Transmigration program

The transmigration program (Indonesian: Transmigrasi, from Dutch, transmigratie) was an initiative of the Dutch colonial government, and later continued by the Indonesian government to move landless people from densely populated areas of Indonesia to less populous areas of the country. This involved moving people permanently from the island of Java, but also to a lesser extent from Bali and Madura, to less densely populated areas including Papua (ended in 2015 by president Joko Widodo), Kalimantan, Sumatra, and Sulawesi. The stated purpose of this program was to reduce the considerable poverty and overpopulation on Java, to provide opportunities for hard-working poor people, and to provide a workforce to better utilize the natural resources of the outer islands. The program, however, has been controversial as fears from native populations of "Javanization" and "Islamization" (despite the fact that trasmigrants are not exclusively Muslims or ethnic Javanese) have strengthened separatist movements and communal violence. The incomers are Madurese and Javanese.

The policy was first initiated by the Dutch colonial government in the early nineteenth century to reduce crowding and to provide a workforce for plantations on Sumatra. The program diminished during the last years of the Dutch era (1940s) but was revived following Indonesian independence, in an attempt to alleviate the food shortages and weak economic performance during Sukarno's presidency in the two decades following World War II.

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