Indian society is composed of diverse cultures, and peoples, languages and religious. Diversity of religious faiths has existed over a very long period of time. Communities from outside continually kept on coming and settling down. Together with diverse cultural groups in various religions of India pursuing their faiths, these immigrant communities also brought their own religious faiths, customs and cultures. India is the home of a majority of the religions of the world, such as Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, and so on. It gradually laid the basis of religious pluralism in our country. Religious pluralism means diversity among people based on their varied kinds of religious beliefs.

Each religion contains, besides its primary features, which define its essence, many cultural, social and ritualistic elements which cut across boundaries of different religious faiths. These cultural and social similarities are a product of interaction and accommodation established over a long period of time by regional, linguistic, ritual and social proximity of various religious groups.

Religious communities in India are discussed taking into consideration their various aspects like distribution, growth and other specific features. 

Historical Growth of various religious groups

The Muslims, Christians, Parsis and Jews represent religions which have their main sources of origin outside India. Islam came to India as far back as 650 A.D. and expanded considerably under the successive Muslim dynasties. Similarly, Christiantiy came to India many centuries prior to the coming of the British or the Portuguese. An off-shoot of the Mesapotamian Christian church existed in India’s South-Western part even as early as the 3rd century, and was later on spread by the Portuguese during the 16th century. The Parsis or Zoroastrians migrated to India after Persia was conquered by the followers of Islam. They settled down in Gujarat and came to be known in India as “Parsis” Jews are yet another religious community which has had a very exclusive character. The Jews of Cochin trace their origins in India from about 1000 C.E. Jewish traveller Binyamin of Tudela in his accounts reports the presence of a thousand Black Jews on the Malabar Coast in 1170.

The black Jews appear to have arrivewd in India earlier than the Whites and since they intermingled with Indian women, they acquired the dark complexion. Both these Jews, Black and White who came later, did not intermix, strict endogamy was followed by both of them.

Muslims and the Christians swelled their number due to conversion of large number of people in India, particularly the lower caste of Hindus and the tribals. The Parsis and the Jews have remained closed to membership from outside due to their very exclusive nature.

An important element of pluralism among religions in India gradual emergence of internal diversities in terms of interpretation of sacred principles, ritual practices and religious practices. New religions have gradual emergence as a result of historical cleavages within a religion either due to new interpretation of the religious canons or due to factionalisation of the religious leadership. These religious faiths either become independent religious communities or keep on exiting within a particular religious faith in the form of sects[1]. Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism which are described as differentiation from the Hindu religion itself, are each internally divided into sects. The Buddhists have Hinayan and Mahayan sect-divisions; the Jains have Shwetambara, and Digambara sub-divisions Sikhs too are divided into different sectarian groups. Islam and Christianity too are differentiated into many sects. In Islam the division on the basis of Shia and Sunni denominations is a well recognised one.

Present Distributional aspect

The most exhaustive and sociologically comprehensive census in India was conducted in 1931 when India was not divided into two countries, India and Pakistan. Kingsley Davis has analysed the demographic and social features of religions in the un-divided India in this book The Population of India and Pakistan (1951). Among the religions which are listed in the 1931 census are: Hindu, Muslim, Tribal, Christian, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Parsi and Jewish religions.

According to 2001 census, at the national level, of 1028 million population, 80.5 % are Hindus followed by 13.4 % as Muslims and 2.3 % Christians. 1.9 % persons follow Sikh religion. 0.8 % are Buddhists and 0.4 % are Jains. In addition to these, 6.6 million belong to ‘Other Religions and Persuasions’ including tribal religions which are not part of the six main religions stated above. About seven lakh (or 0.7 million) persons have not stated their religion.

It may be highlighted here that all the major religious communities are enumerated in all the States and union territories except Jains which were not returned in the smallest Union territory of the country, the Lakshadweep, at the 2001 Census.

Regional Distribution of various religious groups

The Hindu, who constitute the majority religion, are spread all over, but have large concentration in the central and southern states of India with high density pocket in a few northern states and far eastern Assam.

The Muslims, the second largest religious group have relatively greater concentration in South-western states such as Kerala, Karnataka, the northern and eastern states in U.P., Bihar, Assam and pockets of Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. They are also spread throughout the country like the Hindus. There are six states where proportion of Muslims to total population is above the national percentage of 13.4%

The Christians have density concentration in the southern states of Kerala, parts of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and the north-eastern states of Mizoram, Nagaland, Meghalaya. They are also spread across Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and some parts of other northern states in small pockets. One important feature of geographical settlement of Christians is that they may be found in larger numbers in states with higher tribal population due to the impact of conversion. The highest percentage of Christians (to total population) are percentage of Christians (to total population) is found in Nagaland (90%), Mizoram (87%), and Meghalaya (70.03%).

Sikhs, yet another important religious group has its territorial localization in the northern state of Punjab with pockets of settlement in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Being a mobile and highly entrepreneurial community, Sikhs can be found spread over most parts of India. Sikhs constitute 60% of the population of Punjab.

Geographically, Buddhism in India, though once higher influential in the entire north, seems to be now localized to Ladakh, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, and in Darjeeling in West Bengal. Buddhists are categorized into traditional and neo-Buddhists. Traditional Buddhists are, by and large, from tribal communities inhabiting hilly areas of Ladhakh, Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal, Sikkim, Assam and the States of Northern Eastern Region. The highest percentage of Buddhists is in Sikkim (28.1%) followed by Arunachal Pradesh (13%). In absolute numbers, Maharashtra reported 58.38 lakh Buddhists, the highest in the country. Parsis number just 69,000 and mostly reside in Maharashtra.

Social fabric of religious communities

Despite evidence of localization of a particular religion in some parts of the country, each religious group is spread out throughout the country. This has led to a large measure of inter-religious interaction, borrowings of ways and styles of life, sharing common languages and cultural practices across religious affiliations. This has led to a diversification of cultural sub-groups, emergence of syncretic forms and gradual emergence some common underlying unity in culture. The Andhra Muslims and Kashmir Muslims in several respects are different cultural communities.

Islam, established deeper relationships with Sikhism, Bhakti movement in Hinduism and with Christian forms of mysticism. Similarly, Lingayat sect in Hinduism established closer relationship with Christian beliefs. Thus, inter-religious borrowings and influences could be observed in most religions across the sects.

Hinduism absorbed numerous religious beliefs and ritual practices. It evolved through this process into many sects and traditions of beliefs and sacred rites. The main sects in Hinduism are, based however, on the Vaishanvism (worship of Vishnu) and Shaivism (worship of Siva). There are many variations in each of the above two sects. The former promotes strict vegetarianism and puritanism in social and cultural practices. Commitment to Ahimsa or non-violence of this sect is very similar to beliefs of non-violence in Buddhism and Jainism. Shaivism is, however, less puritanical in respect of these values. It permits meat-eating and even drinking; especially among those who are followers of the tantric branches of Shaivism.

There are very few exceptions to this attribute. These pertain to only minority religions such as the Parsis, Jews and few others, which are highly restricted in their distribution.