Populism and Religious Nationalism in India, Turkey, and France”

• In Event: Is Religion the Blind Spot of Populism?

Abstract

This paper explores the connections between secularism and the political trends of supremacist populism and religious nationalism given the salience of these trends in prominently secular democracies: India, Turkey, and France. Despite their different interpretations of secularism, the parallelisms in the emergence of extreme right movements in these countries require a comparative investigation into the ways in which these interpretations may have indeed facilitated the emergence of these movements in similar ways. Throughout a comparative historical analysis, the paper outlines the specific political arrangements centered on Hindu identity in India, Sunni identity in Turkey, and anti-immigration discourses in France. The paper argues that these arrangements manipulated the meaning of secularism in favor of particular national identities in these countries. Hence the implication of secular politics in the emergence of extreme right movements requires rethinking the “religious” in religious nationalism and critically addressing the secular precursors that promoted similar populist-nationalist views of the society.

Author

• Irmak Yazici, University of Hawaii at Manoa