蜜芽传媒

Insight, wit and analysis from 蜜芽传媒 correspondents, journalists and writers from around the world. Today, Max Pearson introduces a essay by Karishma Vaswani, who grew up in Indonesia.

She recalls a tolerant society where many faiths coexisted in harmony, and a national culture which drew on different religious traditions. During her youth, all of that was protected by an explicitly secular constitution and a rejection of any kind of extremism.

But is that achievement now under threat? In recent years there have been increasing signs of sectarian intolerance, and of a hardline minority of religious conservatives attempting to impose its own views on others.

Karishma Vaswani's own family is Hindu: its members migrated to Indonesia - the world's most populous Muslim nation - after fleeing the terrible violence of the Partition of India and Pakistan. They found a haven in Jakarta. But how will Karishma's own young daughter experience growing up Hindu in a Muslim-majority country?