Secularism Religion And Democracy In Southeast Asia

Until the 1990s, secularism was understood largely as exclusion of religion from the public domain. However, in the last two decades, the world has witnessed the return of religion as a medium and subject of national, regional, and global politics. With such a shift, the previously unquestioned Western values of modernity and secularism find themselves at loggerheads with the increasing assertion of religious identity, which results in difference-based conflicts. This antagonism also gives rise to a vibrant, religiously pluralistic civil society and speaks of a post-secular turn in modern Southeast Asian democracies. Secularism, Religion, and Democracy in Southeast Asia tries to understand the rise of religion in modern democracies and how everyday economic, social, and political conditions aid this post-secular phenomenon in Southeast Asia. Setting itself apart from most studies of religion in Southeast Asia through its regional focus, this volume explores the ideas, practices, state responses, and anxieties related to the religious–secular divide in this geopolitical region.

The concept of a secular state is important in many parts of Asia and how this is resolved has important implications for The social, economic and political development of various Asian countries. Unfortunately, problems of the secular state have all along been studied based on the historical experience of state formation in Europe, with little (or no) input from the Asian perspective. This book will for The very first time, present mainly Asian perspectives, while drawing on Western experience as well. Conceptual issues are discussed together with detailed accounts on how different countries and traditions understand and seek to implement the ideas of a secular state.

Offers fresh perspectives on the relationship between secularization, tolerance and democracy through a theoretically informed look at South Asian politics.

The notion of a ‘politics of religion’ refers to the increasing role that religion plays in the politics of the contemporary world. This book presents comparative country case studies on the politics of religion in South and South Asia, including India, Pakistan and Indonesia. The politics of religion calls into question the relevance of modernist notions of secularism and democracy, with the emphasis instead on going back to indigenous roots in search of authentic ideologies and models of state and nation building. Within the context of the individual countries, chapters focus on the consequences that politics of religion has on inclusive nation-building, democracy and the rights of individuals, minorities and women. The book makes a contribution to both the theoretical and conceptual literature on the politics of religion as well as shed light on the implications and ramifications of the politics of religion on contemporary South Asian and South East Asian countries. It is of interest to students and scholars of South and South East Asian Studies, as well as Comparative Politics.

This volume seeks to introduce and deepen the understanding of Islam and its role in politics as encountered in different national and transnational contexts in Southeast Asia, eschewing the neo-orientalist approach that has informed public discourse in recent years. In Encountering Islam, the book lingers beyond the summary moment and reflects on the multiple impressions, suppressions and repressions, whether coherent or incoherent, associated with Islam as a socio-political force in public life. To this end, it is not adequate simply to represent the divergent identities associated with Islam in Southeast Asia, whether embedded in state-endorsed orthodoxy or Islamic movements that contest such orthodoxy. It is also important to examine religious minorities in political contexts where Islam is dominant and Muslim communities in national contexts where they are minorities. By situating these religious identities within their larger socio-political contexts, this volume seeks to provide a more holistic understanding of what is encountered as Islam in Southeast Asia.

Varieties of Secularism is an ethnographically rich, theoretically well-informed, and intellectually coherent volume which builds off the work of Talal Asad, Charles Taylor, and others who have engaged the issue of secularism(s) and in socio-political life. The volume seeks to examine theories of secularism/secularity and examine concrete ethnographic cases in order to further the theoretical discussion. Whereas Taylor’s magisterial work draws up the conditions and problems of a belief in God in Western modernity, it leaves unexplored the challenges posed by the spiritual in modernity outside of the North Atlantic rim. This anthology seeks to begin that task. It does so by suggesting that the kind of secularity described by Taylor is only one amongst others. By attending to the shifting relationship between proper religion and ‘bad faiths’; between politically valorised and embarrassing spiritual phenomena; between the new visibilities and silences of magic, ancestors, and religion in democratic politics, this book seeks to outline the particular formations of secularism that have become possible in Asia from China to Indonesia and from Bahrain to Timor-Leste. This book will appeal to students and scholars of Asian religion, politics and anthropology.

The intensifying conflicts between religious communities in contemporary South and Southeast Asia signify the importance of gaining a clearer understanding of how societies have historically organised and mastered their religious diversity. Based on extensive archival research in Asia, Europe, and the United States, this book suggests a new approach to interpreting and explaining secularism not as a Western concept but as a distinct form of practice in 20th-century global history. In six case studies on the contemporary history of India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, it analyses secularism as a project to create a high degree of distance between the state and religion during the era of decolonisation and the emerging Cold War between 1945 and 1970. To demonstrate the interplay between local and transnational dynamics, the case studies look at patterns of urban planning, the struggle against religious nationalism, conflicts around religious education, and (anti-)communism as a dispute over secularism and social reform. The book emphasises in particular the role of non-state actors as key supporters of secular statehood – a role that has thus far not received sufficient attention. A novel approach to studying secularism in Asia, the book discusses the different ways that global transformations such as decolonisation and the Cold War interacted with local relations to reshape and relocate religion in society. It will be of interest to scholars of Religious Studies, International Relations and Politics, Studies of Empire, Cold War Studies, Subaltern Studies, Modern Asian History, and South and Southeast Asian Studies.