ABSTRACT
Modern secularism is, to paraphrase historian Dipesh Chakrabarty, a “provincial” rather than a universal view towards religion, but one that has come to be universalized with European, and later Western, dominance globally. Modern religion also then emerges along with secularism; like conjoined twins, the “secular” and “religious” enter the world together, the definition, meaning and identity of each irrevocably linked to the other. Across the centuries, in fact, every major religion in the world has been marked by debates about fundamental questions such as the role of religious authorities, who should decide what religious truths are, the role of reason in interpreting religion, individual and human agency, and the influence of religion and so on. These ideas were neither unique to European Christianity nor raised for the first time there. While the passions of religion may have transferred onto nationalism and other ideologies, the nation does remain at base a secular category.
