Interesting survey on American Hindus
In a challenge to the stereotypical view of confused ABCDs (”American Born Confused Desis”), recent research portrays Hindus living in the USA as quite a cohesive and strongly rooted set of communities.
An extensive survey into religion in the USA, found that Hindus have…
April 16th, 2008 at 5:42 am
I never grew up nor currently live in a highly populated Indian/Hindu area but I don’t think these numbers are indicative of “challenging the stereotypical view of confused ABCDs”.
In Hinduism, because we do not indoctrinate or force people to believe in certain things and because American society generally is not comfortable with atheists, Hindus will identify themselves as such.
How many Hindus in America have read the Upanishads, BG, Vedas, Mahabharata, Ramayana, or even Amar Chitra Kathas? I assume very few.
How many understand the threat of conversion or Indian history? How many know Chanakya, Ashoka, Baji Rao, Kunwar Singh, Shivaji, etc. ? My guess is - very few.
Because British Hindus came earlier to Britain than Hindus came to America, there was more racism, which ultimately forces a person to return to their community and their roots, thus, I would say there is more pride in Hinduism in the UK than in the USA.
In America, my experience has been of very little racism for my skin color and my religion and this being the case with other people it has a very potent affect of stripping a people of their culture if it doesn’t mean anything to them. Punjabis, who are intrinsically proud of who they are retain much of that here (and Gujuratis to a certain degree), but other groups do not exhibit the same pride in either their ethnicity or their religion.
April 16th, 2008 at 5:44 am
*My guess is, that of those 84% who chose to retain their Hinduism, it is primarily in name and not in truth.
April 16th, 2008 at 11:43 am
“My guess is, that of those 84% who chose to retain their Hinduism, it is primarily in name and not in truth”
Maybe, but the fact they still maintain the affiliation is something good. Most people, in my opinion, only maintain a nominal identity if it still means at least something for them.
April 16th, 2008 at 11:45 am
To illustrate, most other faith groups had much lower retention rates of people raised in these faiths who described themselves as belonging to that same faith in adulthood.
April 17th, 2008 at 3:00 am
Dangerous-
That’s true. Those numbers came up after a widely syndicated article which stated that nearly half of all Americans switch to a faith different than that of their childhood. I’m not disagreeing, just putting the numbers in context.