit a member of the community to
be in charge of initiating the local LSD program, or to concentrate
instructions long and intensively enough upon some selected members—
the Ministry calls them ”key-people”—until they take action as agents
of change in their own community. A third, but more arduous and time-
consuming technique is to have a technically competent non-member
officer work long enough with the community to establish intimate
relationships and to be accepted as a full member. Only then can he
stimulate the establishment of an LSD as a community action.
Unlike Pen-mas the Ministry of Social Affairs consciously and
deliberately keeps the idea of social persuasion away from all its
activities, particularly from its attempts to set up an LSD in a village
community. What it wants to achieve is voluntary action by the community
that springs from its own firm conviction that it must and can thus
actually undertake development. The government should carefully avoid
any interference in this developmental process. All it is justified in
doing is extending assistance, if asked by the recognized leaders of the
community. The term "assistance” in this context has a particular mean-
ing different from that of aid or help. It does not include financial
or material aid, not even if given as a loan. Assistance in LSD pro-
grams is intangible in nature and implies only the rendering of advice,
non-binding instructions, and psychological support.
An LSD in a village community is expected to assume communally-
accepted social functions formulated as follows: a) the creation and de-
velopment of social understanding, consciousness, and responsibility
leading to the attainment of social welfare in the village community;
and b) the alleviation, liberation, arid elimination of sufferings that
befall the members of the village community.(6)
This definition of function is quite consistent with the basic
philosophies of the Ministry. It provides directions to each individual
for action as a member of the community and in his relationships with
fellow members. For some reason, however, the ultimate goal—social
welfare—lacks a clear definition. Social welfare, like social
(6) Perkembangan LSD (LSD Development; Djakarta: Ministry of Social
Affairs, 195h), "p'. ii3, article 2.9
suffering, is a socio-psychological situation which may prevail in either
a prosperous or poor community if only its members feel content with
life, do not suffer from psychological conflicts with existing norms and
values in the community, and have no fears for the present or the
future.
From our interviews with senior officers in the Department of
Social Information and Guidance (Djawatan Penjuluh dan Pembimbing Sosial)
in the Ministry of Social Affairs, however, it is apparent that the term
social welfare should not be limited to this meaning. While maintain-
ing that socio-psychological state, the LSD should aim also at higher
standards of social life in general and should exercise efforts to
develop the community toward ever higher and more satisfying conditions
in its mental and material culture. The LSD is not meant to arrest de-
velopment by establishing a socio-psychological contentment with life,
but it is assigned to introduce dynamic forces of progress into a
harmoniously forward moving community.
No specific program of activities is planned for any LSD since
each is supposed to decide for itself what to do to serve the *oommunity
according to its specific needs and desires. The only direction given by
the Ministry to all LSD's in general is that they should cooperate with
other social organizations and governmental agencies in their attempts
to create and disseminate social understanding and to strengthen social
consciousness and responsibility.(7)
Due to its belief that the best way of helping a village community
to start development is by inducing it to employ its own initiative
without any governmental interference, the Ministry of Social Affairs
has no special department to take care exclusively of the LSD’s all over
Indonesia. Everything concerning LSD's is inconspicuously integrated
in the work of the Department of Social Information and Guidance which
has its branch offices in each province and further down to the level of
the Kabupaten. Again, as an examination of the budget for LSD purposes
may also lead one to conclude, this does not mean at all that the LSD is
considered unimportant in the context of the Ministry's entire scope of
work. It is merely to avoid any impression on the side of the village
communities that governmental pressure is exercised or planned to
establish and run LSD's. Most of the work done by the Ministry's officers
for br in connection with LSD's is not officially registered as such, but
is termed as information and social guidance.
Until very recently the Ministry has also carefully refrained
from having offices or officers located hierarchically too close to the
village communities; but lately in some of the areas in Java with active
and successful LSD's an expansion of the organization farther down the
line was decided necessary· Young and promising men from local communi-
ties were called into training to serve as social information officers
(7) Perkembangan LSD, p. U3, article 3.10
on the district and sub-district level. Yet the Ministry still insists that
a village headman should never become chairman of an LSD in his village.
Formal LSD leadership should be reserved for purely private personalities.
The PMD system
Unlike Pen-mas and the Ministry of Social Affairs, neither the
Bureau for Village Community Development (Biro Pembangunan Masjarakat Desa)
nor the Ministry of Cooperatives of which the Bureau is an essential part,
has adopted any specific philosophical principles to found its work upon.
It simply recognizes the 19U5 Constitution and the 1959 Political
Manifesto of the Republic of Indonesia as its guiding stars and has
organized its work accordingly. It is apparently the opinion of the
Bureau that it is an executive agency of the Republic of Indonesia. Im-
bued with an undivided loyalty to the idea of Guided Democracy it does
not want to take the risk of accepting any other philosophies which may
have hidden meanings contradictory to the ideas included in the state's
Constitution and Political Manifesto.
This official attitude is clearly reflected in the PMD's approach
to and organization of its work. Its organization is prescribed in a
Presidential Decree which also includes a description of PMD's main
objectives.(8)
The organization for development has at the national top a policy-
defining board of nine ministers under the chairmanship of the First
Minister. However, because of the overburdened work schedule of each
minister this board, has convened only once in its almost three years of
existence. The actual policy-making is therefore shifted into the hands
of the Minister of Cooperatives, who has the jurisdiction over trans-
migration, cooperatives, and community development affairs. The top
executive under the Minister is the Director of the Bureau of PMD, who
is assisted by a board of representatives of all ministries which have a
share in the general welfare program for the people. A replica of this
board is organized on each of the three additional levels -—province,
Kabupaten, and sub-district—and each board is headed by the head of the
respective administration.
The inclusion of so many representatives of ministries and depart-
ments in the boards on each level of the administrative hierarchy is to
insure the cooperation of the various branches of government in the plan-
ning and coordinated implementation of PMD projects. PMD in action
starts with development projects planned by the sub-district coordinative
board which it considers to be needed by the village communities in that
sub-district. The board may or may not consult the village communities
prior to the planning; this will depend on the particular pattern of
relationships between the sub-district officer in charge and the village
administrations under his jurisdiction. We observe here a difference in
(8) Peraturan Presiden no. 1$ tahun I960.11
the focus of activities between Pen-mas and LSD on the one hand and PMD
on the other. The former concentrate directly upon the autonomous(9)
village communities, whereas PMD takes the nonautonomous sub-district as
its unit of work. To stimulate the planning and implementation of
community self-development the bureau of PMD promises financial grants-
in-aid for projects that can carry the approval of the Minister. It is
required, however, that each community shall carry out the projects in
gotong-rojong or communally organized work and pay a contribution to cover
part of the financial and material costs. The plan is sent to the
Minister of Cooperatives by way of the coordinative boards of the
Kabupaten and province and the Bureau of PMD, each of which forwards the
plan to the next higher echelon with its recommendation. If the Minister
approves of a project it is sent back to the sub-district board via the
same channels with a decision on the amount of the grant-in-aid. The
planned project is then entrusted to an executive board on the village
level under the chairmanship of the village headman.
What PMD wants to achieve is set in article 1) of the Presidential
Decree:
The principal goal of PMD work is primarily to accomplish a
balanced socio-economic development to increase the people's
standard of living by utilizing the village communities'
potentialities for the increase of production and income, all
of which has to be carried out in a family-like spirit to cover
the mass of the people in ah integral way under the guidance
of the Political Manifesto of the Republic of Indonesia (the
present writer's translation).
Since the secCnd part of the definition of this rather long-term
goal is of a general nature expressing the Indonesian atmosphere after the
introduction of the Political Manifesto in July 19$9, only the first half
is of particular relevance for the purposes of this paper. It shows us
that PMD has deliberately selected the economic field as its forum of
activities. Accordingly its ministerial directives point out that grants-
in-aid can be extended only for projects that aim at an increase of
material production. More specifically, PMD projects in support of co-
operatives are to be given priority on the ground of the assumption that
cooperatives are the best channel to reshape the Indonesian economic
system consistently with the establishment of an Indonesian socialist
society as mentioned in the Political Manifesto.
However, the official explanation of the Presidential Decree in-
forms us that developments in cultural and spiritual life outside the
economy of the people are in no way excluded from PMD programs. This
assertion was repeated by a sehior officer at the Bureau of PMD who also
frankly admitted that for the time being PMD projects were still almost
exclusively socio-economic in nature.
(9) Autonomous refers to the authority of village communities to exercise
both legislative and executive power in· internal affairs.12
Community development in action
A comparison of the three systems of community development under
study would lead one to conclude that there are no necessarily conflict-
ing differences in the basic principles, the approach to village communi-
ties, the implementary activities, or the ultimate goal. They can even be
mutually supporting. Pen-mas takes care of the development in rational
thinking and general knowledge; the LSD sees to it that social relationships
between members maintain harmony within the community, whereas PMD mobi-
lizes the people for increased economic production. Planned cooperative
action among the three agencies would thus probably have a cumulative and
accelerating effect upon the development of a village community. Such an
action however requires the coordinated activities of those working in the
field, and it also requires that each agency be continuously as active as
the others.
Our short visits to Banjumas and South Tjiamis did not convince
us that this ideal working arrangement has as yet been realized. In each
of the areas visited we found uneven levels of achievement by the three
agencies. It seems to be a standard pattern that if one agency has
accomplished outstanding results in a given area, the other two remain
in the background both in physical achievement and in the minds of
people there. We were informed that in other areas not included in our
short visits the same differences exist, though not always as pronounced.
In any one area if the agencies for community development
accomplish different results, we may safely conclude that these differ-
ences are only partly explained by the particular features of that
community. Most probably they are also the outcome of differences in the
working procedure of the agencies, or they may be a function of the dif-
ferential acceptability of the field workers by the communities. In
matters of social innovation, which is in effect the essence of
community development, reactions of people in the rural areas of
Indonesia generally are more influenced by the personality of the inno-
vator and his approach to them than by the ultimate goals that will
materialize only after the process is finished.II
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT IN BANJUMAS, CENTRAL JAVA
The Kabupaten of Banjumas, Central Java, by Javanese standards
has a prosperous agrarian population. Its fertile soil produces rice of
excellent quality, cloves that make its growers wealthy, and copra which
finds its way through the channels of collector-traders to cooking-oil
factories in Java.
In spite of the fact that a number of nationally recognized
heroes of the Indohesian revolution, such as General Soedirman and
General Gatot Soebroto, originated from Banjumas, the village communi-
ties in this area today seem to have retained more of their “feudal"
structure than have village communities in other areas of Java. The
terra "feudal" here refers to the loyalties—initially stimulated by
dependency—of the lower class people to members of the traditionally-
determined higher classes in Javanese society. It is perhaps this
loyal attitude towards recognized indigenous leaders which for the
most part accounts for the success of community development in that
area. At any rate the rapidly succeeding social changes have caused
only a minimum of social disorganization, and have done little harm
to the relationships between the members of the communities and its
ruling elites.
A great advantage for the smooth running of the community de-
velopment programs in Banjumas is the mutual tolerance and understanding
between the various governmental agencies on the Kabupaten level which
enable them to engage in fruitful cooperation. The PMD Coordinative
Board, headed by the young Bupati (administrative head·of the Kabupaten)
and including the heads of all the loqal services which have something
to do with the promotion of the people's welfare, is taken as »the forum
where community development actions are discussed and planned. Nobody
seems to have any objection that the inspector of Pen-mas affairs usually
draws the draft plans as the basis for discussions in the board. The
fact that the inspector was bom and bred in Banjutaas, has a considerable
experience of living and working with village communities, and is an
13iU
Chart 1. Community Development Agencies on the Village Level in Banjumas
members are all 18 years and
older male and female vil-
lage inhabitants; lurah (vil-
lage headman) is Chairman
lurah has two assistants
bahu (hamlet headman) has
three or four assistants;
a desa (village) has five to
six grurobul (hamlets)
a hamlet is divided into 2
or 3 Rukun Kampung, each with
an elected President.
a Rukun Kampung includes U
to 5 Rukun Tetangga, each with
an elected President.
a ^u^un Tetangga has 10 to
25 family heads as members1?
unusually active personality of humble character is apparently the main
reason for,his being generally accepted as the auctor intellectualis for
the board's decisions. As a consequence the community development pro-
grams in Banjumas bear heavily the style and rhythm of Pen-mas.
It may be mentioned in this context that in spite of the decisive
role of the PMD Coordinateve Board in planning and directing community
development programs, there is only very little going on in the villages
in tepms of activities by PMD itself. At the time of our short visits
to the rural communities in Banjumas the board was waiting for the
approval of the first PMD draft projects by the Minister of Cooperatives
in Djakarta. As far as we could find out no actions in the field were
taken before approval of the draft project by the Minister and receipt
of the grant-in-aid.
In the spirit of the national Pen-mas program community develop-
ment in Banjumas started with a literacy drive and the organization of
group courses sustained by social pressures from the village headman and
his assistants. Prior to conducting the actual teaching courses,
Pen-mas held meetings with the village administration and with those
members of the village communities having some formal educational back-
ground to select voluntary instructors. Standard techniques of instruct-
ing illiterate adults in reading and writing were then explained. After
four or five one-hour sessions the instructors were ready to set up, with
the collaboration of -the village administration, literacy courses for
those who lived close to their residences. The courses were held either
in the afternoon or in the night when work in the fields and gardens
was over. Schoolboys were assigned according to instructions from
Pen-mas to round up the "students" to attend the literacy courses
regularly, and it is generally recognized that they did their task with
zeal and dedication. As a result, the adult people, who were ashamed
of being reminded by young children, were Socially compelled to comply.
The illiteracy rate in Banjumas at the start of Indonesia's
independence stood at the 91$ level. Pen-mas statistics in Banjumas told
us that it dropped to 9$ at the beginning of 19^6. Subsequently, when
President Soekarno in his annual independence address on August 17, I960,
decreed that illiteracy should be entirely finished all over Indonesia
at the end of 196ίι, the drive in Banjumas was accelerated with renewed
ferver until the Bupati could proudly proclaim that on June 30, 1961,
all men and women in the age bracket between 13 and U5 years in the
Kabupaten area were freed from illiteracy. Our reading tests with
randomly chosen people of different ages in the villages showed a
reasonably good outcome, but the marriage and divorce register at the
mosque administrator's office whs still filled with finger prints in-
stead of written signatures.
We gained the impression that it was not too hard to carry out a
literacy campaign in the rural areas if only the village administration
could be convinced of its necessity for the community's future and for
its prestige. The lurah (village headman) and his assistants still enjoy
the institutionalized authority to rally the people for such a campaign.16
But much harder is the program to maintain literacy with village people.
Compared with the efforts to eliminate illiteracy, for which there can
be set a definite deadline, there is no end and no clear cut target for
its follow-up campaign. There is no institutionalized reading and
writing habit in a community where everyone knows everyone else, where
social relations are carried out according to well-known traditional
norms, and where economic activities are guided mainly by seasonal
cycles. The individual mind is predominantly village-centered, and not
much real attention is paid to what is going on outside the village
boundaries. Oral communication goes much faster and carries more per-
sonal flavor, and it is therefore more impressive than the printed
word. The only occasion which requires paper-language is one involving
direct relations with the government. For this purpose, people reason,
the lurah and his assistants are paid to help. Small wonder that even
those who graduated from primary school gradually return to their former
state of letter-blindness, as the Indonesian term buta huruf literally
means.
In spite of all this Pen-mas has managed to establish in every
village small libraries filled with instructional and recreational
booklets. However, the number of books, all in the national language,
is usually much too small for the growing number of eager readers. For
an average village population of h,000 only 250 to 300 books can be
made available. Most of the older people have been successfully stimu-
lated to read about agriculture and animal husbandry, whereas the younger
generation is more keen to read stories, either historical or fictional.
In a few months each reader has already gone over all the books of his
interest, and disappointment strikes him when the library can no
further quench his thirst for more reading.
We had no time to get an exact account of the number of newspapers
and magazines’that find their way regularly into each village community.
But we had occasion to witness people reading them or having them at
home, and apparently not just as wrapping material. Our individual and
group interviews made us understand that the majority of the village
people who subscribe—often collectively, because of the relatively
high subscription rate—to newspapers and magazines belong to the category
of government employees.. The literate non-governmentally employed
neighbors share in reading them but do not contribute financially. It
is certainly not poverty that prevents the co-readers from paying a part
of the subscription rate, since many of them have substantially larger
real earnings than have the average poorly underpaid government
employees. The latter seems to put a much higher value upon keeping
himself informed of current events in the wider world than does the
average village dweller. He reads every news item, article, and adver-
tisement in the standard four page dailies and in the thirty-two to
forty-eight page weeklies. His non-governmentally employed neighbors
have more interest in the exciting news items and official publications
which would affect the village community. It seems to us that this
phenomenon has some correlation with the social structure of the village
community. The government employees in the village, most of them primary
school teachers, are generally respected as the village intellectuals who17
know more than everybody else about everything outside the village,
particularly with regard to instructions and regulations issued by the
government. The village community (including the members of the village
administration) rely upon them if matters of extra-village scope are
involved. Aware of their prestigeful status and their social responsi-
bilities, the government employees in the village are willing to
sacrifice financially. The newspapers and magazines, however, are not
well accepted by those who have been newly cured from their letter
blindness. For most of them the type is too small, the sentences too
long and complicated, and an extraordinary effort is required to under-
stand what is written about. In passing we also observed in three
villages recent issues of Aneka Amerika, distributed by the U.S. Informa-
tion Service in Djakarta, together with Uni Sovjet from the Russian
Embassy in Indonesia. Both illustrated monthlies are sent free to
applicants and are printed in the Indonesian language.
The government employees are undoubtedly potential innovators,
and in carrying out its program of community development Pen-mas has
skillfully used the advantage of having the primary school teachers under
its jurisdiction.
In the attempt to progress from the pre-literate state in the
village communities an ingenious mechanism has been developed, with which
reading skills can be applied and educational instructions can be com-
municated to the people. Every Rukun Tetangga—a neighborhood organiza-
tion including a group of from 20 to UO families—is instructed to
organize weekly meetings with its members to discuss the solution of
communal problems, e.g., how to get kerosene for lamps, how to carry out
the keep-your-house-and-garden-clean drive, what to do to keep the
fields free from recurrent floods, how to fight the rats in the paddy
fields, or when to start planting rice. The meeting, held in rotation
at night in one of the members' houses, is presided over by the
annually elected Rukun Tetangga president. After the discussions about
their own interests, the president hands out bulletins printed in bold
type to be read loudly to the meeting by randomly selected graduates of
the literacy courses. The bulletins, prepared by a technical sub-
committee of the Kabupaten PMD coordihating board are in the local
language, which is Javanesej and Carry comprehensive instructions from
government services involved in community development programs. They
range' from the essentials of the state's Political Manifesto to the
necessity of using fertilizers and the actual implementation of land
reform. It is the duty of the village teacher to give a more elaborate
oral explanation of what was read from the bulletins. The Rukun
Tetangga meetings, now having the reading assignment added to its origi-
nal procedure for communal problem-solving, are now called Paina-Pami,
which stands for Pagujuban Matja-Pagujuban Mirengaken or Collective
Reading and Collective Listening.
Another way of maintaining literacy is the erection by the village
administration of bill boards at crossroads upon which official and other
announcements of concern to the community can be written in easily
legible letters.18
The community development program in Banjumas, in spite of the
numerous activities it is already carrying out, does not confine itself
to the maintenance of literacy. It does not consider the success of the
literacy campaign to lie only in the transformation from a illiterate to
a literate community, but it rightly recognizes the inherent psychological
changes as springboards for a more advanced program. By developing the
ability to read and to write, formerly a prerogative of the higher in-
tellectual classes, the village community feels its status considerably
lifted on the social ladder. The increased self-respect and the firmer
self-confidence that consequently develop are duly recognized as an
ideal basis for further and faster progress.
On this social psychological basis a series of community develop-
ment adult education courses are planned and organized, with the highest-
educated men in the village and selected officials of government agencies
in the area as voluntary instructors. Women meet at family welfare
sessions to get instruction in sewing, mending, baking, cooking, baby
care, home decoration, dressing, and social manners, as is common among
the intellectual classes in the cities. Prior to the session or during
the intermission the students are in turn assigned to read Pama-Pami
bulletins or other instructive reading material to their fellows.
Although many of the course items attract enough attendance from young
women the sessions are made more responsive to the students' needs by
having an arisan organized in addition. An arisan is a voluntary credit
association which convenes at regular intervals—in our case the members
meet at the family welfare sessions—whereby each member pays her con-
tribution to a collective fund. The entire fund is then allocated by lot
to one or perhaps two or three of the members. Anyone who has already
won the pool is morally obliged to attend the next sessions and to pay
her contribution but is not entitled to another lot until every member
has won her share.
In three villages it was decided that the arisan winner would not
receive her savings in cash, but in chinaware of domestic Indonesian
make. In this way all members of the arisan are supplied with chinaware
of the same model and design. If one of them happens to have a wedding
or circumcision party, as everyone in the village is expected to give at
least once in his lifetime, there is no need to rent chinaware from a
rental shop in the nearby city as is usually done. One can borrow it
from the other members and have a complete set. There is even more than
that. The other members are happy to help preparing food for the party,
since this is a welcome opportunity to practice their baking and cooking
lessons at the family welfare courses. They pride themselves that
refreshments prepared on their recipes are no less "modern" looking and
tasteful than are those served at the houses of the intellectual elite
in the city. At the party night the young women appear in self-made
dresses of carefully selected material, worn in a manner that is dis-
tinctively different from the way non-students of home economics wear
theirs. The men, having no part in the home economics courses, have no
other recourse than to enjoy the whole event.
The post-literacy development program includes a three months
training of local cadres in new agricultural techniques, raising fish,19
public health, village administration, animal husbandry, and the adminis-
tration of cooperatives. Above all, information is proffered to them
about current events on the provincial and national scene and, if so
desired, on world news of international importance. The program has
also started a fund-raising drive all over the Kabupaten area to establish
a training institute for higher level cadres with instructors recruited
from the top-ranking government officials in the Kabupaten seat of
Purwokerto.
Just as Pen-mas had to solve the problem of maintaining literacy
in the post-literate village communities, so the problem develops now of
how to maintain the new habits and skills of the cadres, and how to
communicate them to the rest of the community and to get them ultimately
institutionalized.
Pen-mas, with the approval of the Kabupaten PMD coordinating
board is trying to solve this problem by organizing the cadres into
occupational associations (ikatans) within the village limits. On the
instigation of Pen-mas inspectors, there have been established in some
villages separate ikatans of farmers, fish-pond owners, small traders,
carpenters, bricklayers, and the like. The idea is that members of
these associations should make attempts to develop their skills further.
They are also given the honor of serving the community according to their
best abilities any time they are needed.
Each village is also encouraged to organize a women's organiza-
tion for the further development of whatever instructions were given at
the home economics courses. The organization is called Ikatan Kartini
after the nationally recognized fore-runner of the emancipation of
Indonesian women. Typical for the personality-centered loyalties in
rural communities, it is invariably the lurah's wife who is elected
chairman of the village Ikatan Kartini, regardless of her ability to
give leadership to the organization. If she turns out to be unable to
assume effective chairmanship, someone else of her choice may do the
work in her name.
The development program has recognized the potential force of
the youth as vanguards for social progress. It has made serious efforts
to organize the pemuda of every village into a youth organization, the
Taruna Karya. Whd.t is called pemuda, or the youth, in this matter is
rather widely defined. It includes’every able-bodied male and female
with dynamic and progressive spirit. Whenever some new idea or some
technical innovation is to be introduced in the community it is communi-
cated to the appropriate occupational association to be tested on its
practical possibilities. Once the innovation Is proved useful and
socially feasible the Taruna Karya is mobilized to propagandize it as
widely as they can in the village and to see to it that those concerned
really start to apply the innovation. No physical or material sanctions
may ever be used in stimulating the people to adopt new ideas or
techniques. The Way members of Taruna Karya have to carry out their
duty is by setting up demonstration fields if the innovation is concerned
with the application Ρί hex seeds, new fertilizers, or new techniques20
of agriculture, and by personal visits to families either in their homes
or while they are working in the field or garden.
The establishment of new organizations in the villages does not
in any way impede earlier established organizations in maintaining their
functions. Instead, their cooperation for the implementation of the
community development program is maintained. The Lembaga Sosial Desa
assumes the care of the poor and the displaced, and is expected to help
in case of famines and accidents; on the other hand it gets support from
the village administration and the community development organizations in
acquiring funds for its activities. The Rukun Tetangga is helpful in
urging every family to set aside one banana tree in their yard for the
LSD fund.
Just as the LSD can carry out its activities in the frame-work of
the community development program, so the Frqnt Nasional, a government
organization to mobilize all funds and forces(lO) of the nation for the
overall national development, is given adequate support by the community
development agencies to indoctrinate the village people into the
principles of the guided democracy, guided economy, and the movement to
arrive at the establishment of an Indonesian socialist society. In
addition, the Front Nasional is expected to apply its skills and authority
to promote local programs of development. Local leaders of political
parties are invited to participate in the PMD executive board on the
village level to make themselves useful to the community without impair-
ing their parties' interests. Village cooperatives, for the large part
aimed at supplying loans to the members or at organizing the production
and marketing of coconut palm sugar and cloves, play an increasingly
important role in the economy of the rural communities and maintain
cooperation with every organization involved in the overall community
development. Many of these cooperatives have grown out of the tradi-
tional arisan organization, which means a change from an informal and
social into a formal and distinctly economic organization.
A remarkable aspect of community development in Banjumas is that
every organization and every activity is within the limits of the village
community and is consciously submitted to the authority of the institu-
tionalized mechanisms of formal social control in the community. Deci-
sions on the acceptance of innovations of communal character have to be
passed by the village assembly, which is the traditionally recognized
supreme authority in village affairs. It meets once every thirty five
days and includes all male and female members of the age of 18 years and
older. The lurah, elected for life, is ex officio chairman of the
assembly and chief executive of its decisions. Considering the fact that
the lurah is the only elected administrator in the village and that he
(10) The words "mobilizing all funds and forces" became popular in
Indonesia after they were used by President Soekarno in his
address on August 17, 1959. This address was afterwards accepted
by the Provisional National Assembly as Indonesia's Political
Manifesto, giving basic outlines for the state's overall policy.21
has the sole right to select his own assistants and hamlet headmen—
though subject to the formal approval of the district officer—and know-
ing the closely knit family system in Indonesia's village communities,
it is not very difficult to recognize the high prestige and firm authority
of the lurah and his ruling family in each of the ten villages in
Banjumas visited for the purpose of this paper. All lurahs without ex-
ception are direct descendants of the former lurahs or are at least very
closely akin to their predecessors. Any innovation that would interfere
with the interests of the lurah and his ruling family would risk a great
chance of failure, and if successfully accepted would meet unnecessary
difficulties in its actual implementation.
The community development system in Banjumas has therefore care-
fully maintained the prestigeful position of the lurah and it has even
ascribed to him a stronger status in the new structure of the community.
All occupational organizations, the Taruna Karya, all Rukun Tetangga,
and the Rukun Kampung (which coordinates U to 5 Rukun Tetangga), are
placed under his jurisdiction. The village PMD executive board, com-
prising local leaders and village intellectuals and established to plan,
stimulate, and guide the implementation of community development pro-
grama, is formally attached to the lurahs whose decisions they have to
accept. In effect the lurah is, through his wife, the most influential
person in the Ikatan Kartini. In other words, established social in-
stitutions are in this way organizationally reinforced and their
commanding positions in the village used for the purposes of community
development.
Most of the new organizations for community development described
above were at the time of our visits in the process of being established,
while some were still in planning. Where they had already reached some
degree of consolidation, they had soon taken up new communal activities
or they had accelerated previously started gotong-rojong work. Ikatan
Kartini is engaged in the collection of beras djimpitan; every member
is expected to set aside a spoonful of rice every time before cooking the
family meal. Once a week the president of the Rukun Tetangga collects
this rice and sells it at lower than the market price to those designated
as poor by the LSD. Half of the money goes to the Ikatan Kartini
treasury and the other half is sent to the Pen-mas inspector, who has
obtained the authority from the PMD coordinative board to build a
Rp. h,000,000-training center for community development cadres on the
Kabupaten level. The Taruna Karya in one village has already success-
fully set up a demonstration field of papaya trees and has worked for
the increase of farm productivity by spreading the use of artificial
fertilizer and new high-powered rice seeds. They also earned credit for
the organization of music bands to play both Western and Indonesian
music for their own recreation and, when invited, at house parties.
Many farmers have already earmarked a banana tree in their yard for
the LSD, although a lurah openly complained that a conspicuously low
number of earmarked banana trfees bear fruit. His explanation was that
every time a tree bears fruit the mark is moved by the farmer to an-
other younger tree. The people of three adjacent villages have worked22
together in gotong-rojong to build roads and an almost one hundred meter
bridge. In addition one of these villages had a specific gotong-rojong
project of its own to erect school buildings. All of this work was done
without any assistance from the government.
In summary we may conclude that village communities in Banjumas
have developed a desire for social progress and that they are seriously
trying to organize a social framework for community development.Ill
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT IN THE VILLAGE OF BODJONG, WEST JAVA
The village of Bodjong with a population of about U,000 is
located in South Tjiamis, West Java, and constitutes a part of the sub-
district of Parigi, district of Pangandaran. The district, together
with the neighbouring district of Tjidjulang, covers an area along the
steep coast of the rough-waved Indian Ocean. On the island side, the
area is completely surrounded by mountains accessible only on foot or
horseback. There is only one motor road and one railroad track that
connect the area with the outer world, but the former was in a very bad
shape for several years and the latter was used only infrequently on
account of the many disturbances by armed Darul Islam(H) gangs that
roamed West Java and upset law and order for more than ten years. At
the time of our short visit to Bodjong the motor road was still in a
dilapidated shape, whereas the train had been running daily for almost
a year without suffering from serious attacks by the armed gangs.
The district of Pangandaran is fairly densely populated, with
an average of 600 to 800 people per square kilometer. There are rice-
fields to produce nearly enough food for the population, but the area's
main source of income comes from the coconut palms that grow in the
sub-district of Parigi at an average of lf> trees per head of
population.
The main focus of our attention in our short survey was directed
to the village of Bodjong, but we visited also the adjacent villages of
Tjikembulan and Tjidjulang for comparison. We were told that Bodjong was
outstanding in its community development achievement, but other villages
in the district of Pangandaran were following the same system.
(11) The Darul Islam movement, initiated in 19b9 in West Java and sup-
ported by armed guerilla forces, aimed at the establishment of an
Islamic State to replace the present Republic of Indonesia by force-
ful means. It tried by terrorizing the rural population and raiding
villages to force people to take its side. The movement came to an
end when its leader, Kartosuwirjo, was captured in June 1962 and
subsequently sentenced to death.
232k
Chart 2. Community Development Agencies in the Village of Bodjong25
Community development here is partly the work of the Department
of Social Information and Guidance and also of the Department of Co-
operatives. Working independently from each other, but taking the same
community as their objective, the work of the two departments resulted
in a uniquely interwoven outcome. Pen-mas is here known only for its
anti-illiteracy campaign, and PMD is a name people have heard about
only vaguely.
The success of community development in Bodjong, as we found it
during our visit, is undoubtedly due to the well integrated activities
of three village institutions, one old and two new: the village
administration, the LSD, and the village cooperative.
The village administration, headed by the Kuwu (in Banjumas
and elsewhere in Java called Lurah), is the executive of the village
assembly’s decisions and acts as intermediary between the village
community and the government as represented by the Tjamat, the civil
service officer lowest on the hierarchical ladder. The more than ten
years of unparalleled terrorism from Darul Islam gangs, to which
former kuwus and assistants fell victim, as did many other men, women
and children, have evidently brought into formal leading positions the
bravest men, who enjoy the people's confidence and unquestioning
loyalties. We found an administrative team whose members barely
touched the age of forty, who seemed to have a good understanding of
the needs of the community and were prepared to carry out any work
that would lead td the solution of communal problems.
The second village institution, the LSD, was brought into
being by the kuwu in March 195U after the instruction he and a small
number of other lochl leaders received at a Seven day course organized
in the village by the Department of Social Information and Guidance.
The first LSD president elected by the village assembly was the village
clerk, but he was killed by the Darul Islam not very long after he took
office. Since then the presidency has changed hands every year, but
as a rule no member of the village administration was elected, so as
to avoid cumulation and blurring of public offices. Being president
or member of the LSD bpard is considered an honor and requires therefore
no payment. It is obvious that the LSD, established to develop and
reinforce social consciousness and to organize a system of mutual help
among its members—-all family heads Residing in the village—has met
a real need of the comrauriity which was suffering from death and de-
struction that came from the Darul Islam gangs.
The community has, in its geographically isolated position, to
rely upon its own forces to cope with the problems and dangers from
either natural or social environment. Help from the government or
from the army battalion in charge of fighting the Darul Islam rebels
was usually insufficient and could not always be expected to arrive on
time. In order to, survive, the community had to organize an auxiliary
armed force, the OPR,(12) that received military training and fire
(12) OPR stands fbr Organisasi Pertahanan Rakjat, or People's Defense
Organization.26
arras from the army battalion stationed at the district seat of Pang andaran.
The training included young men and women as well.
In its further attempts of self defence the community was grateful
for the training to organize an LSD. The first action of the LSD was to
carry out andjang Sana or house-to-house visits by its board members to
instruct the people how and where to hide to save their lives and their
material belongings in case of Darul Islam attacks, usually conducted at
night. Every Rukun Tetangga was encouraged to assume a collective responsi
bility for the well-being of every member, not only in relation to Darul
Islam dangers but also in their normal daily life. Almost every Rukun
Tetangga has a collective rice storage to be used in periods of food
scarcity and to help those who really need it. The LSD treasury is
filled with beras perelek, collected in the same way as the beras
djimpltan in Banjumas, and with coconuts contributed by'-all members each
of whom brings one coconut at each of the five-weekly meetings of the
village assembly. A number of wealthy members have put altogether about
one hectare of arable land at the disposal of the LSD; nearby members
till the land on a share-cropping agreement with the LSD. Thus the LSD
is able to help materially whenever there is need. It was even wealthy
enough to help with food when people of the neighboring village of
Tjiliang were struck with floods. The LSD has also very often managed
to build new houses in gotong-rojong work for those who lost theirs in
fires set by Darul Islam gangs.
The Department of Social Information and Guidance has suggested
that a branch LSD be established in every Rukun Kampung and Rukun
Tetangga so that a vertical LSD hierarchy mins from the village top down
to every family. However, the kuwu and the LSD president considered that
it would be confusing and unnecessary to have a second organization on the
level of the Rukun Kampung and Rukun Tetangga, both covering the same
family heads as members. On the other hand they did not want to ignore
the suggestion, which was accepted as an order like all other hints and
ideas from administrative superiors. The compromise solution was that
the presidents of Rukun Kampungs and Rukun Tetanggas were all recognized
as LSD presidents in their own sectors of the village.
Still not satisfied with the success of the organization of LSD
in the village, the Department decided that every five to six neighbor-
ing families should be organized into a kelompok, or neighborhood group,
with a daily rotating presidency. The president of the day is responsi-
ble for everything that happens to each family and its members in his
kelompok. It is his duty to help or to mobilize all members of his
kelompok for help in case of death, sickness, shortage of food, family
and individual conflicts, and in any other kind of trouble that may
befall his people. It may be due to the novelty of the organization,
but people interviewed on this subject seemed not to be over enthusiastic
about this kelompok system. There is so much actual communication and
interaction among adjacent families at every time of the day that even
the smallest family and individual events would never escape the atten-
tion of neighbors. The organization of these social activities into a27
kelompok was clearly felt as the formalization—in their eyes unnecessary—
of informal relationships.
Encouraged by LSD's frequent success in mobilizing its members
for communal work there seems to have developed a tendency to leave the
village assembly’s decisions requiring organized communal action to the
LSD, while the village administration, formerly in charge of this work,
confines itself to a supervisory role. It should be mentioned here
that the LSD constitutes in effect the driving and organizing force in
such cases. The actual implementation of gathering people and putting
them to work is done by the Rukun Kampung and Rukun Tetangga.
The role of the LSD for gotong-rojong activities has become more
firmly established since November 1961, when it received formal recogni-
tion, written and widely published, from the commanding officer of the
army battalion at Pangahdaran as the sole organization entitled to plan
and carry out social work in the village.
The second new institution in the village of Bodjong that has made
an important contribution to the progress of the community is the village
cooperative. It is in ho way second to the LSD in significance or in
scope, but only in the sequence of its establishment. In the terminology
of the Department of Cooperatives it is designated as a multipurpose
cooperative since it aims at serving its members in all of their economic
needs.
It started in early 19 53 as a loosely-structured organization of
incidental character when a few farmers decided that it would be much
cheaper if only one or two of them were sent to the nearest town of
Tjiamis—a distance of about 120 kilometers—to do the purchasing of
farm tools, rather than if all of them undertook the long and costly
trip. From just farm tools the purchasing expanded to other needs of
the farmers' families, and from incidental occasions the practice de-
veloped into a more or less regular habit. When officers of the Depart-
ment of Cooperatives at th‘e Kabupaten of Tjiamis discovered this
practice of collective purchasing they eagerly instructed the kuwu to
organize it into a cooperative with all the formal features as required
by the government regulations. The kuwu, as usual, carried the instruc-
tions out and obtained the help of the village intellectuals to
participate in the board of the cooperative to carry out the paperwork
and all other activities required by a Qesellschaftliches economic
organization as instructed by the Department of Cooperatives. Here
again, as in the case of the LSD, members of the board were selected
by the kuwu and appointed by the village assembly.
At the beginning people were reluctant to become members of
the cooperative. But when it was made the sole agent in the village
for the distribution at low prices of government-controlled scarce
commodities, such as kerosene, sugar, and textiles, membership in-
creased from 6?7 in 19i>3 to 98U at the end of 1957. It leaped to 2066
in only one year, 1958, and increased steadily thereafter to 2371 at28
the closing of 1961. All family heads without exception and a number of
individual adult family members have now joined the cooperative.
The phenomenal growth in membership in 195>8 was a result of a
decision passed by the village assembly at the suggestion of the coopera-
tive board that the cooperative should take over as many of the financial
and material public burdens of the community as the cooperative's
treasury could afford to pay. In this way members of the cooperative
were relieved from the pantjen duties, which is a system of payment in
kind to the members of the village administration at rice harvest time.
There being not enough village-owned land in Bodjong to pay the kuwu
and his assistants (as is done traditionally elsewhere in Java), they
were entitled as a group to 20% of the rice and other agricultural
produce(13) of the people plus a number of financial benefits at cer-
tain traditional occasions requiring their presence or authority. All
this was abolished and replaced by payment in cash by the cooperative.
The assembly's decision included also the taking over by the cooperative
of all contributions the people had to pay for the annual celebration
of Independence Day, Labor Day, Armed Forces Day, and other annually
observed national ceremonies. In fact the decision did apply only to
members of the cooperative, leaving non-members the duty to pay the
pantjen and other forced contributions in full. But when non-member
family heads recognized the advantages of the exemption and all hurriedly
registered as members of the cooperative, the assembly's decision
naturally applied to the entire community of Bodjong. A brief examina-
tion of the village archives showed us that about 60% of the 1962 village
budget could be met by the cooperative. In this way the cooperative
was assigned, among other things, to take care of the expenses for the
literacy campaigns, the harvest rituals, the three village schools,
military training of the youth, village defense organization, and the
purchase of uniforms for the village administration members.
The factor that made the cooperative so successful financially
that it could be burdened with such a large part of the public expendi-
tures of the community is certainly not the profit from functioning as
sole distribution agent of government-controlled goods; nor is it the
accumulated monthly dues of the members. The largest income is from
the selling of coconuts, copra, and coconut oil, over which it has
obtained legal and actual monopoly in Bodjong. At the advice of the
Department of Cooperatives in Tjiamis this monopoly was given to the
cooperative by the village assembly in 19i>8. The isolated location of
the district of Pangandaran, with only one motor road and one railroad
connecting it to the outer world, made enforcement of the monopoly an
easy task. It became even much easier when the TNI battalion(l^) at
(13) This 20% was levied only from seasonal crops (crops that have to be
replanted every season) and was not applied to trees (like coconut
palms) which have a life period of more than one year.
(lU) TNI, or Tentara Nasional Indonesia, is the Indonesian National
Army.29
Pangandaran, for reasons consistent with its armed operations against
the Darul Islam, publicly and officially recognized this monopoly and
even helped to see to it that no other than the village cooperative
could pass the military posts at the district's gateways with coconut
palm products. The cooperative, lacking experience and knowledge in
the art of marketing, was helped in another way by the Kabupaten
cooperative, which offered its services in business relations with
large-scale consumers.
Another profitable business the cooperative entered into was the
establishment of village pasars, or markets, where people from Bodjong
and surrounding villages gather twice a week for selling and buying
agricultural produce and other goods needed by rural families. The rent
paid by sellers in the pasar was a considerable contribution to the in-
come of the cooperative. Net income from the coconut monopoly in 1961
amounted to Rp. 30,633 and from the pasar business to Rp. 21,230.
Consistent with its multipurpose objectives the cooperative
was soon granted permission by the village assembly to extend loans to
its members. Unlike the government village loan-banks and other credit
institutions, the village cooperative did not require ary material
collateral for its loans. Just being a member of the cooperative alone
is enough security. Social control in a village community with closely
knit interpersonal relations is as a rule directly exercised by
neighbors, and social sanctions are formally re-enforced by the Rukun
Tetangga organization and the village administration. Any member who
fails to fulfill his duties to the cooperative is considered a social
deviant and an undesirable member of the community. So far no one has
ever dared to defy the community's wrath on deviation from the rules
of either the cooperative or the LSD.
Initially the cooperative was organized in the image of a
family. There was no distinctive job description and no formal division
of functions. But the rapid growth of its activities and its scope of
work soon made its family-like organization inappropriate. At the sug-
gestion of the Department of Cooperatives it was reorganized into three
sections in charge of production, consumption, and loans. The second
section, that on consumption, was the least developed at the time of our
short visit. This was due to scarcity of much needed consumer goods
in general in Indonesia and the complicated bureaucratic procedures to
obtain them at officially fixed prices.
It was also at the instigation of the Department of Cooperatives
that Bodjong's village cooperative asked and acquired governmental
recognition as a lawful institution, which is a juridical construction
derived from the Dutch civil law system. This recognition is a further
step towards modern economic organization, since it distinctly separates
the cooperative's properties and responsibilities from the personal
belongings and activities of those in charge of its management. On the
other hand it puts the cooperative on a less advantageous basis than it
had previously, since it is now submitted to strict control from the
Department of Cooperatives—which means, among other things, that it is30
no longer permitted to carry on business other than at officially fixed
prices far below the level of the free market. The cooperative's close
association with the village LSD, however, provides a good outlet to cope
with this formal restriction. The LSD, formally not recognized by the
government as a lawful institution, but socially accepted and supported
by the village community, was not bound by the rules of the Department
of Cooperatives or any other department in charge of economic control in
the country. The LSD could consequently buy and sell goods at other than
the officially set prices, so that it had more freedom to move without
much fear of violating the law. The LSD could borrow funds from the co-
operative, which it did several times in recent years, to purchase
textiles, kerosene, and sugar on the free market to meet the needs of
its members who are also members of the cooperative. Needless to say,
the cooperative is helpful to the LSD in carrying out these economic
activities, and it did not matter very much to the members who belonged
to both organizations which one of the organizations got the benefit of
the small profit that was to be made in the transaction.
In the course of its development the multipurpose village co-
operative of Bodjong has proved useful in serving the economic and
financial needs of the community. The increasing financial burdens that
are progressively assigned by the village assembly to the cooperative
leads us to expect that, given an uninterrupted further growth, in the
near future it can take care of all the budgetary expenses of the
village community.
Other village communities in the district of Pangandaran have set
up social institutions similar to those described above, but none has
so far achieved the same remarkable success as in the community of Bodjong.
Knowing village communities in Java in general, with their traditional
pattern of reacting favorably to gentle pressures from the civil adminis-
tration, we may express our conclusion here that the stimulus to establish
an LSD and a cooperative has undoubtedly come from the government through
civil administration channels. However, the success in the village of
Bodjong is unmistakably due to the harmonious integration of the main
village institutions, which are the administration, the LSD, and the
cooperative. And this harmony, we assume, has been fostered by the
isolated location of the village and by the more than ten years of terror
from Darul Islam gangs that forced the community to make the best use of
its communal resources for its survival. The untiring dedication of the
kuwu and the voluntary cooperation of the village intellectuals were
additional factors that helped considerably to make Bodjong so favorably
distinct in social development from nearby villages.IV
SOME THEORETICAL COMMENTS
If a government wants to establish a program of community develop
raent it should determine what attitude its executive agencies ought to
assume towards the communities to which the program is to be applied. It
may take the position of a government, with all its legal authority; it
may also decide to have its agencies act as educators; or it may issue
instructions that they take the roles of passive consultants.
The role of a government agent includes the duty to organize
the work on a nationwide basis, emphasizing the goals and needs of the
entire nation rather than those of a specific community. As a conse-
quence not much consideration can be given to local needs and peculiari-
ties, or, if this is somehow necessary, care should be strictly taken
that it will do no harm to the interests of the larger society and the
state. As a rule uniformity in instructions and similarity in executive
actions are inherent in the role of the government agent, while deviation
is tolerated only in case of force majeure. By necessity this kind of
organized community development requires central planning that includes
the recognition of widely spread social institutions and cultural
patterns, so that fundamental techniques can be worked out that are
applicable in any sector of the society in any part of the country.
For its implementation there is also needed a centralized organization,
equipped with a good system of communication, so that local problems
can be quickly reported to and solved by the central authority.
Furthermore all implementary actions are to function as means to achieve
a common goal, tolerating locally tuned actions only if they do not dis-
tract from that goal. Such a strictly integrated system of activities
can only be established by making use of its enforcement by law and
strict control by the government agencies in charge. In spite of the
generally accepted notion that community development has to rely mainly
upon local initiative and potentialities this system of governmentally-
ruled development does not allow too much space for local dynamics to
work. All a community can do in this case is to accept the program and
adjust itself to' it. This system, which we will call authoritarian,
may not be useful to satisfy locally felt needs and desires, but it may
3132
bring about a competition between communities in their efforts to achieve
the best accomplishments in the general program. If this competitive
attitude can be brought about, it can be used by a skillful central
planner as a new basis for more advanced programs of development.
The second position, that of educator, that can be taken in
implementing a community development plan derives from the idea that the
educator is better equipped either in skill or knowledge than the
subject community. It also includes the notion that the skills or
knowledge of the educator will help the community in their social pro-
gress, so that the education is in the community’s interest. If the
community happens to resist this education it is considered to be doing
this for lack of better knowledge about what is good for itself and for
the next generations. To prevent the community from resisting a good
though unrecognized service to their own interest it has to be stimulated
by all social or psychological means, including the planned use of social
sanctions that can be meted out either by the larger society or by
formally assigned public agencies. Presumably the best way in this
educational system is to exercise psychological or intellectual per-
suasion by convincing people of the necessity of community development.
Focused information and practical training may be conducive to bring
about this conviction, which will hopefully lead to the further self
employment of the community's own resources by the use of the new skills
and knowledge.
The educational system in community development requires a
systematic approach, well-conceived subjects, and a great amount of
patience and time. As a consequence it does not fit into war or other
emergency situations. It is only applicable in times of peace and order,
and more particularly when no general hardships like epidemics or food
scarcity plague the minds of the population. This system is particularly
justified when planned social reforms are to be exercised over a long
period, as is the case in present day Indonesia which has accepted the
President's concept of establishing a socialist society of a distinctly
Indonesian character. The idealistic features of this society, as set by
the President and commented upon in the country's Eight Year Plan, 1961-
1969, can be taught to the village communities by using the educational
system of community development. Social and cultural changes can be
induced in this way to develop the communities gradually but consistently
toward the predetermined goal.
It is inevitable that in this system much has to be decided upon
by the central development agencies, but its implementation must rest
upon the communities' consent. However, it is unlikely that a community
will arrive at a favorable decision if the program does not meet a need,
or if it is contrary to need. If this is the case new needs have to be
created and introduced for recognition by systematic instruction and
demonstrations that open previously unknown visions to the people. One
may call this practice intellectual or perhaps social persuasion as
distinct from persuasion by the use of physical force which is taboo in
an educational system. By ruling that the village administration can33
hand out licenses only to those who can read the license in front of
others and can sign a receipt, a new need—the ability to read and write—
is created.
Unlike the authoritarian actions of the government agency and the
persuasive techniques of the educator, there is a large amount of passivity
included in the role of the consultant in community development. The
consultant is an expert in social engineering, perhaps only in the field
of theory although preferably commanding a host of practical experiences,
who knows how to bring about social progress and how to cope with its
implications with a minimum of social disorganization. He is also ex-
pected to know how to bring existing cultural or social elements in the
community to a more advanced stage of development so that they may serve
the community's need with a better effect. A crucial skill the consultant
should also master is to decide what alien cultural elements need to be
introduced into the community's culture and how this introduction should
be conducted to secure a favorable acceptance in order to start a fresh
move in social development. But however highly skilled, experienced, and
learned the consultant, he is not allowed to force the alien cultural
elements upon the community. The fundamental principle of the consult-
ant's role is that the community is sovereign. This means that it has the
sole right to determine its own destiny, whether this means progress,
stagnation, or perhaps even regression. The consultant has no right to
interfere with the community's development if not asked in explicit terms
by the community itself. But once the request is communicated he is
expected to give the best he can and the best he knows for the present
and the future wellbeing of the community. In the words of Indonesia's
father of national education, Ki Had jar Dewantara, the consultant's role
in the community development program is "Tut Wari Handajani," stimulating
while following.
More than is needed in the educational system, the community
development consultant should have command over a host of time and
patience in his work. The consultant's role is by its very nature the
least revolutionary in character. On the other hand a wise and trusted
consultant may in times of revolutionary progress render a stabilizing
and consolidating effect upon the internal structure of the community.
Decision-making is entirely up to the community itself, and it is,
theoretically speaking, of no concern to the consultant whether
decisions made by the community are serving real, imagined, or created
needs. If it is generally felt pressing, any of the three kinds of
need will constitute an adequate driving force to get the community
moving. Once development on this basis is going on it is most likely
to become self-perpetuating and independent from outside stimuli or
interference.
In spite of his passive role, however, the consultant can de-
velop into an active agent of community development if he can manage to
establish a wide netwdrk of friendly relationships in the community.
Without imposing his ideas upon the community he can communicate them
to many others in casual conversations. If skillfully exercised, this
may achieve the same effect as educational instruction.3h
Each of the three systems has its inherent merits and drawbacks,
depending upon the particular social circumstances of its application and
according to the specific goals to be reached. The authoritarian system
is justified in a time-pressed situation which requires quick actions,
as, for instance, in time of war or revolution. There may also be some
necessity to apply this method when community development is aimed at
pushing progress in one sector of society's life, e.g., the economic
sector, to catch up with the more advanced development in another sector,
e.g., the political. This is at present the case in Indonesia, where
political development has proceeded so much faster than economic and
social growth that an unbalanced total situation is subjecting the
people to frustrating hardships. In such a situation a rational commu-
nity development program has to be placed in a national framework which
necessitates certain planning and control and cannot afford regional
peculiarities to cause local or partial lags in its implementation. But
if this authoritarian system is purposefully decided upon it must be
clearly borne in mind that the communities involved are in effect only
carrying out orders from central authorities and that only a little
autoactivity of the communities themselves is called for. To put it in
plain terms, the communities are being dragged along but are not moving
forward on their own strength.
The possibility may also arise that communities develop activities
as if driven forward by internal powers, but a careful examination may'
disclose that this movement is actually carried out merely to win a
reward. If the reward is withheld the activities are very likely to
cease. The promise to extend grants-in-aid to community projects requir-
ing final approval of the central authority is a case in point. Commu-
nities failing in the acquisition of a grant very often drop a project,
regardless of their urgent need for it and regardless of the fact that
they actually do have the resources to carry it out.
However, all this does not necessarily mean that the authori-
tarian system is entirely useless in community development. Once this
system is set into motion it can accomplish a great deal to the benefit
of the communities involved. New and better roads, more extensive net-
works of irrigation, bridges, buildings, and other physical ojbects pro-
vide a firmer base on a higher level of development upon which the
community can exercise further development according to its own desire.
There is undoubtedly a great chance that a social organization, estab-
lished to follow orders unrelated to the need of the communities, will
quietly fade away when the force behind the orders has declined. But
the same organizations may come to life again if further developments
of the communities find a new function for them. This happened with
the Tonari Kumi and Azachookai, the neighborhood associations and their
federative superstructure established at the order of the Japanese
Military Administration during the war for purposes of military control
upon the population and as channels for the distribution of scarce
commodities. When the Japanese forces left Indonesian ground the
Tonari Kumis and Azachookais fell into disuse almost everywhere in the
rural areas. But when the Indonesian Government in 1959 included the
traditional gotong-rojong or mutual help system as a vital factor in35
the implementation of its policies, and community development was set on
a nation wide basis with a new inspiration for progress, Tonari Kumis
and Azachookais were brought to life again under the Indonesian names of
Rukun Tetangga and Rukun Kampung.
A community development program that has managed to pass the
initial stage successfully seems apt to bring about one or more social
psychological forces upon which it can float along in its further
advancement. The first is compliance or the adjustment of the commu-
nity to irresistable outside forces. It may also take the form of an
opportunistic drive to gain something profitable on a short term basis.
Activities derived from compliance necessarily are oriented toward the
sustaining outside force—however whimsical this may be—and are subject
to changes following the requirements of the day to gain the prize.
The disappearance of the outside force or the final attainment of the
prize means in general the end of the development.
Secondly, a mechanism of identification may emerge that carries
the development program along. People identify with a national hero
or with a widely known celebrity and strive to accomplish achievements
or qualities similar to those exemplified by the hero or the celebrity.
Identification may also focus upon a group of people with ascribed
and popularly approved qualities. Identification of this sort tends
to be more durable and less changeable than if it is oriented toward
a personality, unless the national hero belongs to the past and has
historical prominence.
Neither compliance nor identification has in fact much influence
on the character formation of the community members in general. In
this regard it is the forces of internalization of cultural elements
which have a relatively deep and lasting effect on people's character.
By internalization we mean the acceptance of a cultural trait by a
person as useful, approved, and desired and its integration in that
person's character. This process may or may not be preceded by
institutionalization of the cultural element, in the sense that it is
recognized by the community as useful and morally correct and accord-
ingly integrated in the community's culture.
If we examine the three different systems of community develop-
ment and relate them to the three different social psychological forces
that may come into being during the process of development, some rela-
tionship, or at least some correlation, is discernable. The relation-
ship is not complete and is much influenced by the success of the
development program in each case, but as a broad generalization it has
some use to be stated in this paper. Compliance tends to emerge in
many instances where the authoritarian system is applied. Identifica-
tion is found in many cases of the educational system when educators
refer to personalities of outstanding achievement or to particular
social groups as examples to communities that are being subjected to
the development program. Internalization has a fair chance to develop
with the consultative development system, in which people are left to
decide upon a program that serves their own needs and satisfies their
desires best.36
It must be admitted that neither PMD, Pen-mas, nor LSD has in
practice fully adhered to only one of the developmental systems discussed
above. A blend of the three systems is very often applied, perhaps
unintentionally, although a distinct emphasis on one of the systems by
each agency may be recognized. Judging from the written regulations and
instructions and from the observed activities in the field, it is fair
to conclude that PMD puts a heavy emphasis on the authoritarian, Pen-mas
on the educative, and LSD on the consultative system in designing and
carrying out community development programs.
Among the protagonists of the consultative system there are a
number of cultural anthropologists who set out to study a community, as
a rule not their own, with all its social institutions and its dynamic
cultural elements. In their study they want to watch the community in a
"pure” state, developing ’’naturally," and they take painful care not to
distort any situation or trend by their presence or actions. It is from
this attitude of study that anthropologists are prone to adopt the con-
sultative system as much preferable to any other. For purposes of
community development, however, it makes some difference whether the
agent of development is from an alien society with a foreign culture or
is a member of the community itself, or at least is a member of the
society and culture to which the community belongs. In the latter case
there is relatively little danger that the agent’s program and imple-
mentary activities will do much harm to the community's social harmony
by introducing undesirable cultural elements from outside. A more
active role than that of a consultant is fully justified if a community's
own national or regional government designs a program of community
development.
Nevertheless a word of caution should be raised in this matter in
order to prevent any unnecessary disruption in the community. Any change
either in the social structure or in the culture of a community should
preferably be conducted as an outgrowth of existing social institutions.
No new social or cultural concepts should be introduced which would
conceivably result in a serious conflict with the community's social
structure or belief systems. It is hard to determine what is considered
serious and what mild in terms of social conflicts, since every change
inevitably includes disorganization to pave the way for reorganization.
A careful and objective balancing of the gains and losses that can be
expected to come out as side effects of the intended social changes may
help to determine the seriousness of the social disruption that is
consistent with the responsibility of the agent of development toward
the community.
There is no doubt that the village communities in Banjumas and
in Bodjong constitute an economically and occupationally undifferentiated
territorial group, which Schermerhorn has called a "participant commu-
nity," where most adult members participate in day-to-day decisions )
(l£) Richard A. Schermerhorn, Society and Power (New fork: Random House,
1961), p. 19.37
In the villages in Banjumas and Bodjong every member of the
community is at the same time a farmer, cattle raiser, house builder,
small trader in agricultural produce, and tool maker. If any dif-
ferentiation should be made in this community in this respect, it
should only be a functional and not a physical differentiation. In
other words the various economic or social activities may be success-
fully subjected to a differentiating analysis, but the personalities
who carry out the activities cannot be differentiated one from the
other.
At this stage of development it may be considered premature to
organize the community into different occupational groups, as is being
done in Banjuma by establishing the ikatans. If the establishment of
the ikatans would become a fact, it will most probably be achieved only-
on the basis of compliance on the part of the community to obey orders
or to please the PMD Coordinative Board at the Kabupaten. The ikatans
may be formally established, but actions are likely to come only if
deliberately pushed and constantly controlled by the Kabupaten
administration.
The intention to divide the village communities in Banjumas
into an unlimited number of occupational and guild-like organizations
may end up in another undesirable effect—a situation of social over-
organization. If pushed through rigorously, the community will become
so strictly compartmentalized that communal responsibility for its
development will change into a partial responsibility. New developments
will no longer affect the entire community but only that part which is
directly involved. Instead of having a fluid and dynamic community
there is reason to expect that the community becomes rigid and inflex-
ible to the cumulating demands of progress. The multipurpose
cooperative in Bodjong provides another example of a new organization
that meets the requirements of consistency with the existing social
structure. There is only one cooperative encompassing the entire
undifferentiated village community, but for the sake of organizational
efficiency the cooperative has indulged in a functional differentia-
tion. It has organized departments of production, consumption, and
loans without splitting the cooperative into separate organizations.
We witnessed ourselves the frustration of the kuwu when, at the time
of our visit, an order was received from the Kabupaten administration
that a new cooperative should be called into being in each village in
the Kabupaten area, included Bodjong, to help the Government purchase
of rice from the population. Having a smoothly running multipurpose
cooperative of their own that fully satisfied the entire community it
was simply inconceivable to the kuwu, and certainly to the community
at large that another cooperative should be organized in addition.
The Ikatan Martini and the Tarutta Karya as organizations of
women and of the youth are of a different nature. The former can be
related to the differentiation of sex and the latter to the differ-
entiation of age which is so common in preliterate agrarian communi-
ties. Founded on these bases there is a reasonably good chance that38
the new instructions and skills communicated to the two ikatans will be
readily accepted and integrated into the community at large without fear
of seriously disrupting effects. As commented earlier there is a good
future for the Ikatan Kartini if it continues to give instructions to its
members in cooking, sewing, dressing, and social manners in the image of
the intellectual elite in the cities. It serves an imagined need of the
village women, -who want to behave like the Western-educated women in the
cities.
In the very recent political history of the Republic of Indonesia
there is another instance of social differentiation that was more or less
forcibly imposed upon village communities in general, including those in
Banjumas and Bodjong. At the time of the parliamentary election campaigns
in 19$$, on the eve of the first nationwide elections in the history of
Indonesia, political parties were unusually active, to gain as many
followers in the towns and in the villages as well. As a result many
village communities became internally differentiated into political groups
which started mutually contradictory, if not conflicting, actions in the
wake of policies set by party headquarters on the national level. Life
in many villages, usually quiet and tranquil, became unpleasantly filled
with mutual suspicions and unfriendly actions. The disruption in the
community was reflected in the administration, which showed signs of
falling apart because of adherence to different political parties among
its members. Cohesion and integration was weakened in both the community
itself and in the village administration. The kuwu, if he had joined a
political party, could communicate successfully almost only to those
affiliated with his party and to politically neutral groups. The same
restriction applied to each other member of the village administration.
The social disruption returned into an integrated structure only when
the party system was drastically simplified in 19$9 by President Soekarno,
restricting the number of parties from more than one hundred to only
ten, and subjecting party activities to serious limitations and military
control. The political differentiation, previously unknown and extremely
disfunctional in the village communities, rapidly died away and the
political groups merged into one community again. The political leaders
on the village level, some of whom still retain their formal positions
in their parties, never again engaged in public political actions, for
lack of instructions from their headquarters. They now maintain their
prestigeful social status by serving with other former party leaders
in the PMD Executive Board of the village.
While observing community development in action both in Banjumas
and in Bodjong we were struck again by a phenomenon we encountered in
1?£8 in other villages in Central Java. In the case of new organizations
there is a tendency to leave the management to the village intellectuals
who maintain a scope of general interest that goes beyond the boundaries
of the village. Farmers, though mastering the art of reading and writing
but in general interested only in matters concerning life in the village,
almost never aspire to and never got elected as members of the board.
Cooperatives in both areas are run almost entirely by school teachers,
office clerks, and other officials of the national or regional adminis-
tration. The work is carried out after office hours and those in charge39
are certainly not seeking financial or material gain, since the job is
in most cases voluntary. Other institutions, such as communal rice
storages and arisans—though newly set up in a village or hamlet, but
traditional in character and known to the people—are largely run by
the non-intellectual groups of the population. It seems that the
»	ability to manage a newly introduced organization also requires some
knowledge about the culture from which the organization originated,
whereas the skill to run a traditional institution is handed down to
»	the present community by a preceding generation. In this respect it
would probably be more educative for the village communities if exist-
ing social institutions or cultural elements could be made the basis
for further development, so every adult member would get the chance to
participate and help to bear the responsibility to make the program a
success. The process of remolding arisans into credit cooperatives
may be set as an example. In this connection we are reminded of a wise
policy of the present communist Government of China that has organized
farmers' cooperatives all over the country by developing them step by
step from the widely recognized institution of mutual help among
farmers.(16)
A factor of significance for the stability of community develop-
ment in Banjumas and Bodjong is the deliberate and successful attempt
to keep every new activity subject to the approval of the village
assembly and to put its implementation under the control of the village
administration. The village assembly is traditionally recognized and
institutionalized as representing the whole community and accordingly
commands unrivalled and communally enforced obedience from each member
of the community. The village administration, generally imbued with
an attitude of responsibility toward the community whose overall welfare
they are in charge of, enjoy the institutional confidence of the
community. They have in the course of their office developed the abil-
ity to translate the most compelling influences from outside into
elements that are acceptable to the people in their village. In effect
they act, and in most cases with remarkable success, as buffers between
the traditional village community and the world outside. The sur-
prisingly rapid but smooth development of the Ikatan Kartini in Banjumas
may be largely due to the fact that chairmanship in each village is
nominally entrusted to the lurah's wife.
This appraisal does not necessarily mean that the village
should always remain under the guidance of a sole power-center. The
*	emergence of new power-centers beside the village administration is
inevitable when social and economic development introduces new
organizations concerned with the development of special sectors of
>	village life. The point is how to prepare the community so that it is
socially and culturally ready to accept the new power-centers and to
utilize them to their best interests.
(16) C. K. Yang, A Chinese Village in Early Communist Transition
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 19i>9)i pp. 2OU-2O3.1+0
In conclusion we would like to present a final comparative comment
on the general nature of the community development programs in Banjumas
and in Bodjong. The program in Banjumas puts the emphasis on educating
the village communities toward social programs. The question isj progress
in what direction? The program of mass education, which dominates the
actual implementation of community development in Banjumas, was made up
by Indonesian senior officials at the Ministry of Education with a Western-
oriented educational background. Regardless of their Indonesian origin
and their nationalistic spirit, it cannot be denied that they have been
for years subjected to the systematic influence of Western culture
through the avenues of the Dutch schools they attended in the pre-
independence period. Their concept of social progress inevitably in-
fluences the development of the village communities toward a more
sophisticated way of life on an intellectual and economic level that is
higher according to Western standards than was usually known in the
village. Economic principles of rationality, systematic empirical tests,
and semi-bureaucratic organization have to replace indigenous ways of
farming and handicraft guided by traditional belief systems and founded
upon the patterns -of family life. The women are deliberately educated
to reform inter-relationships in the image of those among the urban
Western-educated intellectual elites. In effect this mass educational
endeavor consciously prepares the village community to understand and
eventually to utilize influences of Western origin in the social and
economic sectors of life. In short, the tranquil community is educated
to join the whirlwind of the Western way of life. The price is, as may
be expected, social disorganization, however mild.
The community development program in Bodjong, though conceived
too by Western-educated intellectuals in the national Government, is of
a different nature. The goal is, in fact, no progress in whatever
direction, but the establishment of the highest stage of social harmony
in the village community ahd thus the strengthening of the community’s
own cultural elements. Mutual help and cooperation, collective con-
sciousness of responsibility for the community’s welfare, and the ex-
pansion of family life to include all members of the community are among
the basic elements to be reinforced. It is in fact a consolidation of
the community’s own traditional institutions. If changes are required
to make these institutions more useful to the community, no alien
cultural elements are forced upon the community; only a reshaping of
existing institutions is endeavored. In sum, there is no trend away
from established village life, tfhe movement is directed inward. It is
expected that if this development is successful, the community will be
highly selective in accepting cultural influences from outside. But
standing firmly on its own social and cultural foundations the
community is prepared to face the problem of increasingly impinging
influences from the outside world.
If one asks the question: Which system is better? the answer
is: Better for what?