Bupati
Bupati ( German government president ) is the name for the head of an administrative district ( Kabupaten ), the second level of the administrative structure of Indonesia below the province. The district president, like the mayors of the provincial cities, is elected directly by the citizens of the district every five years. The district president is a political office (because it is held by a political party) and not an official.
Before Indonesia's independence in 1945, the title Bupati was only used on the islands of Java , Madura and Bali . In Dutch , the official language of administration in the Dutch East Indies , the bupati was referred to as the “regent” and this term was used as the equivalent of the regent in English. Since independence, the term bupati has been used to refer to all 416 government presidents across Indonesia.
Concept history
The word Bupati comes from Javanese , which it borrowed from Sanskrit . In the inscription of Telaga Batu, which was found near Palembang and describes the worship of a Srivijaya king, the word Bhupati is written . The inscription dates from the end of the 7th century AD. The inscription expert JG de Casparis translated Bhupati as "head". The word Bhupati is also found in the Ligor inscription that in the province of Nakhon Si Thammarat in Thailand was found. In the 17th century the Europeans called the area "Ligor". This inscription contains the date 775 AD. The term Bhupati also refers to the king of Srivijaya. The French researcher Gérard Louis Domeny de Rienzi noted the term in 1834 as "Bapati".
The position of Bupati in the modern sense dates from the earliest days of the Mataram Sultanate , during the time of Sultan Agung (term 1613–45), who handed over the administration to his confidants. At that time the official name was "Adipati". During the Dutch colonial era, the Adipati were called "regents". Usually they were chosen from among the merchants or nobles (prijajis).
supporting documents
- Bertrand, Romain, Etat colonial, noblesse et nationalisme à Java , Karthala, 2005
- Soemarsaid Moertono, State and Statecraft in Old Java , Cornell University Modern Indonesia Project
- Sutherland, Heather, "Notes on Java's Regent Families: Part I" in Indonesia , Volume 16 (October 1973), 113-147
Individual evidence
- ^ Anton O. Zakharov, "Constructing the polity of Sriwijaya in the 7th-8th centuries: The view according to the inscriptions", Indonesian Studies Working Papers , no. 9, June 2009
- ↑ Grégoire Louis Domeny de Rienzi, Océanie ou cinquième partie du monde: revue géographique et ethnographique de la Malaisie, de la Micronésie, de la Polynésie et de la Mélanésie, ainsi que ses nouvelles classifications et divisions de ces contrées , Firmin. Didot Frères, Paris , 1834.