Religious Transformations
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Religious Transformations CHAPTER FOUR RELIGIOUS TRANSFORMATIONS The Localisation and Globalisation of Indian religion in Guyana Socio-cultural change, by definition, is contextual. Differences in time and space stem from variances in the conditions under which individuals – with an invariably great creative and adaptive capacity – produce and reproduce culture. Modifications in attitudes and practices, as well as transformations of institutions and structures, can only be explained by taking the circumstances of change into account. I have used the first two chapters of Part I to outline these circumstances of change. In chapter two, I have sketched the historical process of transplantation: the radical change in productive conditions brought about by the migration from India to Guyana, the establishment on South American soil, and decolonialisation. In the previous chapter, I described two forces that strongly shape the contemporary context in which East Indianness is defined: the ethnicisation of distributive struggles, and the intensification of global interconnectedness.210 This chapter comprises the analysis of two strands of cultural transformation that result from such circumstantial change. It is a case study in which the development of East Indian systems of belief is linked to the character of the society in which development occurs. ‘Religious Transformations’ involves an examination of important tendencies instigated by the collision of a formative past and present: cultural developments occurring in the contexts described in the previous two chapters. More precisely, the twin processes of religious localisation and globalisation are examined. Both tendencies of globalisation and localisation direct processes of modification and reproduction in all the realms of social behaviour that will be analysed in the second part of this dissertation. Additionally, also in those other realms of behaviour, these tendencies are the product of the contextual changes that fuel cultural adaptation in the field of Indian religion in Guyana. Religious Transformations, thus bridges both parts, and adds to the focus of the rest of this book. 210 The characteristic of contemporary globalisation according to India and Rosaldo (2002:2). 127 GUYANA JUNCTION I have organised the core of this chapter in two sections. First, I will discuss the localisation of Hinduism. In half a chapter, I will describe how the formation of a Guyanese version of the Indian faith was triggered by alterations in (re)creative possibilities and power structures, and the emergence of attractive alternatives. Second, I will analyse the globalisation of local Islam. In a few sections, the impact of the rapidly growing transnational interconnectedness on both social structures and religious thought and practice is investigated. In the a brief concluding section I will then connect the forces of localisation and globalisation, argue that they encompass quite similar catalysts of change, and stress the fact that – rather than being mutually exclusive – they are universal forces that coexist and are even interrelated. As Friedman (2002:233) has said about fragmentation and homogenisation: “[they] are not two arguments, two opposing views of what is happening in the world today, but two constitutive trends of global reality.” 4.1 The localisation of Hinduism “Undisguised hatred of Untouchables incites members of a private army in a Bihar village. Outraged by the wage and land-reform demands of Untouchables, the Ranvir Sena, a militia led by landowners, has been implicated in the massacres of more than 500 Untouchables. The attackers have gone largely unpunished. Activists fear that the recent surge in violent incidents across India will only intensify as more Untouchables try to break the chains of caste.” – National Geographic, June 2003, pp. 30. A Muslim friend from a nearby village had sent me a photocopied piece taken from an issue of the National Geographic magazine. ‘India’s Untouchables’. He had promised me a copy after we had discussed it in the masjid a week earlier. The author vividly described Indian inequities and presented Society members and other readers with some dramatic cases of the monstrosities that are still taking place in the name of karmic stratification. Torment and torture, justified as the consequence of birth at the bottom. I had made some extra copies and shared them with some Hindu neighbours and relatives. They had asked for it, seemed eager to know. One Tuesday afternoon, a few of us sat down and discussed the article. “Dem people ah sick man,” uttered Ramdeo, my wife’s nana (MMB). “I am ashamed to be a Hindu,” responded the barber from the house next door. My uncle-in-law shook his head: “these wicked men nah know no’ting about religion.” All hummed in agreement, India’s Indians obviously had completely misunderstood the whole thing. Prakesh from the backstreet looked at me: “they nah realise all of we ah duh same?” I raised my shoulders. “What yuh really t’ink Hans, you and Nally been deh, wha mek dem nah understand duh system?” 128 Religious Transformations Indologists like Dumont (1970) once positioned the caste system at the heart of Hinduism.211 According to them, caste stratification was both a core aspect of the belief system and an essential part of its grand design. The informants above, all convinced Hindus, prove them wrong. Rather than part of its essence, the structuring structure appears to be largely a contextual feature, the product of a doctrine’s development in a certain locale. Indian diaspora communities provide the evidence. The relocation of the system to other surroundings has never jeopardised the survival of the belief, yet severely fractured beliefs in caste. As throughout the Indian transnational community, Hinduism in Guyana is not just a part of the Indian religious heritage. Rather than a relic from the past, it is the dynamic outcome of its development in a unique Guyanese setting. Current practices and beliefs constitute a localised Hinduism within a multi-religious and globally connected Guyanese reality. This localised Hinduism, thanks to the creative powers of its believers, has developed into a vibrant religious system in which the value of aspects once deemed fundamental has deteriorated and new practices and visions have been absorbed. ‘The past’ and contemporary ‘Present-day Contexts’ – in a joint venture with the devotees themselves – thus produce a distinctively Guyanese Hinduism. This Caribbean variety of the ancient Indian religious complex is a kind in which the importance of caste as a structuring structure has diminished and subsequently the role of its key concepts – e.g. hierarchy and purity – has changed. The particular demographic makeup of the indentured population and organisation of the Guyanese society did not allow the system to be reproduced in the New World. Instead of the incredibly variegated Indian Subcontinental Hinduism, in which local and hierarchical differences gave the system a multitude of faces, a relatively unitary collection of localised doctrines and doings developed. This mainstream Hinduism in Guyana, generally referred to as Sanatan Dharma, is a Vaishnavite bhakti- centred religion that bears marks of a north Indian past. It is also a fundamentally brahmanical religion, in which the successful marketing of their supposedly superior approach has erased or marginalised ‘low practices’. Furthermore, it is a somewhat anglicised religion that is modified since it is often only understood in English and because it has rooted in the soil where Christianity is grown. And finally, it is a religion which has become challenged by the ever growing influence of the Anglo-American style and a handful of Hindu alternatives imported from religious nuclei outside. 4.1.1 New base, new borders: the effect of altered margins on the establishment of religious systems Religious localisation concerns the process in which a system of thoughts and practices is modified to meet the requirements of a particular (new) locale and thus to ensure its 211 Others, like Dirks (2001) state the concept of caste is a rather recent invention, the outcome of a historical encounter between India and Western colonial rule. According to him caste has become a symbol of India, but essentially is something flexible and variable instead of static and universal. 129 GUYANA JUNCTION relevance and survival. More than anything, it involves a divergence from the developmental trajectory of the ‘original’ system which is prompted by alterations in people’s (re)creative possibilities, by shifted boundaries of the productive field. Hinduism, as practiced by many of the East Indians in the rural region where I have spent most of my days in Guyana, is a perfect illustration of a localised religious system. Because Guyanese reality is fundamentally different from north Indian reality, it was impossible to reconstruct the religious complex as it had existed in the motherland. Constraints inherent to plantation life, and later existence in a plural society, forced the people to refine the corpus of beliefs and acts. These new constraints, or altered (re)creative possibilities, broadly comprise three formative lines that will be discussed under 4.1. First, localisation occurs because productive conditions change. Alterations in practical circumstances that facilitate or even instigate the production or reproduction of a system make adaptation inevitable. A deteriorated general financial situation of the believers,