Religion and Political Behavior: The Case of Hinduism

• In Event: Religion and Politics in India

Abstract

Political science has rediscovered the importance of religion, and recent books and articles have theorized how it affects a variety of political behaviors. Yet these analyses rarely extend beyond the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This paper examines Hinduism in India, the world’s largest Asian religion with over one billion followers. I develop an ethnographically-informed survey measure of Hindu religiosity and conduct an original survey of over 900 Hindus in the northeast Indian state of Bihar, along with participant observation. I show that Hindu religiosity is not correlated with vote choice, but that more pious Hindus are likely to oppose secularism, defined in the Indian context as religious neutrality.

Author

• Ajay Verghese, Middlebury College