State-religion relations and the politics of law-making : a comparative study of PKB in Indonesia and BJP in India

Abstract

This study compares two religious-based policy in political parties—the National Awakening Party (PKB) in Indonesia and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India—in promoting education policies based on ideological values. Despite their differing political positions, PKB successfully enacted the Pesantren Law as state regulation, while BJP failed to institutionalize the National Education Policy (NEP) as national legislation. Using a comparative case study design and the Most Similar System Design (MSSD) approach, this study tests two main hypotheses: first, that legislative success depends on a party's ability to build cross-party political consensus; second, that the value gap between policy and constitution determines the level of resistance to that policy. The findings show that the PKB's success was driven by an inclusive consensus strategy and the proximity of the policy's substance to the fundamental principles of the Indonesian constitution. Conversely, the BJP's failure was caused by the absence of a deliberative process and the substance of the policy conflicting with the values of secularism and federalism in the Indian constitution. This research contributes theoretically to the study of ideological policy in pluralistic democratic systems and practically provides strategic insights for political parties in designing value-based policies within constitutional boundaries.