Pew Survey on India and Religion

Today is the First Saturday of the month and hence I will be discussing about current events relating to nationalism in India. 

Today I will write about The Pew Survey on Religion in India.

The Pew Research Centre this week released a report that contained a survey that they conducted in India. The survey was focused on religion in the country. It was conducted by face-to-face questions with 30,000 people in India across various states in 17 Indian languages. 

It was conducted in late 2019 to early 2020 before the pandemic had started in India. These are some of the questions that were asked along with the answers:-

 1) % of Indian adults who say They are very free to practise their religion:

 General population 91%. 

 Hindus: 91% 

Muslims: 89%

 Christians: 89% 

Sikhs:82% 

Buddhists:93% 

Jains:85% 

 2) % of Indian adults who say that respecting all religions is very important to being truly Indian: Hindus:85% 

Muslims:78% 

Christians:78% 

Sikhs:81%

 Buddhists: 84% 

Jains:83% 

 Why is there such a high percentage of Indians from all the 6 major religions that say they have the freedom of religion? And why is respect for other religions seen to be so important for being an Indian? It is because of several reasons. 

The first being Indian society. Indian culture is made up of various communities and traditions and values and norms. This was how it was even before Jainism came into being and there was only Hinduism. Hinduism has many Gods and Goddesses and many different traditions. The fact that so many people could worship so many different Gods is proof that even in those ancient times people had the freedom to practise any religion or tradition. 

The religions which came from Hinduism - Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism - also believed in freedom of religion and did not impose their beliefs and viewpoints on others. They did not proselytize. Islam and Christianity are foreign religions that proselytise. They proclaim that their religion is the only correct religion and that all others are false. Both of them spread through force, Christianity spread through invasions of Christian armies in Europe against the Pagans and Islam spread through armies in West Asia against Parsis, Pagans, Christians and Jews. 

 When they arrived in India they also spread through violence - the Goan inquisition is an example of Christian violence - and the invasion of Mahmud Ghazni is an example of Islamic violence. However they were eventually defeated and became relatively peaceful. The people who converted to these religions kept many of their native Hindu/Jain/Buddhist/Sikh traditions with them. Sikhs rarely converted as they were formed to fight off Islamic violence. Indian Christians and Muslims have since imbibed some of the values of the native Indian religions. 

The values of religious tolerance and freedom are some of them. This has happened because of the intermingling between them and the Dharmic religions. They have learnt these values from Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains. These values are against their own religion's doctrines but because they place their identity as Indians greater than or equal to that of their religious identity they have these values. 

Thank you for Reading,

My video titled Pew Research Center Survey on Religion in India -

https://youtu.be/pPyEsiPzzvo