Water is one essential element for humanity. We can only survive without water for up to three days, whereas we can last without food for up to seven days. The fact that 70% of the earth is covered by water serves as a concrete hint that we can never be able to be separated from water and will never be able to. We need water to drink, cook, and bathe-wash-relieve ourselves (abbreviated locally as MCK). Agricultural production also depends on irrigation.

In that case, what would happen if sources of water that sustained all life no longer existed? What would it be if instead of preserving water sources, industry destroys and eliminates them? It would indirectly guarantee the end of the locals’ lives, for certain. 

This happened in Cikeusal Village. The people there are facing a water crisis as a result of the chalk mining industry, which did not happen recently but rather has gone on for four decades. The sound of splashes coming from river streams during hot summer has now become a distant memory that appears to be difficult to realize. When I stayed there for one week, water only flowed for three hours every day, which was certainly not enough to meet the locals’ exceedingly demanding domestic needs.

The people’s chalk mining

Cikeusal Village consists of four sub-villages, which are Desa, Karang Baru, Kedung Kijeng, and Telar Gaga. Cikeusal is a village that resides in the middle of the Kromong Mountains that stretches along Southern Cirebon. These rocky mountains stand high and store the largest karst reserves in Indonesia.

Initially, the people thought that these resources were a blessing. They made use of the chalk to fulfill their livelihood. Sutrisno (2007) mentioned that people’s mining, a small-scale industry, has existed since the 1700s. They transported natural stones and chalk by sugar cane train to furnaces or natural stone factories that spread across the Palimanan and Gempol Sub-districts. 

Hisyam, 70 years old, a resident of Desa, told me that people’s mining was a dominant livelihood in the 1980s. He also depends on chalk as a livelihood. Hisyam had been mining since he was a teenager in one of the Kromong Mountains, Curi Mountain. He was paid 30 thousand rupiah for every pickup truck’s load. As it could load three times in a day, Hisyam could earn up to 90 thousand rupiahs at maximum—which was considered a big amount then. Despite this, he and other Cikeusal locals mined only as a means of subsistence to sustain their lives, not to accumulate wealth.

In 1985, when PT Indocement Tridaya Manunggal factory (hereinafter referred to as Indocement) started operating, people’s mining began to be marginalized. Indocement obtained a land concession as wide as 480 hectares. The area used to house people’s mining. The locals only received a 21-hectare leftover land outside of the concession area. This minuscule area only offered small resources of chalk that ran out after several years of extraction.

In the end, the locals had to find new livelihoods. As Hisyam said, “Back then, many people ended up moving out, and I even went to Jakarta to look for a job.”

In addition to income problem, Indocement also became a sign of a new round of capital expansion that proceeded to marginalize the people. They were forcibly displaced and kept away from the source of life, springs.

The displacement of sub-villages and the disappearance of springs

Curi Mountain which had been extracted since 1985 could not sustain the demand of the cement industry. As the readers commonly understand, capitalism will always look for new lands to extract until the lowest point is reached. The same case is in line with Indocement. They started expanding to the people’s settlement areas. In 1993, the people of Pesantren Sub-village became the first victim. Pesantren Sub-village was located exceedingly close to a mining area.

The displacement process led to problems. Ruminah, 65 years old, is a victim of such displacement. She said to me that the people then were pressured to the point of having no choice but to move out from the sub-villages where they were born. She also added that the money promised by Indocement has not been fully compensated to those displaced.

According to Arsyadi, 76 years old, the people of Pesantren Sub-village had three springs in the area, which were Cidadap, Cicariu, and Kalengronggong springs. Displacement continued to damage these water sources. The springs no longer flow, and some of them have completely disappeared. When I tried investigating, what was left was only tread marks filled with white chalk dust that were left by disposal trucks and excavators. “The springs used to be here. They have now disappeared,” Arsyadi said while pointing at the ground that became tracks for mining contraptions. “The same goes for the spring underneath those trees whose bed remains receded. People then used to bathe in that spring,” he added, as though the memory of rushing water was still fresh in his mind.

Water springs should have been the right of all citizens. The water sources should have been preserved and collectively owned so that they could be utilized for collective interests, instead of being privatized or eroded slowly. In reality, Indocement only thought of springs as something that could be bought, which also rang true for the people’s lands that were exchanged for money.

This is the story of how capitalism operates in an area. Capitalism merely perceives lands as commodities. Accumulation must continue to run so that capital can continue to move and rise. However, resources will eventually run out. Consequently, capitalism must find new resources to extract, one of which includes the privatization of what is owned by the public that eliminates public ownership. Regarding this matter, Harvey (2017) referred to this as accumulation by dispossession. The grant of land concession worth 480 hectares to Indocement that marginalized people’s mining and displaced Pesantren Sub-village became one manifestation of accumulation by dispossession.

This is continued to be done in order to churn profits. This exhibits how primitive accumulation not only happens in the early stage of capitalism but also continues to grow.

Metabolic crack amid the chalk industry

Water has a special place in the minds of Cikeusal Village locals. How can it not? They themselves witnessed how rivers slowly receded and water springs that served as headwater for river streams dried and disappeared completely off the land.

People now are facing a prolonged water crisis. Ruminah told us that there are now two remaining springs—which are Cikadoya and Cihanuet springs—in contrast to the previously existing six.

When I came to the Cikadoya spring which was 1.5 kilometers away from the settlement area, the water didn’t have such a strong flow. Water was directed using pipes to a large reservoir located not from the village hall. The water was then distributed to eight small reservoirs in every neighborhood. There was a total of eight 1-inch pipes that were alternately directed to eight small reservoirs for three hours per neighborhood every day. Therefore, one neighborhood with one small reservoir received its allotment of water flow only for three hours.

In reality, those two water sources are not enough to meet the people’s daily water needs. Water flowing only for three hours is not enough to meet villagers’ domestic needs. Several people even bought water from the Palimanan Sub-district at 70 thousand rupiahs per cubic meter. This price was considered beyond affordable. Those who could not afford water from other sources had to work hard to meet their needs with their weak-flowing spring.

Urip, 56 years old, told us about how terrible the water crisis that impacted Cikeusal was, given that they used to have an abundant and easily accessible spring. The situation worsened in the dry season. The dry season was an indicator of drought. The already little water there continued to decline. “When the dry season comes, when you go out at night, women carrying buckets and fuel containers would be seen queuing up for water at the reservoir. This is a real impact caused to the environment by Indocement,” he said.

In the end, the destruction of springs that worsened every year became a price to be paid as a result of the mining industry’s capital expansion process and excessive extractive operations without accounting for the long-term effects that would entail. This phenomenon indicates a crack in the metabolic relationship between nature and humanity created through the process of production and consumption. Foster (2000) referred to this process as a “metabolic rift,” a metabolic process between nature and humanity that has been disrupted due to the exploitation of natural resources without regard to ecological equilibrium.

There have been no concrete efforts made by Indocement to compensate for all of these. In the 2023 annual report, Indocement made a promise to conserve the mining areas that it no longer uses. However, it was a false promise, or as Urip said, “It was simply a hoax.” After all, it is not possible to repair ecological crises with money.

An attempt to preserve water

The constricting crisis has forced the people to preserve the remaining springs to their capacity. It is possible that those two water sources will become the next target for Indocement’s expansion. The locals then elected an individual to maintain and ensure that the remaining water would completely flow to the houses. The people referred to him as “the mayor of water.” The position is currently occupied by Misnan.

The mayor is the most responsible person in the water distribution in Cikeusal.

Every three hours, the mayor of the village block has to move the pipe stream in the main reservoir to eight different pipes owned by the eight neighborhoods. It is demanded of him to treat everyone fairly. It is not uncommon that conflicts between the locals arise due to the unfair distribution that only benefits certain neighborhoods.

Whenever a problem happens in the spring upstream, he is the first person to fix it, requiring him to walk as far as three kilometers including climbing the Suminta Mountain.

Clogged water or disconnected pipes frequently happen.

The trek to the spring is no easy task. Having tried it myself, I would also find it difficult without a local guide.

The mayor is a small part of the complex social relationship between Cikeusal locals and water, which was formed by the efforts to preserve water which continues to erode and disappear as a result of the extractive industry. Instead of perceiving water resources as a subject to further exploitation, the people prefer to preserve them. I recognize the mayor as a representation of the complex relation that Liao and Schmidt (2023) referred to as the hydro-social cycle. Based on them, water is not an inanimate object that deserves no place in social relations. Rather, it has its own space that shapes a social cycle within society.

Hundreds of households depend on it. Ruminah, a local whose house we lived in for a week in Cikeusal, said the three-hour period of water flowing each day was precious, at least for sustaining life for the next day.

The mayor is not a social status but rather a moral obligation. When I met with Misnan myself,  he told me that he was paid 300 thousand rupiahs per month, but it was not a problem for him. “I have never expected a high salary, for this is a form of worship to help the people. It does not matter, I can still smoke cigarettes at least.”

Reinforcing the people’s water rights

Water must not be allowed to be monopolized by select parties, let alone be cleared out. Water resources must always be utilized for the interest of all citizens. In the human rights discourse, this is in line with United Nations Resolution No. 64/292 recognizes water as a vital part of human life and recognizing the non-negotiable universal right to water.

The recognition of the right to water as an integral part of human rights is found in General Comment No. 15 (2002) addressing the right to water published by the Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Normatively, the right to water has already been recognized universally by this country, even more so since ICESCR has ratified it through Indonesian Government Law Number 11 of 2005 on ICESCR Legalization. Consequently, it is mandated of the country to actively engage in the fulfillment of the citizens’ rights to water. The portraits taken in Cikeusal provide a visual of the unfulfillment of the rights of the people in villages. Instead of recognizing those rights and actively engaging in fulfilling them, the government let the mining industry operate for five decades. This act can be acknowledged as a neoliberalism practice that diminishes the roles of countries in fulfilling their citizens’ rights. Moyn (2014) mentioned that the neoliberal economic structure indeed forces the country to ignore its commitment to fulfill the citizens' rights as recognized in ICESCR.

Through Cikeusal, we can see how such rights are lost in the face of capitalism. Everything is marginalized in order to move the circuit of capital that benefits select parties.

Field data includes the interview taken during the “Ecological Research School” event hosted by Salam Institute from 20 to 31 July 2024

disseminated to the public on 24 November 2024. 

Muhammad Nabil Gunawan is a student of Semarang State University (Unnes) Political Science Department and an activist of Amnesty International Chapter Unnes