How Indian Hindus and Muslims view their regional neighbors

A weekly digest of the Center’s latest research on religion and public life in the U.S. and around the world · Subscribe ↗ Nearly 80 years after the dissolution of British India led to the formation of an independent India and Pakistan, a new Pew Research Center survey finds that most people in each country view the other country as their greatest geopolitical threat. People in India and Pakistan have largely unfavorable views of the other nation, reflecting the continued animosity between these two longstanding rivals. India has the world’s largest Hindu population and the third-highest Muslim population. Hindus and Muslims in the country tend to have different views about some of their regional neighbors. Indian Muslims feel much more positively than Indian Hindus toward the Muslim-majority countries of Pakistan (21% vs. 6%) and Bangladesh (41% vs. 23%). Still, two-thirds of Indian Muslims express a negative view of Pakistan. For more details, go to the report.