Demanding the Promise of Sovereignty: Reading Simalungun Through the Lens of Yogyakarta

The Republic of Indonesia was built on the ruins of a political contract between colonial power and thousands of sovereign entities in the Nusantara. However, over seven decades of independence, the face of our agrarian justice appears asymmetrical. On one side, we celebrate the “Special Status” of Yogyakarta as the highest form of respect for history. On the other, we witness indigenous communities in Simalungun, North Sumatra, alienated from their own land, trapped in a labyrinth of bureaucracy that ignores their past sovereignty documents. The agrarian issues in Simalungun, as highlighted in conflicts in Sihaporas and surrounding areas, are often simplified as administrative problems of land registration. Concession holders and agrarian authorities frequently shelter behind the Basic Agrarian Law (UUPA) of 1960 while labelling indigenous claims as anachronistic narratives that no longer apply. However, legal history records a different fact. The Simalungun kingdoms (Zelfbesturende Landschappen) in the early 20th century bound themselves to the Dutch through the Korte Verklaring (Short Declaration). Unlike areas directly governed by the Governor-General, the Simalungun kings explicitly excluded the surrender of rights over land and customary law. This means that, juridically, Simalungun land was never Vrij Landsdomein (free state land). If the colonial power itself did not have absolute ownership rights, how can an independent state claim to inherit rights that were never possessed by its coloniser? This injustice stands in contrast when we look at the Special Region of Yogyakarta (DIY). Through Law No. 13 of 2012, the state recognises that history is a living source of law. The Sultan not only reigns politically as an unelected Governor but is also recognised as a legal subject owning land (Sultanaat Grond). The fundamental question for our legal conscience is: Why is history recognised as “Special Status” in Jogja, but considered a “Fossil” in Simalungun? If the seizure of positions and land origin rights in Jogja can stand above general election and UUPA administration procedures, why are the claims of Simalungun indigenous communities, based on Korte Verklaring documents, criminalised? Bureaucratic Sabotage Our current agrarian regime tends to be trapped in “bureaucratic sabotage”. Land registration, which should be declarative—recording existing rights—has instead become constitutive, as if the state is the sole granter of rights. As a result, customary forests and communal lands managed for centuries are deemed “State Land” simply because they lack 1960s certificates. This is the “administrative violence” that kills people’s rights. The 19th and early 20th-century documents brought by communities are not attempts to revive colonial law, but authentic evidence of uninterrupted physical control. Rejecting such evidence on the grounds that “the rules have been revoked” is a form of neglect of material truth in favour of formal legal certainty that only benefits a handful of HGU-holding elites. The state must not practise “favouritism” towards history. Article 18B Paragraph 2 of the 1945 Constitution is a sacred constitutional promise to respect the unity of customary legal communities. If Yogyakarta can be a successful model of reconciliation between tradition and state modernity, then Simalungun should receive the same space. It is time for the Ministry of ATR/BPN to conduct an honest historical-agrarian audit. Recognition of ulayat rights in Simalungun is not merely a technical certification matter, but a historical restitution effort to restore the dignity of people seized by corporate expansion lust. We do not want this Republic to be remembered as a state that only loves history when it consolidates power, but discards it when it defends the rights of the common folk.