Religion in India: Tolerance and Segregation https://www.pewforum.org/2021/06/29/religion-in-india-tolerance-and-segregation/
Indians say it is important to respect all religions, but major religious groups see little in common and want to live separately
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.
The dimensions of Hindu nationalism in India
Most Hindus in India say being Hindu, being able to speak Hindi are very important to be ‘truly’ IndianOne of these religious fault lines – the relationship between India’s Hindu majority and the country’s smaller religious communities – has particular relevance in public life, especially in recent years under the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the BJP is often described as promoting a Hindu nationalist ideology.
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.
Support for BJP higher among Hindu voters who link being Hindu, speaking Hindi with Indian identity Most Hindus (59%) also link Indian identity with being able to speak Hindi – one of dozens of languages that are widely spoken in India. And these two dimensions of national identity – being able to speak Hindi and being a Hindu – are closely connected. Among Hindus who say it is very important to be Hindu to be truly Indian, fully 80% also say it is very important to speak Hindi to be truly Indian.
Unpacking Religion in India: Bangalore International Centre organised a Webinar on the Pew Report :Dr. Neha Sahgal is associate director of research at Pew Research Center, specializing in international polling on religion. presented the report: https://youtube.com/embed/d-jiLwnlank?start=172&end=1130
On Discrimination there seems to be a contradiction. Few people feel discrimination is an issue. what they understand by discrimination is normalised or internalised..segregation is not discrimination . like caste discrimination.. Is there a lot of discrimation was the question no middle option was given.. https://youtube.com/embed/d-jiLwnlank?start=1154&end=1375
On North South Divide: https://youtube.com/embed/d-jiLwnlank?start=1386&end=1503 Big gulf between North, Central and South: India when we take all the three factors, ie Being Hindu, Hindi and voted for BJP which is average 30%. In north roughly half of Hindus, in South it falls to 5%.
Interviews: how they were held: https://youtube.com/embed/d-jiLwnlank?start=1505&end=1711
On the question of Indian saying they respect the diversity, but will not intermarry.. Ghasala Wahab https://youtube.com/embed/d-jiLwnlank?start=1832&end=2136 people tend to answer according to how they perieive their fear -- problem is not practice of religion in your community.. the issue is tolerance of perceived social nuisance of one community to the other like yatra, or loundspeaker.. there is an aspirations of national virtue of secularism..
Makarand Paranjpe: . https://youtube.com/embed/d-jiLwnlank?start=2139&end=2833 discuss at three levels: the findings, the methodology, the assumptions. Not body has talked about the assumptions behind the questions. We think of the conflict between religions, but we have a conflict of what religion itself means. No definition of what religion is. Religion means different things to different people, at different times. For example belief in Gods, rather than a God. For many in Indian Religion is not so much a matter of belief but of "realisation" /experience.
Swaminathan Aiyar https://youtube.com/embed/d-jiLwnlank?start=2838&end=3199 Different kind of polls, exit polls, opinion survey, national sample surveys.. at the end of it all it is rubbish. Main reason is when you have these surveys people will not tell you the truth. They will tell you what they think is convenient for themselves, especially if they believe it will have consequences for their security, religious aspects, financial benefits etc. It does not mean that surveys have no value at all.. the numbers have to be taken at best as trends. in this kind of survey, tolerance, etc, it paints a good picture of India, anyone who said the contrary is in danger of getting into trouble.
Yes, we have diversity, languages, jatis etc, and still there is some unity.. yet the jury is still out on whether it will last long..or will be take the path of majoritarianism..
How deeply is India Divided Today? | Deshbhakt with Akash Banerjee Jul 2, 2021 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NukqBrUt3bE
Respect for all religions integral to being 'truly Indian': https://www.southasiamonitor.org/india/respect-all-religions-integral-being-truly-indian-pew-poll 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,
Ethnic and Religious Conflicts in India September 1983
https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/ethnic-and-religious-conflicts-india three solutions seem plausible. First, further decentralization of power to states would be of considerable help. This would partly address the problems in Punjab and Assam, both of which have complained of the gap between the resources they are entitled to and the resources they actually process. Second, a conscious attempt needs to be made to improve the educational attainment and economic level is easily demonstrated of Muslims whose socio-economic backwardness is easily demonstrated. The Muslim elite could do much in this respect. Special educational privileges are constitutionally sanctioned but they ought to be worked on. Modern liberal, as opposed to religious, education would be of great help. The government, for its part, could allay the apprehensions of the Muslim community by better representing Muslims in the police and paramilitary forces. Third, the secular leaders, to the extent that they exist, must make a sustained effort to reintroduce and deepen secular, socioeconomic concern in democratic politics. Partisan communal leaders and communal electoral mobilization, both within and outside the communal parties, but particularly within the ruling party, should be exposed. Aware leadership - political, social and intellectual - has to work for this political reconstruction. Definitive resolution of problems may be inordinately difficult but substantial alleviation is not.
Ashis Nandy: Why Nationalism and Secularism Failed Together Ananya Vajpeyi 18 October 2016 India has concentric rings of communities. A person, individually, belongs to not one community, but to a series of communities which are concentrically organized, from the country, to the region, to the language group, to sects, religious groups and then caste groups. It is a very complex system. A person has multiple identities, multiple allegiances. A normal Indian lives with a splintered self, and is quite comfortable with it, because it is a diversity they’re really used to, it has been there for centuries.
At the beginning, many people said that secularism in India stood for treating all religions equally. That is not humanly possible; if you are a believing practitioner of religion, then you do not think your religion is the same as other religions. You have a nuanced preference for your faith, even though you might be very respectful of other faiths. In India, it is customary for people to have access to places of worship of other religions and they do show a certain catholicity of belief, a certain ecumenical approach. But nonetheless, they have their faiths, and these faiths were challenged by secularism, or at least it looked as if secularism was challenging faith.One by-product of this secularism was that it gradually created a situation where it looked as if the ideology of secularism was substituting faiths in the public sphere.
The lack of values to provide an ethical frame for public life, is responsible for many of the problems we have seen, not only in India, but also in countries like China, Pakistan, to some extent Bangladesh, Myanmar, other places in southeast Asia.
for the last three-thousand years, starting with Gautama Buddha all the way to Mahatma Gandhi, we have produced a series of thinkers who prioritized non-violence as a crucial component of a good society and a good public life. They did not think that the concept of non-violence is irrelevant to politics, or that these kinds of principles do not work in politics. That was the sense of Gandhi, he came out with his position and took a stance; he could move millions of people. Only the elite called him a romantic vendor of false utopias, but not the people who followed him. They were willing to lay down their lives for him.
Alternative to secularism? I think “cultural pluralism” would work well, but because I think each religious system in this part of the world has had figures who have embraced that.
Startling findings in Pew survey on religion, tolerance, nationalism and segregation in India https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCNV1vtV2HU contrasting evidence surrounding religious tolerance and segregation, bursting the stereotypes surrounding them, in The Print Shekar Gupta
Why have Modi’s rivals failed to challenge him? This survey of Indians’ religiosity has clues https://youtu.be/-Er8mEctlCA?t=139 Latest PEW survey on Indians and religion could be a handbook for the opposition as it struggles to understand why its message of secularism doesn’t have many takers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJFDNgukzx0 Religious India, Political India & PEW Report | Midweek Matters 19 I Parakala Prabhakar Jul 7, 2021 He teases out the not so very obvious political messages those findings contain. And examine what do they tell us about the foundations of the present regime's political power. He also tries to explore what they might portend for the future of the socio political fabric of our country.
https://youtu.be/KJFDNgukzx0?t=837 political messaging between New data and Old data.. broad cast v/s narrow cast..
it was the religious tolerance angle that found wide interpretation in the media. Including Zee News. the headline: “Indians are tolerant, enjoy religious freedom, Islam rising fastest and Christians to remain the largest religious group in the world: Pew Study” . https://zeenews.india.com/india/indians-are-tolerant-enjoy-religious-freedom-islam-rising-fastest-and-christians-to-remain-the-largest-religious-group-in-the-world-pew-study-2373148.html
Two news shows also focused on the purported “silence” of the “Darr gang” on India’s achievements in religious tolerance, as apparently outlined in the Pew study.
Reality of Love J**** | Dhruv Rathee https://youtube.com/embed/EPr1CQuQpYA?start=238&end=928
A good portion of Aman Chopra’s Taal Thok Ke was spent writing off communal tension in India by using the Pew report. https://zeenews.india.com/video/india/taal-thok-ke-pew-research-centre-survey-india-is-a-tolerant-largely-conservative-country-2373247.html A bewildered Chopra said that if 89 percent of Muslims feel they are free to practice their religion, then “why do people say there is no freedom in India, democracy is in danger, Muslims are scared?”