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Nidān Vol. 3, No 1, July 2018 Nidān International Journal for Indian Studies Theme: Indian Diaspora: Migration, Ethnicity and Identity in North America and the Caribbean July 2018 Durban, South Africa Published at University of KwaZulu-Natal Editors P. Pratap Editor-in- Emeritus [email protected] University of KwaZulu-Natal Kumar Chief Professor Ajaya K Associate Associate [email protected] University of Hyderabad, India Sahoo Editor Professor Guest Editors Prea Persaud University of Florida & Priyanka Ramlakhan University of Florida Editorial Board Members Member Institution Email Anand Singh (Professor) University of KwaZulu-Natal [email protected] Michel Clasquin (Professor) University of South Africa [email protected] Goolam Vahed (Professor) University of KwaZulu-Natal [email protected] T.S. Rukmani, (Emeritus Professor) Concordia University, Canada [email protected] William Harman (Emeritus University of Tennessee, USA [email protected] Professor) Knut A. Jacobsen (Professor) University of Bergen, Norway [email protected] Martin Bauman (Professor) Universität Luzern, Switzerland [email protected] Purushottama Bilimoria Melbourne University, Australia [email protected] Yoshitsugu Sawai (Professor) Tenri University, Japan [email protected] Ramdas Lamb (Professor) University of Hawaii, USA [email protected] Kim Knott (Professor) University of Lancaster, UK [email protected] Corinne Dempsey Nazereth College, USA [email protected] Hanna Kim Adelphi University, USA [email protected] Antoinette DeNapoli University of Wyoming, USA [email protected] Anup Kumar Cleveland State University, USA [email protected] Brij Maharaj University of KwaZulu-Natal, SA [email protected] Centre for South Asian Studies, Mathieu Claveyrolas [email protected] Paris ISSN 2414-8636 © 2018 Copy Right Reserved: Nidān: International Journal for Indian Studies • Nidān is an international journal which publishes contributions in the field of Indian Studies • Articles published in Nidān have abstracts reflected in the Index to South African Periodicals • Nidān is now distributed only through electronic media as a freely accessed journal from its main website: [http://nidan.ukzn.ac.za] • Articles published in Nidān are also available on Sabinet [http://www.journals.co.za/ej/ejour_nidan.html] • This periodical is indexed in the ATLA Religion Database® (ATLA RDB®), http://www.atla.com) Peer Review Policy All papers published in this journal are subjected to rigorous blind peer review by two independent scholars in the field. Authors’ Guidelines Please see for detailed instructions on our website at http://nidan.ukzn.ac.za Submission of Papers Authors are requested to submit papers to the editor-in-chief by email as attachment in MS word format at: [email protected] Disclaimer Article/papers published in this journal are entirely the views of the authors. The editors and members of the editorial board are not responsible in any way for the views expressed by the authors. Table of Contents Introduction Priyanka Ramlakhan and Prea Persaud i Making Homes In the American World: Bengali Hindu Women’s Transformations to Home Shrine Care Traditions in the U.S. Ashlee Norene Andrews 1 Meat-Filled Samosas, the American Legal System, and Multiculturalism Rita S. Biagioli 16 Swami Chinmayananda, Hinduism, and Diaspora Configurations: Identifying the effects of a modern advaita-vedāntin on the Hindu diaspora in North America Varun Khanna 31 From Kala Pani to Gangadhaara: Sacred Space and the Trauma of Indentureship in Trinidad Prea Persaud 50 Book Reviews Daniel Heifetz 67 Narasingha P. Sil 70 Nidān, Volume 3, No. 1, July 2018, pp. i-v. ISSN 2414-8636 Introduction: Contemporary Expressions of Hinduism in the Indian Diaspora of North America and the Caribbean Priyanka Ramlakhan, Prea Persaud Throughout its long history, Hindu traditions have continuously experienced periods of renewal and revisioning according to shifting historical and social contexts. The articulation of Hinduism by its adherents has been immensely underscored by Indian migration, ethnicity and issues of authenticity and identity. It is for these reasons this two-part special issue of Nidan focuses extensively on the themes of migration and identity in the Indian diaspora. Part one of this volume focuses primarily on Hinduism in North America, with attention also to the Caribbean. Indians first arrived in the Caribbean in 1838 after the abolition of slavery, because of pressure from the Indian government, as an alternative workforce on sugar and coconut plantations, and most chose to stay after the end of their labor contracts. By the time the indentureship system was abolished in 1917, over half a million Indians had emigrated to the Caribbean. Dislocated Indians reorganized their religious communities through memories of practices from their South Asian homeland, while developing innovative practices adapted to the circumstances of plantation life. Early Hinduism of the Caribbean was constructed through the social and political hegemony of colonialism. From the mid-twentieth century, it experienced ongoing periods of revitalization and reform. In the Caribbean, the expression of Hindu-ness is often synonymous with being Indian. Today, in its multivalent form, Indo-Caribbean Hinduism is characterized as an ethnic religion with distinctive traditions that are even replicated in its own diasporic migration patterns observed in parts of North America and Europe. (Vertovec 2000 and Younger 2009). The history of Indians in the United States, however, takes on a very different trajectory from that of the Caribbean. Since the nineteenth century, Hindu concepts have influenced American culture. After 1965, relaxed immigration laws led to a large influx of Indians to the U.S. By this time, the U.S. was already experiencing its third wave of Indian gurus who transplanted Hindu-inspired practices which contributed to guru-led organizations and temple construction. Unlike the Caribbean where the majority of migrants were from the working class, the Indians that came to the U.S. were generally well educated and categorized as skilled labor (Kurien 2007). As a result, the temples they developed reflected their communities’ greater comparative wealth, their desire to recreate the temples of India, and their ability to travel back and forth to India (see Waghorne 2004; Forsthoefel and Humes 2005; Narayanan 2006). In contrast, the Hindu i Ramlakhan and Persaud / Introduction community in the Caribbean modified their temples to better combat the missionary efforts of the Presbyterian church (Prorok 1991). Although their temples were usually smaller than those in the U.S., a great number of them were built throughout the Caribbean, particularly in Trinidad and Guyana where most Indians lived. The desire to form a cohesive community that would reflect the needs of Indians in the Caribbean also meant that religious differences in the Caribbean were superseded by ethnicity. Hindus and Muslims formed organizations and political parties to represent all Indians whereas in the U.S. Indians formed separate religious communities. Despite these differences in their early history, both groups illustrate the complex ways in which Indian migrants have untangled and managed their hyphenated identities. The papers in this issue illustrate that while we often talk about an Indian or Hindu diaspora in the singular, the diaspora is fractured, consisting of multiple migrations, identities, and group affiliations. As Prema Kurien (2007) has argued, the drawback of the multiculturalism narrative in the Americas is that it privileges the voice of one group as the voice of a religious tradition and/or culture despite the diversity that exists within that tradition. What the following articles in the present volume reveal is that the Hindu diaspora is multilayered and while shifting identities, the reproduction of religious practices, and questions of authenticity and authority are common themes. Each group addresses these issues in different and nuanced ways. In the first article of this issue, “Meat-Filled Samosas, the American Legal System, and Multiculturalism,” Rita Biagoli reviews a 2009 legal case in which Moghul Express, a restaurant in New Jersey, was sued for giving a group of vegetarians a tray of meat-filled samosas. In their case, the plaintiffs, Durgesh Gupta and fifteen other vegetarians, requested that the restaurant pay for a trip to India so that they may cleanse themselves in the Ganges. The court was left to decide whether this was a reasonable request as dictated by the standard procedures of “Hinduism.” As such, the court had to navigate both the various understandings of “Hinduism” as well as define the necessary purification practices. Although there have been several court cases in which a concise definition of “Hinduism” was needed in order to make a judgement, as Biagoli points out, what makes this case unique is that it was a conflict between two groups of Indo-Americans. As such, it reveals the fractured nature of the Indian community in the U.S. and the multiple variants of Hinduism present even within a minority population. The fear of the U.S as a corrupting force that threatens the erasure of one’s identity is also explored in Ashlee Andrews’ article on shrine care among Bengali women in the Chicago, Illinois. In “Making Homes in the American World: Bengali Hindu Women’s Transformations to Home Shrine Care Traditions in the U.S.,” Andrews explains that shrine care is a form of domestic caretaking that is seen as part of a women’s duty and essential to the Bengali identity. The lack of home shrine care ii Nidān, Volume 3, No. 1, July 2018, pp. i-v. ISSN 2414-8636 may be seen as a loss of tradition important to the Bengali identity but Andrews argues that while there is a loss, these losses are chosen by the women in order to make the most out of their American world while also maintaining Bengali traditions. Instead of viewing women as caught between two forces they have no control over, that of a new American identity and the traditions of their homeland, Andrews recognizes the agency of women to reinterpret and transform their traditions.
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