This panel explores the different ways Hindus and Hinduism have taken shape in various diasporic contexts beyond South Asia and North America. How has engagement with and understandings of Hinduism evolved in countries that carry historical Hindu influences? How has temple construction has offered communities forms of liberty? How do Hindus in the diaspora re/create public worship of Hindu figures? How has Hinduism been embraced in certain socio-political contexts? This panel presents the work of graduate students and emerging scholars studying Hindu diasporas in Thailand, Mauritius, People’s Republic of China, and United Arab Emirates to address these questions of community formation and practice. Through these explorations this panel further enriches the discourse of global Hindu diasporas.
Early studies have generally used a dyadic schema to explain the pervasiveness of Hindu themes in Southeast Asia’s myriad religious cultures. Whereas Hindu traditions which appear indigenous are described as « Indianization » stemming from age-old processes of cultural exchange, the more recognizable forms of Hindu-ness in Southeast Asia are attributed to a modern Indian diaspora born of Western colonialism. In recent times, scholars have questioned these paradigms, especially with regards to present-day Thailand. My presentation offers ethnographic vignettes from fieldwork at two temples in suburban Bangkok—Wat Saman Rattanaram and Thewalai Khanetinsuan. Centered on the god Ganesha, the sites represent distinct but overlapping attitudes toward the public worship of Hindu figures in Thailand: one subsumes Ganesha under a Buddhist rubric, the other presents a vision of Ganesha which, although founded and managed by Thai Buddhists, retains a decidedly Hindu identity.
This paper aims to map the progressive settlement of Murugan worship throughout the indentured Tamil communities of Mauritius island, in the early decades of the 20th century. I locate the emergence of Murugan-centered within a departure from the historically dominant ritual economy of Mariamman and Draupadi worship, confined to sugar estate temples under direct White planters’ patronage.
The establishment of Murugan cultic centres map instead the settlement of a new class of upper-caste Tamil landlords moving from small plantation holdings to more mercantile ventures. Through the foundation narratives of two important Murugan temples, I argue that the peripatetic and metamorphous deity provided to formerly indentured migrants a Bhakti of economic freedom and political ascension.
As index of this devotional discourse, my analysis of three poems of Mauritian Murugan devotee Vadivel Selvam Pillai (1899-1978) showcase this association between the deity and a hard-won material liberty.
Making use of previously neglected English- and Chinese-language sources, including hundreds of hours of archived recordings, and interviews conducted over nine months of ethnographic fieldwork (July 2022–May 2023), this paper explores (1) how and why, since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, various citizens of the People’s Republic of China have come to embrace lives of devotion centered on the Hindu deity Kṛṣṇa, and (2) how, despite the social and political challenges they face as religious actors in China, devotees manage to maintain and even strengthen their faiths. In grappling with the former, this paper reveals a combination of factors—ideology, “religious capital,” social bonds, and “direct rewards”—which draw and facilitate the conversion of Chinese to Hinduism. In dealing with the latter, it expands upon anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann’s theory of “real-making,” arguing that practitioners can become more certain of Kṛṣṇa’s existence through, among other things, affective synchronization.
This paper examines the challenges faced by Hindu immigrants in practicing their religion and establishing temples in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a predominantly Islamic country. Against the backdrop of global conflicts rooted in religious diversity, the paper enhances the discourse on religious pluralism by analyzing the historical development and architectural evolution of Hindu temples in the UAE. Drawing on my historical and ethnographic research, I argue that despite Hinduism’s status as a minority religion in a Muslim-majority nation, the reciprocal relationship between Hindu pluralistic approaches and the UAE government’s religious inclusion policies has facilitated the practice of Hinduism, the construction of temples, and the promotion of religious diversity and inclusion in the UAE. The paper analyzes the religiopolitical dynamics, interreligious tensions, and roles played by Hindu temples in promoting cultural exchange, social cohesion, and community empowerment, offering insights into Hindu-Muslim relations, religious pluralism, and cultural integration in the UAE.