and, above all, the sport of cricket. The rise of
religious radicalism among Hindu and Muslim
militants has torn at the fabric of the Indian polity,
with violent outbursts at ayodhya and Mumbai
in 1992 and Gujarat in 2002. Such communal
violence is very likely to cause further trouble
at home in the foreseeable future, and it may
also spill over the Indo-Pakistani border. Since
both countries have recently acquired arsenals
of nuclear weapons, the need for intercommunal
peacemaking and conflict resolution on the local
and regional levels is more important now than
ever before.
See also azad, abU al-kalam; barelWi, sayyid
ahmad; birUni, abU rayhan al-; bohra; cinema;
dhimmi; Faraizi movement; ghalib, mirza asad
ali khan; ghazal; government, islamic; hindUism
and islam; Jamiyyat Ulama-i hind; nepal; orien-
talism; qawwali.
Further reading: Jackie Assayag, At the Confluence of
Two Rivers: Muslims and Hindus in South India (New
Delhi: Manohar, 2004); Fred W. Clothey, Religion in
India: A Historical Introduction (New York: Routledge,
2006); Richard M. Eaton, ed., India’s Islamic Tradi-
tions, 711–1750 (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2003); ———, “Temple Desecration and Indo-Mus-
lim States.” In Beyond Turk and Hindu: Rethinking
Religious Identities in Islamicate South Asia, edited by
David Gilmartin and Bruce B. Lawrence, 246–281
(Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000); John
Norman Hollister, The Shia of India (1953. Reprint,
New Delhi: Oriental Books Reprint Corporation,
1979); Gordon Johnson, Cultural Atlas of India: India,
Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka
(New York: Facts On File, 1996); Bruce B. Lawrence,
“The Eastward Journey of Muslim Kingship: Islam
in South and Southeast Asia.” In The Oxford His-
tory of the Muslim World, edited by John L. Esposito,
395–431 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999);
Barbara Metcalf and Thomas Metcalf, A Concise His-
tory of India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2002); David Pinault, “Shiism in South Asia.” Muslim
World 87, nos. 3–4 (July–October 1997): 235–257.
Indonesia (Official name: Republic of
Indonesia)
The modern nation of Indonesia has the larg-
est population of Muslims in the world. It was
formally established in 1950 as the culmination
of several steps following World War II in which
the Dutch gave up control of what had previously
been the Dutch East Indies. Indonesia is a demo-
cratic republic whose 20th-century history was
greatly influenced by its two presidents, Sukarno
(r. 1945–67) and Suharto (r. 1967–98). It has also
had a woman president, Megawati Sukarnoputri
(2001–04), Sukarno’s daughter. Administratively,
Indonesia is divided into 33 provinces, several of
which have special religious status. Hinduism is
protected in Bali, and the sharia has been insti-
tuted in Aceh (on Sumatra).
Consisting of some 17,000 islands, Indonesia
stretches from Sumatra in the west to the island
of New Guinea (which Indonesia shares with
the nation of Papua New Guinea) in the east. It
includes the islands of Java, Borneo (which it
shares with the nations of malaysia and Brunei),
Bali, and Sulawesi. The entire island of Timor was
for a brief period (1975–2002) part of Indonesia,
but its eastern half (formerly under Portuguese
rule) voted to separate in 2002 and emerged as an
independent nation. Indonesia’s capital is Jakarta,
the largest city in the country with more than 8.8
million residents (2005). Located on the island
of Java, it is home to the Istiqlal (Independence)
Mosque, which, built in 1975, is the largest in
Southeast Asia.
Indonesia is multiethnic in the extreme, with
about 300 different ethnic groups. The largest is
Javanese (40.6 percent), followed by the Sunda-
nese (15 percent) and the Madurese (3.3 percent).
There is also a significant Han Chinese minority
(2 percent), which dominates the privately owned
business sector. This ethnic diversity is celebrated
in the country’s motto, Bhinneka tunggal ika, or
“unity in diversity.” The country recognizes the
diversity, but in the face of the splintering effect
such diversity can produce, it has promulgatedK (^358) Indonesia