Yes to religious pluralism but no to harmony
The Pew Research Centre of America has recently published the report of a survey conducted by it in India. The report titled ‘Religion in India: Tolerance and Segregation’ deals with the attitude of Indians towards their religions and throws light on how religion, identity and politics are connected to each other in India.
It is a known fact that India is a highly religious country and we, the citizens, are aware to what extent religion affects our very existence. The report shows that it plays a crucial role in our lives irrespective of class, status and literacy. Most Indians see their religious identity not only as a matter of religion but also ancestry and culture. A striking fact revealed by the report is that Indians believe it is important to respect all other religions, but they insist on living separately as they do not see any commonalities between them. This raises the question if there is “unity in diversity” at all in the country.
According to this study, 80 per cent of Hindus and 79 per cent of Muslims say that respecting other religions is a very important part of their religious identity, and 78 per cent of Muslims and 85 per cent of Hindus think it is important to being truly Indian. There are some shared values too, like faith in karma, respecting elders and faith in the purifying power of the Ganges among others. Despite these and despite living in the same country, being governed by the same constitution, India’s major religious communities believe they have very little in common. Only the Jains and Sikhs believe they have a lot in common with the Hindus.
A high percentage of people belonging to two major religions in India, Hinduism and Islam, are against inter-faith marriages. Evidence of this is the growing popularity of the Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion ordinance promulgated by the UP government in 2020. Inter-faith marriages per se are legal here. But this law has stemmed from the belief that Hindu women are forced to change their religion after they marry a Muslim man. Added to this, society despises this practice, and the couples are consistently harassed. Nearly half of the Hindu population prefer not to have neighbours belonging to a different religion, especially Islam.
A paradoxical sentiment is prevalent in the country. Even though respect for other religions seems to have got a preference, the majority of people espouse living in a segregated fashion. This gap is taken advantage of by the politicians. From the Britishers to the contemporary political parties, everyone has played on the Hindu-Muslim divide that exists in the country. 49% of the Indian Hindus voted for the BJP in 2019. 60% of those Hindu voters are of the opinion that being a Hindu and speaking Hindi are important to being Indian, thus unknowingly pushing the Hindutva ideology of the BJP. This identification of religion with nationalism can prove to be harmful to the country.
