عنوان

Turkish and Indian Secularisms in Comparative Perspective

Number

TLpq1417070103

.Language of Text, Soundtrack etc

انگلیسی

Title Proper

Turkish and Indian Secularisms in Comparative Perspective

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Zeynep Aysel Madra

Subsequent Statement of Responsibility

A. Arato

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

The New School

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2013

Specific Material Designation and Extent of Item

258

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

Ph.D.

Body granting the degree

The New School

Text preceding or following the note

2013

Text of Note

Recent scholarship emphasizes that secularism takes divergent forms in different national settings in terms of institutional arrangement and ideology. In this dissertation, I examine the Turkish and Indian variants of secularism--both recently challenged by the rise of religious politics-- from a comparative-historical perspective. To this end, I examine the debates on secularism that took place in the Turkish Grand National Assembly (1920-1931) and the Indian Constituent Assembly (1946-1949) through which the secular regimes of these societies were established. A close examination of these debates shows that while the separation of religion and the state was an important aspect of both Turkish and Indian secularisms, both entailed another strand which allowed the state to intervene in the religious sphere, although for different ends. I then examine how the Turkish and Indian states continued to "reform" and "rationalize" the majority religion--Islam in Turkey and Hinduism in India--through legislative, judicial, and administrative means following the establishment of these secular regimes. This analysis shows that although secularism was historically linked to the construction of sovereign nation-states in both settings, it served different functions in these two projects. Whereas Turkish secularism sanctions state intervention in the religious domain in order to control religion and create a homogeneous nation, the Indian variant of secularism deems it necessary to instigate social reform and create "unity in diversity." Based on these two very different cases, I argue that redefining and regulating the religious sphere is an important feature of secularism which determines the form of religion and the role it will play in society. In this respect, one can think of secularism as a "tool of governance" which is utilized in accordance with the imperatives of creating a modern, secular nation and implementing the nationalist agenda.

Comparative historical sociology

India

Parliamentary debates

Philosophy, religion and theology

Religion and politics

Social sciences

A. Arato

Zeynep Aysel Madra

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y