Politics of Religious Control during Indonesia’s Old Order Period (1945-1966)

Abstract

This paper seeks to trace the issue of religious policy that intertwined during the Old Order period. If carefully examined, the crucial religious issue in the early years of Indonesia’s independence was the very strong presence of kebatinan (mystical belief systems) both in politics and in the social realm. This situation later gave rise to two highly effective instruments in limiting religious life. Those two tools were the Coordination Body for the Oversight of Community Belief Systems (Badan Koordinasi Pengawas Aliran Kepercayaan Masyarakat, abbreviated as Bakorpakem) and Law Number 1/PNPS/1965 concerning the Prevention of the Misuse and/or Blasphemy of Religion. Thus, this paper intends to review the socio-political background that, in turn, produced these two unmistakable religious mechanisms that restricted the space for religious expression. An important note that emerges from the story of religious policy during the Old Order period lies in these two nodes: Bakorpakem and Law Number 1/PNPS/1965. Those two religious “safeguards” were effective front‑line defenses against the flood of splinter religious streams, including kebatinan. It can be asserted that during the Old Order period, Bakorpakem and PNPS 1965 became early catalysts that then generated a discourse of “official religion” versus “unofficial religion.” This reality clearly demonstrates that in Indonesia, religion was not a mere theological or sociological category. More than that, religion was a matter of politics—an instrument for distinguishing it from local belief systems or kebatinan.