Page 56 - IJPS-10-4

International Journal of
Population Studies Opinions on Rohingya refugees in India

the limitation of this paper. The responses were collected in Table 1. Demographic data about respondents
Hindi and English from participants registered in national
online panels by CINT between August and September Category Sub‑category Percentage
2022. Participants were presented with approximately Gender (Nationally Female 44
60 questions, including a set of about a dozen questions representative
factor)
specifically added to the Indian version of the survey.
Male 56
For the purposes of this paper, the authors focused Other/No response 0
on a subset of questions related to (i) people’s sentiments Education level Primary 3
toward the Rohingya, (ii) their willingness to resettle the
Rohingya in India, and (iii) their opinions on India’s stance Secondary 14
toward Rohingya refugees. The first question utilized a Tertiary 83
0 – 100 scale, commonly referred to as a “thermometer Age 18 – 25 39
question,” where 0 represents “cold/negative feelings,” 25 – 34 27
50 represents “neutrality,” and 100 represents “warm/ 35 – 44 22
positive” feelings. The second question employed a 7-point 45 – 54 9
scale, ranging from 1 (most negative answer) to 7 (most >55 3
positive answer). The third question provided four specific
response options, including an “I don’t know” option. In Urban/Rural Village (up to 10,000 people) 11
addition, the data have been analyzed by disaggregating it Town (10,000 – 100,000 people) 14
based on some of the demographic characteristics, which City (100,000 – 1 million people) 30
will be further described in the following section. When Big city (over 1 million people) 45
applicable, relevant country comparisons have been made Religious identity Hindu 82
using the available data. Muslim 10

2.2. Demographic breakdown Christian 5
Buddhist 1
The survey data provided in this article offers a
representative representation of the entire population across Other 2
three demographic factors: gender, age, and region. Table 1 Religiosity Never to irregular 17
provides a breakdown of the 1146 survey respondents (Hinduism)
based on the representative demographic factors, as well Often-daily 83
as education, ethnic identity, language(s) spoken, rural or Religiosity (Islam) Never to irregular 71
urban location, religiosity, and political leaning. Often-daily 29
In addition, Figure A2 illustrates the geographic Religiosity Never to irregular 70
distribution of the respondents. Furthermore, the (Christianity)
responses to each of the three questions discussed in the Often-daily 30
previous section were carefully analyzed in relation to Religiosity Never to irregular 71
some of the aforementioned demographic characteristics. (Buddhism)
Any noteworthy trends or significant patterns identified Often-daily 29
during the analysis are reported in the subsequent sections Political party All India Trinamool Congress 5
of this paper. preference (National party [center-left])
Bahujan Samaj Party (National 2
3. Survey results: Indian attitudes toward party [center-left])
the Rohingya, their resettlement, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (National 56
preferred policy option party [right-wing])
Communist Party of India 1
3.1. Attitude toward the Rohingya (National party [left-wing])
Comparing the feelings of Indians toward the Rohingya Communist Party of India (Marxist) 1
with a few other groups of people (a mix of various (national party [left-wing])
ethnicities, nationalities, and religious groups), the results Indian National Congress (National 11
of the survey show that out of the provided groups, Indian party [center to center-left])
people feel the warmest toward the Japanese and the coldest (Cont’d...)

Volume 10 Issue 4 (2024) 50 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.2174