Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 01:25, 22 March 2007

Hinduism in Belize

The country has an area of 8,867 square miles and its population is approximately 280,000. There is a growing Mestizo population (48.7 percent), a diminishing Creole component (24.9 percent), a stable Mayan element (10.6 percent), and a Garifuna component (6.1 percent); the balance of the population (9.7 percent) includes Europeans, East Indians, Chinese, Arabs, and North Americans. More citizens are Roman Catholic (49.6 percent) than any other faith. East Indians constitute a mere three percent of the Belizean population.

The sizeable community of East Indians is traditionally Hindu their ancestors went to Belize in the 1880s to work on the sugar plantations as indentured servants.

East Indians came to the Caribbean from India, in the 18th century as Indentured labors. They worked in Belize as sugar cane farmers.

In 1857, three thousand East Indians migrated from Jamaica to Belize, 382 of whom were originally born in India. However, they came here as free East Indians, due to the expiration of their contracts in Jamaica.

Some of these East Indians were also Muslims.

The Indian Diaspora in Belize consists only of PIOs (People of Indian Origin) as there are no restrictions here to the acquisition of local citizenship. Most of them had gone there in the 1950s, when Belize was still a British colony. They subsequently invited some of their relatives, as well as some of their employees, to join them from India. The community is comprised almost entirely of Sindhis and so there are few differences among them. They are mostly retail traders and are well accepted. They have little interest in local politics, but their economic strength assures them an influential position in Belize.

The PIOs maintain close and regular contact with India through frequent trips to visit friends and relatives back home. Some of these visits are connected with their quest for Indian brides for their children. As in all other countries of Indian settlement, Indian music and Hindi films are popular here and have been useful in nurturing friendly relations with the local people.

In addition to the community described above, there is a fairly large group here persons who trace their origin to India. These persons live in villages scattered all over Belize. Like the indentured Indian who founded the Indian community in the Caribbean, the ancestors of those persons had reached Belize in the 19th century as cane cutters. As they were a small group, they intermarried with the local people and lost their language and original religion. However, they are still identifiable through their physiognomy and are known as ‘Hindus’. They live in reasonably compact rural communities. Re-establishing their linkages with India is a useful and necessary endeavour as they number between 10 to 15 thousand, which is more than 5% of the population of Belize. It is also necessary because this effort will create another strong bond between India and this region.

External links

• International Religious Freedom Report 2006, Belize
• The facts about East Indians
• Hindus celebrate Diwali in Belize
• Indian Diaspora in South America/ Belize

• Religion in Belize
• Hinduism by country