High interpersonal trust, low institutional trust

The full distribution for “How comfortable do you feel actively collaborating with or living near a community fully composed of families from a different faith tradition?” (n = 399) is: Fully comfortable and accepting — 74.9% (299); Slightly hesitant but manageable — 19.3% (77); Would strictly avoid it — 3.5% (14); Highly uncomfortable and anxious — 2.3% (9).

The cohort is clearly concentrated on this question. A single option carries 74.9% of responses, so the headline figure is stable enough to plan against. The smallest recorded answer, highly uncomfortable and anxious, still represents 9 people — a group large enough to matter in programme design even at 2.3%.

“Do you believe that mainstream media channels and online portals intentionally amplify communal friction in Kerala for economic views?” (n = 399) returns: Yes, they deliberately manufacture hate for data clicks — 75.7% (302); Only occasionally during specific state elections — 18.3% (73); No, they safely report true on-ground events objectively — 6% (24).

Placed beside the primary figure, this measure shows a majority position — 75.7% on yes, they deliberately manufacture hate for data clicks — which is the more reliable of the two anchors here. Read together, the two questions describe cross-cutting analysis as a pattern reported across the cohort rather than an issue confined to a minority of respondents.

The sample is a community-recruited cohort of 399 respondents surveyed between 21 May and 28 June 2026. Figures describe this cohort; they are not state-level prevalence estimates and should not be reported as such.

The composition of the sample also shapes the totals: 74.4% of respondents fall in the older student and early-career band, and 72.7% identify as male. Any reading by gender, district or occupation needs disaggregated fieldwork this instrument was not designed to deliver.

The instrument records one moment in time, so nothing here identifies a cause or a trend. Statements about mechanism in this brief are interpretive and flagged as such.