Amid global anti-Muslim hysteria and the clash of civilizations narrative, the lived reality tells a different story: Hindus, Christians, and other minorities thrive in Muslim-majority societies like Indonesia and the Gulf, where Islamic traditions coexist with mutual respect, defining social and political life
A 16-foot white and gold statue of Saraswati, the Hindu Goddess of learning and wisdom, atop a lotus, stands out in Washington’s diplomatic enclave, New Hampshire Avenue (Embassy Row). It was installed there at the embassy of Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, in 2013 as ‘a beacon of religious tolerance’. Other embassies in the enclave are mostly adorned with national flags and statues of national icons—Winston Churchill (the UK), Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (Turkey), and Gandhi (India).
The Saraswati statue, with four arms held up and three children reading a book at her feet, was not only installed for religious reasons, but for the values it symbolises. A swan and a peacock flanking Saraswati represent beauty and pride, avoiding ego and vanity. A manuscript in her hands symbolises learning, a stringed instrument (veena) symbolises the harmony of mind and body, and prayer beads symbolize spiritual knowledge. Saraswati embodies simplicity and elegance. She wears a white sari, symbolizing knowledge overcoming darkness and ignorance.
The then-Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono presided over the ceremony for the statue inauguration, honouring Indonesia’s three percent Hindus, coinciding with the Jewish New Year. He spoke about religious tolerance, citing an open letter from over 120 Islamic scholars globally denouncing terrorism in the name of Islam, which he underlined is a religion of peace. Yudhoyono invoked Allah, the most benevolent, calling for ‘more love, tolerance, and knowledge’. He brought the holy water for the statue purification ritual on his plane to avoid restrictions on flying liquids on commercial flights.
Beyond Islamophobia: the lived reality of coexistence
The statue became the centerpiece of the embassy in the world’s most important capital, 12 years after the 9/11 attacks sparked a virulent form of Islamophobia globally. The attacks globalised anti-Muslim hysteria from the United States to Europe, China (persecution of Uyghurs), and Myanmar (expulsion of Rohingya). It has become common for Muslims to be cast as the ‘other’, echoing Samuel Huntington’s clash of civilizations thesis, falsely calling Islam inherently incompatible with modernity, pluralism, and peaceful coexistence.
The hysteria fuels selective outrage. The pattern is familiar: minority rights matter only when Muslims are the accused, rarely when they are the victims. Western governments highlight Muslim persecution when criticizing China or Myanmar, but remain silent on the Israeli genocidal campaign against the Palestinians. This double standard is common within the global Islamophobia ecosystem, which reinforces the myth that Islam is synonymous with violence and intolerance, including in India.
Reality undercuts this sweeping narrative, particularly in Indonesia, which is home to 12.7% of the world’s Muslims and the third-largest democracy. Indonesia embodies pluralism in every sense. Indonesians belong to multiple ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and religious groups, and speak over 525 languages. Roughly 88% of them are Muslims. Pew Research Center, an American think tank, found that 98% of Indonesian Muslims considered religion to be ‘very important’ and 95% of those surveyed said they prayed with regularity. Indonesia (88%) was among the places with the largest share of adults reporting visits to houses of worship at least monthly.
From Medina Charter to Modern Indonesia
The religiosity of Indonesians does not impact their coexistence. They are bound together by the national ideology (Pancasila), comprising five principles such as humanism, democracy, and social justice enshrined in the Indonesian Constitution in 1945. Pancasila complements Islamic teachings. Its acceptance is a key illustration of the Islamic roots of pluralism in Indonesia, in line with the Quran, which speaks about the diversity of tribes, sects, nations, people, races, and languages. Pancasila embodies the spirit of the Prophet Muhammad’s modus vivendi, Mithaq-al-Madinah, or the Medina Charter.
The charter called all groups of Medina, including Jews and Christians, as one nation (ummah) together with Muslims, with the same rights and duties. It was a formula for a state based on social and religious pluralism. The state of Medina represents the root of Islamic pluralism. Pancasila was part of an effort to depict the early community as a type of equalitarian participant nationalism.
The wider South East Asia, home to about 25% of the world’s Muslims, adopted the Islamic middle path or ummah wasat. Civil society organizations, Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s biggest Muslim group, and Muhammadiyah in the region follow this moderate path and promote pluralism, democracy, human rights, justice, gender equality, etc.
Hindu Landmarks in Muslim-Majority Nations
The world’s tallest Hindu statue (Garuda Vishnu Kencana) and sixth-highest statue are in Indonesia and Malaysia. They speak volumes about the status of the Hindu minorities in these countries. In 2018, the then-Indonesian President Joko Widodo inaugurated the Garuda Vishnu Kencana at a ceremony marked by fireworks lighting up the night sky in a grand celebration of Indonesian multiculturalism in the presence of the country’s top leaders. Widodo called the statue a source of pride.
He said it shows Indonesia has not only inherited extraordinary masterpieces—the ninth-century Buddhist Temple Complex Borobudur and Hindu temple complex Prambanan—but can create globally-recognized cultural masterpieces such as Garuda Vishnu Kencana, the 75m tall sculpture of the Hindu God Vishnu sitting astride the mythical bird Garuda atop Ungasan Hill.
The sculpture has a wingspan of 65m. It stands on a pedestal, making its total height (121m) 30m taller than the Statue of Liberty. The statue showcases Vishnu, seen as the preserver and protector of the universal equilibrium, in a meditative state, riding on Garuda’s back with eyes half closed.
From Pura Lingsar to Batu Caves: Coexistence as Statecraft
The 18th-century Pura Lingsar Temple complex in Indonesia’s Lombok is another emblem of Indonesian pluralism, where Hindus and Muslims pray jointly. Indonesia’s national airline is named after Garuda. Another deity Ganesh’s picture once adorned the country’s currency notes highlighting Indonesia’s official promotion of syncretism.
In Malaysia, the 140-foot gold-painted statue of Murugan outside the capital Kuala Lumpur is a symbol of this Muslim-majority country’s multiculturalism and pluralism, near the base of a 272-step flight to a Hindu temple in Batu Caves. Malaysia’s Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak Hussein visited the temple in 1971 to recognise Thaipusam, which commemorates Murugan’s victory over the demon Surapadman and the deity’s birth, as a national festival.
People of Indian origin, mostly Hindus, account for eight per cent of Malaysia’s population and are the third largest ethnic group in Malaysia. Indians have held key positions in the country. Indian-origin Datuk Seri S Samy Vellu has been one of the longest-serving ministers (1979 to 2008) in Malaysia. There are at least seven Malaysian-Indian ministers in Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim‘s government—Gobind Singh Deo, V Sivakumar, Ramkarpal Singh, M. Kulasegaran, Arthur Joseph Kurup, Saraswathy Kandasami, and Ramanan Ramakrishnan. In contrast, the world’s largest democracy, India, has no Muslim representation in its federal government, even though Muslims form nearly 15% of India’s population.
Tunku Abdul Rahman, the first Malaysian prime minister, ensured the representation of all ethnic communities including Indians. His rule ushered in harmony and political freedoms. Rahman’s United Malays National Organisation formed a multi-ethnic coalition, which was later expanded and became Barisan Nasional. The coalition included the Malaysian Indian Congress and governed the country from 1957 to 2018. Over six million non-resident Indians (NRIs) and people of Indian origin, predominantly Hindus, live in Indonesia and Malaysia, the biggest refutation of the sweeping portrayal of inherent intolerance of Muslims and ill-treatment of Hindus in Muslim nations.
From Dubai to Doha: Indian Diaspora in Muslim Gulf
Over 50% of the 18 million Indians, mostly Hindus, overseas reside and thrive in Muslim-majority Gulf countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). About 3.5 million Indians in the UAE account for 36% of its population. The Hindus in Muslim nations also play a key role in enhancing India’s global economic mark. A bulk of $7.99 billion deposited in the bank accounts of Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) between April 2022 and March 2023 was from Muslim countries.
The amount was over twice that received in the previous fiscal year—$3.23 billion. Of the $112.5 billion received from overseas in 2022-23, 18% came from the UAE, 5.1% from Saudi Arabia, 2.4% from Kuwait, 1.6% from Oman, and 1.5% from Qatar, the Indian government told Parliament. The remittances hit a record of $125 billion in 2023-24, up from about $100bn the year earlier. The remittances, particularly from Muslim Gulf nations, have improved the life standards in places such as Kerala, boosting spending on better housing and education. The Forbes’ India’s 100 Richest List in 2023 included six UAE-based Indians.
The remittances from the Gulf have often surpassed India’s other sources of capital inflows. The remittances constituted 2.7% of the country’s GDP in 2017 and double the spending (1.15% GDP) on healthcare. Over $10.5 billion in remittances in 2017 from Saudi Arabia, where almost a quarter of 17 million Indians worldwide lived, were the most significant contribution to the flow of capital from a single country.
Remittances, Real Estate, and Religious Freedom in the Gulf
The remittances from Hindus in Muslim nations have a more significant impact. According to Lancaster University economics professor V N Balasubramanyam, the NRIs often come back, establish a firm, train people, and then leave again. He notes the to-and-fro diaspora group has been contributing significantly to industry, including the Indian IT industry and especially within pharmaceuticals. Indians abroad also making large purchases and infusing money into India.
According to Indian luxury real estate company DLF Ltd, NRIs purchased 20% of all homes the firm sold between April and September 2023, up from 15% in the previous financial year. The economic power of the diaspora is expected to increase and maintain India’s position as the world’s leading recipient of remittances. According to the Reserve Bank of India, the Gulf has accounted for an average of 28% of total remittances sent to India from 2014 to 2020, with the UAE and Saudi Arabia as its primary sources.
UAE President Muhammad bin Zayed allocated 27 acres of land for a Hindu temple, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened in Abu Dhabi as a marker of UAE’s inclusivity in February ahead of the Indian general election. The opening was timed to mobilise overseas Indians, who have emerged as a major source of political funding in India. It was sought to reenergize Modi’s base weeks after he inaugurated a temple at the site of the Babri Mosque demolished in 1992 following a BJP campaign.
Gulf Investments, Hindu Temples
India’s ties with the Arab world have gone from strength to strength. India’s business links with the region have diversified from imports of oil and exports of cheap labour. The UAE has for instance emerged as India’s second-biggest export market. India and the UAE in 2023 signed a free-trade deal for doubling non-oil bilateral trade to $100 billion by 2030. Gulf states have invested billions of dollars in India. According to the Economist, Emirati investment flows into India were $9.8 billion in the half-decade to 2023, almost triple the figure for the previous five years. The UAE’s largest sovereign wealth fund has committed to investing $75 billion in Indian infrastructure and Saudi Arabia $100 billion.
According to Indian firm Larsen & Toubro, some 30% of its $55 billion order book came from the Gulf, mainly Saudi Arabia. Indian commerce was expected to grow faster with the UAE thanks to pacts including a deal to link the digital payment systems of the two countries, and establishing an India-Europe trade corridor through the Middle East. Wealthy and middle-class Indians have been moving to the UAE. The process was accelerated when the UAE introduced golden visas granting 10-year residency to professionals, entrepreneurs, and investors, highlighting the contrast between this narrative and the reality of Hindus in Muslim nations.
Islamic traditions of coexistence
Indonesia and Malaysia demonstrate that coexistence can be the foundation of national strength. Islam has long thrived alongside other faiths, drawing vitality from dialogue even as many Muslim-majority societies today struggle with the politics of exclusion. Revisiting Islam’s traditions offers an urgent lesson: diversity can serve as a bridge to stability and renewal. If Muslim nations can reclaim this legacy of coexistence, they will not only honour their histories but also chart a path toward unity in an increasingly polarized world.
Before modern conflicts, countries like Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon nurtured diverse communities where Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived side by side for centuries. Shared spaces embodied a pluralism rooted in Islamic governance and cosmopolitan trade. The unraveling of coexistence, largely due to colonialism, underscores how political strife often drives sectarian divides.
Across Africa, from Senegal to Nigeria, Islam adapted to indigenous cultures and coexisted with Christianity and traditional faiths. The spread of Sufi brotherhoods emphasized tolerance, spiritual dialogue, and community-building rather than confrontation. This heritage continues to offer models for bridging divides in regions grappling with extremism.
