Abstract

This review article examines the relationship between religious freedom, public order, and minority vulnerability in India and Indonesia. It argues that public order is a necessary constitutional value in deeply plural societies, but it becomes dangerous when it is used without evidentiary discipline, proportionality, and attention to unequal social power. India and Indonesia offer a useful comparison because both are postcolonial democracies with deep religious diversity, inherited legal pluralism, and strong constitutional commitments to religious freedom. Yet both also allow religion to be regulated in the name of public order, harmony, morality, reform, and national unity. In India, Article 25 protects freedom of conscience and the right to profess, practise, and propagate religion, while making the right subject to public order, morality, health, and other fundamental rights. In Indonesia, Pancasila, Article 29, and Article 28J produce a framework where religious freedom is protected, but also limited by religious values, public order, and harmony. The article shows that minority vulnerability arises when the State treats minority religious exercise as the source of disorder rather than protecting it from hostile social reaction. It examines Indian cases on religious offence, conversion, conscience, dress, and secularism, and Indonesian jurisprudence on blasphemy, indigenous belief, houses of worship, and Aceh’s Islamic criminal law. It concludes that public order must be constitutionally disciplined by evidence, necessity, proportionality, non-discrimination, and protection of the vulnerable claimant.