84% Indians respect all religions but oppose interfaith marriages, finds Pew study

In a significant revelation, a Pew Research Centre report has found that 84% of Indians feel it is very important to respect all religions. People in all six major religious groups (Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains) have said that they are very free to practice their faiths and that people of other faiths also are very free to practice their own religion. The report's findings released on Wednesday, is based on a face-to-face survey of 29,999 Indian adults speaking 17 languages in 26 states, between late 2019 and early 2020 on topics like religious identity, nationalism and tolerance in Indian society.

Pew research: 84% Indians say 'respect other religions' 

However, most Indians prefer keeping religious communities segregated i.e against inter-faith marriages. As per the report, two-thirds of Hindus say it is very important to stop Hindu women (67%) or Hindu men (65%) from marrying into other religious communities while 80% Muslim men are against Muslim women marrying outside their religion. The study also finds that 64% Hindus say it is very important to be Hindu to be truly Indian, of which 80%  say it is very important to speak Hindi (more in North India than South). In the 2019 national elections, 60% of Hindu voters who think it is very important to be Hindu and to speak Hindi to be truly Indian cast their vote for the BJP, finds the report.

When it comes to India's multitude dietary restrictions, 72% Hindus say a person cannot be Hindu if they eat beef, while 77% Muslims say that a person cannot be Muslim if they eat pork. Surprisingly, 49% Hindus say a person cannot be Hindu if they do not believe in God, while 60% Muslims  say a person cannot be Muslim if they do not believe in God. Moreover, with Indian Muslims having their own religious courts (dar-ul-qaza), 74%  support having access to the existing system of Islamic courts. 

Talking about India's partition, 43% Hindus say Partition was beneficial for Hindu-Muslim relations, while 37% say it was harmful. On the other hand, 48% Muslims say it was a bad thing for Hindu-Muslim relations, while 30% say it was good. 66% of the Sikh population in Punjab, which was worst hit by Partition say it was bad for Hindu-Muslim relations. On discrimination, most people – including most members of lower castes – say there is not a lot of caste discrimination in India.

While several BJP-ruled states like UP, Assam, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka have passed anti-coversion laws, the survey finds that 98% of Indians follow the same religion since their childhood. Only 0.7% people say they were raised Hindu but now identify as something else and roughly the same share (0.8%) say they were not raised Hindu but now identify as Hindu. But 0.4% Christians are former Hindus while only 0.1% Christians have since left Christianity. Nearly all Indians say they believe in God (97%), with only Buddhists (30%) being the exception.