Two In Three Indians Oppose Interfaith Marriages, But Support Religious Tolerance: Pew Survey

From inter-faith marriages to having neighbours of other religions, PEW conducted survey of nearly 30,000 Indians to understand the religious sentiments.

(Representative Image/Getty)

New Delhi: Even as Indians are living in a society where followers of many religions can live and practice freely, but stopping religious intermarriage is a high priority for Hindus, Muslims and others in India, as per the latest survey of the US-based think-tank Pew.

The Pew survey conducted on 30,000 Indians through face-to-face interviews in 17 languages reveals that Indians of all religious backgrounds feel very free to practice their faiths, but when it comes to intercaste marriage their belief become slightly reserved. 

As many as two in three Indians opposed to people marrying outside their faith, according to a survey by Pew Research Centre.

The survey underlined that 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,” it said.

Among other things, the survey even revealed that Hindus tend to see their religious identity and Indian national identity as closely intertwined: Nearly two-thirds of Hindus (64 per cent) say it is very important to be Hindu to be “truly” Indian.

What does it reveal about religious intermarriage?

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. Roughly two-thirds of Hindus in India want to prevent interreligious marriages of Hindu women (67 per cent ) or Hindu men (65 per cent ).

Even larger shares of Muslims feel similarly: 80 per cent say it is very important to stop Muslim women from marrying outside their religion, and 76 per cent  say it is very important to stop Muslim men from doing so.

Among other interesting findings, one-in-three Hindus (36 per cent) did not want a Muslim as a neighbour. Meanwhile, 61 per cent of Jains said they were unwilling to accept a neighbour from at least one of the other religions — be them Muslim, Christian, Sikh, or Buddhist — and 54 per cent said they would not accept a Muslim neighbour.