The Pew Research Centre, a highly respected American thinktank released findings of its biggest survey conducted outside the United States. The report titled ‘Religion in India: Tolerance and Segregation’ immediately made headlines in our country as the survey was primarily about ‘religion’, a topic that is highly sensitive and ‘emotionally charged’ for many.
The report also became controversial when a prominent Hindi news channel was accused of misusing the results of the survey to emphasise its assertion that “Islam rising fastest and Christians to remain the largest religious group in the world”; whereas there is no mention about the growth of these religions in the survey.
The Pew Research Centre claims to be “a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world”. They “conduct public opinion polling, demographic research, content analysis and other data-driven social science research”. Their mission statement says: “We are non-profit, non-partisan and non-advocacy. Our mission is to inform, not to prescribe. We believe that better information can build a better world.”
Given the great deal of news coming about from India recently about religious strife, the crackdown on minorities and the ban on religious conversions, it made sense for Pew to initiate this study. The Pew study was “a comprehensive in-depth exploration of India’s contemporary religious life. The report is based on interview of 29,999 Indian adults (including 22,975 who identify as Hindu, 3,336 who identify as Muslim, 1,782 who identify as Sikh, 1,011 who identify as Christian, 719 who identify as Buddhist, 109 who identify as Jain and 67 who identify as belonging to another religion or as religiously unaffiliated). Interviews for this nationally representative survey were conducted face-to-face from November 2019 to March 23, 2020. The questionnaire was developed in English and translated into 16 languages, independently verified by professional linguists with native proficiency in regional dialects”.
Please highlight from here till No. 10; but keep it here, not separate box
The key findings of the Pew study are:
- Indians value religious tolerance, though they also live religiously segregated lives.
- For many Hindus, national identity, religion, and language are closely connected.
- Among Hindus, views of national identity go hand-in-hand with politics.
- Dietary laws are central to Indians’ religious identity.
- Muslims favour having access to their own religious courts.
- Muslims are more likely than Hindus to say the 1947 partition establishing the separate states of India and Pakistan harmed Hindu-Muslim relations.
- India’s caste system, an ancient social hierarchy with origins in Hindu writings, continues to fracture society.
- Religious conversion is rare in India; to the extent that it is occurring; Hindus gain as many people as they lose.
- Most Indians believe in God and say religion is very important in their lives.
- India’s religious groups share several religious practices and beliefs.
For many, the findings of the Pew survey were not in line with ‘common knowledge’ or what political scientist Hilal Ahmed calls ‘experience-based individual anecdotes’. Former CEC, SY Quraishi commented: “I was a bit taken aback. I found these findings too good to be true. It seems there’s hardly any difference between Hindu and Muslims’ opinions.” Addressing panellists from Pew at a seminar, Quraishi quipped: “You mentioned it was random sampling, but it seems you landed up at the doors of very secular people.” Nevertheless, the survey is very important and the Pew Research Centre must be commended for carrying out such a comprehensive survey with complete transparency and integrity.
AGAINST GENERAL PERCEPTION
Perhaps the most controversial result of the Pew study concerns its finding related to religious discrimination under the first topic, “Religious freedom, discrimination and communal relations”.
The study says: “Most people in India do not see a lot of religious discrimination against any of the country’s six major religious groups. In general, Hindus, Muslims and Christians are slightly more likely to say there is a lot of discrimination against their own religious community than to say there is a lot of discrimination against people of other faiths. Still, no more than about one-quarter of the followers of any of the country’s major faiths say they face widespread discrimination”.
The study cites “large regional variations in perceptions of religious discrimination. For example, among Muslims who live in the Central part of the country, just one-in-ten say there is widespread discrimination against Muslims in India, compared with about one-third of those who live in the North (35%) and Northeast (31%)”.
Another contentious assertion by the survey relates to differing perception about discrimination based on religious observance. It says: “For instance, about a quarter of Muslims across the country who pray daily say there is a lot of discrimination against Muslims (26%), compared with 19% of Muslims nationwide who pray less often. This difference by observance is pronounced in the North, where 39% of Muslims who pray every day say there is a lot of discrimination against Muslims in India, roughly twice the share among those in the same region who pray less often (20%)”.
One explanation for the contrast in the Pew findings and popular opinion among Muslims regarding discrimination could be the result of extreme ghettoization in the Muslim community. The respondents may have never had much interaction with other communities and hence the question of discrimination might never have arisen in their life-experiences.
A VINDICATION FOR HINDUTVA
The Pew survey should please the advocates of Hindutva. The survey finds: “Nearly two-thirds of Hindus (64%) say it is very important to be Hindu to be truly Indian. Support for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is greater among Hindus who closely associate their religious identity and the Hindi language with being truly Indian. Nearly three-quarters of Hindus (72%) in India say a person cannot be Hindu if they eat beef. That is larger than the shares of Hindus who say a person cannot be Hindu if they do not believe in God (49%) or never go to a temple (48%).
Moreover, roughly two-thirds of Hindus say it is very important to stop Hindu women (67%) or Hindu men (65%) from marrying into other religious communities”.
Apart from vindicating the success and popularity of Hindutva politics practised by its ideological founders and implemented in governance by its political party, the Pew survey underscores their long held belief that Indian society is tolerant primarily because it is a Hindu society. The survey says: “85% of Hindus say respecting all religions is very important to being truly Indian. 80% Hindus say respecting other religions is a very important part of their religious identity”.
The only issue that might have displeased the self-proclaimed Hindu nationalists is the survey results pertaining to religious conversion wherein it finds: “This survey, though, finds that religious switching has a minimal impact on the size of religious groups. Across India, 98% of survey respondents give the same answer when asked to identify their current religion and, separately, their childhood religion. An overall pattern of stability in the share of religious groups is accompanied by little net change from movement into, or out of, most religious groups.”
The results of the Pew study about “Religion in India” need to be studied and analysed in more detail. All the findings offer ‘food for thought’ to social activists and faith leaders, including the top Muslim leadership. If the nation continues to tread on its current trajectory of authoritarianism and majoritarianism, its minorities and especially the Muslim community will continue to harbour the feeling of being ‘second-class citizens’ no matter which survey comes out with data that corroborates myths peddled by proponents of Hindutva who say that “India is one of the most inclusive societies in the world and that Muslims in India are safer than any other part of the world”.