Demographics
The Indian census form has a question that asks respondents to disclose their religion and if it fell in the list of six major religions - Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist and Jain, and then write a corresponding code. The Union Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation had asked enumerators to record "no religion" for the respondents who said so. Yet technically, only the coded answers in the Indian census form were tabulated as classifiable data. As a result, minor or tribal religions as well as atheists and agnostics were placed together in an unclassifiable category of "Others". In the 2001 Census, 0.1% (727,588 people) were reported as "Religion not stated" and 0.6% as "Others", with neither category logically accommodating atheists.
According to the Dentsu Communication Institute Inc, Japan Research Center (2006), 6.6% of Indians stated that they had no religion. According to the 2005 Global Index of Religion and Atheism report, 87% of Indians were religious and 4% called themselves atheist. According to the 2012 report by the same organization, 81% of Indians were religious, 13% were not religious, 3% were convinced atheists and 3% didn't know or did not respond.
Read more about this topic: Irreligion In India