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<strong>More than 70 years after India became free from British rule, Indians generally feel their country has lived up to one of its post-independence ideals: a society where followers of many religions can live and practice their faith freely, according to a Pew Center survey.</strong></p>
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India&rsquo;s massive population is diverse as well as devout. Not only do most of the world&rsquo;s Hindus, Jains and Sikhs live in India, but it also is home to one of the world&rsquo;s largest Muslim populations and to millions of Christians and Buddhists.</p>
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The latest <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2021/06/29/religion-in-india-tolerance-and-segregation/">survey</a> carried out by Pew Research Center of religion across India, based on nearly 30,000 face-to-face interviews of adults conducted in 17 languages between late 2019 and early 2020 (before the Covid-19 pandemic), finds that Indians of all these religious backgrounds overwhelmingly say they are very free to practice their faiths.</p>
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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 &ldquo;truly Indian.&rdquo; 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 survey states.</p>
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<strong>Common Beliefs</strong></p>
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According to the Pew Research Center survey, 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%) &ndash; together with 81% of Hindus &ndash; say they believe in the purifying power of the Ganges River, a central belief in Hinduism. 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.</p>
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Yet, despite sharing certain values and religious beliefs &ndash; as well as living in the same country, under the same constitution &ndash; members of India&rsquo;s major religious communities often don&rsquo;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%). There are a few exceptions: Two-thirds of Jains and about half of Sikhs say they have a lot in common with Hindus. But generally, people in India&rsquo;s major religious communities tend to see themselves as very different from others.</p>
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<strong>Living together separately</strong></p>
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Indians, then, simultaneously express enthusiasm for religious tolerance and a consistent preference for keeping their religious communities in segregated spheres &ndash; they live together separately.. These two sentiments may seem paradoxical, but for many Indians they are not.</p>
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Indeed, many take both positions, saying it is important to be tolerant of others and expressing a desire to limit personal connections across religious lines. Indians who favour 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. This figure is nearly identical to the 85% who strongly value religious tolerance among those who are not at all concerned with stopping interreligious marriage.</p>
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In other words, Indians&rsquo; concept of religious tolerance does not necessarily involve the mixing of religious communities. While people in some countries may aspire to create a &ldquo;melting pot&rdquo; of different religious identities, many Indians seem to prefer a country more like a patchwork fabric, with clear lines between groups.</p>
<p>
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 &ldquo;truly Indian.&rdquo; 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 survey states.</p>
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