THE RELIGIOUS COMPOSITION OF INDIA’S POPULATION

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.