Root Analysis Of The Indian Nation-state Construct Plight

After the independence of India, Indian Congress Party's policies laid a foundation for India to be a modern nation-state. But in recent decades, some obstacles, mainly the religious conflicts and the clashes between traditional religious identity and secular national identity, emerged in India's way to be a nation-state. Although Congress Party's mistakes and international environments were partly responsible for that, its root laid in the features of its modern nationalist movements and secularization process.India's nationalism was the product of British colonization rather than a naturally accruing phenomenon, which means Indian people's national consciousness is relatively fragile. Moreover, most of the nationalist leaders tried to arouse people's national consciousness through religion. This was helpful to Anti-British Campaign but also deepened people's religious identities which are often the fuses of religious conflicts.With regard to secularization process, although India accepted secularism from British, its secularization process was distinctive. India's secularization underwent a compromised path as it confronted the opposition of religious conservatives and the demands of nationalists to arouse people through traditional religions. In India, the principle of secularism more means religious equality than the separation of politics from religion, and this makes India difficult to become a modern nation-state.