Glembert
KN. Time has passed since the House of Representatives passed the revision of the controversial Indonesian Military (TNI) Law, leading to nationwide civic unrest. Demonstrators have demanded that the government reverse the bill that expanded the military’s presence in civilian affairs. Although the resistance has spread widely, militarization in the country continues to grow alongside it.
According to the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute Foundation (YLBHI), protests have appeared in over 50 cities and regencies across the country since the revised TNI Law was discussed by the House, with at least 10 of them being met with violent responses by both the police and the military. “It looks like the protesters were brutally beaten, then abandoned, or even beaten even more brutally before being left behind,” Zainal Arifin, chair of the Advocacy Division at YLBHI, said.
According to Irine Hiraswari Gayatri, Senior Researcher at the Research Centre for Politics, the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), militarism, broadly understood as the dominance of military institutions, values and interests in civilian spheres, poses an enduring challenge to democratic governance.
In the case of Indonesia, a nation that has struggled to consolidate democratic reforms since the fall of Soeharto’s authoritarian New Order regime in 1998, the re-emergence of militarism, particularly through legal instruments like the 2025 revised Indonesian Military (TNI) Law, raises urgent questions about the future of democracy, civil liberties and gender equality
While the Reformasi era was marked by steps toward limiting the military’s political role and restoring civilian supremacy, recent legal and policy shifts suggest a creeping re-militarization that threatens to reverse those gains.
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