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Religious Belief and Social Change: Aspects of the Development of Hinduism in British Guiana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Chandra Jayawardena
Chandra Jayawardena
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Sydney
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Extract

This paper is concerned with developments in Hinduism in British Guiana. The Hindus of this country are the descendants of immigrants from India who were recruited during the period 1838–1917 to serve as labourers in the sugar plantations. I discuss the effects on religion of changes initiated by immigration.

Type
Cultural Change among Indian Migrants
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , January 1966 , pp. 211 - 240
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1966

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References

1 Plantation Blairmont and Plantation Port Mourant.

2 The statistics of column one are compiled from Raymond Smith, T., “Some Social Characteristics of Indian Immigrants to British Guiana”, Population Studies, Vol. XIII, No. 1 (1959)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; of columns two and three from Nath, D., History of the Indians in British Guiana (London, 1950)Google Scholar; and of column four from British Guiana Population Census, 1960, Bulletins Nos 1 & 2, April 1960. The number of Indian Christians is not given in the last publication, but can be calculated indirectly by making the reasonable assumption that all Hindus and Muslims are Indian, and that all non-Indians are Christians.

3 Altogether 238,860 indentured immigrants were recruited.

4 Then known as “The North Western Province and Oudh” and later as the United Provinces.

5 Raymond Smith, op. cit.

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11 Ibid., pp. 289–90.

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17 The emphasis on ahimsa and opposition to blood sacrifice are accounted to be Buddhist and Jain influences. Tara Chand makes a strong case for Muslim influence on the South Indian divines who paved the way for the bhakti cults. Chand, Tara, The Influence of Islam on Indian Culture (Allahabad, 1954), p. 107Google Scholar.

18 See, for example, Poem I in One Hundred Poems of Kabir, trans. Tagore, R. & Underhill, E. (London, 1961)Google Scholar. Raidas has been attributed the stanza: “My caste is low, my actions are low/ and even my profession is low/ Says Raidas, yet the Lord has raised me high.”

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32 Jayawardena, op. cit., chapter 3.

33 Quoted in Ruhomon, op. cit., pp. 206–7.

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35 Ruhomon, op. cit., p. 215.

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38 Quoted in Ruhomon, op. cit., p. 216.

39 Ibid., p. 218.

40 Bronkhurst, op. cit., p. 291.

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42 Ibid., p. 18.

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44 Includes members of the Bharat Sevashram Sangh (see below, p. 234) who do not dissociate themselves formally from the Sanatan.

45 45 For further discussion of these topics see Jayawardena, op. cit., Chapter 4.

46 46 Quoted in Ruhomon, op. cit., p. 209.

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54 Ibid., p. 100.

55 Ibid., p. 15.

56 Ibid., p. 106.

57 Ibid., p. 100.

58 Sunday Chronicle, 20th April, 1958.