Home Affairs Minister Tjahjo Kumolo, in the job less than a month, has caused waves with his suggestion that the religion field on citizens' ID cards, or KTP, can be left blank.

The notion of having to declare one's religion on an official document should be an abhorrent one under a secular government – but Indonesia, for all its well-meaning avowals of pluralism, is not a secular state. The first tenet of the state ideology, Pancasila, declares a "Belief in the one and only God."

So does Tjahjo's statement mean that agnostics or atheists who have to pick a religion to identify with for official purposes may in the future no longer have to do so? Hardly. The minister has tempered his proposal to extend only to those Indonesians who currently subscribe to a faith that is not among the six officially recognized religions.

This measure, coupled with Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin's earlier offer to consider official recognition for faiths like Baha'i, should be lauded for its inclusive spirit. But it doesn't go far enough toward granting true religious freedom to all.

An individual's personal beliefs are just that: personal. They should not be displayed on an identity card. People have been attacked and killed simply on the basis of what their KTP states, as in the brutal sectarian violence in Maluku from 1999 to 2002, and self-professed atheists prosecuted for "lying" about their religion on their KTP.

Ultimately it comes down to a question of what purpose the religion field on the KTP serves. Allowing those of unrecognized faiths to leave the field blank is a half-measure. But perhaps a better half-measure – given that true secularism can never be attained as long as Indonesia subscribes to Pancasila – would be to not have the field at all.

Source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/opinion/editorial-crisis-identify-neednt/