New Homelands Hindu Communities in Mauritius, Guyana, Trinidad, South Africa, Fiji, and East Africa. By Paul Younger.

Abstract

Refreshingly jargon-free, this book's readability renders it accessible to the legions of young people of diaspora Indian heritage keen to learn more about their ‘roots’ as well as to its presumed target audience in the academic fields of South Asian and religious studies. New Homelands will also be of interest to those studying issues relating to identity, diaspora, and labour migration more generally. The author has opted to discuss each of the six Hindu communities he has selected in a separate chapter. His summaries of the historical, social, and religious developments in the chosen territories are succinct, incisive, and intelligible which is in itself no mean feat. A particular delight is his illustrated ‘tour’ of selected Hindu temples in each country visited. As an introductory guide to the dynamic Hindu communities represented, the book has much to recommend it. The fact that the author has included the key importers of indentured Indian labour also makes the book a useful contribution to studies of this particular type of Hindu diaspora community. His in-depth analysis of Mauritius, Trinidad, Guyana, and Fiji leads him to the insightful conclusion, for example, that it was what he terms the ‘clumsiness of the colonial arrangements’ rather than careful policy, which ‘left the Indians with social space and cultural freedom’ (p. 234).