印度乃全球最大民主政體，本研究係以晚近印度政壇發展，作為探論主題。印度在憲法上是一個世俗國家，但在印度晚近的發展中，「印度教民族主義」配合著「國民志願服務隊」（RSS）、「印度人民黨」（BJP）、「世界宗教大會」（VHP）等組織的宣傳效應，卻產生了阿瑜陀之爭，並使得印度調合教派政治的努力，受到嚴重的考驗。印度民主政體的特殊發展經驗，也向西方對自由民主政體與民族主義所抱持的普世性假定，提出了強烈地挑戰。 　　出現於殖民時期與晚近民主國家中的民族主義浪潮與宗教運動，警醒了許多西方觀察者。本研究企圖將宗教社群主義的議題，放在印度教傳統實踐與歷史發展的脈絡中從事考察，而避免將這類涉及認同與社群意識的問題，過度化約成社會與經濟的決定論觀點，或是政治與社經利益的呈現。宗教社群意識的政治化，確為印度製造了社群衝突，但根深柢固的仇恨意識，則來自印度教徒與穆斯林間錯綜複雜的歷史糾葛。 　　透過印度民族主義與印度教徒民族主義之間關係的探討，本研究將把宗教社群衝突的問題置放在一個較寬廣的政治、宗教及歷史的脈絡中。藉由印度教徒與穆斯林在印度發生衝突的例子，揭示宗教社群議題如何表現於社會與歷史的面向之上。本研究試圖提供對於印度政治不同的觀察角度，俾益於我們對後殖民時期印度民主政體發展的理解。最後，本研究也企圖評析右派印度人民黨，如何藉由古代印度教精神的宣揚，而獲致廣泛的民眾認同並在近十年中快速崛起。 / The theme of this thesis turns our attention to recent events in the world’s largest democracy, India. India is constitutionally a secular state. But recent developments in India in the form of Hindu nationalism, propagated and propagandized with great effects by such organizations as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), and that generated the Ayodhya temple dispute, are putting India’s capacity to negotiate a viable relation between a unified polity and sectarian religio-politics severely to the test. The Indian experiences of democracy thus challenge several of the widely held assumptions about the universality of the western trajectory of liberal democracy and nationalism. 　　 　　The rise of strong nationalist and religious movement in colonial era and newly democratic countries alarms many western observers. Rather than reducing the problems of identity or communal consciousness to social-economic determinism, or a strictly matter of political and social-economic interest, this thesis places the emergence of Communalism within the context of Hindu traditional and historical praxis. The politicization of communal consciousness did create communal problems in India, but the fundamental intricacy remains the deep-seated animosity between Hindus and Muslims created by history. 　　By presenting the relationship of Indian nationalism and Hindu nationalism, this thesis situates communal conflicts in its larger political, religious, and historic contexts. Using example of Hindu-Muslim conflict in India, the issue of Communalism with social-historical context will be explored. This thesis tried to offers fresh insights into Indian politics and, by focusing on Ayodhya dispute, advances our understanding of democracy in the post-colonial India. This thesis analyzes Indian receptivity to the right-wing Hindu nationalism party and its political wing, the BJP, which claims to create a polity based on ancient Hindu culture. This thesis is also an attempt to explain the factors that led to the sudden rise of BJP in the last decade.