A 30-minute drive away from Nusantara’s Kilometer Zero, lies a sleepy village called Sepaku Lama, where around 100 families of the native Balik indigenous people have lived and plied their trades.

In years gone by, most of them lived as farmers living month-to-month on their harvests of padi gunung (mountain rice). Their homes, made of wood and covered by thatched palm leaves, are mostly spread along the Sepaku River which has been an integral part of their lives and traditions for generations.

But the river is now blocked by the Sepaku Intake Dam, one of many river dams set to be the source of clean water for Nusantara.

The bed of the lively river where people used to fish has become arid land. The fertile floodplains, where people used to grow fruit and vegetables, has become barren. The mighty current, an integral way for the Balik community to transport goods and people across and to and from the village, has all but dried up.

Sibukdin, elder of Sepaku Lama village, is worried that the people of the indigenous Balik community will lose their lands due to their lack of clear land ownership.

Facing the threat of losing their way of life and concerned with the fate of their children, residents of Sepaku Lama have long called for solutions from the government on how to make Nusantara, along with its decades of development, more inclusive.

“With the arrival of the new capital, we’re worried that we will be pushed aside by this development,” village elder Sibukdin told the Post. “We’re not rejecting [the new city]. Who doesn't want to be modernized and part of the development? What we want is for our lives not to be disrupted.”

The Sepaku Lama residents are now living in legal limbo, according to Sibukdin. Many of them, having lived in the village even before Indonesia declared independence nearly 80 years ago, do not have deeds for their land or homes.

They have been promised numerous times that they will not fall victim to eviction, but the fear lingers.

Recently, villagers had negotiations with the IKN Authority during which they were told that Sepaku Lama would be turned into a “cultural village” to become a tourism destination, although the officials fell short of detailing what the proposal would exactly entail.

“We’re very receptive of [the proposal] to turn our village into a cultural one,” Sibukdin said. “But the most important thing about our culture is our livelihoods. How can anyone sing and dance if they are hungry, or make trinkets if they’re evicted from their homes?”

While some locals felt they were being uprooted from their lives by the capital project, head of the IKN Authority Bambang Susantono gave an assurance that local communities would have a part to play in Nusantara’s development.

Insisting that the authority has built close relationships with the local community, he said that it “wanted to see their lives become better with the development of Nusantara.”

“For instance, if we make rest areas [on toll roads leading to Nusantara], they can set up small businesses. We will also prepare a place for them to showcase their culture,” he added.

The locals living the Nusantara project will become a part of the new capital city project, said Nusantara Capital City (IKN) Authority head Bambang Susantono.

The capital authority has started giving out employment training to prepare locals to take up new lines of work in businesses opening in Nusantara, such as coffee shop baristas and laundry workers. The locals have also been offered entrepreneurial classes so that they can open their own businesses.

But when asked if the authority would provide legal certainty for the locals’ land, Bambang said his office would not be drawn on that matter.

“I think it’s better to see them as the people of Nusantara rather than doing unproductive things,” he said. “I feel that the dialogue we have had so far has been quite good.”