Hindu Revival In America Essays - Hinduism In The United States

Hindu Revival In America Hindu Revival In An Alien Land. America is coming alive with the sounds and images of Hinduism. From Ras and Garbha dances during Navratri in Chicago and Edison to Diwali fireworks in Manhattan's South Street Seaport; from the sounds of conches and the chanting of hymnals at temple ceremonies in Pittsburgh and Flushing to the consecration of new dieties at the Balaji Temple in Bridgewater, N.J., and the foundation-laying ceremony for a new Shree Raseshwari temple in Austin, Texas; from the modest get-togethers of the devout before a makeshift alter in a three-car garage in Glen Mills, Pa., to mini-culfests in Atlanta and New York University, the American landscape this past month seems to have come alive with the sounds and images of Hinduism. On Oct. 25, Jackson Height's 74th Street, which is contemplating a name change to 'Little India', was transformed into a Lucknavi Diwali mela, complete with Indian sweet and chat stalls and a shadow puppet performance. New York Mayor david Dinkins joined the celebration, as did San Jose's Mayor Susan Hammer a similar event in San Jose. In Monroeville, Pa., the India Heritage Research Foundation is putting together an Encyclopedia of Hinduism, while the International foundation for Vedic Education, in Rahway, N.J., established this March to revive 'Vedic Education in its true spirit and form', has announced plans for an international conference on Atharva Vedas in July 1993. There can be no mistaking it. A Hindu revival is taking shape in an alien land. Population Impetus For Growth The doubling of the Indian American population in the 1980s is the impetus for this Hindu resurgence. For the first time their numbers have reached the critical mass to sustain Indian American religious institutions and temples in towns and cities across the United States. Since 1965, when discriminatory national origin quotas were lifted and the gates opened to Asian immigrants, the Indian population has grown twenty-fold and is presently nudging a million. The population growth has coalesced with a recognition among many first generation Indian Americans, who have long harbored illusions of returning to India in their waning years, that the United States has become their permanent home and that they therefore need institutions to transmit their cultural and religious traditions to their children. In the first two decades, says Raymond Williams, distinguished professor of philosophy and religion at Wabash College, in Crawfordsville, Ind., and author of several landmark books on Hinduism in the United States, religion was not important to Indian immigrants, most of whom were urban and educated. But increasingly many of them are turning devout Hindus, much more so than they were back in India. Religion for them, Williams says, has become a conscious, deliberative process. The religious revival among Hindus is not unusual to America, which has experienced similar efforts to transplant religious traditions among other new immigrant communities in the past. Says John Felton, associate professor of religion at Emory University and author of Transplanting Religious Traditions: Asian Indians in America, 'When you get a large population of immigrants they begin to duplicate institutions back home.' Ramakrishna Chalikonda, of the Hindu Temple and Cultural Society, which this February established the Sri Venkateswara Temple in Bridgewater, N.J., says, 'We want to preserve some of our culture. The more we are away, the more we miss of it. We want to get some of the same feeling as in India.' Chalikonda's sentiment is echoed in a survey of Indians in Atlanta by Fenton, in which 94 per cent of the respondents said preserving cultural values was important or very important to them. The growth may have come at a faster pace for Indian Americans than it has for other immigrants historically, because Indian Americans are the most educated and affluent community in the United States. Theannual fund-raiser for the Hindu Temple of Greater Chicago netted $128,000 in cash and pledges this October. The temple has paid off nearly three-quarters of its $1.7 million debt on the temple. After putting down $90,000 as a 10 per cent deposit at a bankruptcy auction this February, the Hindu Temple and Cultural Society raised $800,000 in a whirlwind 42-day campaign to acquire a Bridgewater Church. The Hindu Temple and Cultural Center in Berlin, which serves some 900 families in South Jersey has an annual budget of $15,000 and its 100 founding members have shelled out upwards of $1,000 for the temple. The Integration of Religion and Culture Religion is a very integral part of Indian life and so even before they could establish religious institutions in cities where