Why are you taking this insurance policy?

That is an anology for religions gaining people by indoctrinating them from childhood and threatening with hell. Good examples of this are the Pascal's Wager in Christianity and this Shloka in Hindutva:

अस्तिचेत् नास्तिको हतः नास्तिचेत् अस्तिको हानिः

It's an analogy I used to question religion. Here you believe into God(s) of that religion and you pay the premium of blindly believing and not questioning any of what religions say, and you stop being rational. I also compare it with multi level marketing, because everyone who joined a religion will spread it to his offspring.

The dream of heaven and the threat of hell

Good point. Deep inside people are insecure and after death they are all alone in a unknown place and having to face it without support, so easy to put them in place with these concepts.

They will, no doubt about that. But the 'why' is what I continue to wonder about. If it is only for helping to cope with though times, I'm ok. But lately people are increasingly basing all their experiences on religion, and are starting to distort reality by pushing religion into education and politics. By building these playing card buildings, the moment one card in the base falls, the entire building will fall. I believe it's been to have a strong base by keeping it based on fact and not on faith.

Tl;Dr it is not religion in itself that says anything or asks anyone to do something. People have various motivations to use it to seize key political power, a.k.a, power to influence others and to be seen as someone worth of respect.

Let's keep in mind that the mass of people crave attention and derive a lot of meaning by aligning to a group that their immediate peers identify with. Off late, that is religious for many demographic slices, owing to the significant grassroots messaging by the most powerful political party today.

After this point, whether you believe in specifics propaganda, rituals, or not depends on who you are influenced by.

I know highly educated and highly scientifically minded people distributing religious items in their community . These are given to them by BJP for every election/festival or Ram Mandir thing, and their reasons are to foster the community they feel belonged to. One of their friends is a high profile lawyer who speaks for the community. But on this trajectory, they inadvertently yet enthusiastically take up superstitious activities, and refuse to believe that democracy or scientific organisations might be deteriorating. Still I don't see any sign of active hate mongering, which is a relief, but am worried for how long, given the easy propaganda to wrap anything in unquestionable claims.

Those with even slight religious beliefs go deeper and not with the popular rhetoric, while those with ulterior motives make an effective unquestionable shield using all vague stuff in it. It takes a lot of social capital and skills to oppose something like that and still live in that community. So most people either silently resign and agree or actively join the ranks of supporters. Finally, as I said in the start, it doesn't matter what, but people do stuff that is somehow motivated by organized and centralized religious thought.