Such a conference was very long in coming as the last such one was held several decades ago. Hinduism in the Americas and Caribbean has been undergoing new paradigms, but there is no one standard approach or religious books or religious leaders by which a common ground could be followed or practised, and even in India such a practise is not fully operational. There is no set dogma in Hinduism, which in turn makes it even more controversial to be followed by the millions around.

The conference was named, "Caribbean-United States Hindu Conference", and it was held at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre in Georgetown, Guyana. The 300 or so participants in the conference came from Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, United States and Suriname.

When our forefathers came to the Caribbean from India, principally Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in the middle of the 19th century, they brought with them a set of books, principally the Ramayana, which is today the standard guidelines for Hindus in the Caribbean. East Indians came to or rather were picked up by British colonial masters to the Caribbean to enhance their agricultural capacity, principally sugarcane and cocoa plantations following the abolition of slavery in 1838 by the British Parliament, And in excess of 1.5 million East Indians were shipped to Guyana, Trinidad, Suriname, Jamaica, Guadeloupe, Martinique,  St. Vincent, Grenada and St. Lucia. 

Today the Hindu population in Guyana is 31.2 per cent of the population; in Trinidad and Tobago it is 24.3 per cent; and in Suriname  22 per cent. There are smaller numbers of Hindus in Guadeloupe, Martinique, St. Vincent, Grenada and St. Lucia and in other Caribbean countries. Guyana had a much larger number of Hindus, but in the 1960s, 1970s and  1980s, they sought refuge  in the United States, Canada, England because of the iron-fisted  rule of the then dictator Forbes Burnham, while hundreds migrated to Trinidad, Barbados, Suriname and other smaller Caribbean countries. 

Hinduism in peril in Caribbean 

Hinduism in the Caribbean faces a downward spiral with the conversion challenge to various forms of Christianity, and today one can see a family whose forefathers were Hindu walking with the Bible in their hands to church.

Despite these  challenges, Hinduism continues to be a religion with over 400 temples and scores of religious groupings in Trinidad. The celebration of Diwali, the Festival of Lights, has gained much national and international prominence in Trinidad, where the annual Divali Nagar at Chaguanas sees over 100,000 people thronging the nine-nights carnival spread over a 27-acre site from all over the Caribbean, the United States and beyond.

The conference held in mid-October pinpoints the challenge to produce strategies such as, "to mobilize Hindu communities and stakeholders to actively implement to foster a collaborative and supportive relationship with pandits and Hindu leaders to help contribute to the development of practical strategies and initiatives that will positively impact Hindu communities."

And the guest speaker at the conference, Pundit Professor Prakash Persad, president of the University of Trinidad and Tobago, gave a very realistic account of the state of Hinduism in this hemisphere as he surveyed the state of Hinduism for the coming generations in these parts of the world.

"Being a firm believer in karma and therefore an optimist, I posit that it will depend on what we discuss and decide here today, and more importantly, whether we follow through with focused and coordinated, collective actions" where he said, "ICT and AI technologies would have to play expanding and dominant roles" .

Saying it is not an organized religion, meaning that there is no central authority and founder, as its structure is a distributed one and can be defined as a loose association of communities accepting a common, core belief system, including the belief of karma, reincarnation, many forms of God and many paths of worship, and "superimposed on the  core, would be rituals, traditions of belief and practices of a local regional character".

Need for Hindus to unite 

Persad said that Hinduism is "syncretic by nature as it attempts to incorporate all beliefs with which it comes into contact. Furthermore, it is neither prescriptive nor dogmatic of their own destiny and hence required to apply the rules of Dharma in all aspect of their lives. Democracy is central to its ethos and it allows for divergent views, even opposing ones. Finally, capitalism, of dharmic nature, is a fundamental pillar of the religion".

Pundit Persad who is also Chairman, Technological Board (Dharma Mandal) SWAHA Inc. and Professor of Mechatronics, noted that from being a dominant community in the old world until a millennia ago, to being a subjugated one, and then a colonized one, Hindu communities, over many centuries, have been subjected to vicious and continuous assault. 

"Whilst a mixed bag of  characteristics have allowed Hindu communities in the diaspora to survive and acquire an amazing degree of individual success, they have contributed significantly so to its continued diminution as we do not have a common or united or harmonized platform to articulate the views of the entire community and lobby on its behalf. On the few occasions when the community presented a united form, as in the case of the objection to the ban on open air cremation during the Covid 19 pandemic in Trinidad and Tobago, the outcome was very positive," Persad noted. "We need to organize as a united, harmonized community and reject the divisive group dynamics," he declared. 

(The author is a Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago-based journalist and consultant. Views are personal. He can be contacted at paras_ramoutar@yahoo.com)