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Pew Forum Survey of India: Religion in India, Tolerance and Segregation
Pew conducted what seems like an exhaustive survey of India. They:
Surveyed 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 under the direction of RTI International from Nov. 17, 2019, to March 23, 2020.
So that’s almost 30,000 people (why did they hold back?) – and the results are fascinating. I suspect they’re also frustrating for people (both sides of the political spectrum) who are more comfortable making claims without evidence, with the loudest voices carrying the day.
To set it up for you, 81% of the adults in India are Hindu (615 million), 12.9% Muslim (97 million), 2.4% Christian (18m), 1.9% Sikh (5 m), 0.7% Buddhist (4 M), 0.4% Jain (3 m) and 0.6% Other (4 M).
What PEW led with – religious tolerance:
Indians see religious tolerance as a central part of who they are as a nation. Across the major religious groups, most people say it is very important to respect all religions to be “truly Indian.” And tolerance is a religious as well as civic value: Indians are united in the view that respecting other religions is a very important part of what it means to be a member of their own religious community.
These shared values are accompanied by a number of beliefs that cross religious lines. Not only do a majority of Hindus in India (77%) believe in karma, but an identical percentage of Muslims do, too. A third of Christians in India (32%)…say they believe in the purifying power of the Ganges…In Northern India, 12% of Hindus and 10% of Sikhs, along with 37% of Muslims, identity with Sufism, a mystical tradition most closely associated with Islam. And the vast majority of Indians of all major religious backgrounds say that respecting elders is very important to their faith.
Yet, despite sharing certain values and religious beliefs – as well as living in the same country, under the same constitution – members of India’s major religious communities often don’t feel they have much in common with one another. The majority of Hindus see themselves as very different from Muslims (66%), and most Muslims return the sentiment, saying they are very different from Hindus (64%)….generally, people in India’s major religious communities tend to see themselves as very different from others.
…Many Indians, across a range of religious groups, say it is very important to stop people in their community from marrying into other religious groups….Indians generally stick to their own religious group when it comes to their friends…many would prefer to keep people of certain religions out of their residential areas or villages.
Strangely:
Indians, then, simultaneously express enthusiasm for religious tolerance and a consistent preference for keeping their religious communities in segregated spheres..Indians who favor a religiously segregated society also overwhelmingly emphasize religious tolerance as a core value. For example, among Hindus who say it is very important to stop the interreligious marriage of Hindu women, 82% also say that respecting other religions is very important to what it means to be Hindu…
National identity:
The survey finds that Hindus tend to see their religious identity and Indian national identity as closely intertwined: Nearly two-thirds of Hindus (64%) say it is very important to be Hindu to be “truly” Indian…
Even though Hindu BJP voters who link national identity with religion and language are more inclined to support a religiously segregated India, they also are more likely than other Hindu voters to express positive opinions about India’s religious diversity. Nearly two-thirds (65%) of this group… say religious diversity benefits India, compared with about half (47%) of other Hindu voters.
Xenophobic streak:
…the survey also asked respondents if they completely agree, mostly agree, mostly disagree or completely disagree with the statement “Indian people are not perfect, but Indian culture is superior to others.”
An overwhelming majority of Indians agree with the statement (90%), including 72% who completely agree. Three-quarters of Hindus and roughly the same share of Buddhists (73%) completely agree that Indian culture is superior to others. Among other religious minority groups, somewhat fewer people share this sentiment – about half of Christians (52%) completely agree Indian culture is superior, as do 63% of Muslims and 57% of Sikhs.
Caste:
Most Indians from other castes say they would be willing to have someone belonging to a Scheduled Caste as a neighbor (72%). But a similarly large majority of Indians overall (70%) say that most or all of their close friends share their caste. And Indians tend to object to marriages across caste lines, much as they object to interreligious marriages.3
Overall, 64% of Indians say it is very important to stop women in their community from marrying into other castes, and about the same share (62%) say it is very important to stop men in their community from marrying into other castes. These figures vary only modestly across members of different castes.
Religiosity:
the vast majority of Indians, across all major faiths, say that religion is very important in their lives. And at least three-quarters of each major religion’s followers say they know a great deal about their own religion and its practices
Belief in God:
Nearly all Indians say they believe in God (97%), and roughly 80% of people in most religious groups say they are absolutely certain that God exists.
Diet is important:
Hindus are divided on whether beliefs and practices such as believing in God, praying and going to the temple are necessary to be a Hindu. But one behavior that a clear majority of Indian Hindus feel is incompatible with Hinduism is eating beef: 72% of Hindus in India say a person who eats beef cannot be a Hindu…
Three-quarters of Indian Muslims (77%) say that a person cannot be Muslim if they eat pork, which is even higher than the share who say a person cannot be Muslim if they do not believe in God (60%) or never attend mosque (61%).
So there’s that.
Disturbingly:
Slightly fewer than half of Indians say that the country should rely on a democratic form of government to solve the country’s problems (46%). The other half say that it would be better for the country to have a leader with a strong hand (48%)…
This ambivalence toward democracy exists to some degree among all the country’s religious groups. In the Pew Research Center survey, among Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Jains, there is no clear majority position on this question. Only among Buddhists (57%) and Sikhs (54%) do more than half of adults express a preference for a democratic form of government.
Regional differences are more stark. Fully six-in-ten Indians in the Central region say that a leader with a strong hand is best suited to solving India’s problems, compared with only one-third who prefer a democratic form of government. The opposite is true in the Northeast, where about six-in-ten adults prefer democracy (61%). There also is a modest gap between urban and rural regions, with half of urban residents (50%) preferring democracy, compared with 44% of adults in rural districts.
It’s very interesting, and the first time that I have seen these kinds of statistics across the country for these beliefs and positions. Some of it good, some of it depressing, but it is what it is. If you’re interested in India, do have a look.
Published in General
I think it’s worth putting in some effort there before drawing any conclusions. I realise the whole thing is quite political, not least due to culture war compulsions, but that’s my thought.
I suspect it’s more correlation than causality – what’s the mechanism?
City Journal on the subject (and also debunking the used to be married thing):
https://www.city-journal.org/html/why-we-don’t-marry-12215.html?wallit_nosession=1
From which:
Romance is literally the stupidest thing to base marriage on. It’s important in its place, but romance is something you infuse into a marriage built on something else.
The idea that marriage is romantic has destroyed more marriages than financial trouble has at this point in time. It is the most destructive concept the Boomer generation added to modern culture.
Financial stability is an incredible, built in prerequisite for marriage.
One of the efforts put through in the 1960s and 70s, obstensibly to protect women and children from men, was to only offer special housing to women and children as long as no man was present. The WIC and welfare to single mothers has continued this dastardly policy. Back in the mid 00s, Atlantic put out an expose interviewing several black women and their non-incarcerated baby daddies on the reasons they were separated. One of the men outright said that it isn’t that he doesn’t want to be with my family, but that their current arrangement was the only way they would have been able to provide for them. The arrangement? She was living with her mother and grandmother and a new boyfriend with his two kids while he was living with another woman and her kid. See, as boyfriends, the women are still single. And more benefits come to a kid not living with both parents. Once the woman has a baby by current boyfriend, he’d have to go to keep welfare coming in.
So why is it that black men can’t make enough, on average, to support their families? To deal with that reality would make liberal heads explode and it’s why Trump did as well as he did with that demographic (black men providers the increase in support).
The IQ of the group, as a whole, is lower than other demographics. The push to shove everyone through college and then lowering standards to prove “not racist!” has been destructive to both blacks and everyone else. The destruction of careers and jobs for high school graduates, removing technical paths from high schools, and the flooding of the market with low-wage workers via immigration has harmed blacks more than any other demographic, even while still harming a good number of white men, as well.
The black community and how liberals have completely altered education and the destruction of the job market for high school graduates are two of the primary reasons why knowing the reality of IQ is critical to the creation of policy.
The government does not need to know what any one individual’s IQ is, but the absolutely need to be making policy that cares for the wide range of IQs in their population. And before changing everything because of one demographic not reaching the same heights of achievement as other demographics, considering the group IQ and what is a realistic expectation without putting barriers in place to prevent the brightest from succeeding.