Majority of India’s people opposed to marriage in other religion: Survey

American think-tank Pew Research Center has found in a survey that most people in India consider themselves and their country to be religiously tolerant, but they do not consider inter-religious marriages right.

Most people from each community in the survey said that preventing such marriages is a top priority for them.

This research has been done at a time when such laws have been brought in many states in India in which laws have been made regarding marriages between people of different religions.

For this survey, Pew Research Center interviewed 30,000 people out of people who speak 17 languages ​​in India.

This survey was done in 26 states and three union territories of the country.

According to the survey, 80% of the Muslims who interacted said that it is important that people from their community stop marrying in other communities. Among Hindus, 65% said that they also hold the same opinion.

In the survey, people were also questioned about their faith and nationality. It found that Hindu people feel that “their religious identity and the national identity of the country are very closely linked”.

Nearly two-thirds of Hindus, or 64%, said they felt it was important to be a Hindu to be a “true Indian”.

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together, apart

The research found that despite similar values ​​and religious beliefs among India’s large religious communities, they “often do not feel that they have anything in common”.

The report says – “Indians are simultaneously enthusiastic about religious tolerance and at the same time want to keep religious communities separate – they live together, separately.”

It further states that many people in India lead different religious lives even after being friends and “they try to keep people of a particular religion away from their religious places or villages”.

In India, marriages between Hindus and Muslims in traditional families have been boycotted, but now such couples are also facing legal hurdles.

Under the Special Marriage Act in India, people marrying inter-religious have to give 30 days notice. And in some states ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party, more new laws have been brought under which “illegal conversions” have been banned by force or fraud.

The move follows allegations of alleged “love jihad” by right-wing Hindu groups alleging that Muslim people come close to Hindu girls with the intention of converting them.

Sumit Chauhan and his wife Azra Parveen are well aware of the opposition to marriage outside religion. Chauhan is a Hindu. He comes from the Dalit community and Parveen is a Muslim.

Chauhan says that his ‘Hindu relatives have some wrong opinion about Muslims but I convinced my mother, sister and brother.’

But the situation is not easy for Parveen. Parveen tells that her family refused to allow the marriage. Then both decided to get married secretly.

Chauhan says that after that his relatives did not talk to him for three years.

However, now they have talks but Parveen’s parents still do not approve of their marriage in public.

Chauhan says, “Last year my wife’s younger sister got married but we weren’t invited. You shouldn’t need to change religion to marry the one you love.”