Religious Politics and Secular States: Egypt, India, and the United States

Conclusion: Religious Politics Reconsidered

conclusion Religious Politics Reconsidered The global resurgence of religion and its influence on modern politics remain topics of keen interest. Much of the contemporary research, however, continues to view this trend in largely dichotomous terms: either as a religious phenomenon or as simply a matter of politics. The first of these two perspectives sees the revivalism of recent years as an organic expression of humanity that has emerged autonomously within traditional populations to reshape the political life of countries around the globe.1 Religion, from this perspective, is a causal variable emanating from below and driving world events. The materialist alternative, on the other hand, sees religion as a vernacular for articulating political purpose and not as a causal force in its own right. The real issue from this second view is politics, not religion. There is, of course, a good deal of truth to both views. Religion is an innate feature of the human condition and has an autonomy that is not readily controlled. Conversely, the contemporary revival is driven by material considerations and the socioeconomic deprivation that breeds extremism and discontent. There is, however, a third factor as well. The continuing relevance of religion to modern politics is also due to the fact that many find utility in promoting religion within the public sphere. This is Conclusion 245 true whether religion is used to mobilize popular sentiment behind an existing pattern of social order or if religion is invoked to transform it. It is also true whether religion is used to sanction the policies of the modern nation-state or to restrain government action. The real question, then, is which interpretation of religion is being promoted, and to what end? If religion is reshaping modern politics, the converse is also true: its politicization has changed religion. The effort by political actors—and particularly state elites—to promote one interpretation of religion at the expense of others has greatly influenced the internal debates over religious interpretation. It has also contributed to the proliferation of religious ideologies. This is evident in each of the cases of this book, in which exclusive variants of religious tradition were conflated with nationalist or communal ideologies and mobilized for explicitly political ends. By invoking not just religion but an illiberal variant of their respective traditions, mainstream political actors greatly influenced popular perceptions about which understanding of religious tradition—literal or modernist, inclusive or exclusive—was the more legitimate and the more culturally authentic. The ramifications of this instrumental manipulation of religion, moreover, have been far-reaching. The politicization of religion has divided societies along religious and ethnic lines and denigrated the idea of religious tolerance (both within and between traditions). It has also led to a common perception that illiberal renderings of religion are somehow more valid or true than their liberal counterparts. This marks a sharp break with the mid-twentieth century , when modernist or liberal understandings of religion were predominant and state actors tended to eschew the exclusive religious ideologies associated with modern religious fundamentalisms. The changing orientation of state elites away from secularism and toward religion helps to explain these trends and why exclusive interpretations of religion emerged so forcefully in the political life of three ostensibly secular societies . Despite the common assumptions that the contemporary resurgence of religious politics represents a popular rejection of state-led secularization or that it is the result of a failed modernity project, the cases of this study indicate a more nuanced explanation. Rather, the ideological transformation of this period involved the active promotion of religion by state actors as a means of mobilizing popular support behind their respective claims to rule. This is surprising in part because it was state actors who were at one time the primary opponents of the kind of exclusive religious ideas associated with fundamentalist movements. This orientation toward religion changed, however, as state elites abandoned 246 Religious Politics and Secular States commitments to an inclusive vision of social order, choosing instead to “ride the tiger” of an exclusive religious politics.2 This shift was very much a part of an antileftist discourse and, in many parts of the world, part of the Cold War dynamic. Conservative religion was promoted in the United States, the Middle East, and South Asia in large measure because it was seen as a bulwark against the influence of socialism and leftist ideologies. It is certainly not that illiberal interpretations of religion are...