SOCIAL RELIGIOSITY AND NATIONAL SOLIDARITY: A COMPARISON BETWEEN IRANIAN AND INDIAN YOUTHS

Abstract

We are living in an age in which national solidarity is being attacked by different types of national and transnational trends. One of the important factors which has significant role in national solidarity, is social religiosity. In this article, based on the common theories related to national solidarity, and with regards to religious bases, the relationship between these two variables among Iranian and Indian youths has been studied and compared. In the current study, the relationship between national solidarity tendency (NST) and social religiosity tendency (SRT) among Iranian and Indian youths is compared applying quantitative approach and the survey method, using researcher-made questionnaire. The statistical population include Iranian Shia’ youths residing in Tehran and those Indian Shia youths residing in Lucknow City. The representative sample, which was obtained by applying simple random sampling method, is 350 persons for each of the statistical populations in Tehran and Lucknow. The results show that there is a significant relationship between SRT and NST among the Iranian and Indian youths, and NST is greater among Iranian youths, compared to their Indian peers. The results of the current study are indicative of ineffectiveness of the type of Indian political governance, which is a laic and secular one, on the correlation between social religiosity of the Indian youths, with their NST. Moreover, it was revealed that the level of tendency towards the social aspects of the religion, especially in the religious rituals and practices, is stronger among Indian youths than Iranians.