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Neil DeVotta is a Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Wake Forest University. His research interests include South Asian security and politics, ethnicity and nationalism, ethnic conflict resolution, and democratic transition and consolidation. He is the author of Blowback: Linguistic Nationalism, Institutional Decay, and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004). In addition to coauthoring and editing books on Sri Lanka and India, respectively, his publications have appeared in Nations and Nationalism, Journal of Democracy, Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, Pacific Affairs, Asian Survey, Civil Wars, Journal of International Affairs, and Contemporary South Asia. His current research examines the links between nationalist ideologies and communal violence in South Asia.
Secularism and the Islamophobia Zeitgeist in India and Sri Lanka
Islamist terrorism tends to normalize Islamophobia. For instance, Pakistan’s willingness to use jihadi forces to destabilize India in disputed Kashmir and the renascent Islamism connected to extremism worldwide cause anxiety and promote Islamophobia in states like India and Sri Lanka. In these instances, Islamophobia is induced from abroad. But a nationalist ideology rooted in religion can also fan it and unleash massive violence. This is what the Hindu nationalist ideology in India does by framing the country’s Muslims as a dangerous, predatory, and destabilizing “other.” Post-civil war, Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists resort to similar accusations as they seek to extend majoritarianism and manipulate Islamophobia for political gain.
