INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INDONESIAN STUDIES ISSUE 4. 2017 53 | Page The Moon Dies in Northern Bekasi: Development, Impoverishment and the Irony of the Paddy Granary Khaerul Umam Noer Biodata: Khaerul Umam Noer is a lecturer at Department of Public Administration of the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Muhammadiyah Jakarta Univerity (UMJ).,He is also Managing Director of the Center of Women and Gender Studies, University of Indonesia. His research interests are gender and public policy. The author can be contacted on the email address: umam_noer@yahoo.com Abstract The issues of development in Indonesia is always interesting to be studied, especially the impact of development on the society. This article tries to picture how development in the Bekasi regency has changed the face of Bekasi fundamentally, from an agricultural area to an industrial area, as well as its impact on the society. Specifically, this article shall explore the northern region of Bekasi. The regency of Bekasi, which is very strategic due to its direct shared border with Jakarta, in addition to the fact that the land area is extensive, has made Bekasi the target of industrial development, especially in the southern area of Bekasi. This has had a ƌeal aŶd ǀiaďle iŵpaĐt oŶ Bekasis PD‘B ;Produk Domestik Regional Bruto/Regional Gross Domestic Product). However, the industrial development has left behind one serious issue, the industrial waste that flows from the south to the north, which ends in the Sea of Java. On the other hand, the needs of housing from the workers in the eastern area of Jakarta and Bekasi as well as the price of the land that is still cheap, has made the northern region of Bekasi a favorite option for housing. This has encouraged the conversion of land use from farming land into housing areas that is uncontrollable. These two problems, the industrial waste and the farming land conversion, are the problems faced in the northern region of Bekasi. The development that was championed as the surefire solution to break the chain of poverty has instead backfired to become the cause of an increasingly more structural kind of poverty in the society, as it did not simply eliminate the livelihoods of the people, but also has caused an ecological disaster that is uncontrollable, which in the end becomes a broader catastrophe. Keywords: Bekasis province, sustainable development in Indonesia, gender issues and the environment in Indonesia Introduction It was the year 417 AD. That a dark cloud was hanging, the moonlight has dimmed over the sky of Tarumanegara, 1 a dim hint of light in the castle is reaffirming the concerned look on the face of the king. His Majesty Purnawarman is worried, because his kingdoŵs teƌƌitoƌy was often plagued by flood and drought. The Tugu Stone Tablet (Prasasti Tugu) recorded, that on the date of the 8th, half month of Phalguna (paro petang bulan Phalguna, around March), the king instructed construction of the canals of Gomati and Candrabagha with the length of 6.122 spears (equal to 24.448 m), a task that was finished in 21 days. Thus, on the 13th of the 1 Tarumanegara is a Hindu kingdom in the West Java area, with its territory spans from the Bogor in the west of Jakarta up to Bekasi, along with some part of Jakarta and the surrounding areas.