There seems to be a consensus that the 2024 Lok Sabha election is a done deal, especially after Ram Lalla’s consecration in the Ayodhya temple. And nobody looks more convinced than the constituents of INDIA, the opposition alliance. Look at their activities and pronouncements. They remind you of former diplomat Ronen Sen’s “headless chickens”—confused and panicky. They declined invitation to the ceremony calling it a ‘political project’ but were visiting temples and monasteries on Monday.
A big hoarding outside the Congress office in Bhopal had Lord Ram’s picture along with smaller photographs of Congress leaders. It read: Rajiv Gandhi ka sapna hua saakaar, Ram mandir ne liya aakaar (Rajiv Gandhi’s dream has been realized, Ram temple has come in place). Congress-led Himachal Pradesh government declared a public holiday to celebrate Ram Lalla’s pran pratishtha ceremony. Leaders of many other parties have declared their plan to visit the Ayodhya temple soon.
At the root of this panic and crisis of conviction is the perception that Ram Lalla’s pran pratishtha has made Prime Minister Narendra Modi invincible and solidified Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) claim over Hindu votes. But how correct is it? We may get some clues from a Pew Research Center (PRC) survey of religion in India. Conducted between November 2019 and March 2020, it provides a brilliant insight into the mindset of the people who voted for the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Let’s look at the survey findings based on face-to-face interviews with 29,999 adults.
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Hindu-Hindi BJP voters
Do you have to be a Hindu to be “truly” Indian? Over 39 crore Hindus–nearly 64 per cent of the 61.5 crore estimated Hindu adult population as per 2011 census–said yes.
Out of the said 39 crore Hindus, 80 per cent ( 31.5 crore) said it was very important to speak Hindi to be truly Indian. As per the survey, in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, 60 per cent (18.91 crore) of Hindu voters who believed it was very important to be a Hindu and speak Hindi to be truly Indian cast their vote for the BJP. In a nutshell, extrapolating the PRC survey findings, it can be inferred that nearly 20 out of 23 crore people who voted for the BJP in 2019 were Hindus who think being Hindu and speaking Hindi are criteria for being truly Indian.
Mind you, the figure of 20 crores is derived by extrapolating the Hindu-Hindi-truly-Indian voters’ samples from the total adult population as per the 2011 Census, not just the electorate. The survey findings only revalidate the fact that Hindu-Hindi believers constitute the core of the BJP’s support base.
The survey threw up some other pointers that should help us assess the possible political and electoral impact of the Ayodhya event:
- The survey asked all Indian Hindus about which god they feel closest to. The result showed that 44 per cent feel closest to Shiva, 35 per cent to Hanuman, 32 per cent to Ganesha, 28 per cent to Lakshmi, 21 per cent to Krishna, 20 per cent to Kali, and 17 per cent to Ram. Notably, sentiments of closeness for Lord Ram are particularly strong in the Central region at 27 per cent, compared to 20 per cent in the North, 15 per cent in the East, 12 percent in the West, 13 per cent in the South, and 5 per cent in the Northeast.
- Most Indian Hindus (84 per cent) consider religion very important in their life. Region-wise, the lowest percentage of such people is in the South–69 per cent.
- 59 per cent of the Hindus pray daily. The percentage is 37 per cent in the South.
- Among Hindu BJP voters who link national identity with both religion and language, 95 per cent consider religion as very important in their lives. And 73 per cent of them pray daily. Among other Hindu voters, 80 per cent find religion very important in their lives, and 53 per cent of them pray daily.
- 45 per cent Hindus are fine with having neighbours of all other religions–Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, and Jain. However, an identical share (45 per cent) would not be willing to accept followers of at least one of these groups.
- 36 per cent of Hindus do not want a Muslim as a neighbour.
- Among Indian adults, 53 per cent (and 52 per cent of Hindus) believe that religious diversity benefits the country. While 24 per cent see it as harming the country, the other 24 per cent have no opinion.
As per the PRC findings, Indians are enthusiastic about religious tolerance and simultaneously prefer segregated spheres for different religious communities. “These two sentiments may seem paradoxical, but for many Indians, they are not,” said the PRC survey report.
Similarly, among Hindus who told PRC surveyors that it was very important to stop the interreligious marriage of Hindu women, 82 per cent said that respecting other religions is a very important aspect of Hindu identity. These sentiments are equally paradoxical.
It is in these paradoxes that the Opposition parties’ dilemma lies. If 36 per cent of Hindus don’t want a Muslim as their neighbour and 45 per cent would rather not have a person of another religion as their neighbour, how would they react to the Opposition parties’ secularism? If only 53 per cent of citizens believe that religious diversity is good for India, how would the Opposition’s emphasis on diversity and pluralism resonate with them? If religion is so important in the lives of 84 per cent of the Hindus, and even 80 per cent of non-BJP voters, how effective would be the Opposition leaders’ argument about the BJP mixing politics with religion?
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Regional breakdown, paradoxes
The Opposition can draw solace from the finding that among those who voted in the 2019 general elections, only three in ten were Hindu-Hindi-truly-Indian BJP voters. That may indicate the BJP’s geographical limitations. What must, however, worry them is the finding that 64 per cent of Hindus in India consider “being Hindu” very important to be “truly Indian”, even though the regional breakdown varies. In the North, they make up for 69 per cent; 83 per cent in central India; 65 per cent in the East; 61 per cent in West ; 42 per cent in the South and 39 per cent in the Northeast.
Mind you, the survey was conducted about four years ago. These percentages are likely to see an upward revision after the much-hyped consecration ceremony on Monday. PRC survey findings give an inkling of why opposition parties, especially the Congress, find it so difficult to take on the BJP in northern, central, and western India. Given how the BJP sought to spread the Ram temple fervour to the south–with Modi spending days in southern states to visit temples associated with Lord Ram–the opposition had better brace up for a challenge in the South, too.
Until the Opposition parties figure out the paradoxes of the Hindus indicated in the PRC findings, they will continue to rush from one temple to another every time the BJP launches another expansion–political or ideological–project. Modi’s “Dev se Desh and Ram se Rashtra” message from Ayodhya on Monday is likely to have a huge appeal in a country where 64 per cent of the Hindus think that being Hindu is very important to be truly Indian. Opposition leaders can only hope that these are all Modi-driven sentiments, which will subside after he hangs up his boots.
DK Singh is Political Editor at ThePrint. Views are personal.