Fact is also that ever since the Ayodhya demolition, there has been a steady series of bomb attacks on RSS/BJP targets (e.g. killing a dozen people i… - Koenraad Elst

The fact that Islam sits lightly on most Muslims in Indonesia, has not prevented a hard core to display the patented behaviour pattern of Islam. In Irian Jaya (West New Guinea), the Papua tribals are overrun by immigrant Muslims from Java. Many of them have already been converted by force or social pressure. In ex-Portuguese East Timor, which Indonesia has annexed against the United Nations' will, massacres of Christians or Animist natives by Muslim immigrants and soldiers have happened on a large scale. In Bali, the Hindus are not exactly persecuted, but Muslim immigrants from Java have acquired the positions of power. By the standards which Indian Muslims use to measure "discrimination against the minorities", the Hindus of Bali could claim that they are discriminated against. Nevertheless, the situation in most of Indonesia still seems to be much better than in Bangladesh (let alone Pakistan), and the communities live together rather peacefully. But it has taken tough rulers to uphold this relatively stable pluralism.

In Gielen’s opinion, the main difference between the Abrahamic and the Dharmic religions is it “for every one of the Indic religions it is very difficult to arrive at a minimum definition because of the internal diversity”. (p.40) He doesn’t mention Christianity’s or Islam’s ambition of world conquest nor their history-centricity (followers have to believe in certain historic events around Jesus c.q. Mohammed in order to be real members), which Hindu scholars would consider far for fundamental differences.

Tribal endogamy explains the Hindu caste system. As Vedic society, an advanced and differentiated society characterized by class (varna) hierarchy, expanded from the Northwest into India's interior, it absorbed ever more tribes but allowed them their distinctive traditions and first of all their defining tradition, viz. their endogamy. This way, endogamous self-contained units or tribes became endogamous segments of Hindu society, or castes.