New Delhi: A pre-poll survey has shown that an overwhelming majority of Indians — 79 percent or 8 out of 10 people — believe that the country belongs to “citizens of all religions equally, not just Hindus”, and only 11 percent believe that India only belongs to the Hindu community.
Meanwhile, 10 percent held no opinion on India’s religious pluralism, according to the study conducted by the Lokniti programme of Delhi-based think tank Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) and published in The Hindu this week.
This comes at a time when fears of hardening Hindu majoritarianism and increased marginalisation of minorities are growing in the country.
A total of 10,019 respondents from across 19 states and Union territories participated in the Lokniti survey between 28 March and 8 April. They were from Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, New Delhi, Jharkhand, Telangana, and Chhattisgarh. The survey was conducted in 400 polling stations spread across 100 assembly seats in 100 parliamentary constituencies.
Encouraging findings from @LoknitiCSDS 2024 #prepoll: 79% believe 'India belongs to all religions equally, not just Hindus'. Urban areas (85%) and educated individuals (83%) show stronger support for plurality. pic.twitter.com/mncdjvUM4O
— Lokniti-CSDS (@LoknitiCSDS) April 12, 2024
These findings highlight that even if there’s a “sharp religious divide” in politics, it may not be true across society, Lokniti says in The Hindu report. Eighty-five percent of respondents from urban areas and 83 percent of educated individuals showed a strong support for religious pluralism. Moreover, more young people (18-25 years) — 81 percent — support the idea compared to 73 percent of those over 56 years of age.
Seventy-seven percent of respondents agreed that India belongs to citizens from all religions — 87 percent of Muslims and 81 percent of respondents from other religions held this view.
The study also shows that people in urban areas (85 percent of people in towns and 84 percent in cities) tended to believe more in religious pluralism than those in rural areas (76 percent).
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Ram Mandir and consolidation of Hindu identity
Over half of the respondents who identified as Hindu believe that the construction of the Ram Mandir would help consolidate Hindu identity but 25 percent said that it would not make much difference, the survey found.
It also found that of those who agreed it would consolidate the Hindu identity, 59 percent were upper caste Hindus, 55 percent were from the Other Backward Caste (OBC) group, 46 percent were Scheduled Caste, and 47 percent were Scheduled Tribe.
Thirty-two percent of Muslims and 22 percent of Hindus believed that the temple would lead to increased religious differences. Meanwhile, 13 percent of Muslims said it would increase the harmony between the two religious groups.
Overall, 27 percent of all respondents believe the temple would help increase religious harmony while 24 percent believe it would widen the divide between the Hindus and Muslims. Twenty percent of respondents held no opinion on the subject.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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