Muhammad Yoppy Adhi Hernawan – Indonesian universities are more than just administrative units in the state hierarchy. Law 12 of 2012 on Higher Education protects academic freedom, freedom of academic expression, and scientific autonomy. The legislation also states that higher education must be grounded in scientific truth, reasoning, honesty, justice, responsibility, and diversity.
However, these ideals are currently at risk, and this is not just because the political climate under the Prabowo Subianto administration is generally becoming less democratic.
In reality, the state no longer needs to control campuses through blunt authoritarian measures. It can invite universities, discipline them, and gradually turn them into 'implementers' or 'executors' of government policies.
Alas, state intervention does not always take the form of coercion. It may disguise itself as a benign collaboration and as access to state programs.
Universities and MBG
The latest example is Free Nutritious Meals (Makan Bergizi Gratis, MBG). MBG is Prabowo's flagship social policy. It aims to provide food for millions of children, pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, and other vulnerable groups. This is a massive and highly controversial program, especially after several reported cases of food poisoning affecting thousands of children.
Despite the controversy, universities are now expected to play active roles in supporting the much-criticised populist program. In April 2026, Minister of Higher Education, Science, and Technology Brian Yuliarto inaugurated a campus-based MBG kitchen at Hasanuddin University. He argued that higher education institutions should support the president's initiatives, including the free nutritious meal program. He also said the university's MBG kitchen could become a site for practice, research, and program development.
The problem is that Hasanuddin University welcomed this role. To make matters worse, other campuses have also shown willingness to support the program.
And this is not the first case of state incursion into Indonesian campuses.
Co-option of university rectors
In March 2025, President Prabowo met rectors and leaders of public and private universities at the presidential palace to discuss the role of higher education in 'national progress'. In January 2026, he held another presidential briefing with around 1,200 rectors, professors, and higher education leaders. The Cabinet Secretariat described the event as an official event for the president to convey strategic views to education stakeholders.
When the president gives 'directions' to rectors, the university starts to look less like an autonomous institution and more like a bureaucratic partner waiting for orders. That risk became clearer when the Indonesian Rectors Forum was reported to have declared support for Prabowo's priority programs.
The structural problem runs deeper. In state university rector elections, the ministerial vote has long been a concern among academics. Ministerial Regulation 19 of 2017 gives the minister 35% of the vote in rector selection, which can weaken university independence and encourage lobbying of political parties and the palace.
Campus censorship on the rise
A climate of fear is now gripping Indonesian university students.
Only days after Prabowo and Gibran Rakabuming Raka were inaugurated, the student executive body at the faculty of social and political sciences at Universitas Airlangga put up a satirical flower board criticising the new administration. The deanery responded by suspending three student leaders. It later revoked the suspension, but still asked students to use polite language that fits 'academic culture.'
A similar pattern emerged in November 2025. A student at the University of August 17 1945, Jakarta was suspended after organising a discussion titled 'Soeharto is Not a Hero.' The discussion responded to Prabowo's controversial decision to award former president Soeharto the title of National Hero. The Dean ordered the discussion cancelled, campus security locked the venue, and the student was suspended for the rest of the academic year.
The controversy over Pesta Babi (Pig Feast) reveals another form of pressure. Pesta Babi is a 2026 documentary by Dandhy Laksono and Cypri Paju Dale. It examines national strategic projects in South Papua, arguing that these projects threaten Indigenous land rights, forests, and the environment. The title refers to the cultural importance of pigs in Papuan life but also works as a political metaphor.
Several campus screenings were reportedly disrupted. Public screenings and campus viewing parties were disrupted by university authorities and members of the military in different regions. Yusril Ihza Mahendra, the coordinating minister for law, human rights, immigration, and corrections, denied that the government had issued any directive banning the film.
However, the absence of a written ban does not mean academic freedom is safe. The more serious problem is self-censorship. Campus officials know which topics are sensitive.
That is how censorship works in a cautious university. The state does not always need to knock on the door. The campus closes the door first.
Academic freedom at stake
The 2025 Academic Freedom Index helps show why these threats should be taken seriously. It placed Indonesia in the bottom 40-50% globally, with a score hovering between 0.5 and 0.6 on a scale of 1. This a major fall from 2024, when the score was 0.59. The weakest rankings are for campus integrity and academic and cultural expression, two indicators that have consistently declined.
In the 2026 Academic Freedom Index, Indonesia's score in 2025 fell to 0.33 on a scale of 1. Its weakest indicator is freedom to research and teach, followed by campus integrity and academic and cultural expression.
Indonesian democracy owes much to campuses. Students played major roles in the fall of Soekarno's Guided Democracy and Soeharto's New Order. During the 1997-98 crisis, student protests turned economic anger into a political reform agenda. They demanded Soeharto's resignation and a democratic transition.
Campus capture recently rarely begins with dramatic repression, but more often starts when university administrators act as political filters, and rectors manage students on the state's behalf. It begins when research, discussion, and protest must first pass a test of political convenience.
This is why university autonomy must be defended as a democratic necessity. Universities exist to test power and produce independent knowledge. When campuses become extensions of state policy, they lose the capacity to perform that public function.
Indonesia does not need universities that merely repeat government policies and adopt its priorities. It needs universities that can examine and criticise them – and warn society when public power begins to exceed its proper limits.