The carefully selected team typically trains for months before the ceremony in a military-like fashion, so those selected and sent to Jakarta are seen as top students who are a source of pride for their families and schools. However, this year, pride over making the team was stained by a new rule that some viewed as “hurting diversity”.
The National Paskibraka Council (PPI), which organises the flag-raising squad, said that 18 students removed their hijabs during an inauguration event with Widodo at the State Palace in Jakarta on August 13.
“Why was it ‘forbidden’ during the inauguration to wear a hijab? Why were [the girls] uniformised not to use the hijab? Isn’t this hurting diversity itself?” asked Gousta Feriza, chairman of PPI, in a statement issued on August 14.
The hijab rule also led to a personnel change in the team: hijab-wearing Maulia Permata Putri, a student from West Sumatra, was originally assigned to carry the flag tray in the squad before she was replaced by Livenia Evelyn Kurniawan from East Kalimantan, who does not wear a headscarf.
On August 14, Yudian Wahyudi, head of the Pancasila Ideology Development Agency (BPIP), which has overseen Paskibraka since 2022, denied the accusation it had forced students to remove their hijabs.
All the students in the flag-raising squad this year agreed to “voluntarily” follow the regulations set by BPIP, including displaying “uniformed attire and attitudes when they carry out state duties”, Yudian told reporters.
It is extreme that a Muslim woman is required to remove her hijab in Indonesia. This rudeness and hatred of Islam is too much
The response by BPIP sparked outrage, with some calling for Widodo to fire Yudian.
A lawsuit against Widodo and BPIP has been filed by the Indonesian Supervisory, Control and Law Enforcement Agency, together with the Megabintang Foundation civic organisation, in a court in the Central Java city of Solo.
They are demanding 200 million rupiah (US$12,800) for “recovery costs” of Paskibraka members who removed their hijabs during the inauguration. They also want Widodo to broadcast a public apology nationally, both on television and online, and for Widodo to fire Yudian as head of BPIP.
Eventually, BPIP relented on its rule and some girls in the flag-raising troop donned their hijabs during the subsequent Independence Day ceremonies in Nusantara and Jakarta.
The hijab dilemma
Rina Tiarawaty, a Jakarta-based women’s rights activist, said she was “torn” over the issue as many students in Indonesia were forced by their schools to wear hijab.
“We need to ask the students whether they feel relieved and comfortable when BPIP asked them to remove their hijabs,” Rina said.
Peer pressure
The NGO’s report found that Indonesian women who do not wear hijabs, or who do not wear them in what is considered the proper way, were subject to bullying, harassment and psychological distress. The bullying was more pronounced for those who had abandoned their hijab after years of wearing it, as seen recently in the case of Camillia Laetitia Azzahra, daughter of Ridwan Kamil, former governor of West Java and a candidate in this year’s Jakarta gubernatorial election.
“When I removed my hijab, people said to me ‘your poor father will bear your sins, your poor husband will bear your sins’,” said Merida, who spoke to This Week in Asia under a pseudonym due to the sensitivity of the issue.
The 34-year-old mother of one was raised in a strict Muslim family, who made her wear a hijab since she was eight years old, she said. In university, Merida majored in philosophy, where a lecturer required students to “dissect Islamic verses based on their respective beliefs”.
“As it turns out we have different perspectives on the same verse, even though we were all Muslims,” she said.
“[I found out that] interpretations about the hijab [verse] are layered, too. But I questioned why was [the rule] issued by a man? This is about women’s bodies. Women will feel the heat from wearing long clothes, they will feel how uncomfortable it is to wear an abaya [long dress] when riding a motorbike or bicycle, or playing sports,” Merida, who lives in Depok, said.
When there are people who say that the hijab is not mandatory [in Islam], many Muslims immediately worry that women will take off their hijabs and leave Islam
She finally decided to remove her hijab in 2017, and a year later changed religions to marry her Christian boyfriend. In Indonesia, interfaith marriage is forbidden. The decision was met with condemnation by her Muslim family.
“My mother and father didn’t approve of my decision. My mother was never proud of me because she saw me as a failure. Just today, my mother said, ‘I endured a hard time when I was pregnant with you and gave birth to you, but you turned out like this’,” Merida said.
Merida, who used to work at an NGO focusing on human rights, said “the peer pressure to wear the hijab in Indonesia has been instilled in society from an early age”.
“When you are pregnant, society expects you to immediately wear a hijab. A husband will only be a really good husband if he has guided his wife to wear the hijab,” she said.
Rina, the women’s rights activist, said hijab removal was a “sensitive issue” in Indonesia as many would interpret it as a sign of declining numbers of Muslims in the country.
“Unfortunately, Muslims in Indonesia are still very fixated on numbers. When there are people who say that the hijab is not mandatory [in Islam], many Muslims immediately worry that women will take off their hijabs and leave Islam,” she said.