Legal Pluralism And Religious Normativity In India And Indonesia
- IJLLR Journal
- May 31
- 1 min read
David Pradhan & Chandan Panigrahi
ABSTRACT
This review article examines legal pluralism and religious normativity in postcolonial constitutional law, with India as the principal site of analysis and Indonesia as the comparative counterpoint. It contends that legal pluralism is not inherently liberating or illiberal. In India, religious personal laws, denominational autonomy, customary authority and constitutional rights are overlapping norms in the same plane of legality. This plural arrangement protects the rights and identity of the minorities, ensuring social diversity. However, it raises uncomfortable questions regarding equality, the autonomy of individuals, gender justice, and the limits of community power. Indonesia presents a different but instructive model, where Pancasila, Islamic law, adat, religious courts, State recognition of religion, and Aceh’s regional Islamic criminal law demonstrate how religious normativity may be absorbed into State law through administrative and constitutional structures. The article reviews leading theories of legal pluralism and applies them to Indian personal law jurisprudence, religious freedom doctrine, the Uniform Civil Code debate, conversion regulation and gender justice cases. It then compares the Indonesian experience to show how pluralism can move from accommodation into hierarchy when recognition, public order and religious orthodoxy dominate rights. The article concludes that postcolonial constitutional law should not ask whether legal pluralism should exist, because it already does. The more important question is how pluralism should be constitutionally disciplined so that religious normativity does not defeat equal citizenship, dignity and liberty of conscience.
Keywords: Religious normativity, personal law, India, Indonesia, postcolonial constitutionalism
