IKN: The Capital that Struggles to be Loved

IKN: the capital that struggles to be loved.

By Apen Panlelugen

The Nusantara Capital City, or IKN, has been conceived and built by leaving behind and effectively denying the Dayak people as the rightful custodians and heirs of the land of Borneo. The Dayak believe that the land has its guardians and its owners, and that it will continue to trouble those who damage its ecosystem. In every act of building a house or opening a field, the Dayak formally ask permission through ritual, addressing their ancestors and the Creator.

Myanmar offers a cautionary tale the world should not forget: moving a capital is never merely an exercise in concrete and coordinates. It is a question of soul, of whether a city can breathe, belong, and be believed in. A grand city that stands empty is not a triumph. It is a warning.

Indonesia would do well to study Naypyidaw carefully. Do not build a city for the state alone; build a city animated by, and accountable to, its people.

A Capital Born of Fear

Naypyidaw was conceived in silence. One morning in November 2005, civil servants awoke to discover that their offices, and by extension their lives, had been relocated some 320 kilometers from Yangon.

There was no ceremony. No national address. Only convoys of military trucks and whispered explanations that the generals no longer felt safe in the old capital.

Speculation followed, strategic military positioning, astrological calculations, paranoia dressed as foresight. Yet one conclusion proved unavoidable: the new capital was not born of public aspiration, but of elite unease.

Its avenues stretch extravagantly, up to eight lanes wide. Monumental buildings rise with theatrical confidence, yet remain largely uninhabited. The city is vast, but hollow, more a stage set than a dwelling place. Naypyidaw stands as an example of what happens when the state creates space without inviting life. Beautifully carved, perhaps, but without a spirit.

A Capital That Struggles to Be Loved

Indonesia has named its new capital Nusantara, a word resonant with history, echoing ancient chronicles and maritime memory. But not everything born of poetry matures into reality.

The future capital, IKN Nusantara, is imagined as a green city, a smart city, a city of tomorrow. It is meant to house thousands of civil servants and relieve Jakarta of the burdens it can no longer bear. There are laws, master plans, glossy presentations, and elegant infographics.

Yet symbols alone do not sustain cities.

If IKN becomes merely an emblem of power, if it excludes Indigenous communities, fails to address structural inequality beyond Java, and does not guarantee a dignified life, its failure will be a matter of time, not speculation.

Behind the official narratives, customary lands are being remapped. Dayak communities in East Kalimantan are asking a quiet but piercing question: Will we be part of this future, or merely its backdrop?

Naypyidaw and IKN: A Cautionary Comparison

Counted in Stone and Concrete

A capital city is not simply where desks of power are moved. It is a symbolic space, where history meets aspiration, where the past negotiates with the future.

When a city is born from boardrooms distant from public voices, it risks becoming another Naypyidaw, meticulously planned, yet breathless.

IKN now stands at such a crossroads. This is not merely a question of geography, but of moral direction: is Indonesia relocating buildings, or re-laying the foundations of justice?

The new capital promises a “new Indonesia.” But promises, whether in politics or poetry, do not guarantee fulfillment. Often, they echo desire rather than reality.

Spatial justice is not achieved by transferring palaces from one island to another. It requires seeing those long unseen, hearing voices long unheard. Will IKN listen to forests silenced by chainsaws? To rivers narrowed by mining? If not, it risks repeating a familiar story, Jakarta itself, raised on wetlands, eventually overwhelmed by the weight it carried.

Roots Before Roofs

Power, like water, flows easily, often downward, often overflowing. The essential question is whether local voices have a place in this current. Is there room for mother tongues, ancestral customs, and old wisdom in those vast, air-conditioned meeting halls?

And perhaps the quietest, yet most fundamental question of all: will this capital be embraced by the land that bears it?

Kalimantan is not empty space. It is a body of memory, scarred yet hopeful. If the city is born without the embrace of Dayak, Banjar, Kutai, Paser, and others who have woven meaning into this island, it risks becoming a stranger, an unrecognized child. A guest who builds a house but forgets to knock.

Cities, like people, need roots. And roots are not infrastructure. They grow from acceptance, from belarasa, from genuine connection. Without them, IKN may join a long list of modern projects that glitter outwardly yet remain vacant within.

In the end, the question will not only be where the capital stands, but how it lives in the hearts of its people. Is it a home, or merely a project?

For the truest failure of a city is not that it remains unfinished. It is that it is never truly loved.