At this year’s 76th Republic Day celebration on 26 January, India invited the President of Indonesia, Prabowo Subianto to be the Chief Guest. Indeed it was a strategic move on the part of the Narendra Modi government to engage with the Southeast Asian nation with the largest Muslim population in the world, and thereby deepen cooperation with the members of the Asean bloc. It transpired that energy, food security, defence and security ties emerged as the centrepieces of discussion. Both sides are aware that their engagements – both bilaterally on issues of trade and maritime security and on the global stage through forums such as the G-20 and minilaterals such as the India-AustraliaIndonesia group – have brought the two countries into a closer, complementary and mutually beneficial partnership. This two-part article shall address two separate issues in order to posit the India-Indonesia partnership in perspective.

The first part dwells on Prabowo’s handling of the domestic situation as the success or failure of his measures shall impact his foreign policy and relations with Indonesia’s partner countries. The second part examines the outcome of Prabowo’s India visit and what it brought to the table for providing dividends to both sides. The initial evaluation of Prabowo’s policy choices raises questions on his over-reliance on the military to sustain his democratic structure. By making his choice of officials in critical positions, the President has given people reason to worry if the political culture of past authoritarian leader Gen Suharto who lost power three decades ago is making a re-run. There are enough signs in peoples’ unease that see a flashback of Suharto in Prabowo turning to the once-all powerful military to carry out a governing vision.

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was Indonesia’s former defence minister. People now suspect that as President he would be replacing civilian functions with the military, thereby raising comparison to the Suharto-era doctrine called dwifungsi (dual function) that allowed the armed forces to crush dissent and dominate public life. The fears of the people are not without reasons. After Probowo stormed into the highest office of Presidency three months ago with a landslide election victory, he quickly expanded the armed forces’ roles in several public areas, including running much of his flagship project to serve free school meals.

For now Prabowo has the support of allies. The allies in parliament are also preparing legislation that would allow Prabowo to appoint active military officers into senior government positions, dismantling some of the safeguards put in place after Suharto was overthrown in 1998 following an economic crisis and popular uprising. Since Prabowo’s resounding victory in last year’s election was largely driven by younger voters, a generation with little or no memory of Suharto’s military-backed “New Order” regime, he feels emboldened to face the opposition.

As the son-in-law of Suharto, Prabowo was a special forces commander under the former’s repressive 32-year reign and was later dismissed from the military amid unproven allegations of human rights abuses. Supporters of Prabowo, who denied past rights abuses, say tapping the military for important projects offers efficiencies. Critics have noticed Prabowo’s recent moves, including a recent expansion of the military command structure. This is a worrying lurch towards remilitarization in the world’s largest Muslim-majority country. Critics who question that Prabowo is not abiding by civil supremacy believe he wants to restore the glory of the military, where various kinds of civic works can be done by the military as he feels those would be faster and more effective.

Although not replicating the “dual function” of the past, Prabowo’s early reliance on the military is raising concerns among Indonesian ob servers about the undoing of democratic reforms that sprang up after Suharto was ousted. Analysts suspect many of Prabowo’s actions replicate what existed under his late father-in-law Suharto. Under Suharto, there were no checks and balances. The military was also involved in business. The same pattern, if chosen by Prabowo now, could erode democratic oversight of government institutions, affecting policy making. During his first 100 days in office, Prabowo enjoyed 91 per cent approval ratings.

That is being dissipated after the armed forces started taking charge of large projects. In the past three months that Prabowo has been in office, he has handed over large projects to the armed forces, the most visible example being the $28 billion signature project to provide free meals. Air Force Col. Satrya Dharma Wijaya is a case in point. His usual job is aircraft maintenance, but since November he has been busy ordering stoves, refrigerators and frying pans to cook meals for thousands of children at a base in Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta. The military is now running 100 of the 190 kitchens operated by the project’s launch in collaboration with the newly formed National Nutrition Agency, cooking and delivering food for 570,000 children.

A plan is underway for the military to form 100 special “territorial development” units assigned to farming, fisheries and animal husbandry. Prabowo has also moved swiftly to vastly expand other military-run projects established when he was defense minister. Prabowo has also developed a programme whereby soldiers are required to clear land for cultivation. This has increa – sed fifty-fold, boosting Indonesia’s food security from an initial 60,000 hectares to a projected 3 million hectares ~ an area about the size of Belgium. He has also ordered the expansion of another of his projects, directing the Air Force to convert its idle land into rice and corn fields to be managed by soldiers and villagers to supply food for the free-meals project. Other projects include nationwide extension of a small military civil-works initiative involving laying water pipes for irrigation in remote areas.

With a military background, Prabowo justifies that turning to soldiers to help run large programmes is effective, as according to him the army follows a strong chain of command and that rules are in place to prevent military repression. The people are assured that there is no question of a return to the New Order of the Suharto era. Be that as it may, the key area of concern remains when legislation as planned is passed allowing Prabowo to appoint active duty military officers to top government jobs for the first time in decades. Since the President’s coalition controls 74 per cent of seats in parliament, passing of the law would not be difficult.

The president has already tapped former military officers for top roles ~ such as Foreign Minister Sugiono, who served in the army’s special force before retiring. Prabowo’s Gerindra party would be free to appoint active officers anywhere in the government. If such strategic programmes that are normally run by persons who are disciplined and experienced are to be passed on to the military, this would indicate a return to the Suharto era and a murder of democracy. The fear of militarisation under Prabowo with centralisation of power would mean democratic backsliding.

(The writer is former Senior Fellow at PMML, MP-IDSA and ICCR Chair Professor at Reitaku University, Japan)