Indians are tolerant, enjoy religious freedom, Islam rising fastest and Christians to remain the largest religious group in the world: Pew study

[INDIAPOSITIVE]

NEW DELHI: A recent report by the Pew Research Center, a Washington DC-based nonpartisan think tank, has found that a majority of Indians enjoy religious freedom, value religious tolerance and believe that respect for all religions is central to the idea of India.

The Pew study is based on a face-to-face survey of 29,999 Indian adults between late 2019 and early 2020, weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world.




The Pew Research Center study highlights the new demographic projections which took into account the current size and geographic distribution of the world’s major religions, age differences, fertility and mortality rates, international migration, and patterns in conversion.

The Pew study also took a closer look at religious identity, nationalism and tolerance in Indian society. According to the Pew survey, people of all six major religious groups - Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jains, Sikhs and Buddhists-overwhelmingly believe they are very free to practice their faiths.




However, in what seems to be a contradiction, the majority in almost every religious group shows a preference for keeping religious communities segregated and "wants to live separately". The Pew Research Center survey in India was conducted in 17 languages and covered nearly all the states and Union Territories.

Religion important for Indians




-According to the Pew study, 97% of Indians believe in God and religion holds n important place for them.

-Around 80% of people in most religious groups say they are absolutely certain that God exists.

-Cow is regarded as a sacred animal by Hindus in India.

-72% of Hindus in India believe a person is not a Hindu if he or she eats beef. This percentage is higher than those Hindus who say a person cannot be Hindu if they do not believe in God (49%) or never go to a temple (48%).

-One-third of the Buddhists say they do not believe in God as belief in God is not central to the teachings of the religion.

-The Pew survey reveals that around 74% of Muslims want access to their own religious courts for resolving matters related to family and inheritance.

-Though, Indian Muslims have had the option of resolving family and inheritance-related cases in officially recognized Islamic courts, known as dar-ul-qaza since 1937 but the decisions of these religious courts are not legally binding.

-The Pew study also took into account the opinion of the people of India with regard to inter-religious marriage. According to this, 66 percent of Hindus are against getting married in another religion.

-Apart from this, 78 percent Muslims, 36 percent Christians, 47.5 percent Sikhs, 45 percent Buddhists and 62.5 percent Jains are also against marrying in another religion.

-Diwali is the biggest festival of Hindus. As per the Pew study, apart from 95 percent Hindus in India, 20 percent Muslims, 31 percent Christians, 90 percent Sikhs, 79 percent Buddhists and 98 percent of Jains celebrate the festival of Diwali, and from these figures, one can understand that there is a brotherhood among all religions in India.

-India will retain a Hindu majority but also will have the largest Muslim population of any country in the world, surpassing Indonesia, according to the Pew study.

-Worldwide, the Hindu population is projected to rise by 34%, from a little over 1 billion to nearly 1.4 billion, roughly keeping pace with overall population growth.

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

Major projections of Pew study


The Pew study said that the religious profile of the world is rapidly changing, driven primarily by differences in fertility rates and the size of youth populations among the world’s major religions, as well as by people switching faiths. Over the next four decades, Christians will remain the largest religious group, but Islam will grow faster than any other major religion. If current trends continue, by 2050 -

-The number of Muslims will nearly equal the number of Christians around the world.

-Atheists, agnostics and other people who do not affiliate with any religion – though increasing in countries such as the United States and France – will make up a declining share of the world’s total population.

-The global Buddhist population will be about the same size it was in 2010, while the Hindu and Jewish populations will be larger than they are today.

-In Europe, Muslims will make up 10% of the overall population.

-In the United States, Christians will decline from more than three-quarters of the population in 2010 to two-thirds in 2050, and Judaism will no longer be the largest non-Christian religion.

-Muslims will be more numerous in the US than people who identify as Jewish on the basis of religion.

-Four out of every 10 Christians in the world will live in sub-Saharan Africa.



The Pew study further stated that if current demographic trends continue, Islam will nearly catch up by the middle of the 21st century. Between 2010 and 2050, the world’s total population is expected to rise to 9.3 billion, a 35% increase.

According to the study, by 2050 there will be near parity between Muslims (2.8 billion, or 30% of the population) and Christians (2.9 billion, or 31%), possibly for the first time in history.

The global Buddhist population is expected to be fairly stable because of low fertility rates and aging populations in countries such as China, Thailand and Japan.

(Facts, figures & projections based on Pew study)

Indians are tolerant, enjoy religious freedom, Islam rising fastest and Christians to remain the largest religious group in the world: Pew study

The Pew Research Center survey took a closer look at religious identity, nationalism and tolerance in Indian society. According to the Pew survey, people of all six major religious groups - Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jains, Sikhs and Buddhists- overwhelmingly believe they are very free to...

zeenews.india.com

 

[El Sidd]

30,000 Indians are too small a sample size.

 

[PradoTLC]

Bullcrap

 

[beijingwalker]

People of which caste did they poll?

 

[terry5]

Nice .
above all is GOD .

 

[Vanguard One]

Image for representational purpose only


South India more inclusive, says Pew Center report on religious attitudes in the country.

Most Indians, cutting across religions, feel they enjoy religious freedom, value religious tolerance, and regard respect for all religions as central to what India is as a nation. At the same time, in what might seem like a contradiction, the majority in each of the major religious groups show a marked preference for religious segregation and “want to live separately”, according to a nation-wide survey on religious attitudes, behaviours and beliefs conducted by Pew Research Center, a non-profit based in Washington DC.

For instance, the report found that 91% of Hindus felt they have religious freedom, while 85% of them believed that respecting all religions was very important ‘to being truly Indian’. Also, for most Hindus, religious tolerance was not just a civic virtue but also a religious value, with 80% of them stating that respecting other religions was an integral aspect of ‘being Hindu’. Other religions showed similar numbers for freedom of religion and religious tolerance. While 89% of Muslims and Christians said they felt free to practice their religion, the comparative figures for Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains were 82%, 93%, and 85% respectively.

On the question of religious tolerance, 78% of Muslims felt it was an essential aspect of being Indian, while 79% deemed it a part of their religious identity as Muslims. Other religious denominations scored similarly high on religious tolerance.

The survey also revealed a number of shared beliefs that cut across religious barriers. For example, while 77% of Hindus said they believed in karma, an identical percentage of Muslims said so as well. Also, 32% of Christians (along with 81% of Hindus) believed in the purifying power of the Ganga, while the majority in all the major faiths said respecting elders is very important to their religion.

Index of religious segregation
And yet, paradoxically, despite these shared values and a high regard for religious tolerance, the majority in all the faiths scored poorly on the metrics for religious segregation: composition of friends circle, views on stopping inter-religious marriage, and willingness to accept people of other religions as neighbours.

The report, observing that “in India, a person’s religion is typically also the religion of that person’s close friends”, states that relatively few Indians (13%) had a mixed friends circle. Nearly half (47%) of Hindus said that all their close friends shared their religious identity, while 39% said most of their friends were fellow Hindus. The comparative figures for other faiths were 45% and 44% for Muslims, 22% and 56% for Christians, 25% and 56% for Sikhs, and 22% and 52% for Buddhists. In other words, people belonging to smaller religious groups were less likely than Hindus and Muslims to say that all their friends were of the same religion.

On the question of inter-religious marriage, most Hindus (67%), Muslims (80%), Sikhs (59%), and Jains (66%) felt it was ‘very important’ to stop the women in their community from marrying outside their religion (similar rates of opposition to men marrying outside religion). But considerably fewer Christians (37%) and Buddhists (46%) felt this way.


As for the third metric, the majorities in all the religious groups were, hypothetically, willing to accept members of other religious groups as neighbours, but a significant number had reservations. Among Hindus, most were willing to live near a member of a religious minority, such as Muslim (57%), a Christian (59%), or a Jain (59%). But altogether 36% of Hindus said they would not be willing to live near a Muslim, with 31% saying the same for Christians. Jains were even more likely to express such views, with 54% saying they would not accept a Muslim neighbour, and 47% saying the same about Christians.

In contrast, Buddhists were most likely to voice acceptance of other religious groups as neighbours, with roughly 80% of them wiling to accept a Muslim, Christian, Sikh or Jain as a neighbour, and even more (89%) ready to accept a Hindu neighbour. About 78% of Muslims said they would be willing to have a Hindu as a neighbour.

Interestingly, the survey found that Hindus who voted for the BJP in the 2019 elections tended to be less accepting of religious minorities in their neighbourhood. Only about half of the Hindus who voted for the BJP said they would accept a Muslim (51%) or a Christian (53%) as neighbours, compared with higher shares of those who voted for other parties (64% and 67% respectively).

Geography was a key factor in determining attitudes, with people in the south of India more religiously integrated and less opposed to inter-religious marriages. People in the South “are less likely than those in other regions to say all their close friends share their religion (29%),” noted the report. Among Hindus in the South, 31% said that all their close friends were Hindu, compared to 47% of Hindus nationally. An even lower number of Muslims in the South (19%) said that all their friends were Muslim, while 45% of Muslims across the country said all their close friends were fellow Muslims.

Religious identity and nationalism
The survey also found that Hindus tend to see their religious identity and Indian national identity as closely intertwined, with 64% saying that it was ‘very important’ to be Hindu to be “truly” Indian. Most Hindus (59%) also linked Indian identity with being able to speak Hindi. And among Hindus who believed it was very important to be Hindu in order to be truly Indian, a full 80% also believed it was very important to speak Hindi to be truly Indian. About 60% of Hindu voters who linked Indian identity to being Hindu and speaking in Hindi voted for the BJP, compared with only a third among Hindu voters for whom these aspects did not matter for national identity.

Southern deviation
The survey found that nationally, three-in-ten Hindus took both these positions: linking being Hindu and speaking Hindi to being Indian, and voting for BJP. But again, there was a clear geographical skew in their distribution: while roughly half of the Hindu voters in northern and central India fell into this category, only 5% of Hindu voters in the South did so.

Also, Hindu nationalist sentiments were less prevalent in the South. Among Hindus, those in the South (42%) were far less likely than those in Central states (83%) or the North (69%) to say that being Hindu was very important to being truly Indian. Also, people in the South were somewhat less religious than those in other regions: 69% said religion was very important to their lives, while 92% in Central India held the same view. Only 37% of Indians in the South said they prayed every day, compared to more than half of the Indians surveyed in the other regions.

The Pew Center’s survey of religion across India is based on nearly 30,000 face-to-face interviews of adults conducted in 17 languages from November 17, 2019 to March 23, 2020. The largest such survey in India till date, it covers the experiences and attitudes of Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, Sikhs and Jains.

The themes covered by the survey include religious identity, beliefs and practices, views on Indian national identity, caste, experiences with discrimination, religious conversion, and the connection between economic development and religious observance.

Indians value religious freedom and tolerance but not great at integration, finds Pew survey

South India more inclusive, says Pew Center report on religious attitudes in the country.

www.thehindu.com

 

[fallstuff]

View attachment 758851
Image for representational purpose only


South India more inclusive, says Pew Center report on religious attitudes in the country.

Most Indians, cutting across religions, feel they enjoy religious freedom, value religious tolerance, and regard respect for all religions as central to what India is as a nation. At the same time, in what might seem like a contradiction, the majority in each of the major religious groups show a marked preference for religious segregation and “want to live separately”, according to a nation-wide survey on religious attitudes, behaviours and beliefs conducted by Pew Research Center, a non-profit based in Washington DC.

For instance, the report found that 91% of Hindus felt they have religious freedom, while 85% of them believed that respecting all religions was very important ‘to being truly Indian’. Also, for most Hindus, religious tolerance was not just a civic virtue but also a religious value, with 80% of them stating that respecting other religions was an integral aspect of ‘being Hindu’. Other religions showed similar numbers for freedom of religion and religious tolerance. While 89% of Muslims and Christians said they felt free to practice their religion, the comparative figures for Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains were 82%, 93%, and 85% respectively.

On the question of religious tolerance, 78% of Muslims felt it was an essential aspect of being Indian, while 79% deemed it a part of their religious identity as Muslims. Other religious denominations scored similarly high on religious tolerance.

The survey also revealed a number of shared beliefs that cut across religious barriers. For example, while 77% of Hindus said they believed in karma, an identical percentage of Muslims said so as well. Also, 32% of Christians (along with 81% of Hindus) believed in the purifying power of the Ganga, while the majority in all the major faiths said respecting elders is very important to their religion.

Index of religious segregation
And yet, paradoxically, despite these shared values and a high regard for religious tolerance, the majority in all the faiths scored poorly on the metrics for religious segregation: composition of friends circle, views on stopping inter-religious marriage, and willingness to accept people of other religions as neighbours.

The report, observing that “in India, a person’s religion is typically also the religion of that person’s close friends”, states that relatively few Indians (13%) had a mixed friends circle. Nearly half (47%) of Hindus said that all their close friends shared their religious identity, while 39% said most of their friends were fellow Hindus. The comparative figures for other faiths were 45% and 44% for Muslims, 22% and 56% for Christians, 25% and 56% for Sikhs, and 22% and 52% for Buddhists. In other words, people belonging to smaller religious groups were less likely than Hindus and Muslims to say that all their friends were of the same religion.

View attachment 758852

On the question of inter-religious marriage, most Hindus (67%), Muslims (80%), Sikhs (59%), and Jains (66%) felt it was ‘very important’ to stop the women in their community from marrying outside their religion (similar rates of opposition to men marrying outside religion). But considerably fewer Christians (37%) and Buddhists (46%) felt this way.


As for the third metric, the majorities in all the religious groups were, hypothetically, willing to accept members of other religious groups as neighbours, but a significant number had reservations. Among Hindus, most were willing to live near a member of a religious minority, such as Muslim (57%), a Christian (59%), or a Jain (59%). But altogether 36% of Hindus said they would not be willing to live near a Muslim, with 31% saying the same for Christians. Jains were even more likely to express such views, with 54% saying they would not accept a Muslim neighbour, and 47% saying the same about Christians.

In contrast, Buddhists were most likely to voice acceptance of other religious groups as neighbours, with roughly 80% of them wiling to accept a Muslim, Christian, Sikh or Jain as a neighbour, and even more (89%) ready to accept a Hindu neighbour. About 78% of Muslims said they would be willing to have a Hindu as a neighbour.

Interestingly, the survey found that Hindus who voted for the BJP in the 2019 elections tended to be less accepting of religious minorities in their neighbourhood. Only about half of the Hindus who voted for the BJP said they would accept a Muslim (51%) or a Christian (53%) as neighbours, compared with higher shares of those who voted for other parties (64% and 67% respectively).

Geography was a key factor in determining attitudes, with people in the south of India more religiously integrated and less opposed to inter-religious marriages. People in the South “are less likely than those in other regions to say all their close friends share their religion (29%),” noted the report. Among Hindus in the South, 31% said that all their close friends were Hindu, compared to 47% of Hindus nationally. An even lower number of Muslims in the South (19%) said that all their friends were Muslim, while 45% of Muslims across the country said all their close friends were fellow Muslims.

Religious identity and nationalism
The survey also found that Hindus tend to see their religious identity and Indian national identity as closely intertwined, with 64% saying that it was ‘very important’ to be Hindu to be “truly” Indian. Most Hindus (59%) also linked Indian identity with being able to speak Hindi. And among Hindus who believed it was very important to be Hindu in order to be truly Indian, a full 80% also believed it was very important to speak Hindi to be truly Indian. About 60% of Hindu voters who linked Indian identity to being Hindu and speaking in Hindi voted for the BJP, compared with only a third among Hindu voters for whom these aspects did not matter for national identity.

Southern deviation
The survey found that nationally, three-in-ten Hindus took both these positions: linking being Hindu and speaking Hindi to being Indian, and voting for BJP. But again, there was a clear geographical skew in their distribution: while roughly half of the Hindu voters in northern and central India fell into this category, only 5% of Hindu voters in the South did so.

Also, Hindu nationalist sentiments were less prevalent in the South. Among Hindus, those in the South (42%) were far less likely than those in Central states (83%) or the North (69%) to say that being Hindu was very important to being truly Indian. Also, people in the South were somewhat less religious than those in other regions: 69% said religion was very important to their lives, while 92% in Central India held the same view. Only 37% of Indians in the South said they prayed every day, compared to more than half of the Indians surveyed in the other regions.

The Pew Center’s survey of religion across India is based on nearly 30,000 face-to-face interviews of adults conducted in 17 languages from November 17, 2019 to March 23, 2020. The largest such survey in India till date, it covers the experiences and attitudes of Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, Sikhs and Jains.

The themes covered by the survey include religious identity, beliefs and practices, views on Indian national identity, caste, experiences with discrimination, religious conversion, and the connection between economic development and religious observance.

Indians value religious freedom and tolerance but not great at integration, finds Pew survey

South India more inclusive, says Pew Center report on religious attitudes in the country.

www.thehindu.com

With all these anti-conversion laws how can one practices religion without registering with the state ?

 

[Drizzt]

NEW DELHI: A recent report by the Pew Research Center, a Washington DC-based nonpartisan think tank, has found that a majority of Indians enjoy religious freedom, value religious tolerance and believe that respect for all religions is central to the idea of India.

The Pew study is based on a face-to-face survey of 29,999 Indian adults between late 2019 and early 2020, weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world.




The Pew Research Center study highlights the new demographic projections which took into account the current size and geographic distribution of the world’s major religions, age differences, fertility and mortality rates, international migration, and patterns in conversion.

The Pew study also took a closer look at religious identity, nationalism and tolerance in Indian society. According to the Pew survey, people of all six major religious groups - Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jains, Sikhs and Buddhists-overwhelmingly believe they are very free to practice their faiths.




However, in what seems to be a contradiction, the majority in almost every religious group shows a preference for keeping religious communities segregated and "wants to live separately". The Pew Research Center survey in India was conducted in 17 languages and covered nearly all the states and Union Territories.

Religion important for Indians




-According to the Pew study, 97% of Indians believe in God and religion holds n important place for them.

-Around 80% of people in most religious groups say they are absolutely certain that God exists.

-Cow is regarded as a sacred animal by Hindus in India.

-72% of Hindus in India believe a person is not a Hindu if he or she eats beef. This percentage is higher than those Hindus who say a person cannot be Hindu if they do not believe in God (49%) or never go to a temple (48%).

-One-third of the Buddhists say they do not believe in God as belief in God is not central to the teachings of the religion.

-The Pew survey reveals that around 74% of Muslims want access to their own religious courts for resolving matters related to family and inheritance.

-Though, Indian Muslims have had the option of resolving family and inheritance-related cases in officially recognized Islamic courts, known as dar-ul-qaza since 1937 but the decisions of these religious courts are not legally binding.

-The Pew study also took into account the opinion of the people of India with regard to inter-religious marriage. According to this, 66 percent of Hindus are against getting married in another religion.

-Apart from this, 78 percent Muslims, 36 percent Christians, 47.5 percent Sikhs, 45 percent Buddhists and 62.5 percent Jains are also against marrying in another religion.

-Diwali is the biggest festival of Hindus. As per the Pew study, apart from 95 percent Hindus in India, 20 percent Muslims, 31 percent Christians, 90 percent Sikhs, 79 percent Buddhists and 98 percent of Jains celebrate the festival of Diwali, and from these figures, one can understand that there is a brotherhood among all religions in India.

-India will retain a Hindu majority but also will have the largest Muslim population of any country in the world, surpassing Indonesia, according to the Pew study.

-Worldwide, the Hindu population is projected to rise by 34%, from a little over 1 billion to nearly 1.4 billion, roughly keeping pace with overall population growth.

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

Major projections of Pew study


The Pew study said that the religious profile of the world is rapidly changing, driven primarily by differences in fertility rates and the size of youth populations among the world’s major religions, as well as by people switching faiths. Over the next four decades, Christians will remain the largest religious group, but Islam will grow faster than any other major religion. If current trends continue, by 2050 -

-The number of Muslims will nearly equal the number of Christians around the world.

-Atheists, agnostics and other people who do not affiliate with any religion – though increasing in countries such as the United States and France – will make up a declining share of the world’s total population.

-The global Buddhist population will be about the same size it was in 2010, while the Hindu and Jewish populations will be larger than they are today.

-In Europe, Muslims will make up 10% of the overall population.

-In the United States, Christians will decline from more than three-quarters of the population in 2010 to two-thirds in 2050, and Judaism will no longer be the largest non-Christian religion.

-Muslims will be more numerous in the US than people who identify as Jewish on the basis of religion.

-Four out of every 10 Christians in the world will live in sub-Saharan Africa.



The Pew study further stated that if current demographic trends continue, Islam will nearly catch up by the middle of the 21st century. Between 2010 and 2050, the world’s total population is expected to rise to 9.3 billion, a 35% increase.

According to the study, by 2050 there will be near parity between Muslims (2.8 billion, or 30% of the population) and Christians (2.9 billion, or 31%), possibly for the first time in history.

The global Buddhist population is expected to be fairly stable because of low fertility rates and aging populations in countries such as China, Thailand and Japan.

(Facts, figures & projections based on Pew study)

Indians are tolerant, enjoy religious freedom, Islam rising fastest and Christians to remain the largest religious group in the world: Pew study

The Pew Research Center survey took a closer look at religious identity, nationalism and tolerance in Indian society. According to the Pew survey, people of all six major religious groups - Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jains, Sikhs and Buddhists- overwhelmingly believe they are very free to...

zeenews.india.com

@jamahir @xeuss

How accurate is this religious survey ? Does it reflect reality in your experience?

 

[Jobless Jack]

I have found south indians to be far MORE educated and generally tolerable then regular indians.

 

[HalfMoon]

I have found south indians to be far MORE educated and generally tolerable then regular indians.

Yes. I agree. South Indians and Sikhs are the easiest to convert to Islam or Christianity.

 

[jamahir]

@jamahir @xeuss

How accurate is this religious survey ? Does it reflect reality in your experience?

Hello Drizzt, I am logging-off now. Will reply to your post tomorrow.

 

[Samurai_assassin]

Yes. I agree. South Indians and Sikhs are the easiest to convert to Islam or Christianity.

In Punjab Christianity is taking root. Many sikhs are converting to Christianity.

 

[hussain0216]

India is a utter hindutva extremist communal shithole

Anyone who says anything dosent know India or Indians

 

[xeuss]

@jamahir @xeuss

How accurate is this religious survey ? Does it reflect reality in your experience?

As individuals, Hindus are generally very tolerant and respectful of Muslim beliefs and customs. This, despite the current trend in India to curtail Muslim religious practices as a political and state-sanctioned effort.

It is only when they become a mob, their mentality changes and their tolerance goes out the window and the "devil" within them is unleashed.

 

[khansaheeb]

30,000 Indians are too small a sample size.

What's wrong with a sample size of 0.002%?