The banjar is the village council-the community extension of
the house and family. Each Balinese village is divided into one or more
banjar, a cooperative association of neighbors who assist each other
in the preparation and financing of costly events. Each banjar swears
separate allegiances to certain temples, palaces, and holidays.
More than any other factor, the banjar
has kept intact the Balinese way of life through the decline of the local
adat princes and chieftains. banjar captured most of the
administrative power the desa lost to the princes after the Dutch
invasion, when land was divided among the people. Its importance persists
even in the modern Indonesian state. The banjar today is the basic
governmental unit of the village and is of immense help to the government
in disseminating information and policy. Problems with family planning
and development programs have occurred because civil officials from government
agencies have sometimes miscalculated the social, ritual, and administrative
power of the banjar.
Under the fast-paced veneer of Kuta and Legian,
the network of banjar-based village life remains intact and inviolate.
Westerners have yet to stir by the time all the banjar-prescribed
sajen-sajen (offerings) have been made. Even the bustling metropolis
of Denpasar is rigidly divided into its many constituent banjar.
Every adult belongs both to a desa
and a banjar. Each household pays a subscription fee to its banjar.
When a man marries, membership is compulsory; otherwise he's considered
a moral and spiritual outcast, denied even the right to burial in the village
cemetery. Some banjar obligations may be considered even more important
than family ties. Each member exists less as an individual than as one
thread in the social fabric of the banjar.
The banjar serves simultaneously as
town council, tribunal, department of public works and welfare, and department
of environment and sanitation. It's a cross between a masonic lodge, a
town planning committee, and a church congregation. It galvanizes the community
to prepare for and participate in major feasts, rites, and dance performances;
it votes in a democratic manner on road and temple construction; lays you
beneath the ground.
A man usually marries within his banjar
and only takes on full status in the banjar when he has sired a
child. Summoned by the beating of the kulkul drum, attendance of
all household heads is required at regular evening meetings; absentees
are fined. Since all decisions must be unanimous, new ideas take a long
time to gain acceptance; in the meantime discussions proceed peacefully.
The banjar is a community of equals;
before the banjar all castes are equal. The leader of the banjar,
the klian, is elected by its members and approved through a medium
by the gods. The klian is unpaid but for small gifts like extra
rice, a small percentage of collected fines, or an interest in a banjar
commercial venture. He may also be rewarded with rice fields close to an
irrigation source.
It's common for the banjar to sponsor
youth groups (sekehe teruna) with their own pavilions in the village
common. Ceremonies and regular meetings every fortnight prepare young people
for the responsibilities of full banjar membership.
The local youth may initiate programs of
their own, meeting, say, every Sunday morning to clean the streets and
temples. Young teen Balinese surfboard carriers on the Bukit Peninsula
have created a banjar-style organization to fix prices and network
among themselves.
Banjar Property and Duties
The banjar often owns its own rice fields, which are worked communally
to provide food for banquets and to bring in cash revenues for the communal
treasury. The family house is built upon banjar land. The banjar
also maintains its own temple (pemaksan), spiritually its most important
piece of property. The banjar's meeting hall or clubhouse (bale
banjar) is an open pavilion with a large porch. Men often gather here
during the evenings to fondle their fighting cocks, drink tuak,
chat, gamble, and play cards. Each member takes a turn as cook or waiter.
At night the bamboo platforms become long beds where villagers sleep, sardine-like,
safe in the company of their fellows. Male villagers may spend more time
in the banjar pavilion than at home.
With its own orchestra and dance troupe,
banjar members practice gamelan or watch play rehearsals.
The banjar's dancing properties-headdresses, masks, luxurious costumes-are
stored in a nearby fireproof building called the gedong. The bale
is provided with a kitchen fully stocked with pots, pans, knives, axes,
and chopping blocks all available on loan to members who require them.
The banjar runs its own communal bank
from which the villagers may borrow to buy farm equipment, cattle, or other
necessities. All members are required to help one another with materials
and labor. All labor is shared and work usually performed in pairs or groups.
If members don't sign up for work assignments, a fine is imposed. The banjar
supports and maintains village temples, ditches, markets, roads, and bathing
places; handles taxation, cockfighting, divorces, and duck-herding; and
helps to arrange and finance weddings, family celebrations, temple festivals,
cremations, and community feasts. The banjar advises villagers on
matters of religion, marriage, and morals, all regulated carefully by elected
members. It's also responsible for the village graveyard, guaranteeing
that the correct funerary rites are carried out, that corpses are disposed
of properly.
The banjar can function as a vigilante
committee to forcibly expel undesirables from a village. Its role as village
police force accounts for Bali's extremely low crime rate; the island averages
only one armed robbery per year. The banjar operates its own school
for the arts, training new generations in a line that extends back through
the centuries.
No other political system has yet broken
through the patriarchal shield of the banjar, though increasingly
its cohesiveness is weakened by consumerism, modern lifestyles, and the
tourist industry. Many members now send a monetary contribution in lieu
of their presence.