Can we say that India is today's, the early 21st century's, topmost multi-religious country?

Last updated on 12th Nov. 2017

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Importance_of_religion_by_country is an interesting wiki page. It has a list of countries sorted on importance of religion, based on data from a global Gallup poll in 2009, with least importance at the beginning by default (sort order of columns can be changed). Note that some countries are not listed (perhaps due to the poll not being conducted there).

We are not sure whether the global Gallup poll would have been a thorough effort like a government run census. So there is a possibility that its figures may have significant amount of inaccuracy.

India's percentage of people for whom religion is important, in the Gallup 2009 poll, is 90% (with 9% of people for whom religion is unimportant). Quite a few countries have higher religion-important percentage numbers. Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Niger have the highest numbers of 99%+ (with 0% of people for whom religion is unimportant)! Indonesia, Malawi, Sri Lanka and Yemen have the next highest numbers of 99% (without the +). Saudi Arabia's figures are not provided in the list! If the polling is limited to Saudi citizens, I presume it will be in the 90s and perhaps greater than India.

I tend to think that importance of religion for Indians typically is high and that the real percentage today, in 2017, of Indians for whom religion is important would be 90% (the Gallup poll figure in 2009) or higher (but not lesser).

In terms of declaration of religion by Indians in the 2011 census, here's the data from http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=126326 [note that 1 crore is 10 million]: "Total Population in 2011 is 121.09 crores ; Hindu 96.63 crores (79.8%); Muslim 17.22 crores (14.2%); Christian 2.78 crores (2.3%); Sikh 2.08 crores (1.7%); Buddhist 0.84 crores (0.7%); Jain 0.45 crores (0.4%), Other Religions & Persuasions (ORP) 0.79 crores (0.7%) and Religion Not Stated 0.29 crores (0.2%)." The .xls spreadsheet giving the exact numbers from the Govt. of India 2011 census can be downloaded here (choose the India link): http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011census/C-01.html.

The spreadsheet specifies that the 'Religion Not Stated' number of people is 2867303 from a total population of 1210854977, which comes to 0.2368 (rounded) percent of the total population. That makes the percentage of Indians (in 2011 census) who have stated some religion (or 'persuasion') as 99.7632% [I am presuming that 'Other Religions and Persuasions' (0.7%) does not include atheists & agnostics].

Going back to the Gallup 2009 poll data in this wiki page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Importance_of_religion_by_country, demographics wise, India tops as the country having the largest number of highly religious people in the world (estimated to be over 1 billion). Further, India has almost all the major world religions practiced today in 2017. That includes Christianity (various sects including Catholics and Protestants), Islam (various sects including Sunni and Shia), Hinduism (various sects), Buddhism (various sects), Jainism, Sikhism and Judaism (Jewish faith) [See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_India for more].

Freedom of religion is a fundamental right enshrined in the constitution of India.

Further, there is no state sponsored persecution (social stigma is a different matter related to groups of people) of open atheists and agnostics. As an example of India's tolerance of those propagating atheism, a few years ago (in 2013) a professor of Physics in an Indian educational institution wrote an article titled, "Let’s aim for a post-theistic society" with a sub-heading/summary: "Religion is founded on FEAR, the fear of the unknown. But modern science has been able to explain almost all natural phenomena." This article was published by a mainstream English language South Indian newspaper, The Hindu, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/lets-aim-for-a-posttheistic-society/article5154603.ece.

Of course, his article received criticism in the form of comments (which don't seem to be shown now in the article link above) and article responses which were published later by The Hindu. My comments and some of the article response links can be read/accessed in my blog post here: https://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/2013/09/science-fanaticism-and-anti-religion.html, dated Sept. 2013. But the point is that the Indian Physics professor was allowed to articulate his anti-religion and atheist views freely.

So I think it is safe to say that today in 2017 (early 21st century), India can be considered to be the world's topmost multi-religious country, with a multi-religious society which allows for various religions as well as no-religion ideologies to be openly professed and practiced, and which largely co-exist peacefully, within the laws and constitution of democratic India.

But it must be said that having 90% of people who claim that religion is important for them, does not mean that these 90% of people follow all, or even most, of the teachings and exhortations of their religion seriously. I should also say that the other 10% for whom religion is not important, may have significant number of/many people who follow high level of ethical/moral code. So whether religion is important or unimportant should not be viewed as an indication of whether the person concerned leads an ethical life or not.

Crime, including heinous crimes like rape and murder (different from killing in self-defense), and more common crimes like robbery and extortion, does happen on a significant scale in India, with official crime figures being lower than the reality as many crimes simply do not get reported officially. This wiki page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_India, gives some info. about officially reported crime in India.

But even with fair amount of crime, untruth and unethical behaviour, 90% of Indians are very religious. Perhaps those that indulge in untruthful and unethical behaviour, and crime, even when they are very religious, do so under some periods of ethical weakness or perhaps out of desperate need.

I think one can conclude that even with significant amount of crime, untruth and unethical behaviour, India today is the world's topmost multi-religious country, which indicates a great amount of faith in God, as understood through various religious traditions, that an overwhelming majority of Indians totaling over 1 billion, have.