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While the leadership of Nahdlatul Ulama keeps calling for religious tolerance, some followers of Indonesia’s largest Islamic organization appear to be moving in the other direction, putting up banners decrying the presence of minority faith groups.

The 40 million-strong NU was established in 1926, and ever since the late former President Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid assumed its leadership in the 1980s, the organization has been considered a defender of pluralism.

The election of Said Aqil Siradj as chairman of NU last year, according to political analysts, will continue to safeguard its traditionally moderate stance. However, sharp words on banners put up recently outside the Gandaria City shopping complex in Kebayoran Lama, South Jakarta, suggest otherwise.

One banner reads: “The community and people of Nahdlatul Ulama reject the existence of the Ahmadiyah in Kebayoran Lama,” referring to the controversial Islamic sect.

According to people living around the shopping complex, another such sign had recently been removed.

Photos on the Internet taken by users of the microblogging and social networking site Twitter show that the banner read: “The community and people of NU reject the existence of a church at Gandaria City in Kebayoran Lama.”

With the forcible sealing of churches and Ahmadiyah mosques in recent years in provinces across the country — including in Jakarta and West Java — the number of churches holding services within malls and office buildings has skyrocketed.

“Local people started to notice buses arriving at the mall every Thursday night around 8 p.m. We started to ask around and found out there’s a church inside the mall,” said Baharuddin, a member of the board of the Ashiroh Islamic boarding school near the mall and NU’s Kebayoran Lama branch.

He added that Gandaria City had permits only to serve as a shopping center — not a place of worship.

Even though the banners carried the name of NU, locals who spoke to the Jakarta Globe said the boarding school was involved.

“Why did the city [administration] allow them [to have a Christian place of worship inside this mall]? Besides, they should ask the local people for permission first,” Baharuddin said.

He denied any knowledge of what happened to the banner that was reportedly removed.

“It might have been blown off by the wind, or somebody stole it. We don’t know. But as far as I know there are still people going to the church inside the mall,” Baharuddin said.

His statements come on the heels of calls by NU chairman Said to uphold religious tolerance. On Tuesday, he had called upon all NU communities in Jakarta to safeguard religious pluralism in the capital.

“Jakarta is a reflection of [what happens in] Indonesia. People in other regions as well as other parts of the world look to Jakarta,” he said at a NU meeting.

Said added that the pluralistic conditions of community life in Jakarta required NU members to always be ready to calm any growing tensions and soothe social frictions.

Abdul Razaq Alwi, chairman of NU’s South Jakarta chapter, said the banners were the work of the “NU locals [grassroots members] and not the secretariat or board members.”

“We can only urge them to choose persuasive and educative approaches when facing different groups because hanging up banners in protest is not NU’s way,” Abdul said.

NU deputy secretary general Imdadun Rahmat said that the association was not strictly organized. “We can’t really punish our members. And there are times when decisions made at the top level are not immediately understood at the grassroots level,” he said.

According to Ismail Hasani, a researcher at the Setara Institute for Peace and Democracy, the banners at Gandaria City show just how diverse the NU membership really is.

“Said Aqil Siradj might be a very moderate person, and so was Gus Dur, but the grassroots members are a different lot,” Ismail said, noting that Setara research showed NU Islamic schools in West Java took part in acts of religious intolerance.

“We should keep supporting the moderate views held by the NU leadership and think of ways of how to deliver them to the grassroots level. Right now our hope [for tolerance] lies with NU and Muhammadiyah as the two biggest Islamic organizations.”