In this series, Humanists UK Chief Executive Andrew Copson hosts unscripted, one-on-one discussions over the course of 60 minutes with philosophers, scientists, campaigners, entertainers, and historians.

Professor Sumantra Bose is a globally acclaimed scholar of nationalism, democracy, and conflict in the Indian subcontinent, the Balkans, and the Middle East. He is Professor of International and Comparative Politics, Krea University, India.

Secular States, Religious Politics: India, Turkey, and the Future of Secularism

Professor Bose is the author of Secular States, Religious Politics, a pioneering comparative study of the two major attempts to build secular states in the non-Western world. He explains the origins, evolution and latterly the decline of secularism as a core principle of the state in India and Turkey.

The anti-secular political transformations of the 21st century are the rise of a Sunni-Islamist definition of Turkish national identity to hegemonic power, and Hindu nationalism as India's pre-eminent political force. Both secular-state models adopted a similar operational doctrine of state intervention in and regulation of the religious sphere, rather than a Western-style separation of church and state. But, he argues,Turkish state-secularism took a culturally deracinated and harshly authoritarian form that led to its failure, whereas India's secular state – though flawed in practice – followed a culturally rooted and democratic path that makes secularism indispensable to India's future.