Syed Alif Shahed

My dissertation tackles cultural practices of secularism in modern day Bangladesh, looking particularly at Durga Puja. I aim to analyze the way in which secularism forms the foundation for postcolonial law in Bangladesh, and how secularism as a nationalist ideal is key to the ruling party’s governance of religious minorities. Second, I hope to explore the way in which these secular aspirations manifest themselves into contemporary cultural practices and aid in the formation of an intellectual class of secularists. I am particularly interested in how minority religious practices become sites where “the secular” manifests itself to project non-communal identities, and the way in which fully “secular” traditions are practiced almost religiously. Thus, I aim to explore the vexed relationship between the unstable “people” and the “state” in their practices of secularism in the face of communal violence and majoritarianism.