People Belonging to Different Religions in India!
The country is inhabited by people belonging to different religions and sects. This is a good indicator of India’s multi-culturalism. People are broadly grouped into Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Others (those who are very small in number and unclassified). Though Census 2001 totals by religion are still not available, the 1991 data are good enough to assess their relative preponderance.
The new figures are only likely to affect the actual numbers and not the percentage distribution by religion. Table 5 gives the distribution of population by religion in the years 1961 and 1991, which clearly shows that the relative proportion of the various religious groups has remained more or less the same. As the data indicate, the country is preponderantly Hindu. But the Hindus do not constitute a single group. There are various sects in it; people belonging to these sects also maintain their distinct identity.
However, people ignore the sectarian differences in their day-to-day dealings and thus club not only Hindus belonging to different sects, but also Sikhs and Jains, and even Buddhists, into a common category. All political differences ‘ between communities are polarized between the Hindus and the Muslims. Researchers working in villages and towns have also discovered many Hindus worshipping Muslim Pirs and visiting the Mazars (tombs) of Muslim saints. Many Hindu names have Arabic words, such as Iqbal Narain, Daulat Ram, Bakshi Lai, Mulayam Singh, Fateh Singh, and Roshan Lal.
Similarly, mixed names are also found among Muslims such as Ashroff Adiraja. Many of our top film stars have adopted Hindu names, and are better known by them such as Dilip Kumar, Sanjay Khan, Madhubala, and Meena Kumari. Caste groups that have converted from Hinduism to other religions did not give up their caste names. Thus, Jats and Tyagis are found both among the Hindus and Muslims. These serve as good examples of intermingling while maintaining separate identities.
However, politicization of religion has generated tendencies of communalism in the country, which work to destroy the spirit of harmony and co-living among the people practicing different religions. In political jargon, the Hindus are regarded as a majority community, constituting 82.41 per cent of the population and all others are called minorities.
In the context of India, even the minorities have a substantial population. For example, the Muslims may be called a minority because they are only 11.67 per cent of the population, but this percentage represents more than 95 million people.
The Sikh population, which constitutes only 1.99 per cent, is as large as the population of all of Australia. The Jains in India are larger in number than the population of New Zealand. Such huge numbers of different religious groups significantly affect inter-communal relations.
There is another point: While there are some pockets of concentration of the various minority groups in terms of states, districts, and even wards in the cities, each of these units is pluri-religious in demographic composition.
Thus, the social structure of the various territorial units represents this diversity and demonstrates the manner in which the system of relationships operates. It is in this sense that the Indian social system is not synonymous with the Hindu social system.