A victory for indigenous faiths in Indonesia

Indonesia's official ideology is Pancasila, which includes belief in one God but otherwise, it is quite secular. Indonesia officially recognizes only six religions: Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Hinduism. Believers of other religions faced discrimination, particularly after the introduction of new legislation in 2006. The Indonesian Constitutional Court has rejected the new legislation.

Source: Religion in Indonesia

An excerpt from a news article explaining the change is given below:

Indonesia’s top court has overturned a law that denied recognition and legal rights to followers of indigenous faiths, in a surprise advance for religious freedom in the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

The Constitutional Court, in a unanimous ruling Tuesday (Nov. 7) from its nine-judge panel, said articles in the Civil Administration Law were discriminatory and violated the principle of equality before the law.

“These articles are not legally binding as they contradict the 1945 constitution,” presiding Judge Arief Hidayat told the court.

The ruling is an unexpected victory for moderates at a time when religious conservatives have demonstrated growing political influence and undermined the country’s reputation for tolerance.

The discriminatory articles, in place since 2006, effectively required followers of faiths not among the six recognized by the government to list one of the official religions on their national identity card or be denied basic rights such as marriage registration and land titles.

They also had the option of leaving the religion category blank but that would risk being accused of being an atheist, an offense under Indonesia’s blasphemy law, said Andreas Harsono, Indonesia researcher for Human Rights Watch.

Full article can be read here 

Pancasila Day, a new holiday in Indonesia

Today is Pancasila day. This is the first time Indonesians are celebrating this national holiday. Pancasila is the national ideology of Indonesia. As explained before (see Indonesian Elections: A victory for Pancasila nationalism), Pancasila, meaning 'five principles,' highlights five aspect of Indonesian national ideology: monotheism, humanism, unified nation, representative democracy and social justice. More than 80% of Indonesians were Muslim at the time of independence but its founding fathers to have a pluralistic civic nationalism, which was not strictly secular but rejected majoritarian religious nationalism. For a long time, Pancasila was not under threat, but with the return of democracy and the rise of a new elite, religious movements/groups are demanding a more conspicuous place for majority religion in the political sphere. The situation is increasingly comparable to India, which also rejected majority Hindu religious nationalism at the time of independence but is now ruled by the Bhartiya Janata Party, a revivalist Hindu chauvinist party:

Indonesia and India also share many characteristics which makes their comparison compelling. Both Indonesia and India were successor states of colonial empires. As there was almost no history of a united India or a united Indonesia before colonial times, nationalist elites of both countries had to perform an exhausting balancing act. They had to fight against the colonial state but also try to preserve it. Preservation of the colonial state was difficult as not only the boundaries of the colonial state were new (similar to many other colonial states), but these states also had mind-boggling diversity. To deal with the ethnic/linguistic/religious/caste/tribal diversity, nationalist elites of both India and Indonesia adopted civil nationalism so that all communities can identify with the new state, ignoring the demands of many Hindus in India and many Muslims in Indonesia. This decision was one of the main reasons why both these states have not only managed to stay intact for the last sixty years but also showed impressive progress.           

Another similarity between Indonesia and India is the recent rise of new elites; elites quite different from the leaders that had governed both these countries since independence. For more than half a century, the civic nationalism imposed by the founding fathers of both states was not under threat. There was some criticism but it lacked broad popular support. Nineteen nineties brought a big change in both countries. Economic crisis in both countries (India in 1990-91 and Indonesia in 1997-98) jolted people out of their slumber and the spell that founding fathers' ideas had on the nation was broken. Suharto and aged Congress leadership, defenders of the old ideas, lost their grip on the country and were thrown out. New elites were 'outsiders'. Never before they had held power collectively. Their defining characteristics were overt religiosity and aggressive nationalism. This combination posed a threat to the civic and secular nationalism, both nations had adhered too since independence.  (see Modi, Prabowo, and the threat to Indian and Indonesian civic nationalism)

Although Pancasila promotes inclusion and unity, for half a century, the day to commemorate Pancasila was linked with authoritarianism, exclusion and the killing of half a million Indonesians by their fellow countrymen in 1965-66. It was General/Acting President Suharto who first ordered the celebration of the Pancasila Day in 1967. At that time, it was called Hari Kesahtian Pancasila (Sacred or Devine Pancasila Day) and celebrated on October 1st each year. The day was used to justify the 1965 coup, the New Order regime led by Suharto and possibly the massacre that happened soon after the coup. The birth of Pancasila on June 1st, 1945 was downplyed. 

Much of what happened on October 1, 1965 is still contested but what is largely accepted by all sides is that six senior Indonesian military generals and one junior officer were killed by communists. This event gave the opportunity or forced General Suharto to take over the control of the government. Katherine McGregor, in her Asian Studies Review article published in 2002, writes about Suharto and the commemoration of the Hari Kesahtian Pancasila:

Suharto also made the decision in 1967, his first year as Acting President, to commemorate 1 October, the day on which the six generals were kidnapped and murdered and on which he, together with the army, suppressed the coup attempt. He was clearly determined to ensure that the official version of the coup attempt, in which the army victims were martyrs and Suharto the triumphant hero, would not be forgotten. For every year of the New Order Hari Kesaktian Pancasila was celebrated in a ceremony at Monumen Pancasila Sakti. The themes taken up in the ceremony replicate themes of the initial propaganda surrounding the coup including an emphasis on the coup attempt as a communist plot; the horror of the deaths of the army heroes; the religious and moral deviance of the communists; warnings about the return of communism; and 1 October as a day on which the Pancasila was resurrected. These messages were variously encapsulated in the reading of the Pancasila text, the Pancasila ikrar [pledge]4 and a prayer during the course of the ceremony. Suharto was inspector of the ceremony for every year of the New Order. As principal actor in the events of 1 October Suharto's presence added authenticity to the commemoration. The two main roles he performed in the ceremony were to lead a silent reflection and to inspect the monument at the conclusion of the ceremony.

It was made the most important day in the national calender and a national monument and a museum were later added to make the official version of October 1, 1965 events difficult to deny or contest. 

Pancasila sakti monument, with its seven victims under Garuda, Javanese eagle that is the national symbol of Indonesia (Source tripadvisor.com.sg)

Sacred Pancasilla Day was used to delegitimie enemies of the New Order. Initially, it was the communists, both foreign and domestic, and those working for democracy. Later, in the 1980s, religious Muslims were added to list but in the 1990s, they were excluded. In 1995 and 1996, Suharto's political party Golkar and the a faction in Indonesian military used the day to rally Muslims to support Suharto.

After fall of President Suharto in 1997, there was an attempt to revisit the reasons for the Sacred Pancasilla Day on October first. Many gaps in the official story promoted under Suharto were discovered and the celebrations were subdued. Although President Abdur Rehman Wahid apologized to the former members of the Indonesian communist party and proposed to the end ban on their party in early 2000, but he decided to continue official celebrations on October 1st as Pancasila was owned by him and Vice Megawati Sukarnoputri as the national ideology. Megawati, infact, rightly linked Pancasila to her father, the founder and first President of Indonesia, Sukarno. It was he who first came up with the term (and five principles) on June 1st, 1945 to unite all Indonesians. Suharto hijacked the national ideology to use it for his own purposes. President Wahid and Megawati, however, change the name of the day to 'Peringatan Hari Pengkhianatan (terhadap) Pancasila' (the Commemorative Day for the Betrayal of the Pancasila). This change kept the Pancasila but changed the focus of the day from Suharto's heroism in saving the nation from communists to his coup and the massacre afterward. Megawati led the day's celebration ceremonies in 2000 (in place of President Wahid), but did not visit the musuem or the monument. When Megawati herself became President, she did not attend the ceremonies in 2003 and 2004, although the day was celebrated and ceremonies held at the monument. In 2004, Megawati was defeated by former general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and he started leading the October 1st ceremmonies again.

In 2014, Joko Widodo (a.k.a Jokowi) of Megwati's party became the seventh President of Indonesia. He dutifully led the October 1st ceremonies at the monument in 2015 and 2016 but was under pressure to act. In 2015, Megawati urged him to declare June 1 as the Pancasila Day to link Pancasila with Sukarno (her father) and its birth in 1945 and disentangling it from its fifty year Suharto past:

In an emotional speech, Megawati said that without Pancasila, there would be no such thing as the unitary state of the Republic of Indonesia, as Pancasila was not merely the nation’s ideology, but also a tool that unified the nation. Therefore, she added, the country should commemorate the founding of Pancasila. 

“Happy anniversary of Pancasila; let the nation rise with the spirit of Pancasila,” she said. “Let’s make the Pancasila of June 1, 1945, the way of life for our nation, to keep moving forward,” she said, her voice shaking as she held back tears. (See Jokowi grants Megawati’s wish on Pancasila)

Nahdatul Ulama, Indonesia's largest Muslim organization, also supported Megawati's call. In 2016, President Jokowi announced June 1st as Pancasila Day and a national holiday in the presence of Megawati. 

The saga of the Pancasila Day reaffirms the constructivist nature of national ideologies. National ideologies are not premordial but are conceived, proclaimed and later discarded and replaced by men. Sometimes, the name of the ideology remians the same, but the ideas linked to it change,

Indonesia: Ahok's trial and religious right resurgence

Indonesia is not an ordinary Muslim-majority country (MMC). With a population of around 260 million, it is the biggest MMC in the world. In the 1940s, after getting independence from Netherlands, its elite decided to  adopt a secular Pancasila nationalism and ignored the demands for an Islamic state. The multiethnic, multireligious, and multilinguistic diversity of the Indonesian nation surely played a part in this decision. Since then, the hardliners in the religious right have been trying to establish an Islamic state in Indonesia but without much success (See the comparison of India and Indonesia). In 2014 elections, the religious right again tried to eke out a victory and to increase the role of Islam in state affairs but they were soundly beaten (See Indonesian Elections: A Victory for Pancasila Nationalism).

Currently, the religious right is again resurging in Indonesia as Jakarta's governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Chinese nickname Ahok) faces blasphemy charges. Ahok became governor of Jakarta after the previous governor Jokowi won the 2014 Indonesian presidential election. Ahok, a popular deputy governor, took charge of Jakarta governorship in November 2014. Well ahead of his rivals, Ahok was due to be re-elected as Jakarta's governor in February 2017, despite his double-minority status (a Christian Chinese in a Muslim-majority Javanese country). Ahok was expected to win around 40% of the votes polled. Ahok was such a strong candidate that the opposition parties initially tried to put up a single candidate to defeat him but failed to do so. One group of opposition parties, Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and Gerindra, then nominated former culture and education minister Anies Baswedana, who had fought against the PKS and Gerindra in the 2014 elections, demostrating lack of strong candidates for Jakarta governorship in these parties. Another group of opposition parties, the Democratic Party, the National Mandate Party (PAN), the National Awakening Party (PKB) and the United Development Party (PPP), decided to support Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono, the son of former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Agus was a political newcomer as he had just resigned from the military (See The profiles of the Jakarta election contenders: Ahok, Agus, Anies).

Indonesian President Joko Widodo with Ahok (left) after the latter's swearing in as governor on November 19, 2014 (Source: Indonesian President cancels Australia trip after violent protests)


Ahok was supposed to win easily in the second round. But then something happened on 30th September that completely changed the scenario. Ahok, in a election rally, accused the Islamic hardliners of using the following quranic verse Al-Maida 51 to deceive voters to not vote for non-Muslims like him:

"O you who have believed, do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies. They are [in fact] allies of one another. And whoever is an ally to them among you - then indeed, he is [one] of them. Indeed, Allah guides not the wrongdoing people." (Al-Maida 51)

The verse, according to many religious scholars, is for a specific context and Prophet Muhammad had many Christian and Jewish allies during his lifetime. However, Indonesian hardliners were not letting Ahok get away and accused Ahok of insulting Quran/Islam:

Ahok provoked the ire of hardliners after he cited the Al Maidah 51 verse from the Qur’an during a campaign visit to the Thousand Islands in September. He said the verse had been used to deceive voters and justify the assertion that Muslims should not be led by non-Muslims. The governor later apologised, saying it was not his intention to cause any offence.

However, an edited version of those comments was subsequently circulated online, changed in a way to make the governor’s comments appear more offensive, angering hardliners further. As a Christian, and the first ethnic Chinese governor of Jakarta, Ahok is somewhat of an anomaly in Indonesia’s political scene. The capital’s willingness to be led by a man who represents a double minority has in the past been hailed a symbol of progress and pluralism, the latter a virtue enshrined in the Indonesian constitution.

In a country where 90% of its more than 240 million people follow Islam, the national motto is, Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, or unity in diversity. (See Jakarta's Christian governor to face blasphemy trial over Islam insult claim)

Initially, Indonesian government led by Ahok's friend and former boss President Jokowi did not pay much attention to the blasphemy accusations but later religious groups managed to gather more than a hundred thousand protesters in Jakarta twice on November 4th (around 100,000-150,000) and December 2nd (around 200,000) forcing government on the backfoot. The government decided to charge Ahok under the blasphemy law and President Jokowi assured that he would be neutral. President Jokowi even joined the protesters in Friday prayers on December 2nd. Counter-protest rallies, organized by the Indonesian military, on November 30th across the country, affirmed the unity and diversity of Indonesia and may have helped government ignore more extreme demands of the protesters, like arresting Ahok.

Source: Jakarta protests: Muslims turn out in force against Christian governor Ahok

Ahok's trial is set to begin in December. Irrespective of the result of the trial, it is clear that religious forces, which were soundly defeated in 2014, are now resurgent and emboldened. Some have suggested that the whole idea of focusing on the 55 seconds of more than hundred minutes long Ahok's speech was to defeat Ahok and lessen the chances of an unbeatable Jokowi-Ahok presidential ticket in 2019 (See Commentary: Indonesia's Democracy Making Progress in Reverse).

There is no doubt that besides religious prejudice, racism and Ahok's aggressive personality has also contributed to the success of protest rallies:

Ahok has never been afraid of ruffling feathers. He is loathed as much as he is loved, with his policy of evicting slum dwellers angering the urban poor and his plans for the reclamation of Jakarta Bay attacked by environmentalists.

His political rivals have successfully exploited anger over the alleged blasphemy comments to undermine both Ahok and his ally, President Joko. Ahok is now behind the other gubernatorial candidates in some polls.

There is also little doubt racism is at play. Only around 1 to 4 percent of Indonesia's 250 million people are ethnic Chinese, but their economic success has caused resentment to bubble away for centuries. Ahok has been described as both a "Chinese bastard" and "the Chinese Infidel". (See Verdict in Ahok blasphemy trial likely to put Indonesia's democracy in the dock)

Will Ahok succeed in his political and judical trails and  what will be the repercussions of these trails on Indonesia's religious pluralism? We will see.

Is religious nationalism rising in South East Asia /ASEAN ?

Is religious nationalism increasing in South East Asia? Michael Sainsbury, a Bangkok-based journalist, certainly thinks so. While explaining the Thai junta's decision to repatriate hundreds of Uighurs refugees to China, he argues in his article, Understanding the plight of the Uighurs:

Yet this action is one more example of how politics in Asia is unintelligible without factoring in the significance of religion. The common frequently focus is on military, trade and national rivalries that culminate in decisive and dismaying actions. But increasingly religion tied to national identity is integral to the events....

It’s the latest visible example that religious fault lines and an emerging trend of religious nationalism is now beginning to appear right across the region. It is one that poses a fresh threat to the ambitions of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Economic Nations Community that will come into being on December 31, 2015.

He mentions increasing Buddhist nationalism in Thailand, Cambodia, and Myanmar; Muslim nationalism in Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia; and Hindu nationalism in India.  

However, the decision to repatriate Uighurs, as Sainsbury also acknowledges is more to do with Thai military junta's need for powerful allies than to rise in religious nationalism in Thailand. Moreover, in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim-majority country in the world, last year elections results showed that religious nationalism is stagnant, if not in retreat (See Indonesian Elections: A Victory for Pancasila Nationalism)

In Bangladesh too, although it is not in South East Asia, religious nationalism is losing to ethnolinguistic Bengali nationalism (See Bangladesh's secular nationalism asserts itself). Similarly, religious nationalism suffered a defeat when Philippines government agreed to accommodate concerns of Muslims in the Southern islands last year. 

Moreover, like Thailand and Cambodia, Muslim-majority Malaysia also deported fellow Muslim Uighurs to China in 2013 ( See Malaysia Hit for Deporting Uyghurs). More recently, both Malaysia and Indonesia (along with Bangladesh) were reluctant to accept fellow Muslims Rohingyas, who were fleeing worst kind of religious persecution (See Malaysia's Duty to the Rohingyas), making a mockery of Muslim brotherhood and Muslim nationalism. Only after international pressure, some Rohingya refugees were accepted.

So, religious nationalism is South East Asia presents a mixed picture. It is rising in some countries but losing in others.

Separatist movements - the peaceful route to independence?

Scotland, in the end, decided not to be independent. However, it did encourage other separatist movements, many of which supported Scottish referendum. There is evidence that Catalonians from Spain helped the ‘Yes’ vote campaign and many Kashmiris in Scotland and England supported Mr. Salmond’s Scottish National Party, not for any love for an independent Scotland but for its positive implications for Kashmir region. Despite the negative results, referendum has shown that there is no need for fighting or killing for independence in the 21st century. As Jonah Blank, senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, writes in the Foreign Policy after the Scottish referendum (See From Glasgow to Kashmir) :

Almost every modern nation has some sort of local separatist movement, and the international community views nearly all of them either with indifference or contempt. Merely to be considered a quasi-legitimate candidate for independence, a group generally has to suffer generations of brutality bordering on genocide. Even then, the odds aren't great. Just ask the Kurds.

The vote in Scotland shows what modern-day secessionism should look like. What if an ethnic group didn't have to justify its bid for a separate state through a saga of historical oppression, or seek to achieve it through a violent insurgency? What if the standard for independence were nothing more than the statement: "We want out." London agreed to take aye for an answer.

Rest of the blog can be read http://www.calgarycgc.org/blog/separatist-movements-the-peaceful-route-to-independence

Head of state must be a member of a certain religion

In a factank article, Pew Research  Center lists the countries that require their heads of states to have a specific religion (See In 30 countries heads of state must belong to a certain religion). It found thirty countries (15% of all countries) that have such a requirement. The list shows that it is mostly the Muslim-majority countries that have religion-related restrictions on the selection of their heads of state. Out of the total thirty countries with restrictions, seventeen (17) are Muslim-majority. For example, Jordan, Tunisia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, and Mauritania have such a restriction. The article informs that only two countries each require their heads of state to be Christian (Lebanon and Andorra) and Buddhist (Bhutan and Thailand). However, this is obviously not true as the article later explains that there are other 19 Christian-majority countries that do the same. So, the true count should have been forty-nine (49) countries with restrictions, twenty-one (21) Christian-majority and nineteen (19) Muslim-majority:

In addition to the 30 countries in this analysis, another 19 nations have religious requirements for ceremonial monarchs who serve as their heads of state. Sixteen of these, including the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, are members of the Commonwealth of Nations with Queen Elizabeth II – also known as the Defender of the Faith – as their head of state. The other countries in this category are Denmark, Norway and Sweden. 

Most of the world’s countries (85%) allow citizens of any religious affiliation to be head of state. In the United States, the Constitution specifically prohibits any kind of “religious test” as a qualification for holding federal or state public office. At the same time, a number of states still have laws on the books prohibiting nonbelievers from holding office. However, the Supreme Court has ruled that First Amendment’s prohibition on the establishment of religion clearly prohibits states from requiring office-holders to profess a belief in God.

Source: In 30 countries heads of state must belong to a certain religion

Several comments on the Pew's website questioned the validity of the analysis. For example, some commentators considered Pew's coding of Pancasila (nationalist philosophy of Indonesia) as a religion was considered strange. Others commented on the absence of the Vatican state from the analysis. I also found the analysis problematic and posted the following comment:

If the focus of the article is whether the position of head of state is restricted to members of a specific religion, then all countries that have such restrictions should be listed first. The distinction between the ‘ceremonial monarchs’ and other heads of state, if need be, should have been made later. The way article is organized, it gives a distorted picture. 

The headline says, ‘In 30 countries, heads of state must belong to a certain religion’ and these 30 countries are listed and shown on the graph. This gives the impression that other countries do not have such restrictions. It is only later that the author remembers that there are some other countries that also restrict head of state to a certain religion. The obvious question is why these countries are not included in the headline count or the first list? The answer is not clearly given but the implicit suggestion is that these heads of state do not have real power. 

This distinction is false as many countries included in the first list also have heads of state that do not have real power. One pertinent example is that of Malaysia. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, just like Australia, Canada, New Zealand etc. The Malaysian king (head of state) does not have real power, like the British monarch. But still Malaysia is not in the same list as Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Similarly, Pakistan’s presidency (though not a monarchy) is also a ceremonial position with no real powers but still Pakistan is in the first list. 

The issue discussed in the article was whether head of state has to be a member of a certain religion. Unfortunately, from the very start, this specificity was lost and other factors like power and type of political system influenced the choices/results of analysis.

Modi, Prabowo and the threat to Indian and Indonesian civic nationalism

It is fascinating to compare India and Indonesia, two nations at critical junctures of their history. Narendra Modi, the current Indian Prime Minister and Prabowo Subianto, leading contender in the Indonesian presidential elections, are similar in promoting a strong nationalistic cum religious agenda. Despite lingering doubts about Modi and Prabowo's leadership qualities, they seemed to have captured the minds and hearts of many of their countrymen (and women). Can these strongly (religiously) nationalist leaders succeed in very diverse societies that are based on civic nationalism?

No doubt, India and Indonesia are different. Though both are very populous countries, India is much larger. In terms of nominal GDP, again Indian economy is more than double the size of the Indonesian economy, although Indonesians are richer. Their political systems and history are also different. While India is a stable parliamentary democracy, Indonesia is a military-dominated state, still trying to find its feet as a fragile democracy. Moreover, majority religion of India is Hinduism whereas the majority of Indonesians are Muslims.

However, Indonesia and India also share many characteristics which make their comparison compelling. Both Indonesia and India were successor states of colonial empires. As there was almost no history of a united India or a united Indonesia before colonial times, nationalist elites of both countries had to perform an exhausting balancing act. They had to fight against the colonial state but also try to preserve it. Preservation of the colonial state was difficult as not only the boundaries of the colonial state were new (similar to many other colonial states), but these states also had mind-boggling diversity. To deal with the ethnic/linguistic/religious/caste/tribal diversity, nationalist elites of both India and Indonesia adopted civil nationalism so that all communities can identify with the new state, ignoring the demands of many Hindus in India and many Muslims in Indonesia. This decision was one of the main reasons why both these states have not only managed to stay intact for the last sixty years but also showed impressive progress.        

Source: India, Indonesia Sign Pact To Cooperate On Criminal Matters

Another similarity between Indonesia and India is the recent rise of new elites; elites quite different from the leaders that had governed both these countries since independence. For more than half a century, the civic nationalism imposed by the founding fathers of both states was not under threat. There was some criticism but it lacked broad popular support. The nineteen nineties brought a big change in both countries. The Economic crisis in both countries (India in 1990-91 and Indonesia in 1997-98) jolted people out of their slumber and the spell that founding fathers' ideas had on the nation was broken. Suharto and aged Congress leadership, defenders of the old ideas, lost their grip on the country and were thrown out. New elites were 'outsiders'. Never before they had held power collectively. Their defining characteristics were overt religiosity and aggressive nationalism. This combination posed a threat to the civic and secular nationalism, both nations had adhered to since independence.

While economic crisis was the immediate cause of changes in both countries, two long-term developments helped the cause of the new elite. First, inhabitants of these countries were socialized, using public education system and national print media, into myths of (inherent) national greatness and threats to this 'manifest destiny' from outsiders and insiders. This socialization process was not very different from what happens in other countries but, due to the huge size of these two countries, these myths became more real. Socialized on these myths of national greatness, many ordinary Indians and Indonesians supported the strong nationalistic stance of the new elite. Second, the opening of a large number of private TV channels in both these countries around the start of 21st century gave an enormous fillip to religious nationalism. To win the rating war, TV channels mass-produced programs on two themes which the majority of the public can understand and appreciate i.e. religion and nationalism. These large doses of religion and nationalism fed to the public for the last fifteen years are now showing results. Modi's spectacular win is one such result and Prabowo's success in presidential election might be another.

Though both are using religious nationalism to win support, Modi and Prabowo have very different backgrounds. Modi is a man with whom most poor Indians can relate to. He belongs to a low-caste and poor household and didn't have much education. Starting from the lowest rung of the political ladder, he rose to become the chief minister of Gujarat state of India in 2001 and then Prime Minister of India in 2014. 

Prabowo's background cannot be more different. One can argue, he was born into Indonesian royalty and married a princess. Prabowo's grandfather was one of the founding fathers of Indonesia and his father was a cabinet minister under President Suharto. Prabowo joined military and then married President Suharto's daughter. As a princeling, Prabowo got the most prized assignments and rose in military quickly. In 1998, he was serving as Lieutenant General, commanding the key garrison near Jakarta. After his retirement from the military, Prabowo became a successful businessman. More recently, he led the newly formed Greater Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) that came third in 2014 legislative elections and now, according to some polls, he is leading the Indonesia's presidential race.

Modi at a Hindu hardline RSS function, giving the RSS salute

Source: The Hindu hardline RSS who see Modi as their own

However, what unites Modi and Prabowo is their use of religious nationalism and the threat they pose to civic nationalism. They have been criticized for abetting or allowing the massacre of religious minorities. While one can argue Modi really believes in Hindutva and Prabowo's attachment to religious nationalism is more instrumental, but we really do not know. Prabowo has a strong support of the religious right and they obviously would demand more religion-based laws, if Prabowo won the presidential election. Prabowo's supporters, however, point to his brother and the major financier of his campaign (who is a Christian) and argue that Prabowo belief in civic nationalism (Pancasila ideology) is paramount.

Another factor that will affect the rise of religious nationalism under Modi and Prabowo is the economy. Both of them are very pragmatic and know that economy is the make-or-break criterion for their success as leaders. Therefore, it is hoped that they will try to unite the nation and move ahead, rather than dividing the nation along religious lines. However, if the economy falters, it is not difficult to see them using religion to win again. 

How 'Holy' Wars End?

'Holy' wars are grabbing our attention again. Whether it is ISIS in Iraq/Syria, kidnapping of teens in Palestine or Pakistan's military action against Taliban, religious issues loom large and more often than not are the major point of contention between the warring parties. There is also a danger of a future Shia-Sunni conflict that can engulf more than a dozen countries from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan.

Conventional wisdom (and there is some research to back this up) claims that religious conflicts are more intractable because of the non-negotiability of religious beliefs. It is argued that combatants, because of their other-worldly ends, continue to fight even after all reasonable analysis would demonstrate the impossibility of victory. Eyeing defeat or a long and costly stalemate, a pragmatic strategy would be to cut the losses and grab what is (maximally) achievable through negotiations. However, in case of religious conflicts, due to the indivisibility and sacredness of the core beliefs, negotiations for peace have no chance and fighting continues.    

Source: Does Religion Cause War?

Isak Svensson & Emily Harding contend that peace is achievable in religious conflicts as combatants do not have to necessarily compromise on their core beliefs (How Holy Wars End: Exploring the Termination Patterns of Conflicts With Religious Dimensions in Asia, Terrorism and Political Violence). Their main argument is as follows:

We argue that there is a possibility for conflict resolution that does not require concessions on core beliefs and aspirations. Religious aspirations, we contend, are primarily associated with conflicting parties’ ultimate goals, and less concerned with the particular means of achieving such goals. They are also not the sole aspirations of parties: conflicting actors can have territorial, structural, economic or other ambitions as well. This opens up space for two conflict resolution mechanisms that can be applied in religious armed conflicts. First, drawing on the distinction between means and ends in regard to religious demands, there is a theoretical possibility for enabling political procedures to replace the fighting. Second, by disentangling religious demands from other non-religious demands, horse-trading procedures can be utilized in order to reach agreement without requiring concessions on the religious dimensions.

As evidence of their contention, authors chose six different conflicts in Asia that have ended and argue that most of these conflicts have been resolved through negotiations based on means-end differentiation, in case of core beliefs, or horse-trading on non-religious issues. The following table (from Svensson & Harding) presents the basic outline of the conflicts.

Selection of cases of terminated religious armed conflicts

  Country               Incompatibility                   Rebel-side                    Religious dimension
Philippines         Territory: Mindanao                MNLF                    Islamic State in Mindanao
Indonesia             Territory: Aceh                        GAM                       Islamic State in Aceh
Uzbekistan           Government                          IMU; JIG                            Islamic State
India                  Territory: Punjab                 Sikh Insurgents                Sikh State in Punjab
Nepal                  Government                           CPN-M                            Secular State
Tajikistan             Government                           UTO                                 Islamic State

Svensson & Harding analysis demonstrates that peace was achieved mostly through negotiations.

Outcomes of conflicts with religious dimensions

 Conflict termination               Religious           Horse         Political      Government/
        patterns                      goals achieved?     trading         process       Rebel victory 
Indonesia, GAM                           X                                         X
Philippines, MNLF( 2)                 X                    X                  X
India, Sikhs                                                                                                     X
Nepal, CPN-M                             X                                         X
Tajikistan, UTO                                                                       X
Uzbekistan, IMU                                                                                            X
Uzbekistan, JIG                                                                                              X

The article is very thought-provoking but there are few issues that need more elaboration. First, while conventional wisdom argues that religious conflicts are more difficult to resolve and authors have tried to prove it wrong empirically, this idea that religious conflicts are different than other conflicts has increasingly been contested. Scholars have argued that it is very difficult to declare a conflict as a religious conflict. Svensson & Harding define religious conflict in the following way:

A conflict has a religious incompatibility when one of the conflict parties makes in their stated goals a specifically religious demand that involves the nature of the state. Such demands can have to do with concern, for example, about the religious characteristics of the state. The demands could have to do with concern that the state, or part of the state, should give certain preferences to one particular religion...

While the definition seems reasonable, it is difficult to define the above conflicts as purely religious conflicts. In each of these conflicts, religious demands were intertwined with demands for democratic, political or civil rights. Authors have to clarify why they consider these conflicts as religious conflicts and other conflicts (such as East Timor) as non-religious conflict. 

Second, if Svensson & Harding's aim is to show that peace can be achieved through negotiations in religious conflicts (as is the case of other conflicts) than outright victories of government/opposition should not be presented as evidence. In case of victories, winning party imposes whatever it likes. The indivisibility or sacredness of losing party's beliefs matter little. Some concession may be made but they are wholly at the discretion of the winning side. 

Finally, authors have to explain why Nepal is not considered a 'rebel victory' in their analysis. The government, led by King Gyanendra, bowed out after Maoists controlled almost eighty percent of Nepalese territory and blockaded Kathmandu, the capital. It was not other opposition parties' pressure that forced monarchy out, it was the Maoists. 

Indonesian Elections: A Victory for Pancasila Nationalism

Indonesia is the third largest democracy in the world. Despite impressive economic development in the last four decades, it is still a fledgling democracy. Indonesia’s national ideology is Pancasila (literal meaning ‘five principles). These five principles are monotheism, humanism, unified nation, representative democracy and social justice. Pancasila is culturally, ethnically and religiously neutral, except perhaps the idea of monotheism (though the number of non-monotheist Indonesians is very small). Despite being predominantly Muslim and Javanese, Indonesian founding fathers chose a non-discriminatory civic nationalism over religious or ethnic nationalism. And Pancasila has been regarded as one of the main reasons of the continued unity of Indonesia.   

After the fall of General Suharto in 1998, many analysts argued that Indonesia is under threat from Islamism. They were afraid Pancasila would be replaced by religious nationalism. Last week, Indonesia held its fourth legislative elections. These elections showed that the news of the demise of Pancasila has been greatly exaggerated.

The 2014 Indonesian elections for its lower house of Parliament, DPR (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat) were a victory of the Pancasila in many ways.

First, Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle (PDI-P), led by the daughter of Indonesian’s founder Soekarno, won the 2014 DPR elections. Soekarno was the leader who gave Pancasila its shape and popularized it. With PDI-P’s Joko Widodo (called Jokowi), currently, the mayor of Jakarta, most likely to win presidential elections in July, Pancasila’s future is in secure hands. 

Moreover, Golkar, the party formed by General Suharto, took the second largest share of votes. Despite his differences with Soekarno, Suharto never deviated from Pancasila. He rather forcefully imposed it on Indonesians during his three decades in power. The wins of PDI-P and Golkar parties, staunch believers in Pancasila, is good news for Indonesia. 

Source: Indonesian Legislative election 2014 – Provisional results

It is true that Democratic Party of President Yudhoyono, that won DPR elections in 2009, also supported Pancasila. However, lately, it seemed that Democratic Party, despite its commitment to Pancasila, was ready to give in to discriminatory policies against minorities.

Party	Vote share in 2004	Vote share in 2009	Vote share in 2014
PDI-P	19%	14%	19%
Golkar	22%	14.5%	14.3%
Democratic Party	8%	20.9%	9.7%

Secondly, while Islamic parties defied predictions and achieved their traditional 30% share of votes, the division of votes between different Islamic parties was a victory for Pancasila. The fight among the Islamic parties was won by the Pancasila-believing traditional Islamic forces and those believing in Islamism lost. National Awakening Party and National Mandate Party won the elections. The main loser was the Prosperous Justice Party. Modeled on Muslim Brotherhood, it became the biggest Islamic party in the DPR in 2009 and aspired to become one of the big three political parties and the pre-eminent Islamic party in Indonesia. However, 2014 election results crashed its dreams as its vote share dropped. In contrast, all traditional Islamic parties, devotees of Pancasila, increased their vote share as shown below.

Islamic Party	Vote share in 2004	Vote share in 2009	Vote share in 2014
National Awakening Party	11%	4.9%	9.2%
National Mandate Party	6%	6%	7.5%
Prosperous Justice Party	7%	7.9%	6.9%
United Development Party	8%	5.3%	6.7%

Finally, the major change in the elections was the rise of Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra), another victory for Pancasila. Gerindra doubled its vote share, from less than 7% in 2009 to around 12% in 2014. It is led by former Special Forces commander and former son-in-law of Suharto, Lt. Gen. Prabowo Subianto. He intends to use his party’s success to win the July presidential elections. Gerindra, as its name shows, is a nationalist party and Prabowo poses himself as the only true believer in Pancasila. 

So, Pancasila is secure and religious nationalism does not have much scope in Indonesia, in the short term at least.