SEEING THROUGH SECULARISM: WHAT RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES CAN TELL IN INDIA AND TURKEY

Abstract

This dissertation illustrates how the discourse of secularism has facilitated the crystallization of religious nationalism in similar ways in India and Turkey. It does so by looking at how religious controversies unfold, which can be defined as complex socio-political and emotional constructs. This definition suggests that there are numerous variables and actors that are involved in the making of these controversies with substantially contradicting views on life and its material and non-material attributes. Hence it would not be possible to offer a novel comparative critique of secularism in India and Turkey without delving into the complexity from which such controversies emerge. To do so, the dissertation contests the characterization of blasphemy exclusively within religious or theological discourse. It shows that even though controversies may emerge over topics or incidents that contain religious elements, they indeed have secular foundations. Based on this, the dissertation argues that the politics of secularism, which is defined as the actions and discourses of political actors and institutions that utilize secularism as a means toward achieving political ends, generates and manipulates religious controversies. An analysis of these manipulations reveals how secularism has evolved in cahoots with distinctive nationalist ideologies that placed Hindu and Sunni Muslim identities at the center in India and Turkey, respectively.