Rethinking the Religion/Secularism Binary in Global Politics

Abstract

In the post-Cold War period there has been a resurgence of religious-based conflicts worldwide. Religious extremism rooted in major world religions is often pitted against secular states/societies as the source of violent conflict in global politics. In other words the religious and the secular are often projected as binaries. Religious extremists are often characterized as “traditional” and “anti-modern”. In this paper I argue that religious extremism is distinctly modern, thereby sharing a great deal in common with the “secular”. In order to demonstrate my claims, I look historically at how religion was first secularized in European history through the conflict between the Catholics and the Protestants and in turn how this has affected other religions by focusing on two major ones, Islam and Hinduism in South Asia. Political Hinduism and political Islam both gradually underwent a process of secularization once introduced to modern scientific ideas via colonialism, akin to what Christianity experienced in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Europe. I argue that the emphasis on nationalism and the alignment of religion with nation represents an important moment in the secularization of religion in the subcontinent. Both Hinduism and Islam were redefined and reconfigured by Hindu and Muslim political elites from the late nineteenth century onwards to create secular identities to “fit” that of the nation and defy traditional religious boundaries and geographies of time and space. An ongoing secularization of these religions (post the creation of a religion-based state, Pakistan) has only brought them closer to secularism rather than being opposed to it, which is generally the claim. Therefore, a more nuanced view of the relationship between the “religious” and “secular” is required.