A section from the journey
The Global Diaspora
Hinduism is no longer only of India. It travelled in two great waves. First, in colonial times, ships carried indentured workers, the girmitiyas, across the kala pani, the dark ocean, to islands like Mauritius, Guyana, Trinidad, and Fiji. They rebuilt their faith from memory, far from any temple. Much later, after old quotas fell in 1965, a second wave of doctors, engineers, and scholars settled in the West. Today Hindus live on every continent.
For almost all of our long journey, this story has lived on one land. But that is no longer the whole truth. Hinduism is now spread across the entire earth. And it travelled there in two great waves, as different from each other as can be.
The first wave was born of hardship. Long ago, in colonial times, as the cruel age of slavery was ending, plantations across the world still hungered for workers. So ships began to carry Indian labourers, under long and binding contracts, to far-off colonies to toil in the fields.
These workers came to be called girmitiyas. The name comes from the English word agreement, the very contract they had signed, often without truly knowing what waited on the other side of the sea.
And to go at all, they had to cross what many feared as the , the dark water. The open ocean. Some held that to cross it was forbidden, that it would cut a person off from home and from their own line. They crossed it anyway, in their thousands, and many never saw their birthplace again.
Cast up in places like Mauritius, Guyana, Trinidad, Suriname, Fiji, and South Africa, they did a quiet, astonishing thing. They rebuilt their faith almost from memory. Around small home shrines. Around the loved retelling of the Ramayana, recited aloud. Around festivals carried in the heart, with no temple yet to hold them.
Their children's children are Hindu communities in those lands to this day. In some, they make up a large share of the whole people. From a contract signed in sorrow, a living tradition took root across the sea.
The second wave came much later, and wore a wholly different face. In 1965, the United States lifted its old quotas that had long kept out newcomers by nation of birth. Other countries opened their doors too. And through them came a new kind of traveller.
These were, many of them, highly trained people. Doctors. Engineers. Scientists. Scholars. They settled in the West to work and to build new lives, and they brought their festivals, their shrines, and in time their great temples with them. One must be careful, though, not to mistake this well-schooled group for Hindus everywhere. Worldwide, Hindus are as ordinary and as varied as any people on earth.
And so, from these two very different journeys, the hard and the hopeful, the river has reached every continent. Today there are well over a billion Hindus in the world. Most still live in India. But you may now find a lamp lit at dusk on almost any shore.
Picture rebuilding everything you believe from memory alone, in a strange land, with nothing brought but what you could carry in your heart. What do you think a person holds onto first, when they can keep only a little? And what does that say about what truly matters to them?
For most of this journey, our story has lived on one land. But Hinduism is no longer only of India. It has spread across the whole earth, and it went in two great waves. The first wave was born of hardship. In colonial times, when slavery was ending, ships carried Indian workers under long, binding contracts to far-off colonies to labour on plantations. They were called girmitiyas, from the English word "agreement." To go, they had to cross what was feared as the kala pani, the dark water of the open sea, a crossing some held to be forbidden. Many never returned. In places like Mauritius, Guyana, Trinidad, Suriname, Fiji, and South Africa, they rebuilt their faith almost from memory, around home shrines, beloved retellings of the Ramayana, and festivals kept alive by heart. Their descendants are Hindu communities there to this day. The second wave came much later and was very different. After the United States lifted its old national quotas in 1965, and other nations opened too, a wave of highly trained people — doctors, engineers, scientists, scholars — settled in the West. From these two very different journeys, the hard and the hopeful, Hindus now live on every continent, and the count worldwide reaches over a billion.
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