New Delhi: India belongs equally to all of its citizens, Hindu or otherwise, more than three-quarters of respondents to a countrywide survey by the Lokniti programme have said.
When asked if they thought India belongs equally to citizens of all religions or if it belongs to Hindus alone, 79% of Lokniti’s respondents choose the first option, while 11% chose the second. One in ten respondents did not indicate an opinion.
Lokniti found that more respondents between 18 and 25 years of age indicated a pluralist view (81%) than those aged 56 years and above (73%).
College-educated respondents had higher shares of those picking the pluralist option (83%) than respondents who did not go to school (72%).
Fewer Hindus picked the pluralist option (77%) than did Muslims (87%) or respondents of other minority religions (81%), while residents of towns were more likely (85%) than city-dwellers (84%) or those living in villages (76%) to indicate a pluralist view.
Lokniti is a program conducted by the Delhi-based Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. It conducted a pre-election survey between March 28 and April 8 among a total of 10,019 respondents spread across 100 assembly seats in 19 states.
The results of its survey are being published in The Hindu.
Many think Ayodhya Ram temple will help consolidate Hindu identity
A majority of respondents (48%) also said the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya earlier this year will help consolidate Hindu identity.
One in four respondents (25%) said the temple would “not impact Hindus much” while 24% did not indicate an opinion.
Among Hindus, Lokniti said upper-class (58%) and upper-caste (59%) respondents were most likely to say the temple will help consolidate Hindu identity.
Overall, most thought the temple will increase harmony between Hindus and Muslims (27%). About one in four (26%) said it will make no difference, while 24% said it will increase differences among the two communities.
Hindu respondents were more likely to think the temple will increase harmony between the two communities, with a majority of 31% saying this.
Muslim respondents, on the other hand, were more likely to think it will increase divisions – a majority of 32% picked this option.
Twenty-two percent of Hindu respondents said the temple will increase divisions while 13% of Muslim respondents said it will augment harmony.
“We conducted this pre-poll survey more than two months after the consecration of the temple. Yet, the consecration of the temple was etched in the minds of the respondents as a major event,” political scientist Suhas Palshikar, who co-directed the survey, said.
He added that the temple issue was “undeniably” likely to work in the BJP’s favour in the general elections.
The temple, which is built on the same place where the Babri mosque was demolished by Hindu nationalists in 1992, was inaugurated in January in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s presence.
Proponents of the new temple say Lord Ram was born at the site and that a temple dedicated to him existed there before it was replaced by the mosque.
Religious riots triggered by the mosque’s demolition killed around 2,000 people, mostly Muslim, across India.
In 2019, the Supreme Court handed over the site involved to plaintiffs associated with the Vishva Hindu Parishad.
Views on UCC
The survey also polled respondents’ views on a uniform civil code (UCC), which is a proposed set of laws that would uniformly govern personal matters across India’s different religious communities.
While a majority of respondents (52%) said they either had no opinion on or hadn’t heard of a UCC, 29% said a UCC will empower and enable equality for women while 19% said it “might interfere with religious traditions”, Lokniti said.
Thirty-one percent of Hindus and 17% of Muslims said a UCC will empower women, while 18% of Hindus and 29% of Muslims said it may interfere with religious traditions.
Also read: Narendra Modi Knows an Actual UCC Will Be an Electoral Disaster for Him
Less enthusiasm for Election Commission
A majority of respondents that shared an opinion were at least somewhat trustful of the Election Commission (58%), but the share of those with the same view just after the 2019 elections has decreased by 20 percentage points.
Those who trusted the body to a “great extent” (28%) had also declined by 23 percentage points.
The share of respondents that showed ‘not much’ trust in the commission increased by seven percentage points over the last election (from 7% to 14%) while that of those who did not trust it at all increased by four points (5% to 9%).
Close to half the respondents (47%) said electronic voting machines were at least somewhat likely to be vulnerable to manipulation by the ruling party, while 27% said they were at least somewhat unlikely to be vulnerable to such manipulation.
Next week, the Supreme Court will hear petitions seeking complete verification of the paper trail left by voting machines. Currently, the Election Commission verifies paper trails only in five randomly selected polling booths in each parliamentary constituency.
