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Adventists and India

Located in South Asia, India is an ancient, vibrant and complex country. It is the world’s largest democracy and home to over 15% of the world’s population. India’s population is estimated at over 1 billion and is growing at about 1.8% per year. About 62% of the Indian population depends directly on agriculture for a living. India’s per capita GDP is $420. Only 52% of the Indian population is literate. More than 35% of the population lives below the poverty line.

India is a nation of diversity and contrasts. Myriad languages, religions, castes and cuisines thrive here. The constitution recognizes 24 languages and numerous other languages and dialects are spoken. It is a land where ancient rhythms blend with modern technology. It’s a region in which conservative beliefs and time-honored traditions flourish along with progressive attitudes. It’s a country where traditional village handicraft industries are as prolific as state-of-the-art information technology and software development firms.

India occupies 2.4% of the world’s land area and dominates South Asia. India is about one-third the size of the United States and has an area of 3.3 million square kilometers (1.3 million square miles).

Culture and religion

India’s culture is ancient—with roots in the world’s earliest civilizations—and is marked by rich diversity. Religion is one of the most important facets of Indian culture and contemporary life. Religious beliefs and practices have a large impact on the personal and public lives of most Indians.

Hinduism is the predominant religion of India. It has demonstrated, for many centuries, a considerable degree of tolerance for alternate visions of the divine and of salvation. Islam is India’s number one minority religion.

Christianity in India

There are about 25 million Christians in India, constituting 2.5 percent of the country’s total population. About 70 percent of India’s Christians are Roman Catholics. The largest Protestant denomination in the country is the Church of South India, since 1947 a union of Presbyterian, Reformed, Congregational, Methodist, and Anglican congregations with approximately 2.2 million members. A similar Church of North India has 1 million members. There are 473,000 Methodists, 425,000 Baptists, and about 1.3 million Lutherans.

Social Structure

Indian society is multifaceted and diverse. It is marked by ethnic and linguistic diversity. Religious differences also are significant, especially between the Hindu majority and the large Muslim minority and other religious groups—Buddhists, Christians, Jains, Jews, Parsis, Sikhs, and practitioners of tribal religions. Nearly 74% of India’s population lives in villages.

One of the great themes pervading Indian life is social interdependence. People are born into groups—families, clans, castes and religious communities—and live with a constant sense of being part of and inseparable from these groups. Social interaction is regarded as being of the highest priority and social bonds are expected to be long lasting. Loyalty and support—emotional and economic—to family is a deeply held ideal for almost everyone.