The consequences of increasing assertiveness of trans-national religious communities for international relations

The transnational communities, or in other terms, the migrant communities who went to the US and the UK, or to any other European states had strong belief in their religion in which they might not be contaminated by the secular ideology in the Western countries. In this respect, the phenomenology of religion in international relations is a relatively new and surprising. Accordingly, this paper aims at investigating the implications of the emergence of trans-national religious groups for international relations. The paper will argue that the rise of trans-national religious groups has produced a profound impact on international relations. The factors that influenced this transformation in international relations is the contemporary processes of globalization which scholars argue, are pivotal to bringing religion to the centre stage of international relations. In order to deepen the understanding of this process, two case scenarios will be analyzed, namely, the Sikh Diasporas and the imagined Islamic community, the umma. In this paper, it has been argued that the rise of trans-national religious actors may affect state sovereignty in one way or another. Under secular ideology, the role of religion is marginalized from the public sphere, in particular, the domain of politics and religion is being obviously separated. This separation, according to both groups, is problematic. It is therefore, the emergence of Islamic and Sikh communities is considered by some liberal democratic countries like India as a peril to its state sovereignty. In Islamic doctrines, the Muslims hold a principle in din wa dawla, the unity of state and religion, while in Sikhism, the Sikhs have to trust miriand piri, the unification of religious and political institution.