Religion for social acceptance

The combination of atheism plus religious identity shows that, for many people, religion is about social acceptance

The Pew Research Institute’s Survey of Religion in India throws up interesting results. The Survey interviewed 30,000 adults face-to-face, using a questionnaire with roughly 90 questions. The interviews were conducted between November 2019 and March 2020, ending as the lockdown started.

The respondents included 22,975 who identify as Hindu (76.6 per cent of the sample), 3,336 Muslims (11 per cent), 1,782 Sikhs (5.9 per cent), 1,011 Christians (3.4 per cent), 719 Buddhists (2.4 per cent), 109 Jains (0.4 per cent) and 67 who belong to another religion, or claim no religious affiliation. Smaller minorities are over-represented — comparing this to the