Abstract

Current-day Salafism studies often looks into Middle East and European Salafist movements, ignoring other regions such as South Asia. This talk attempts to cover the gap by looking at Salafism in India with a focus on South India, by drawing on three cities in South India and one in the North to argue three main points.

First, Salafists in India are not a monolith and that they have a long and varied history of up to 150 years depending on which region we look at. Second, while there may be some differences in the ideological approach to the ideas of democracy, the major Salafist organisations studied in India look at the concept of democracy favourably. Moreover, Indian secularism is embraced as an ideal to protect by Indian Salafists in the South and the North. Third, Salafist organisations engage in electoral and party politics – in the South, the Salafists are more involved with party politics, while Salafists in the north are relatively apolitical and do not operate through political parties as such.

These case studies advance and connect two major fields of scholarship, i.e, Salafism studies that looks more at Arab and European Salafists as well as Muslim reformist movements in India that engage more in discussions of intra-Muslim polemics on religion rather than politics.

About the Speaker

Mohammed Sinan Siyech is a doctoral scholar researching political Salafism in India at the Islamic and Middle East Studies Department at the University of Edinburgh, UK. During his PhD, Sinan taught politics at the University of Edinburgh and King’s College London. Currently, he is a consultant for the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank based in London.  He has written and spoken extensively on Security, Foreign Policy and Religion in South Asia and the Middle East. Sinan was formerly a Senior Analyst at ICPVTR, RSIS.