Indians find imperative to respect religions, but want to live separately

ISLAMABAD: More than 70 years after India became free from colonial rule, Indians generally feel their country has lived up to one of its post-independence ideals of a society where followers of many religions can live and practice freely.

India’s massive population is diverse as well as devout. Not only do most of the world’s Hindus, Jains and Sikhs live in India, but it also is home to one of the world’s largest Muslim populations and to millions of Christians and Buddhists.

A major new Pew Research Center survey of religion across India, based on nearly 30,000 face-to-face interviews of adults conducted in 17 languages between late 2019 and early 2020 (before the Covid-19 pandemic), finds that Indians of all these religious backgrounds overwhelmingly say they are very free to practice their faiths.

The majority of Hindus see themselves as very different from Muslims (66pc), and most Muslims return the sentiment, saying they are very different from Hindus (64pc). There are a few exceptions: Two-thirds of Jains and about half of Sikhs say they have a lot in common with Hindus. But generally, people in India’s major religious communities tend to see themselves as very different from others, reflected in traditions and habits of India’s religious groups. For example, marriages across religious lines are exceedingly rare.

Many Indians, across a range of religious groups, say it is very important to stop people in their community from marrying into other religious groups. Roughly two-thirds of Hindus in India want to prevent interreligious marriages of Hindu women (67pc) or Hindu men (65pc). Even larger shares of Muslims feel similarly: 80pc say it is very important to stop Muslim women from marrying outside their religion, and 76pc say it is very important to stop Muslim men from doing so.

Fewer Indians go so far as to say that their neighborhoods should consist only of people from their own religious group. Still, many would prefer to keep people of certain religions out of their residential areas or villages.

Indians, then, simultaneously express enthusiasm for religious tolerance and a consistent preference for keeping their religious communities in segregated spheres – they live together separately. These two sentiments may seem paradoxical, but for many Indians they are not. Indeed, many take both positions, saying it is important to be tolerant of others and expressing a desire to limit personal connections across religious lines.

One of these religious fault lines – the relationship between India’s Hindu majority and the country’s smaller religious communities – has particular relevance to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the BJP is often described as promoting a Hindu nationalist ideology.

The survey finds that Hindus tend to see their religious identity and Indian national identity as closely intertwined: Nearly two-thirds of Hindus (64pc) say it is very important to be Hindu to be “truly” Indian. Most Hindus (59pc) also link Indian identity with being able to speak Hindi and being a Hindu – are closely connected. In the 2019 national elections, 60pc of such Hindu voters cast their vote for the BJP, compared with only a third among Hindu voters who feel less strongly about both these aspects of identity.

Among Indians overall, there is no overwhelming consensus on the benefits of religious diversity. Roughly half (53pc) of Indian adults say India’s religious diversity benefits the country, while about a quarter (24pc) see diversity as harmful, with similar figures among both Hindus and Muslims.

India’s Muslims express pride in being Indian while identifying communal tensions, desiring segregation. India’s Muslim community, the second-largest religious group in the country, generally have lived peacefully side by side for centuries, but their shared history also is checkered by civil unrest and violence. Most recently, while the survey was being conducted, demonstrations broke out in parts of New Delhi and elsewhere over the government’s new citizenship law, which creates an expedited path to citizenship for immigrants from some neighboring countries – but not Muslims.

Today, India’s Muslims almost unanimously say they are very proud to be Indian (95pc), and they express great enthusiasm for Indian culture: 85pc agree with the statement that “Indian people are not perfect, but Indian culture is superior to others.”

For Partition in 1947, that carved new borders was accompanied by violence, rioting and looting, the predominant view among Indian Muslims is that the Partition was “a bad thing” for Hindu-Muslim relations. Nearly half of Muslims say Partition hurt communal relations with Hindus (48pc), while fewer say it was a good thing for Hindu-Muslim relations (30pc). Among Muslims who prefer more religious segregation – that is, who say they would not accept a person of a different faith as a neighbour – an even higher share (60pc) say Partition was a bad thing for Hindu-Muslim relations.

Sikhs, whose homeland of Punjab was split by Partition, are even more likely than Muslims to say Partition was a bad thing for Hindu-Muslim relations: Two-thirds of Sikhs (66pc) take this position. But, Hindus lean in the opposite direction: 43pc of Hindus say Partition was beneficial for Hindu-Muslim relations, while 37pc see it as a bad thing. These are among the key findings of a Pew Research Center survey conducted face-to-face nationally among 29,999 Indian adults. Local interviewers administered the survey between Nov. 17, 2019, and March 23, 2020, in 17 languages.

Relatively few Muslims say their community faces “a lot” of discrimination in India (24pc). In fact, the share of Muslims who see widespread discrimination against their community is similar to the share of Hindus who say Hindus face widespread religious discrimination in India (21pc). But personal experiences with discrimination among Muslims vary regionally. Among Muslims in the North, 40pc say they personally have faced religious discrimination in the last 12 months – much higher levels than reported in most other regions.

Like Hindus, Muslims prefer to live religiously segregated lives – not just when it comes to marriage and friendships. In particular, three-quarters of Muslims in India (74pc) support the existing system of Islamic courts, which handle family disputes (such as inheritance or divorce cases), in addition to the secular court system.

Muslims’ desire for religious segregation does not preclude tolerance of other groups – again similar to the pattern seen among Hindus.

Most Indians (65pc) say communal violence is a “very big problem” in their country. This includes identical shares of Hindus and Muslims (65pc each) who say this. But even larger majorities identify several other national problems. Unemployment tops the list of national concerns, with 84pc of Indians saying this is a very big problem. roughly three-quarters of Indian adults see corruption (76pc), crime (76pc) and violence against women (75pc) as very big national issues.