Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on January 11, 2013

Manu's children Indira Kannan / Jan 12, 2013, 00:50 IST

Hindus may be among the most prosperous people in the US but they rarely assert their religious identity. Tulsi Gabbard's election to the US Congress could change that

As Tulsi Gabbard, the new Congresswoman from Hawaii, was sworn into the House of Representatives by Speaker John Boehner in Washington, DC on January 3, she repeated the oath of office voiced by hundreds of lawmakers before her over the years. But she was the first to do so with her left hand on a copy of the Bhagwadgita. The irony did not escape anyone: the first Hindu American in the House of Representatives had no native connection to India, the birthplace of Hinduism. On the other hand, the most powerful Indian American elected officials Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley are not Hindu. Ami Bera, another Indian American who joined the House along with Gabbard, is a Unitarian Universalist, though he was born Hindu.

A report by the Pew Research Center last year said the US was second only to India as the top destination country for Hindu migrants, with most of them arriving in recent decades. According to Meghani, Hindu temples were few and far between as recently as the 1960s; now there are nearly a thousand, which is two or three opening every month in the past few decades. The latest addition is the Swaminarayan Temple near Los Angeles inaugurated last month, which was built at a cost of over $30 million. The island of Kauai in Gabbards home state Hawaii is home to a south Indian monastery-temple complex spread over 363 lush acres. The Kauai Hindu Monastery, comprising largely non-Indian Hindus, also publishes the internationally-known magazine Hinduism Today. There are other visible and growing symbols of the Hindu presence in America. Former President George W Bushs administration started the practice of celebrating Diwali at the White House, while Barack Obama became the first president to attend the annual ceremony. He was also the first to mention Hindus in his inaugural speech in 2009, and to appoint the first Hindu American, Anju Bhargava, to the White House faith-based advisory council.

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Hindus are one of the most affluent groups in the US. According to the Pew Forums Religious Landscape Survey of 2008, 43 per cent of Hindu households make over $100,000 a year, as against 18 per cent of all US households. And, according to the US Census 2010, Indian Americans have the highest household income of all ethnic groups in the US; Hindus comprise over half of Indian Americans. This makes them one of the highest earning groups in the country.

But many in the community feel theres still a huge awareness gap about Hinduism among Americans. Ramya Ravi, 25, an engineer in Houston, attended the conservative Texas A&M University, where she says several Christian groups were active. She recalls her roommate, a fellow Hindu, came home crying one day after a group had told her she was going to hell because she was not Christian. Ravi co-founded the Hindu Students Association after leaving the university. Seventeen-year-old Namita Pallod, a high-schooler in Houston, also says theres a lot of misinformation about Hinduism. Even though they teach it at school, they focus on all the wrong stuff and put it in such a negative light and I dont think they give Hinduism the respect it deserves, says Pallod. Hate attacks on Hindus are not as frequent or high profile as the ones against Sikhs; but the most recent case was of an Indian American, Sunando Sen, being pushed off the subway platform in New York last month. He died after being run over by an approaching train. The Hispanic woman arrested in the case is reported to have told the police shes hated Muslims and Hindus ever since 9/11. Shes being charged with a hate crime, which is more serious with a longer sentence than plain murder. In another instance, parents in California recently threatened to sue a local school board for teaching students yoga, complaining that their kids were being indoctrinated in an Eastern religion. The school board said it would continue, pointing out it has removed all cultural references by giving asanas names like aeroplane pose and gorilla pose.

The Hindu American Foundation (HAF) was launched ten years ago with the objective of advocating for the community and educating American policymakers in the government, legislatures, media and think tanks. Meghani remembers an incident seven years ago when a US Congressman asked an HAF delegation if they were Shia or Sunni. When we first went to Capitol Hill, Congressmen and Senators recalled that they had always met delegations representing Indian interests, but they had never met a group that represented Hindu interests, although there were, of course, groups coming all the time that called themselves Jewish American or Muslim American, even Sikh American and, of course, Christian groups were always on Capitol Hill and active publicly. So weve moved past that barrier, says Meghani.

While HAF focuses on political advocacy and watching out for bias or discrimination against Hindus, Bhargava, Obamas appointee to the faith-based advisory council, believes its equally important to get Hindu Americans involved in governance. Its an area where the community gets no guidance from India, she says. India sees itself as a secular country in which no faith plays a role, whereas in America, and this is a big difference, religion is very much upfront and plays a role in the public platform, says Bhargava.

Bhargava, who moved to the US three decades ago from India, also started Hindu American Seva Communities, an organisation that provides the community a role in social and local community issues. Hindu Americans do plenty of charitable and volunteer work, but must become more vocal about it, and hold them up as a reflection of Hindu values, according to Bhargava. We have to learn more explicitly how to address our Hinduness on a public platform; then people will see us more as equals. But the challenge is to encourage Hindus, especially those from India, to stand up for their values, says Bhargava. Hindu has become a five-letter word, I found. If you say youre a Hindu, it must mean youre a part of the saffron brigade. We dont understand, we just dont know what it means to be a Hindu at the community level.

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Category: Jewish American Heritage Month
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