On religious discrimination, India next only to Iraq- US thinktank: Do you agree?

The diversity of Indian culture has been vividly mentioned by Mr. Reddy. I fully support his views.

The only addition I want to make is that, "it is impossible to make a genuine research report of so many diverse nations, if we take a single (uniform) benchmark, on a sensitive topic like discrimination without understanding and accepting the sensitivities of all the nations".

If the research methodology fails to empathize with the cultural structure of India, before designing the survey and the research process, the entire effort of doing such a research will go waste.

There is a difference between an FMCG product market research and the research done on religious discrimination. While for the FMCG product, a researcher can have one framework for the entire industry, he cannot simply do the same for finding something on religious discrimination. 

From what can be seen on the website of Pew Research Center, I can only make out that they have used a uniform research standard, without customizing it for culturally diverse nations as India. 

The end result of such a research would always have outliers for all the countries (like India), where the researchers missed the sensibility of accommodating the sensitivity of the nation. 

Here i am quoting the limitations of the survey as reported by the survey itself:

It is important to keep a few caveats in mind when reading this report. First, because freedom
– defined as “the absence of hindrance, restraint, confinement or repression” – is difficult if not
impossible to measure, the Pew Forum’s study instead measures the presence of restrictions
of various kinds. The study tallies publicly reported incidents of religious violence, intolerance,
intimidation and discrimination by governments and private actors. That is, it focuses on the
problems in each country. It does not capture the other side of the coin: the amount of religious
dynamism, diversity and expression in each country. The indexes of government restrictions and
social hostilities are intended to measure obstacles to the practice of religion. But they are only
part of a bigger picture.

If it does not capture the dynamism, diversity and expression in each country, then how can the survey be complete and balanced. Yes agreed that it is difficult to count in those characteristics but then without them survey loses its credibility. If defining 'Freedom' is not impossible and accounting for dynamism, diversity and expression shouldn't be impossible too.

Finally, it is true that there are restrictions here in India but if someone wants to rank the country, its definitely not the 2nd position.

This report is completely fake.Thanks for bringing this fraud to light.

This is absolutely ridiculous. there is a general opinion that what US says is right. The problem lies where we Indians think that all things of Indian origin are not good and we always listen to western opinions. Even in the matter of cola only when BBC Report came the issue was raised in parliament.Till then all protest of the locals were ignored.

India is a country having a civilized culture which we always forget and lauds the western culture.

The oldest democracy is yet to have a woman President. They elect president based on their religion. After 300 years they got their first black president. India had a woman prime minister within 25 years of independence. now a woman president. The third president of India was Dr. Zakir hussian. And the real thing is that we dont elect people based on their religion but on thier skills and expertise.

So the fact speaks for itself. and regarding religious freedom in Middle east, and china we all know very well what's happening. I lived in Middle east for quite some time.I know the freedom they gave to other religions especially saudi arabia. even the work permits are issued in different colours based on religion. We cannot preach our religion there. 

India is a holy land where personal freedom, right to life and expression  is granted to the people by the Constitution. Since we enjoy it without and hindrance we forget the value of it and always think that the other side is greener.

we have fundamental rights but there 's no fundamental duties imposed upon us.

Here there is no religious discrimination among people. the politicians may use it for political gains and the media may use it for increasing their  viewer ratings.

I Cant agree with any reports saying that India is following religious discrimination whether it is done by USA or UN.

I don't agree with this Report.

The fundamental difference between India and other many multi-religious societies is that, others are multi-religious mainly because of emmigrants, whereas we are multi-religious because many of us embraced faiths originated from different parts of the world.

Various religious communities in other societies have problems in adjusting with each other because not only the faith but also the culture, food, clothing, many times language too, etc. are different.

In India, the faith may be different, but other aspects of culture are not so much different to be called alien. We identify with each other and understand each other because we basically belong to the same roots.

As regards, to the ranking, then let our western friends do some self-introspection and find out why they feel threathened even to allow construction of minarettes in their cities. Or for that matter when they see some one wearing a turban or a hijab.

We do have our share of problems like riots. But they are engineered by selfish politicians. Our weakness is that we fall prey to it. We fall prey to it because we dont understand our own religions fully, even after being with one religion or another over the past 5000 yrs.

Excellent leaders like Nehru, Shastri understood this weakness of ours and kept us away from our differences and engrossed us in nation building. This resulted in the growth which we are witnessing today.

After being so much experienced in religion we should be mature enough to dump the western definitions of secularism, i.e. "Tolerating all religions." Also, to be secular we dont need to make a coctail of 3-4 religions and follow. A much better definiton of Secularism would be,

"Respecting the right of other individuals, to follow or not follow any religion of their choice." Dont go to the extent of identifying which religion is being followd by others, one should just respect their right to choose to follow any(or not follow - aetheist).

Just want to mention here, some of our friend took the name of Dr. Zakir Naik as the bad guy. I dont agree, our constitution allows propagating one's religion as long as it is not by force (or some reward like job, money etc.). Infact he talks about similarities between religions. Whats wrong in that?

Where does USA stands in this matter post-9/11. wud they do a independent, objective analysis on that? they hv managed to make countries  to b'live .. all in the name of security and terrorism.

But we Indians also need to realize that, we are becoming less and less accommodating towards each other. We have to make an conscious effort not do so.. we hv got pluralism is legacy, let’s treasure it.

Just imagine, India having one language, only one culture!! How boring!

why do americans tend to highlight india someway or the other ,they should instead debate upon discrimination against womens in there country (where womens are treated as nothing more then commodities),the ghetto culture(which some indians are not even aware of)its indeed interesting to see how people far off from the real secnerio reached at such conclusion .why they try to bring india down by showering accolades on books or movies (can't mention specifically, so pls try to decipher)that showcase poor and underprivilaged side of indian society ,or ridicule (b'coz they are jealous) the developments happened in IT sector in india .THING TO REMEMBER  is that its only our country that still allows any separtist group to practice there religious faith ,where the people chose the party with development plans(which are still in pipeline ,unfortunately) rather than those who kept drumming there "hindutva " agenda .and if one has to see the unity then they should look at the armed forces where "nation" is faith prevails in hearts .

I think we should strongly oppose such reports.

Instead of poking their nose inour matters, such 'think tanks' should sit & think about the discrimination with native/ Asian/African/ Latin Americans etc in their own land. (pls refer racism in Us)

Rather, we should be proud to live in a country, exemplary for the world for accommodating & nurturing different cultures/religion/ languages/ethnicities as one nation whereas it took more than 2 centuries for them to have a black president.

Indian values have for centuries shown respect and high regard for people of all religions and faiths. There might be a few religious fanatics here and there. But overall, Indians have always accommodated and lived harmoniously with people from all faiths and beliefs. In India, everybody is free to practice his/ her own religion. All religions can have their own places of worship without any restrictions or threat. There are equal opportunities for growth and upliftment to all, regardless of their religious affiliations. Americans have no problems with Arab Sheikhs who have never shown any respect or tolerance to other religions. They will bow and scrape in front of the Arabs and ignore their excesses on minorities and women in the name of religion, because of their oil. Americans have no moral or other right to preach to Indians about religious freedom and human rights.