The biggest religions in India

What are the largest religions in India : India is one of the most religiously diverse countries in the world, and although it is secular, Hinduism is the largest religion in the country. This religion is practiced by about 80 percent of the country's total population, or nearly 1 billion citizens.

Hinduism is a religion practiced mainly in the continent of Asia, and it is a set of beliefs and traditions that were formed over a long march from the fifteenth century BC to the present time. Unlike other religions, Hinduism does not have a specific founder to which it is affiliated.

Hinduism in India

Hinduism is the largest religion in India. According to the 2011 Census of India, 966.3 Million people identify as Hindu, representing 79.8% of the country's population. India contains 94% of the global Hindu population. The Indian subcontinent is the birthplace of four of the world's major religions: namely Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism—collectively known as Indian religions that believe Moksha is the most supreme state of the Ātman (soul). The vast majority of Indian Hindus belong to Shaivite and Vaishnavite denominations. India is one of the three countries in the world (Nepal and Mauritius being the other two) where Hinduism is the dominant religion.

At least since the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) electoral victories in 2014, the term “Hindu nationalism” has been frequently invoked in both Indian and Western media, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling party often described as promoting a Hindu nationalist agenda. But there is no widely accepted definition of what the term means, and little data exists on how common Hindu nationalist attitudes are in India and how they vary across the country. (Credit pewresearch)

Islam in India

Islam is the second largest religion in India in terms of followers, amounting to about 195 million Muslims, which is greater than the number of Muslims in Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania combined. Islam entered India in the eighth century AD, and has historically contributed to Indian culture, as well as stimulating an important tradition of the Arabic and Persian languages. The largest number of Muslims live in the state of Uttar Pradesh in the north of the country, and some statistics indicate that the number of Muslims in that state is 38 million.

Christianity in India

Christianity is India's third-largest religion after Hinduism and Islam, just ahead of Sikhism and Buddhism with about 27.8 million adherents, making up 2.3 percent of the population as per the 2011 Census of India. The written records of St Thomas Christians have it that Christianity was introduced to the Indian subcontinent by Thomas the Apostle, who sailed to the Malabar region in 52 AD, the present-day Kerala state. There is a general scholarly consensus that Christian communes were firmly established on the coast of Kerala by the 6th century AD, these were Eastern Christians of the Church of the East in India, who worshipped in Syriac. As a result Malankara Nasranis (Thomasine Christians) have a unique Syro-Malabarese culture which includes Christianised Jewish elements with some Hindu customs and values as well. Following the discovery of the Cape route by the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama in the 15th century, Western Christian communities of Latin Christians and Protestants formed in the cities of Portuguese Goa and Damaon, British Bombay, French Pondicherry etc.