The religion was being practiced in the Caribbean. Even today, it is an important religion among Indians who live in Guyana, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. This is the result a migration that began 150 years ago.
Slavery:
- After slavery was abolished in the 19th century, European-owned sugar plantations of the West Indies desperately needed new workers.
- They wanted cheap and skilled labor fast.
- The people they had enslaved before refused to submit to exploitative conditions, so plantation owners turned to European colonies.
- Chinese immigrants, while skilled, struggled with the warm weather of the West Indies and this resulted in a great demand for laborers from India.
- Thus began the system of indentured labor.
A large number of people, mostly from the agricultural and labor classes, migrated all the way, beyond the Cape of Good Hope, to Americas to work in sugar plantations in unsanitary and inhumane conditions for paltry wages. Almost half a million people, including a small section from upper castes, migrated, an indication of the lack of opportunities in India back then. While many later returned to India, after serving the indentured period, a large proportion stayed back, establishing a new form of Hinduism that is still practiced.
East Indian indentured laborers in British Guyana |
There are two key reasons the Hindu community has become very strong in the Caribbean. First, they were treated very badly by local Christian communities, which saw them as primitives and idolaters. Even today, they have to withstand the hostility of Christian communities that are far more dominant locally. Second, they also faced hostility from Afro-Caribbean communities, which resented them for ending the negotiation advantage they had historically enjoyed with the plantation owners.
Ratha Yatra |
Indentured labors established temples despite much opposition. There is even a pilgrimage center on the Caribbean islands. Hindus celebrate Holi in spring and Diwali in autumn. The philosophical background, under the influence of new gurus, has become Vedanta-based bhakti and yoga, and these tend to be ritualistic and orthodox.
Guyana Hindu Dharmic Sabha |
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