India has no state religion, it is a secular state. It is the land where almost all the major religions of the world are practiced by their respective followers. Nevertheless the religious diversity has been a major source of disunity and disharmony in the country. This is because in India religious affiliation appears to be overemphasized and many a time people seem to forget the national unity and express their loyalty more towards their own religion.
The glaring example of such feeling is the partition of our country due to the development of the two nation theory. But the matter has not ended there. The communal feeling among different religious groups still persists. Among the major religions in India are: Hinduism, Islam Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism and Jainism. Zoroastrianism, Judaism and Bahaism are the religions with lesser following.
Hinduism is the religion of the majority in India. It comprises of Indo-Aryan, Dravidian and Pre-Dravidian religious elements. The follower of Hinduism believe in the doctrine of ‘Karma’, ‘Dharma’, rebirth, immortality of soul, renunciation and salvation. Hinduism allows a number of possible conceptions of God. It also prescribes various alternative paths of attaining God. The Sakta, the Saiva, the Satnami, the Lingayat, the Kabirpanthi, the Brahmo Samaj, the Arya Samaj etc. are different sects of Hinduism.
According to 1991 census 697.4 million people (82.6%) in India practise Hinduism and provide a solid base for national unity through common beliefs, festivals, customs and traditions. Islam originated in Arabia as a monolithic religion. It came to India towards the last quarter of the 12th century A.D., with the Muslim invasions. The Muslim rulers in India patronized it. They established long dynasties over large chunks of the country and encouraged conversions from Hinduism and Buddhism. As a result the number of Muslims gradually increased in India.
Islam does not believe in idol worship. It professes the fatalistic acceptance of Allah’s will and considers prophet Mohammed as the greatest prophet. The ‘Quran’, sacred book of Islam, ordains five primary duties of a true and devout Muslim, such as, belief in God (Allah), prayers five times a day, the giving of alms, a month’s fast every year, and a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in the life time of a Muslim.
A large number of Muslims in India are converts. “In the conversion of large masses of the Indians to Islam the use of force was an exception rather than a rule. Brahmnical Hinduism offered a much more solid resistance to the spread of Islam. For the lower castes, acceptance of Islam meant an escape from the degraded status they had in the Hindu society to at least a theoretical equality with the ruling community.”
But these large scale conversions to Islam in reality did not actually bring about an acceptance of their higher status either by the caste Hindus, to whom every Muslim was an untouchable or by the Ashraf’s, the uppermost section of the Muslims, who maintained a social distance from the lower caste converts in matters of marriage and social intercourse.
