There are multiple threads in this forum, and I am sure in all Indian chat sites, we are highly superstitious people.
To understand the prevalence of superstition and rituals in the society, one must go back to the early Vedic age to understand the institution of religion and its evolution in India. Back then, rituals were (known and acknowledged to be) the means of employment for priests. Undue importance was placed on the priest class. The priest class further stoked this feeling with citing the need for more and more importance to rituals to live a happy life. Soon, everyone forgot that superstition and rituals were merely an economic activity for the priests, because it was convenient to think that there was a way to contact or control the super natural.
Very little has changed since, in the private lives of Indians. We still stick to the "safety" of rituals and superstition. Very few superstitious beliefs are founded in more than nonsensical foundation. But we, as enlightened people, are going to hold on to those practices because they're our insurance scheme, and are confidence boosters.
This is not characteristic of Indians alone, as pointed out in other answers here. It's human nature to be stupid. It's also human nature to feed off stupidity.
Sneha Divakaran, Indian
The spread and quality of Education has a huge role to play in eradicating superstition. Indian culture of acquiring knowledge is mostly memorizing text with little emphasis on the meaning. This process is encouraged in every facet of life. Questioning is discouraged. As a result India has failed to produce a single Nobel Laureate in science for more than 80 years. Not a single technology institute listed in the top 500 in Shanghai Ranking. Very little interest among students in core science subjects and research.
Science is not part of Indian culture, we are a spiritual nation with religious people earning 1000 times more than a scientist at TIFR.
People do not have the tools of logic and common sense to distinguish between fact and opinion, between myth and history.
Nishad Kaippally, Saving the world from stupidity, one idiot at a time.
Possible reasons could be:
1. We live with our older generations. Even though we aren't prepared to believe it, some people doesn't want to take risk by ignoring them. It's all just a belief. What will happen if we don't follow this? Will it go bad? So many questions will pop up in our mind, thereby ends up believing it partially.
2. Elders at home will have 1001 examples to say things which went wrong when they failed to follow some rituals.
3. Some of the beliefs do have some scientific theory behind it.
4. It's just not about Indians. People across the world have some kind of superstitious beliefs.
5. We constantly keep looking for certain things like why it happened and how it happened?. We are in need of an explanation for an action. We blame our luck if things take a different direction. Luck is also a kind of superstition.
Swapna De
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-Indians-still-believe-in-superstitious-beliefs-and-rituals
To understand the prevalence of superstition and rituals in the society, one must go back to the early Vedic age to understand the institution of religion and its evolution in India. Back then, rituals were (known and acknowledged to be) the means of employment for priests. Undue importance was placed on the priest class. The priest class further stoked this feeling with citing the need for more and more importance to rituals to live a happy life. Soon, everyone forgot that superstition and rituals were merely an economic activity for the priests, because it was convenient to think that there was a way to contact or control the super natural.
Very little has changed since, in the private lives of Indians. We still stick to the "safety" of rituals and superstition. Very few superstitious beliefs are founded in more than nonsensical foundation. But we, as enlightened people, are going to hold on to those practices because they're our insurance scheme, and are confidence boosters.
This is not characteristic of Indians alone, as pointed out in other answers here. It's human nature to be stupid. It's also human nature to feed off stupidity.
Sneha Divakaran, Indian
The spread and quality of Education has a huge role to play in eradicating superstition. Indian culture of acquiring knowledge is mostly memorizing text with little emphasis on the meaning. This process is encouraged in every facet of life. Questioning is discouraged. As a result India has failed to produce a single Nobel Laureate in science for more than 80 years. Not a single technology institute listed in the top 500 in Shanghai Ranking. Very little interest among students in core science subjects and research.
Science is not part of Indian culture, we are a spiritual nation with religious people earning 1000 times more than a scientist at TIFR.
People do not have the tools of logic and common sense to distinguish between fact and opinion, between myth and history.
Nishad Kaippally, Saving the world from stupidity, one idiot at a time.
Possible reasons could be:
1. We live with our older generations. Even though we aren't prepared to believe it, some people doesn't want to take risk by ignoring them. It's all just a belief. What will happen if we don't follow this? Will it go bad? So many questions will pop up in our mind, thereby ends up believing it partially.
2. Elders at home will have 1001 examples to say things which went wrong when they failed to follow some rituals.
3. Some of the beliefs do have some scientific theory behind it.
4. It's just not about Indians. People across the world have some kind of superstitious beliefs.
5. We constantly keep looking for certain things like why it happened and how it happened?. We are in need of an explanation for an action. We blame our luck if things take a different direction. Luck is also a kind of superstition.
Swapna De
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-Indians-still-believe-in-superstitious-beliefs-and-rituals