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hy would a political leader want to impose restrictions on religion or, alternatively, relax such regulations? The most common explanation is to limit the destructive side of religion. Religion is assumed to be either a source of peace or violence.

But religion is neither inherently peaceful, nor does it automatically or inevitably lead to conflict. The most absurd argument is when one says that '€œmy religion made me do it'€. Religion is not to be blamed when people use it to justify their violent actions.

This understanding that religion can be suppressed to create peace and harmony is still widespread in the minds of our political leaders. Evidence shows, on the one hand, that strict control or repression of religion segregates people, which can increase tension and spark interreligious violence. One the other hand, religious freedom significantly contributes to society.

The phrase kerukunan umat beragama or interreligious harmony has become a magic, key term for governments from Sukarno to Soeharto and even today in the post-reformasi era. Given such an understanding of social order and religious harmony, post-reformasi governments strive to keep discriminatory and restrictive regulations and laws that clearly curtail the religious freedom of minority groups.

Of course, certain regulations and management of religion are needed. All but the most extreme anarchists would agree that some government regulations are necessary for a well-functioning society.

However, the government must treat all citizens and religious groups equally. Often, state polices favoring the majority, the '€œMuslim mainstream'€, are the main cause of political instability and faith-based violence. In a place where government restrictions on religion are high, it is very likely that social hostilities involving religion are also high. As shown by Brian J. Grim and Roger Finkel in The Price of Freedom Denied (2010), government and social restrictions on religion are associated with more violence and conflict, not less.

A good example of this is West Java, which is regarded as being among the provinces with the highest incidence of discrimination and social hostility against religious minorities, as shown in annual reports from a number of NGOs.

Along with West Sumatra and South Sulawesi, West Java is also among the provinces with the highest number of government restrictions relating to religious minorities.

Melissa Crouch identifies in her study published last year that discriminatory bylaws supposedly inspired by sharia are found across 14 cities and regencies in West Java.

Recent concerns about the circular of Bogor Mayor Bima Arya banning the Shiite celebration of Ashura reflect a broader problem of increasing violence and attacks on religious minority groups in West Java.

In 2011 three were killed in a mob attack on Ahmadis in Cikeusik, Banten, which neighbors West Java, for their allegedly deviant beliefs. In some regencies Christians were not allowed to celebrate Christmas in their churches.

Religious violence in West Java can be traced to the emergence of radical Islamist groups soon after the declaration of an independent Islamic state, an effort led by Kartosuwiryo. West Java was a center of hardline Islam where violence was often carried out in the name of religion.

Increasingly restrictive regulations that coincide with the high level of societal hostility toward religious minorities in West Java is in line with a global trend of restrictions on religion.

The scholar Brian J. Grim wrote last year, '€œWhere government restrictions on religion are high, so are social hostilities involving religion,'€ with a few exceptions.

In his Religious Freedom, Political Incentives and the Origins of Religious Liberty, Anthony Gill last year listed Indonesia '€” along with Pakistan, Egypt and Iran '€” as among the top countries where government restrictions on religion and social violence involving religion are both high.

State polices favoring the majority, the '€œMuslim mainstream'€, are the main cause of political instability.

We are now faced with a '€œchicken and egg'€ question, which comes first: government restrictions or social hostility? From Gill'€™s analysis of general patterns in worldwide restrictions on religion we learn that '€œsocial restriction of religious freedom [or social religious intolerance]tends to drive government restrictions more than vice versa'€.

In other words, social hostility toward religious minorities tends to lead to government restrictions on religious freedom.

It is hardly surprising that the Bogor mayor'€™s intolerant policy against Shiites refers to the stance of the Bogor chapter of the Council of Indonesian Ulema (MUI) and Muslim mass organizations in Bogor, who view the Shiites as a challenge to their establishment and therefore as something that must be eliminated.

Such reference to anti pluralist Muslim groups reflects the extent to which radicals'€™ hostility toward minorities drive Mayor Bima'€™s intolerant policy. This restriction against Shiites institutionalizes religious conservatism.

What our political leaders should understand is that the two intolerant forces '€” governmental and societal restrictions '€” act in tandem to increase the level of religious violence; and that this in turn '€œcycles back and leads to increased social and governmental restrictions on religion, creating the religious violence cycle'€, as Grim wrote.

This negative cycle is reinforced by Chris Seiple'€™s and Dennis Hoover'€™s study showing that societal restrictions on religion '€œwere the strongest and most consistent statistical predictors of violence'€.

They added that '€œgovernment restrictions also correlated with this violence and were a strong predictor of isolation and societal restriction of religious groups, which in turn feeds religious violence'€.

It seems clear that only policies favorable to religious freedom can sustain peaceful coexistence among different religious communities in contemporary democratic Indonesia. The future of this country depends on the acceptance of pluralism and development of positive tolerance toward the other.

Not only does religious freedom reduce conflict and increase trust in the government, it also energizes broader productive participation of all religious groups.

This '€œsocial capital'€ is needed for the consolidation of democracy and socio-economic progress. Therefore, there is no room for discriminatory regulations.