Anthropology

According to traditional anthropology, the elements of three population groups (Caucasians, Australoid and East Asians) can be found in India today. Sometimes, geography and environment have encouraged successive waves of mixed emigrants with indigenous peoples. However, environmental and historical factors have also favored coexistence in India of many peoples with different cultural and physical features, this is also reflected in the linguistic diversity of India, and the country has 15 major languages​and over 1,000 dialects.

Linguistics

In India they speak more than (rounded) 2,000 languages ​​or dialects, included in 15 major groups. The constitution provides that Hindi (spoken by 30% of the population) is the official language, while English is a language associated with administrative matters.

The Constitution also recognizes 17 official regional languages, of which the most common are Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Urdu and Gujarati.

Religions

The major religious groups in India are Hinduism (83%), Islam (11%), Christianity (2%) and Sikhs (2%). Other important religious minorities are Buddhism, Jainism and Parsis. The growth of religious nationalism and fundamentalism in India during the 1980s and 1990s has grown political and social tensions in some areas, such as the riots of 1992 and 1993 in Punjab.

Ethnic composition

India is known for its ethnic diversity, some of the main ethnic groups are: Dravidian, Mongoloid, Black, Aryan, Proto - Australoid or Austrics, and West Brachycephals.