21st July 2021

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News: Pew Research centre, a U.S. based organisation has surveyed religious tolerance in India and released the report.

Findings:

• It finds out that Indians of all faiths supported both religious tolerance and religious segregation. 

• Around 84% of the surveyed Indians said that respecting all religions is very important to them. They also said all religious groups must be allowed to practise their faith freely. 

• A minority number of Indians also said they preferred to have religious groups segregated and live and marry within their own community.

Thus the survey reflected, India is committed to religious diversity, it is “exclusionary and segmented in toleration”.

Indian Social structure:

Social scientists called Indian Society neither a melting pot in which diverse cultures blend into one common national identity nor a salad bowl where different cultures retain their specific characteristics while assimilating into one national identity but a thali an Indian meal comprising separate dishes on a platter where they are combined in specific ways.

Indian Society and Religious tolerance:

• A unique form of cosmopolitanism has been developed in India where differences can be accommodated without pressuring members of one community to like other communities based on the notion of brotherhood.

• The members of one community can go to extraordinary lengths to help members of the other community maintain their own customary practices including their separate dining and dietary habits.

• Another type of cosmopolitan is where people of one community come together for common goals and accept the cultural differences of others as well. For instance .