For the John Templeton Foundation, I wrote about a landmark survey on India’s unique approach to religious pluralism.
The largest-ever study of attitudes about religion and civic life in India has revealed new insights into how the world’s second most-populous nation has developed its own distinct vision of pluralism as a patchwork of separate but mutually influential religious communities — spurring new conversations within India about the nature of identity, tolerance, and politics in the world’s largest democracy. This paradox — of tolerance and segregation — is at the heart of the groundbreaking study, conducted by the Pew Research Center and supported by $2.5 million in funding from the John Templeton Foundation. More than three years in the making, its findings are based on 29,999 face-to-face interviews of adults conducted in 17 languages in late 2019 and early 2020.
Using rigorous design and statistical methodologies, this survey aimed to cover 98% of India’s population, with tailored oversampling to gather statistically significant results from various religious and regional minorities. The results, released at the end June as Religion in India: Tolerance and Segregation, a 239-page report and accompanying website. Since then the results have spurred reflection and conversation from a variety of religious and political perspectives, both in India and internationally.