Carol Rifelj Faculty Lecture Series: Ajay Verghese - Religion and Political Behavior: The Case of Hinduism

Ajay Verghese, Department of Political Science, will give a talk as part of the 2020-21 Carol Rifelj Faculty Lecture Series. Political scientists have theorized the implications of various religions on political behavior, yet their analyses rarely extend beyond the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This talk examines Hinduism in India, the world’s largest Asian religion with over one billion followers. Ajay developed an ethnographically-informed survey measure of Hindu religiosity and conducted an original survey of 900 Hindus in the northeast Indian state of Bihar, along with participant observation and follow-up interviews. He will 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.

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