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‘NOT A RELIGIOUS STATE’ A study of three Indonesian religious leaders on the relation of state and religion
Get PDFThis article explores the concept of a ‘secular state’ offered by three
Indonesian religious leaders: a Catholic priest, Nicolaus Driyarkara
(1913–1967), and two Muslim intellectuals who were also state
officials, Mukti Ali (1923–2004) and Munawir Sjadzali (1925–2004).
All three, who represented the immediate generation after the
revolution for Indonesian independence from the Dutch (1945),
defended the legitimacy of a secular state for Indonesia based on
the state ideology Pancasila (Five Principles of Indonesia). In doing
so, they argued that a religious state, for example an Islamic state,
is incompatible with a plural nation that has diverse cultures,
faiths, and ethnicities. The three also argued that the state should
remain neutral about its citizens’ faith and should not be
dominated by a single religion, i.e. Islam. Instead, the state is
obliged to protect all religions embraced by Indonesians. This
argument becomes a vital foundation in the establishment of
Indonesia’s trajectory of unique ‘secularisation’. Whilst these three
intellectuals opposed the idea of establishing a religious or Islamic
state in Indonesia, it was not because they envisioned the decline
of the role of religion in politics and the public domain but rather
that they regarded religiosity in Indonesia as vital in nation
building within a multi-religious society. In particular, the two
Muslim leaders used religious legitimacy to sustain the New
Order’s political stability, and harnessed state authority to
modernise the Indonesian Islamic community
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