Religion, caste, and language are major determinants of social and political organization in India today. The government has recognized 18 languages as official; Hindi is the most widely spoken, although English is a national lingua franca. Although 82% of the people are Hindu, India also is the home of more than 126 million Muslims--one of the world's largest Muslim populations. The population also includes Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, and Parsis.

The caste system reflects Indian occupational and socially defined hierarchies. Ancient Sanskrit sources refer to four social categories, priests (Brahmin), warriors (kshatriya), traders (vaishya) and farmers (shudra). Although these categories are understood throughout India, they describe reality only in the most general terms. They omit, for example, the tribes and low castes once known as "untouchables." In reality, society in India is divided into thousands of jatis--local, endogamous groups based on occupation--and organized hierarchically according to complex ideas of purity and pollution. Despite economic modernization and laws countering discrimination against the lower end of the class structure and outlawing ìuntouchability,î the caste system remains an important source of social identification and a potent factor in the political life of the country. Nevertheless, the government has made strong efforts to minimize the importance of caste through active affirmative action and social policies. Moreover, caste has been diluted if not subsumed in the economically prosperous and heterogeneous cities, where an increasing percentage of Indiaís population lives. In the countryside, land reform and economic opportunity through access to information, communication, transport, and credit have lessened the harshest elements of the caste system.