Abstract

This review article examines why the dominant Western vocabulary of secularism, grounded in separation, neutrality, non-establishment, and public reason, does not sufficiently explain postcolonial constitutional arrangements in India and Indonesia. In both jurisdictions, religion is not merely a private matter of conscience. Also, it is a social institution, a marker of community identity, a source of public authority, and a field through which State power is exercised. India and Indonesia serve as interesting sites for comparison because both are large postcolonial democracies with profound religious diversity that utilise different constitutional grammars. The democratic political system of India is based on constitutional secularism, equality of minorities, freedom of conscience, and socio-economic and political transformation. Indonesia speaks through Pancasila, belief in the One and Only God, religious harmony, public order and recognised pluralism. This article reviews liberal, postcolonial, socio-legal, and comparative constitutional scholarship to show that both systems move beyond the strict separationist model. Indian secularism operates through principled distance, judicial engagement, social reform and personal law pluralism. Indonesian constitutionalism operates through Pancasila-based recognition, bureaucratic classification and regulated religious pluralism. The article argues that these models should not be treated as imperfect versions of Western secularism. They are independent constitutional formations that reveal how law recognises, regulates, and restrains religion in plural societies. It therefore proposes a postcolonial analytical frame centred on recognition, regulation and restraint, while also examining the risks of majoritarian capture, minority vulnerability and legal hierarchy within both constitutional orders.