This chapter has looked at socio-economic developments in Kolojonggo since the introduction of the green revolution. Worth reiterating are the following points. First, as much research on Javanese villages shows, Kolojonggo has also extremely polarised ownership of land. Almost half of the villagers own no sawah while a few villagers possess more than 30 percent of the total sawah in Kolojonggo. Unlike what has been reported in other parts of Java (Billah et al.,1984:261-62; Amaluddin,1978:112; Kano,1990:49), however, the historical development of land tenure in Kolojonggo suggests there has been no acceleration in the process of polarisation since independence. On the contrary, the situation of polarisation has been alleviated during this period. As table II-14 shows, the share of landholders of less than 0.3 hectare increased from 10.1 percent in 1943 to 44.5 percent in 1993 whereas that of landholders of more than 0.5 hectare dropped from 61.7 percent in 1943 to 33.8 percent in 1993.

Source: 1943 and 1960: Records kept in the kelurahan office and interview data (For more about the structure of land tenure in 1943 and 1960, see Appendix A); 1971 and 1993: Table II-13.

Various factors have interacted to bring about this development in the ownership of sawah. Seen from the perspective of small landholders, decreasing pressures from outside after independence such as abolition of heavy land tax, higher yields per hectare, and widening work opportunities in non-agricultural sectors have been, among others, important in enabling them to retain their small plots of sawah. Seen from large landholders' perspective, inheritance which fragments their landholdings among several heirs, higher education which diverts their interests to non-agricultural sectors, and, especially after the 1980s, the rise of land prices and pessimistic view of profitability in rice cultivation hampered the will to accumulate more sawah. Agricultural development in the last decades has also left a deep imprint on the way sawah is evaluated by villagers. If sawah had been viewed as a burden and then was transformed into the most precious source of livelihood, it is now considered by many as a commodity. Sawah has been a commodity since the 1920s, but until quite recently, it was a commodity whose exchange value was overwhelmed by its productive value: it could be exchanged but this remained as a possibility to most villagers. To them, sawah was a part of themselves before it was a commodity. This view of sawah has gradually changed. Some villagers now consider it primarily in terms of its exchange value, comparing its value according to the current interest rate and buying it in order to sell it for profit. This trend has not yet become extreme, so that many villagers, especially, those belonging to middle and old age, still think of sawah as something that should not be put up for sale. However, as more villagers start their career in non-agricultural sectors and land prices continue to rise, it is likely that the proverb repeated by village elders that 'those who start their business by selling inherited land (warisan) will never be successful', will no longer be taken seriously by the new generation.

Second, two decades after the introduction of the green revolution, the absolute poverty which dominated the life of many villagers has gradually disappeared to such an extent that no villagers now experience rice shortage for home consumption. Today, the primary economic concern of many villagers is to have more consumer goods such as colour televisions, motorbikes, cassette players, semi-transparent windows, tiled floors and so on. The improvement of villagers' economic conditions is also reflected in the longer schooling period of the youth. These days, it is exceptional to encounter a youth who does not proceed from junior high school to senior high school. Tertiary education is not yet available to most youth but almost every year in the 1990s, one or two high school graduates have continued to their study at university. Widening work opportunities in non-agricultural sectors have had a primary role in improving general economic conditions, making it possible for many villagers owning no sawah or holding just a small plot to get access to an income which is higher than that from agricultural work. The disappearance of absolute poverty, however, does not imply that the economic gap between the wealthy and the poor has narrowed. This gap is still wide, probably more so than before. The better way to describe the economic gap between the rich and the poor since the 1970s is, as Edmundson puts it, 'the rich are getting richer while the poor are getting richer' (1994:134).

Third, diversification of occupational structure, widening work opportunities in the city and the decreasing importance of agriculture in villagers' economic life have helped to erode the basis on which such traditional village leaders as village officials, hamlet heads and large landholders, exert their power. No patron-client relation is formed between large landholders, on the one hand, and sharecroppers or agricultural labourers, on the other. The autonomy of the sharecroppers in managing the sawah under sharecropping agreement has been enhanced, their unpaid labour for the sawah owners has disappeared, and the labour shortage in agricultural sector allows agricultural labourers to have a stronger bargaining position vis-à-vis large landholders. The same situation also applies to village officials and hamlet heads, so that their authority to intervene in villagers' public and private life has been on the decline. This has been the case especially after a series of agricultural development programs, which directly encroached on villagers' right to manage their own sawah ^[39] , failed in the 1980s. The village officials who could not obtain compensation for the loss lost face and, accordingly, they had to give up one of the sources of their authority since the early 1970s, namely, their role in the development programs. After these failures, the direct interactions between officials and villagers have remained minimal and the role of the officials has become much closer to simple administrators who issue papers or collect taxes, although they still enjoy higher status than ordinary villagers. Those who have emerged to compete with the village officials for higher status are highly educated villagers having white collar jobs. However, no one has not yet become an authoritative figure in Kolojonggo. Nor is it likely that any one will be such a figure as long as the present economic and political situation continues. In this respect, the village life in Kolojonggo is characterised by a lack of a strong figure who has an authoritative power to involve himself or herself in public life.

Fourth, the last two decades have seen villagers' more intensive contact with the outside world. Rapid increase in villagers' daily mobility, the introduction of mass media and a longer period of schooling have facilitated the constant contact of villagers with people living outside village and have accelerated the flow of information. These changes have made it possible that in terms of villagers' perception and of their everyday interaction, the importance of the hamlet has decreased, while that of much broader boundaries such as Yogyakarta and Indonesia has increased. On the other hand, as more villagers have tried to follow up development in the outside world, changes in the city or at the national level have been introduced into village more rapidly by them.