The Evolution of Property Rights in Indonesia

Abstract

The article explains the rise of land property rights in Indonesia. Theoretically, the emergence of property rights in Java was institutional rather than spontaneous order. The study is conducted by tracing the handover traces of land policy development from each period of power ruler. The policy study begins in the period of Feudalism when the concept of the King’s domain prevailed. During this period, property rights awareness had not yet grown because the people considered the King to have the land. Javanese colonialism and its land policy started the seedbed for the emergence of land property rights. In the VOC period, the Priangan system began recognising land property for indigenous people. Raffles’ land tax further solidified the awareness of land ownership rights. At the time, land distribution occurred to the local elite. The forced cultivation system policy during the Dutch colonial government reduced land possession for the Javanese people because the forced labor that had to be borne was under the amount of the cultivated land. Liberalism grew in Europe and influenced changes in land policy in Java. In 1870, the Dutch colonial government issued a land law recognising indigenous land ownership rights.