On 8/5/07, shiv sastry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > 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.) Sure, but what I think you're saying is that it's possible, maybe even easy, for Hindus that move abroad to preserve their culture if they want to. I'm asking a different question - what if they *don't* want to? What if a couple, born of Hindu parents, decides for some unknown reason that they completely reject Hinduism, don't want any part of it. Assume for the moment, they move away to some non-Hindu country, cut off all contact with Hindus, change their names, and deliberately raise their children to have no Hindu culture, ignorant of their history, enthusiastically embracing modern secular culture and rejecting religion. Would these children be considered Hindu? Their grandparents were full on Hindus in any sense of the word. Their parents were raised in Hindu culture, but rejected it. They however, were not raised in a Hindu culture, have no knowledge of Hindu tradition or practice, and they don't believe any of it. Are they Hindu? If so, what is it that makes them Hindu? It would seem that the only possible answer is "if you are born of Hindu parents you are a Hindu. Period." Their parents are Hindu, therefore they are Hindu. If that is not sufficiently clear, what about the hypothetical case of a Hindu infant, adopted by secular non-believers and raised in a non-Hindu culture. Is that child still Hindu? Ignore for the moment how unlikely this is to actually occur, I'm trying to get at what it is that determines "Hinduness." It seems pretty clear that neither belief nor practice are either necessary or sufficient. So what is? I can answer that question for Jew, Christian, or Muslim including a discussion about the various controversies, but I can't do it for Hindu. -- Charles
