A new survey by the US-based Pew Research Centre has found that following Hindu religious beliefs and being able to speak Hindi is considered a "very important" aspect of being “truly Indian” by the majority of the population in the country of 1.3 billion people.
“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”, the survey findings indicate.
64% of Hindus in India say it is very important to be Hindu to be “truly” Indian. Additionally, 59% of Hindus also link Indian identity with being able to speak Hindi – one of dozens of languages that are widely spoken in India. https://t.co/m7UILdwtD5 pic.twitter.com/y9QSCu98QI
— Pew Research Center (@pewresearch) June 29, 2021
“Most Hindus (59%) also link Indian identity with being able to speak Hindi – one of dozens of languages that are widely spoken in India”, Pew also reports.
“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”, according to the survey.
The study, however, reported divergences in perceptions about Hindi-speaking ability across regions, with only 27% of the respondents in non-Hindi speaking southern states viewing the factor as a criterion for establishing one’s "Indianness".
The study also finds that the “appeal” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is the greatest among Hindus who believe that being a Hindu and the ability to speak Hindi are important criteria for being “truly Indian”.
Pew Research says that it conducted 30,000 face-to-face interviews for the survey, the findings of which were published on Tuesday. These interactions were conducted across the nation after the conclusion of federal parliamentary elections in May 2019 and after the revocation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir.
The Pew poll assumes significance against the backdrop of the political rise of Hindu nationalism in the South Asian nation following back-to-back election victories of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the 2014 and 2019 federal elections. The Indian PM has on at least one occasion described himself as a “Hindu nationalist”, which his political opponents argue has emboldened some of the more radical Hindu outfits and leaders in the country over the last few years.
Hindus and Muslims 'Very Different' From Each Other
The Pew survey further found that a majority of Hindus view themselves as very different from Muslims, who constitute nearly 15% of the population, as per the last national census in 2011. India boasts the third-largest Muslim population globally
“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%)”, it says.
Nearly two-thirds of both Hindus and Muslims surveyed say that it is very important to prevent inter-religious marriages between India’s two biggest religious groups.
The findings are reported amid recent laws introduced in several BJP-governed states aimed at preventing "love jihad" - the notion that Muslim men dupe Hindu women into marriage just so they can increase their numbers as a share of the overall population.
Nearly 21% of Indian Muslims say that they have faced religious discrimination in the preceding last 12 months (prior to the survey), with those in Hindi-speaking northern India reporting a higher prevalence (40%) compared to other regions.
Both Hindus (65%) and Muslims (65%) view communal violence as a “big national problem”.
Despite these concerns among the Muslim minority community, nearly 95% of Muslims admitted that they are “very proud” to be Indians and 85% stated that Indian culture “was not perfect but superior” to others.
