This despair exposes a brutal paradox: even in the most isolated, impoverished and neglected corners of Indonesia, children still cling to hope. They still want to learn, to be smart and to progress. It is the state that breaks them every time.

In this situation, one must ask: Who really needs free meals?

The tragic death is not about hunger, but about dignity. About opportunity. About a system that has systematically stripped hope from the poorest while lavishing financial privilege on the richest.

And this is where Danantara enters the moral frame.

When Pandu Sjahrir, chief investment officer of the fund, recently announced that Danantara would begin buying stocks on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX), it was presented as a technocratic and sophisticated strategy: smart asset management, portfolio diversification, wealth optimization. But placed beside the suicide of a 10-year-old child over a pencil, this strategy becomes morally obscene.

Because the fundamental question is not whether the state can make money, but for whom does the state exist?