Zakir Hussain – The mayor of Tasikmalaya, which made headlines this month for reportedly proposing a bylaw that would require all Muslim women to wear headscarves, on Monday said the regulation will be "just an appeal."

"There cannot be any penalties, we can only invite people [to wear them]," Syarif Hidayat said after meeting officials from the Home Affairs Ministry to clarify the ruling and iron out details.

"The rule is an aspiration of the community, and we have to respect that," he added. "But it also cannot contradict the [national] law, hence this consultation."

The West Java city had approved the regulation to promote community values through Muslim teachings in 2009, but news of plans to implement it surfaced only last week.

It says all adult Muslims must dress in accordance with Islamic teachings, raising fears among some that Shariah enforcement police would go around keeping people in line.

Although Tasikmalaya, where Darul Islam rebels sought to set up an Islamic state in the 1950s, has just 650,000 residents, the battle is significant as it draws attention to a rough patch in Indonesia's devolution of power to some 400 districts and 100 cities over the past decade.

This decentralization gives the local authorities power to craft local bylaws, but these cannot contradict or override national ones. Yet a noticeable trend is some districts enacting religion-influenced legislation on how Muslims should behave.

The Home Affairs Ministry is reviewing some of these laws, but it is also mindful of a conservative pushback. Earlier this year, it reviewed bylaws banning alcohol, on the grounds that only the state can ban beer and drinks with below 5 percent alcohol content.

At first, Home Affairs Minister Gamawan Fauzi said Tasikmalaya officials had no authority to enforce the headscarf rule. But on reading the draft regulation last week, he told The Straits Times that he was satisfied there was no coercion involved.

"It is well within the mayor's authority to enact such a ruling to encourage such dress," he said, adding that the ministry would step in should people be forced to don such attire. On Monday, Syarif confirmed there were no such plans for a moral police, saying: "It is not within my ability to enforce it."

In Tasikmalaya's case, politics also seems to be at play – Syarif, a member of the National Mandate Party (PAN) backed by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), Gerindra and Golkar, is up for re-election against two pairs of challengers on July 9.

One is independent, but the other is backed by the Democrat Party and several Muslim parties, including the Prosperous Justice Party, or PKS, which seeks a greater role for Islam in public life.

PDI-P lawmaker Eva Kusuma Sundari called the proposal an attempt to politicize religion for electoral gain. "It also violates women's rights," she said. Syarif on Monday deflected suggestions that the ruling was linked to the polls.