What Indians Think About Various Indian States? A Study to Understand Images and Stereotypes

Abstract

National images and stereotypes are very important area of research for social scientists all over the world. While the rationale behind a lot of national images and stereotypes are often illogical or debatable, these are very powerful tools to understand the mindsets of a population in general towards the other. Studying these, one can get an overview of undercurrents of emotions existing in a population. In this study, I have extended this concept to understand the images and stereotypes Indians have in their mind about the various Indian states. It is often said that “India is a small edition of the world”. The statement is quite true. With 29 states and 7 Union territories, India is bigger in size than most of the countries and has high geographical diversity as well as cultural diversity in terms of language, food habits, cultural traditions, life styles, religious beliefs and so on. It is highly unlikely that every Indian will have same kind of exposure (primary or secondary) to every state.