The Impact Of Religion On Contemporary Politics In India

Indian religious tradition is deep and religious description is also adversity. After independence, secularism principle was not carried out through to the end. Religion force developed unceasing and infiltrated into political field. It makes Indian politics very complex and peculiar. Studying influence of religion to contemporary Indian politics has not only great theoretical significance but also important practical significance.Firstly, This thesis introduced simply situation of Indian religion and politics. The main religions in India are Hindu, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Sikh and Jaina. The most important two are Hindu and Islam. Hindu is born and brought up in India native soil. But Islam is propagated into India with aggression. The two religions have great difference in faith and custom. Indian political system has developed on the basis of carrying on administrative system of Britain, It adopt federalism and parliamentarianism. But India federalism has obvious characteristic of centralization. The power of center is stronger than that of federal unit. Indian political party system is multi - party system, but Congress Party played dominator role in Indian political stage in the long time.The influence of religion to Indian parliamentary politics is very deep. All communalism parties make use of communal sentiment to try to win over by attiring itself as representative of communal interest. Non - communal parties hardly curry favour with majority communal in every electoral district. Many parties constantly adopt communal methods of propaganda and agitation in order to attract voter. Moreover some parties use electoral sign with color. The caste system of Hindu also influenced election. In election, candidate nomination, rote and campaign are all on the basis of caste.The influence of religion to party politics has also a increasing trend. Some communal organizations infiltrated into political field constandy and developed to become communal parties. Classical communal parties have Hindu communal party-The Bharatiya Jana Sangh, Muslimcommunal party - Muslim United Front, and Sikas communal party - The Akali Dal. Some non - communal parties have also evolved into communal parties in order to manoeuvre for more votes and win in election. For example, the Bharatiy Janata Party put forward secularism program and took secularism measures when it founded. But the failure in election promoted it to make use of Hindu communal sentiment to develop by supporting Hindu in dispute of temple and mosque. The BJP gradually evolved into communal party. The caste system of Hindu was also integrated closely with political party. Some politics parties founded on the basis of caste entirely. Even those political parties that lift secularism flag are stamped with brand of caste more or less. They respond to interest of different caste in respective state.Local separatism movement in India also contact with religion inseparably. The great intimidations to integration of Indian politics are separatism movement in Jammu - Kashmir and Punjab. The separatism movement in Jammu - Kashmir contact with Islam closely. India merged most area in Kashmir. Muslim majority revolt Indian government. They adopt formality of struggle in arms. Since the late 1980s and this struggle is integrated with Islam. Its obvious manifestation is that large number organizations in arms with Islam color or claiming fight for Islam arise. They take extreme measure to conduct unti - government movement by inciting religious fanaticism. The separatism movement in Punjab is contacted with Sikh closely. In Sikhs' movement of striving for self- autonomous or independence, Sikh has played important role. The gentle group integrates political demand with religion demand to mobilize Sikhs, the extreme group claims to found a Sikh state of unification of the state and the church.Religion clashes in India promote the change of political situation. Most typical cases are movement to opposing Reserve Pob'ty and dispute of temple and mosque. The movement to...