On Sunday 05 Aug 2007 2:49 pm, Charles Haynes wrote:
> Really? Fascinating. Are they really so ready to pigeonhole people
> based on nothing more than their name, or their physical appearance?
> They are *that* simplistic,
Yes they are simplistic and ready to pigeonhole people _IF_ they are aware
enough to be able to differentiate between non-Hindu and Hindu. There are
probably humongous numbers of Hindus who cannot tell the difference. I
actually did a little poll of people whom I thought were largely uneducated -
and asked them who they were. Very few were able to call themselves "Hindu",
although they did identify themselves as worshippers of "Hindu" Gods. They
were, however able to differentiate themselves from Muslims and those who
"pray to Christ". One of the people I polled was only able to describe
himself and his people as "people" ("janagalu" - in Kannada)
> Eh? I don't understand this part. You're saying that people will
> assume, based on name alone,
Yes- subject to awareness that differences in religion exist. I believe that
the awareness Christianity and Islam brought to Hindus is that religion too,
and God/s worshipped can be a basis for differentiation, in addition to
status, caste, language, sexual "color" etc which were known methods of
differentiation in India in the pre-Christian era. (my views)
> Similarly in America, it would be easy for people raised as Hindus to
> raise children outside of traditional Hindu culture if they so
> desired. Would such children be considered "Hindu" by Indians? What if
> the parents changed their names and the children spoke only colloquial
> American English, complete with California accents?
>
> Are they Hindu?
Hindus rarely move abroad in isolation. They take at least a wife, or they
return for a wife. In turn they produce Hindu children. Hindus (and Sikhs, and
Jains) who move abroad take with them a cultural "photograph" of life as they
knew it when they left and take greater pains than the average Hindu in India
to preserve what they recall as "their culture". Their attitudes, social
mores and fervor remain stuck in a time warp while the culture in India moves
on. Interviews with grown up children of Indian Americans who are sent to
India to soak up Indian culture testify to this fact. Girls get sent to India
with the advice that "In India girls wear modest clothes and do not wantonly
mix with boys". The Indian American girl comes to India expecting that and is
surprised to find that her parents got it all wrong, and were referring to 30
years ago.
In my mother's generation it was important for a young lady to learn Carnatic
classical music or dance. For me, living in India, it is no longer considered
necessary for a girl of my daughter's generation to do that. However, for my
brother's children, born in the US, it has been made necessary for them to
retain Hindu culture by training girls in classical music and dance. The
result is that you get to hear of Indian college girls studying engineering,
while it is the Indian-American girls who are doing their "Arangetram". The
(Arangetram being a kind of formalized "first public performance" of dance
indicating that the girl is now a fully trained bharatanatyam dancer.)
> What is the "essence" of Hinduism? How is it acquired or lost? Is it
> purely based on who you are descended from? Is there a cultural
> element? A religious requirement? If you run through the combinations,
> who is Hindu?
Nobody has answered this question in an uncontroversial way. IOW the last word
has yet to be written on this. I try to reach some conclusions by saying what
I think and seeing if that pings someone into responding.
shiv
