Can Secular Law Weaken Liberal Democracy? Lessons from India and Turkey

• In Event: Poster Session: Change and Continuity in Religion and Politics & Public Administration
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Change and Continuity in Religion and Politics

Abstract

This article traces religious controversies in secular settings with a comparative focus on India and Turkey and demonstrates how secular law has broadened the scope of religious controversies. More specifically, even though controversies may emerge over topics or incidents that contain religious elements, it is usually overlooked that the reactions to these controversies are not only expressed via “secular” means—e.g., taking the matter to court—but they also have complex secular foundations. In addition, by broadening this scope, secular law has also facilitated the perpetuation of religious controversies. Against this backdrop, the article argues that secular law has reinscribed blasphemy as offense and expanded the scope of religious controversies, throughout a discussion of two comparative cases of religious controversy in reference to Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code and Article 216/3 of the Turkish Penal Code. The paper concludes that these cases are significant for demonstrating the shortcomings of liberal democracy within the context of secular law, which can arguably account for the authoritarian trends that have emerged in the past decade in both countries.

Author

• Irmak Yazici, Stanford University