THE RELIGIOUS COMPOSITION OF INDIA’S POPULATION

Abstract

Based on census data from the 2001 census, this paper attempts to understand the
religious comoposition of India. The country’s population comprises all the major
religions of the world along with a wide range of tribal groups which practice
animism to a considerable extent. Hindus accounted for more than four-fifths of
the country’s total population in 2001. Significantly, the religious minorities were
mostly concentrated in the peripheral areas of the country.The emergence of four
major religions in the Indian realm have been of crucial importance in structuring
its religious composition. Besides, repeated invasions from across the northwest
border for about seven centuries, trade linkages, and colonialism all have contibuted
to the religious diversity of the country.