Hindus are a living testimony to the innate drive and diversity inherent in all living things. Their foundational concept for the entire creation is the thought of God during the eon –long period of quietude: “I am one: let there be many”. The modern world exemplifies that truth in that after five hundred years of forced assimilation, it is now widely accepted that whatever “unity” there is; it can only survive in diversity.
On October 5-6, Hindus, transplanted during the 19th century to the Caribbean and then in a still-unfolding migration to the USA, will be engaged in a historic two-day conference in New York City.
The migration that began as a trickle in the 1960’s increased to a deluge by the 1980’s and remains unabated. Initially focused in New York City, where a vibrant community unfolded, a significant secondary internal migration created a significant presence in South Florida, with pockets of Hindus in most other states.
Like most of the other immigrant groups that comprise the US population, the early Hindu immigrants concentrated on securing a solid economic foundation, but their roots were not forgotten. They replicated the Mandirs that had become the centre around which the activities that constituted their Dharma, were sustained. Today there are dozens of Mandirs in New York and several in Florida and Schenectady.
However, Hinduism teaches that while the principles of Dharma remain constant, their application to the exigencies of life have to be modified according to time, place and circumstances. Stagnation is death, according to Swami Vivekananda. Much adaptation has already been forced in their Caribbean homeland, under the hegemonic conditions of indentureship and colonialism. Many of these innovations were not positive.
The leaders of the Hindu community in North America, being aware of that history, were very concerned that the same reflexive process was not followed in their new home. With the guiding philosophy of the USA now viewing diversity as strength and actually encouraging its manifestations, they have planned this conference to begin the process on deliberation, reflection and consensus to ensure that their community returns to the principles of Sanaatan Dharma, within the American mosaic.
The theme of the Conference, Sangachadwam, sam-vadadwam is taken from the last verse of the Rig Veda and exhorts Hindus to: Move/Progress together, Articulate together.
The Conference is being held under the auspices of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad –America (World Hindu Organisation – America) and the HCC and is geared towards preparing ourselves for the World Hindu Conference scheduled for November 2014 in New Delhi, Bharath. This Conference will have representatives of Hindus from every country in the world in which the one billion Hindus reside.
To demonstrate the application of the ancient, eternal principles to modern circumstances, for the first time all the events of the conference will be held within Mandirs in New York. The Conference will kick off on Friday evening at 6 pm, with Registration, Welcoming Remarks, Dinner and a Cultural Program at the Prem Bhakti Mandir of 172 St Jamaica, Queens.
On Saturday, there will be four plenary sessions conducted simultaneously at two mandirs from 8am to 5 pm. The topics covered as detailed in the table below will be Hindu Education; Hindu Organisation; Hindu Women; Hindu Youths; Hindu Politics; Hindu Media and Hindu Economics. In a joint plenary session, resolutions will be drafted and approved.
Historical Background: The Journey of Caribbean Hindus
Professor of Religion, St. Olaf College
The story of Hindu migration to the Caribbean is well known. The abolition of the slave trade created a labor shortage that threatened the survival of the plantation economy, particularly in larger colonies like Trinidad and Guyana. Africans were not willing to subject themselves again to the oppressive conditions of life on the plantations and experiments with workers from Madeira and China were unsuccessful. India proved to be the most successful source of the required labor skills and provided a steady stream of immigrants from 1838, the year the first group of 396 Indians arrived in Guyana, until 1917 when indentured Indian immigration was finally abolished. By that time, 238,909 Indians had migrated to Guyana and 143, 939 to Trinidad. Most of them came from districts in the North Indian states of Bihar and the United Province. A significant proportion of these immigrants chose to return to India after completing the terms of their contracts. 75,547 of those who migrated returned from Guyana and 33,294 returned from Trinidad. The significant statistic is that 71% of those who made the arduous journey around the Cape of Good Hope and across the Atlantic chose to make their homes in the Caribbean. Their choice is the reason for our presence here today.
Along with their physical skills and knowledge of sugar cultivation, Hindu immigrants introduced to the Caribbean the essential elements of one of the world’s most ancient, culturally rich and philosophically sophisticated cultures. The insights and achievements of India found expression in the songs, dances, myths, stories and religious texts transported in the memories and meager belongings of the immigrants. It is important to acknowledge that Hindu immigrants to the Caribbean, and most specifically Hindu immigrants to Guyana, were the first to sow in the soil of the western world the seeds of a consciousness and way of life that had evolved thousands of years before in Asia. Fifty-five years before Swami Vivekananda spoke at the Parliament of World Religions in Chicago; Hinduism was being practiced in the Caribbean.
Although the history of Hindu migration to the Caribbean is documented well, the remarkable story of the survival of the Hindu tradition remains to be narrated properly. It is the story of religious survival in the midst of abject poverty and no official support for their religious and cultural wellbeing. The broader community viewed them with suspicious and schizophrenic eyes. While they were required for their physical skills on the sugar plantations, their beliefs, ceremonies of worship, life-cycle rituals and sacred narratives were denounced as superstitious and unenlightened. The reasons for the perception and treatment of Hindu religion and culture as inferior and backward are many. The principal reason will be found in the fact that the dominant values of the Caribbean were those of western Christian Europe. Those who judged Hinduism by these values proclaimed it to be different and inferior.
(2) Different but not inferior
They were correct about the fact that the Hindu traditions are different, but wrong in denouncing it as inferior because of being different. There are several important ways in which Hindu traditions differed from dominant religion of Christianity. In contrast to most forms of Christianity, which are very exclusive in their understanding of revelation and salvation, the Hindu tradition understood revelation in pluralistic ways. Hinduism affirms the oneness of the divine, but does not limit divine revelation to one historical moment or person. It portrays the one divine in many forms and describes it with many names. While introducing new sacred texts to the Caribbean, like the Vedas and the Ramayana, Hindu immigrants also brought with them ancient murti or iconographic representations of God. The use of these in rituals and festivals brought forth charges of idolatry and polytheism from a Christian-influenced culture that was hostile to the imaging of the divine in material forms. In addition, the understanding of God as immanent in all things led to a reverence for nature that was wrongly perceived as pantheistic. All of these contrasts were accentuated further by differences in language, dress, and diet. In the midst of ignorance and hostility, and pressures to convert, the Hindu tradition endured and, in many cases, even flourished.
Raj Neeti (politics) and its adaptability to today’s society.
‘Sangachadwam, sam-vada-dwam samvo-manaamsi gnaanatam’
Let us move together; let us speak together; let us know each other’s minds
I’ve been asked to say a few words about “Raj Neeti – translated as “politics” – and its adaptability to today’s society. I assume that what the Committee intended was that we discuss our Hindu view of ‘politics’ and how it may possibly be adapted to the exigencies of the present age.
And this is as it should be because as should have become very clear during the discourses, debates and discussions earlier today, we do not have an absolutist position on rules and regulations (whether on governance or otherwise) in Hinduism. Rather we believe that there are the eternal principles of Dharma that that have to be applied to the institution we’re considering but always taking into cognizance the desh, kaal and paristhiti – place, time and circumstances.
So we have to first answer the question as to what is ‘dharma’ before we can get to its application to governance or politics. We Hindus do not like to define things – that is too limiting – we prefer to enumerate their lakshanas or attributes. In the Shanti parva of the Mahabharata (109: 10-12) there is a very succinct summation of the lakshanas of Dharma:
Prabha vaarthaaya bhutanaam dharma pravachanam kritam
Yaha sthaat pravabha samyukthah. sa dharma iti nishchayah.
All the sayings of dharma are with a view to nurturing, cherishing, providing more amply, endowing more richly, prospering, increasing, enhancing, all living beings: securing their PRABHAVA. Therefore whatever has the characteristic of bringing that about is dharma. This is certain.
Dhaaranaad dharma-mithyaa-hur-dharmena vidhritaah. Prajaah.
Yaha. Syaad dhaarana-samyuktah. Sa dharma iti nishchayah.
All the sayings of dharma are with a view of supporting, sustaining, bringing together, upholding all living beings – in a word their DHAARANA. Therefore whatever has the characteristic of doing that is dharma. This is certain.
Ahimsaarthaaya bhutanaam dharma-pravachanam kritam
Yaha. Syaad-ahimsaa-samyuktah. Sa dharma iti nischayah.
All the sayings of dharma are with a view to securing for all living beings freedom from violence. Therefore whatever has the characteristic of not doing violence is dharma. This is certain.
It is because of these characteristics of dharma – prabhava, dhaarana and ahimsaa – that we therefore speak of Raj Neeti. For “Raj” we can maybe substitute what we call today, the state. But rather than ‘politics’ neeti is more properly translated political ethics. ‘Neeti” connotes: conduct; propriety; policy; a plan; politics; righteousness; morality. The ethical element of Dharma is always present.
If the politics we practice is bereft of these three attributes then we are practicing adharma and in this instance, tyranny, injustice or anarchy.
Danda:
Now how does the State achieve all these noble ends? Right off the bat, our shaastras advise that the ruler/executive must possess DANDA which, besides signifying staff or stick in this case means corporal punishment, chastisement, subjection, control, restrain. In a word, the State must have possess the bala or “power,” “strength,” or “force to ensure the law of the fish – matsya nyaya does not prevail.
While there was a brief period of Raam Raajya, when everyone observed Dharma and there was no need for danda, those days are long gone.
The entire purpose of the state is to protect the people: Raksha
MhBrt Shanti parva 68:8
There is no other justification for the king to exist than to protect in every way, the people. For protection, if the first foundation of all social order. It is from the fear of danda that people do not consume each other: it is upon danda that all order is based.
Applying this to today’s society, I have to point out an observation of the writer VS Naipaul that moved me greatly as a young man: he spoke of the ‘unprotectedeness’ of our people in our diaspora.
Our task in the present is to therefore insist that our political leaders create the conditions to secure our ‘protectedness’. It is for this reason that over twenty years ago, a group of us right here in NY identified the Physical Security Dilemma of the Indian in Guyana. We might have been able to take political office because of our numbers in a democratic system but unless the leaders possessed the bala to enforce the danda, we would always be at risk because of the matsya nyaya. We recommended that they make the Disciplined Forces – the repository of bala – representative of the country’s population. To no avail.
So today in Guyana, we have become a minority in population and without protection, once again.
In NY you have to ensure that you are organised politically so that you have direct input into the power relations of this society. The Jews are a minority that we would do well to emulate.
Caring for the poor and the oppressed
In his Arthashastra, Kautilya describes the supreme to which the ruler must bow: “In the happiness of his subjects lies his happiness; in their welfare, his welfare; whatever pleases himself, he shall not consider as good, but whatever pleases his subjects he shall consider as good.”(Bk 1, Ch XIX, 39)
“By abusing his great power, where the king begin to oppress the weak, and takes to adharma, there his officials make that kind of behaviour their means of livelihood as well…Full of such arrogant people that kingdom is soon destroyed. (MhBht Shanti Parva 931-2)
Aapad Dharma: In times of emergency
The exigencies of circumstances altering the application of Dharmic principles to Raj Niti is most graphically illustrated catastrophic ‘emergencies’.
When political, social and economic conditions become such that life or the state itself is threatened with destruction – in such an abnormal time or emergency, aapad kaal – the all must be done for self preservation.
“It is better to be alive than dead; alive a person can order his life again.” Shanti parva 141:65
“The king and the people should, in times of distress, protect each other: this is the abiding dharma of all times.” SP 130:30
During Aapad Kaal, therefore, the state must take whatever steps are necessary for the survival of the society. After the emergency is over however, the principles of Dharma must be reasserted.
Caribbean Hindus:
The challenges of political adaptation in the United States by Dr Baytoraam Ramharack
Recommendations
Given the lack of political organizations to represent Hindus, and the urgent need to do so, at a minimum, the following action plans are suggested:
1. Education and political consciousness is the foundation of all political actions. Perhaps the most important and immediate need of Hindus lies in the creation of educational institutions that can instill Hindu values among Indian youths. There is an urgent need to establish schools for Hindu learning and the acquisition of advance knowledge. The development of such a process would work in the same manner it has worked for other religious and ethnic communities. The American Constitution does not preclude the right of Christians to establish Catholic schools or prevent Jews from establishing Yeshivas to promote their own cultural values.
The financial resources possessed by Caribbean Hindus are tremendous, thus making the possibility of establishing primary, secondary and tertiary educational institutions possible. The economically vibrant Indian community can be tapped for resources to establish such institutions. Hindu parents would eagerly enroll their children in such Hindu schools to avoid the problem-plagued city public schools in New York City. More importantly, such educational institutions can establish and promote a Hindu curriculum and prepare young students with the foundation and skills they need to promote a Hindu vision for Caribbean Indians in the United States.
In Guyana, a very successful institution for the education of Hindu youths was established a few years ago by Swami Aksharananda, the Saraswati Vidya Niketan. Its rate of success at producing young, talented and educated students has been extraordinary and the school is now being viewed as a model for other schools in the country. The point, however, is that there is an urgent need for Hindus to establish functional Hindu educational institutions to create a new generation of leaders. This goal is certainly attainable in the short run in New York.
2. India is a growing world power. Its population is expected to surpass that of China by 2030. Some scholars may consider this to be a negative transformation given the challenges associated with India’s growing population. Regardless, India will still retain its growing dominance in the south Asian region and it is sure to increase its global influence. Surely, it will continue to strengthen its cultural links with the Indian diaspora. India has recognized the potential of its citizens in foreign lands. Caribbean Hindu leaders in the United States must work to strengthen the social, economic, political and cultural links with both India and the Caribbean.
India still possesses great resources and its ability to offer scholarships and extended visas is well known and appreciated by many Indian residents abroad. Other avenues of assistance must be explored not just with India but with the growing Non-Resident Indian population which have been recognized as an important lobbying force for India. Important Indian institutions like the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) of India have in the past shown an interest in reaching out to the Caribbean Indian diaspora. By the same token, Caribbean Hindus must maintain similar links with their jahajis in the Caribbean. By doing so, they can forge closer political links by networking with other Hindu institutions in the Caribbean region so that the Hindu cause is strengthened at various points in this triangular relationship.
3. What is propelling Hinduism in the United States into a role as one of the nation’s largest minority religions today is a steady stream of Indian immigrants from the Caribbean (and India of course) who have built several temples in the tri-state area. By all indications, this trend will continue into the near future. The practice of the Hindu faith in its various manifestations is played out in the temples and at religious functions, such as weddings, christening and death ceremonies.
Since the commencement of the indentureship system Hindu religious leaders have played a pivotal role in maintaining and promulgating the Hindu culture in the Caribbean and other places in which they have come to accept as their new homeland. In some cases, the specific cultural traits of the Hindu culture can be traced back to its hearth in India when Indians migrated to the Caribbean in the early 1800s, even though some of those cultural traits in India have been modified by the effects of westernization, industrialization and globalization.
Throughout the indentureship period in the Caribbean, the task of preserving Hindu culture has been thrust upon the local pandits and other religious leaders. These religious leaders now have the power to effectuate changes in the Hindu perspective and the Hindu imagination because they have a captive audience during weekly religious services. Hindu religious leaders have to boldly re-evaluate their roles and agree on a common course of action for the benefit of members of the Hindu community. Those who understand the importance of this function need to play a pivotal role in helping to re-orient the younger generation through effective educational programs and making religion relevant to their lives. By doing so, they will undoubtedly be able to capture the imagination of the youth and give meaning to the core Hindu religious and cultural values and practices. Instilling greater understanding of the Hindu religion and displaying pride in being a Hindu will go a long way towards creating the critical mass that can effectuate changes in the political domain.
Recommendations
Given the lack of political organizations to represent Hindus, and the urgent need to do so, at a minimum, the following action plans are suggested:
1. Education and political consciousness is the foundation of all political actions. Perhaps the most important and immediate need of Hindus lies in the creation of educational institutions that can instill Hindu values among Indian youths. There is an urgent need to establish schools for Hindu learning and the acquisition of advance knowledge. The development of such a process would work in the same manner it has worked for other religious and ethnic communities. The American Constitution does not preclude the right of Christians to establish Catholic schools or prevent Jews from establishing Yeshivas to promote their own cultural values.
The financial resources possessed by Caribbean Hindus are tremendous, thus making the possibility of establishing primary, secondary and tertiary educational institutions possible. The economically vibrant Indian community can be tapped for resources to establish such institutions. Hindu parents would eagerly enroll their children in such Hindu schools to avoid the problem-plagued city public schools in New York City. More importantly, such educational institutions can establish and promote a Hindu curriculum and prepare young students with the foundation and skills they need to promote a Hindu vision for Caribbean Indians in the United States.
In Guyana, a very successful institution for the education of Hindu youths was established a few years ago by Swami Aksharananda, the Saraswati Vidya Niketan. Its rate of success at producing young, talented and educated students has been extraordinary and the school is now being viewed as a model for other schools in the country. The point, however, is that there is an urgent need for Hindus to establish functional Hindu educational institutions to create a new generation of leaders. This goal is certainly attainable in the short run in New York.
2. India is a growing world power. Its population is expected to surpass that of China by 2030. Some scholars may consider this to be a negative transformation given the challenges associated with India’s growing population. Regardless, India will still retain its growing dominance in the south Asian region and it is sure to increase its global influence. Surely, it will continue to strengthen its cultural links with the Indian diaspora. India has recognized the potential of its citizens in foreign lands. Caribbean Hindu leaders in the United States must work to strengthen the social, economic, political and cultural links with both India and the Caribbean.
India still possesses great resources and its ability to offer scholarships and extended visas is well known and appreciated by many Indian residents abroad. Other avenues of assistance must be explored not just with India but with the growing Non-Resident Indian population which have been recognized as an important lobbying force for India. Important Indian institutions like the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) of India have in the past shown an interest in reaching out to the Caribbean Indian diaspora. By the same token, Caribbean Hindus must maintain similar links with their jahajis in the Caribbean. By doing so, they can forge closer political links by networking with other Hindu institutions in the Caribbean region so that the Hindu cause is strengthened at various points in this triangular relationship.
3. What is propelling Hinduism in the United States into a role as one of the nation’s largest minority religions today is a steady stream of Indian immigrants from the Caribbean (and India of course) who have built several temples in the tri-state area. By all indications, this trend will continue into the near future. The practice of the Hindu faith in its various manifestations is played out in the temples and at religious functions, such as weddings, christening and death ceremonies.
Since the commencement of the indentureship system Hindu religious leaders have played a pivotal role in maintaining and promulgating the Hindu culture in the Caribbean and other places in which they have come to accept as their new homeland. In some cases, the specific cultural traits of the Hindu culture can be traced back to its hearth in India when Indians migrated to the Caribbean in the early 1800s, even though some of those cultural traits in India have been modified by the effects of westernization, industrialization and globalization.
Throughout the indentureship period in the Caribbean, the task of preserving Hindu culture has been thrust upon the local pandits and other religious leaders. These religious leaders now have the power to effectuate changes in the Hindu perspective and the Hindu imagination because they have a captive audience during weekly religious services. Hindu religious leaders have to boldly re-evaluate their roles and agree on a common course of action for the benefit of members of the Hindu community. Those who understand the importance of this function need to play a pivotal role in helping to re-orient the younger generation through effective educational programs and making religion relevant to their lives. By doing so, they will undoubtedly be able to capture the imagination of the youth and give meaning to the core Hindu religious and cultural values and practices. Instilling greater understanding of the Hindu religion and displaying pride in being a Hindu will go a long way towards creating the critical mass that can effectuate changes in the political domain.
Historical background of Hindus in Guyana by Dr Basdeo Mangru
On arrival in British Guiana, indentured Indians quickly came under the rigid discipline of the plantation system. The plantation is often described as “a total institution where a large number of individuals, cut off from the wider society for a long period of time, together lead an enclosed and formally administered life.” On the plantation, Indians and other groups were controlled largely by the Labor and Vagrancy Laws which, inter alia, subjected them to heavy penal sanctions, circumscribed their movements even during leisure and denied them access to the Immigration Office to air their grievances. These two sets of laws reduced workers to a state of helplessness and dependence akin to slavery. The various disabilities on arrival aggravated their plight.
Strikes and demonstrations, assaults on managers and estate subordinates, coupled with such passive resistance as malingering and deliberately doing sloppy work, seemed the only forms of protest through which Indians could give expression to their grievances. The most violent strikes in the indentured period occurred at Devonshire Castle, Essequibo, in 1873, Non Pariel in 1896, Lusignan in 1912, and Plantation Rose Hall in 1913 where 15 Indians were killed including a woman, Gobendai. The many confrontations with a repressive state apparatus seemed to destroy the myth of Indian docility and demonstrated forcibly that Indians were capable of responding appropriately to pressures. Several times they were ‘knocked down’ but they were never ‘knocked out’. They used the Tadjah celebrations to demonstrate their power in the community. Tadjah devotees in their inebriated state frequently attacked, with their hackia sticks and other lethal weapons, any European or traveler who failed to dismount from his horse or carriage and show reverence to the shrine.
In the mid-1870s an important change, the cessation of reindenture, occurred affording those who completed their contracts the opportunity to purchase land. As a result several small Indian villages sprang up in the three counties of Essequibo, Demerara and Berbice. The government, too, began experimenting with Indian villages so as to prevent Indians from leaving for India and reduce its liability for providing free return passages and acclimatizing the newcomers. All these government experiments–Nooten Zuill, Huist t’Dieren, Helena, Whim, Maria’s Pleasure–did not seem to succeed largely because of the ambivalent attitude of the planters who were not prepared to incur expenditure which would exceed the cost of repatriation. In the villages established by free laborers on their own initiative, rice, coconut, and cattle industries were developed.
Until the 1920s Indians showed very little interest in educating their children. In 1901 it was estimated that 80% of East Indian children of primary school age did not attend school. The condition of life on the estates contributed significantly to the non-education of Indian children as most estates employed children under nine years. To the mass of poor Indians, education seemed a luxury whereas young children could be sent to the fields to supplement family income. Many parents who were disposed to sending their children to school strongly objected to the prevailing system which combined Christianity with education. Others who were intent on returning to India saw no intrinsic value in educating their children in English. Thus in 1923 only 29% of East Indian children attended primary school; among the Chinese it was 83%, Blacks or Coloreds 79%, Portuguese 75% and Amerindians 59%.
Political consciousness among Indians was also low under indenture. One of the reasons was their ignorance of the English Language which was a prerequisite to any form of political participation. The absence of prominent leaders in the Indian community also rendered politics less worthwhile. One traditional institution, the Panchayat (council of five elders), had the capacity for channeling political activity, but in such an alien environment it did not seem to survive long. In any case, most indentured Indians looked to the Immigration Agent-General, whom they held ‘in loco parentis’, to represent their grievances. They frequently approached James Crosby, the longest serving Immigration Agent-General in British Guiana, with full confidence that their interests would be adequately protected and their grievances speedily redressed.
Since 1845 when colonial emigration became state controlled, the Government of India adopted a policy of benevolent neutrality which was maintained throughout the 19th century. With the growth of nationalism in India, a change of policy occurred when in 1910 the Indian government assumed power to prohibit emigration to any country which failed to give sufficient guarantees about the future treatment of Indians resident there. The assumption of such power followed Mohandas Gandhi’s exposure of the abominable conditions under which Indians labored in South Africa, and the refusal of the South African government to abandon its discriminatory laws. But it was Lord Hardinge, Viceroy of India (1910-1916), who attacked the ineradicable evils of the system, namely the grave recruiting irregularities, a high mortality and suicide rate on the plantations, “indescribable” sexual immorality in the immigrant camp, and mounting planter prosecutions for minor infractions of the law. Indenture, too, was considered an affront to the national honor of India and must be abolished. At the same time, the Indian government was finding it extremely difficult to defend a system which aroused so much bitterness among articulate Indians. It took a massive anti-indenture campaign largely confined to India, and punctuated by speeches, petitions, pamphlets and propaganda, to ensure its abolition. A subsequent attempt to introduce Indian workers on a colonization scheme did not materialize because of its financial implications and strong opposition in India. By 1920 indenture officially came to an end.
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