Officially, the banjar has complete autonomy and all matters relating to the banjar administration and the community it serves should ideally require the agreement of the kelihan banjar, the head of the banjar, in order to proceed. But in the real world, the banjar is well-integrated into the affairs of state - a rather unavoidable predicament considering that the banjar is the most basic building block of the whole of Balinese society. For example, development programs are destined to fail if they lack support at the banjar level. The banjar, therefore, is the most important link between the government and the Balinese people. Bali’s banjars are like tiny screws in a huge engine. If one of the screws comes loose, the whole engine will start to fail.

The resignation of former President Suharto on 21 May, 1998, signaled Indonesia’s official entry into the so-called Era of Reform. The word reformasi has since come into daily use - it has become the rationale and driving force of just about everything taking place across the nation. As nationhood is being redefined, reformasi goes right to the heart of common Indonesians' everyday lives. The above mentioned engine is, in other words, currently being reserved, thus begging the question: what is to become of the screws that hold it together? As the reform fever is rapidly infecting Indonesian society at large, what are the implications of this for the Balinese banjar and the way it has hitherto been organized? Considering the banjar’s role in ensuring social cohesion in Bali, how are such traditional institutions in Bali such as the banjar taking part in the social and cultural changes that are currently underway?

Most Balinese I spoke to in preparing this piece hold few fears that the changes the country is now undergoing threaten the existence of Bali’s banjar per se. After all, the banjar has survived and adapted to many changes over the past thirty years - the implementation of new development programs, new security measures, the influx of foreign cultures and values via tourism, the use of its land for construction projects, etc. But simply continuing to exist, many assert, is not the issue. The matter at hand is how to bolster the authority of the banjar as a traditional insitution vis-a-vis that of the state.